It’s your inner self feeling both scared of and drawn to letting go of ‘me,’ like a risky window to freedom.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
When I was younger I used to feel a certain pull near open windows, high up in buildings. Many of the people with whom I work now also do. The feeling is: "if I go any closer, I may have to jump." my experience is that it is not suicidal. What is it? Can you say more about it?
YES, DEVABHAKTA. I CAN SAY MORE about it because I have felt that same fear in you when you come close to me. You keep a certain distance. You are afraid. The fear is not suicidal -- or is suicidal in a very different sense, in a spiritual sense. You are not afraid of the ordinary death; you are afraid of what Zen people call 'the great death'. You are afraid of disappearing, you are afraid of melting. You are afraid of losing your hold upon yourself. And everybody is afraid of that in one way or other. That's why we live always in control. Control is not only imposed by the society; even if the society removes all control, people will continue to live in control, they will create their own control, their own discipline. Even if society decides to make everybody absolutely free, people will not be free,…Read the full discourse →
Beloved Osho, often, when I am deeply relaxed, a strong feeling to die comes up in me. In these moments I feel myself as part of the whole cosmos, and I want to disappear into it. On one hand, it is such a beautiful feeling, and I am so grateful for it. On the other hand I mistrust it: maybe I have not said "yes" to myself, to my being, if the desire to die is so strong. Is it a suicidal desire?
It is not a suicidal desire. One basic thing about suicide is that it arises only in people who are clinging very much to life. And when they fail in their clinging, the mind moves to the opposite pole. The function of the mind is of either/or: either it wants the whole, or none of it. The lust for life cannot be fulfilled totally, because life as such is a temporal thing; it is bound to end at a point, just as it began one day at a point. You cannot have a line with only the beginning; somewhere or other there is bound to be an end. So the people who commit suicide are not against life; it only appears so. They want life in its totality, they want to grab it whole, and when they fail -- and they are bound to fail -- then out of frustration,…Read the full discourse →
Question: BELOVED OSHO, THE OTHER DAY I HEARD YOU SPEAKING ABOUT THE JUMP WE ALL WILL HAVE TO TAKE FROM THE KNOWN TO THE UNKNOWABLE. ORIGINALLY WHAT I WANTED TO ASK YOU WAS: WHAT IS HOLDING MY LEGS AND KEEPING MY WINGS FROM UNFOLDING TO REALLY JUMP AND FLY? BUT THIS MORNING, WHEN YOU LEFT CHUANG TZU, AT THE DOOR YOU TURNED TOWARDS ME AND SOMETHING HAPPENED BETWEEN YOU AND ME WHICH WENT BEYOND MIND AND HEART. I FELT MY BODY MOVING IN A WAY I COULD NEVER DO DELIBERATELY. FOR SECONDS EVERYTHING STOPPED, I HAD NO CONTROL OF ANYTHING. IT WAS LIKE A DELICIOUS, FEARLESS DYING. FOR A LONG TIME AFTERWARDS I FELT DRUNK, WEAK AND STRONG AT THE SAME TIME. I DON'T KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED. DID I JUMP TOO SHORT, OR DIDN'T I JUMP AT ALL? THE ONLY CERTAINTY I HAVE NOW IS THAT I CANNOT JUMP.Read the full discourse →
Beloved Osho, these last days, I have come from discourse shaking and quivering from inside out. It comes after you have left. Although my body trembles, it doesn't feel like fear... Or not any fear that I have known before. The image that comes is of me hanging by my fingertips to a window frame high in the sky, with nothing beneath it. There is no house, just a window frame and you are leaning out and dancing and singing madly. It is so inviting, that I forget myself and start clapping and singing, too. After you have gone, my survival mechanism comes running and trembling, trying to take ov
Devageet, a very ancient Sufi story.... A man has lost his way in the dark night, in a thick forest. He cannot see any sign anywhere that he is close to some village, some town; but he cannot stay either. It is so dark, and the fear of wild animals.... Trembling, he gropes his way along and falls into a ditch. Afraid, because in the darkness he cannot see how deep the ditch is, he clings to the roots of a tree. The night becomes colder and colder, and he is shivering and trembling. His hands are becoming almost frozen with cold. And now the ultimate fear grips him, that there are not many more moments to his life. His hands are slipping from the root, he cannot keep them tight, he is almost paralyzed... and finally, it happens. The root is lost, and the man falls. But the whole…Read the full discourse →
Osho, I want to be rich, I want a high position, and I want a beautiful woman too. What should I do?
A man once placed an advertisement—meant for people like you: “Send two rupees and learn the formula to become a millionaire overnight.” Now who wouldn’t want to become a millionaire for two rupees! Almost a hundred thousand people sent their money. A week later, everyone who had sent the two rupees received the reply: “Do exactly what I did.” He had indeed become a millionaire overnight! One lakh people sent two rupees each—two lakhs landed in his lap. This is how you’re being duped—through gambling, matka. And it’s not only people who run these scams; governments do it too. Governments that claim to be Gandhian run lotteries! A lottery is gambling—a cheat dressed up nicely. But the greedy get hooked: “Just one rupee for a chance at lakhs. If it comes once, that’s enough…!” But what will you do after getting lakhs? There’s a famous story by Tolstoy: A tailor…Read the full discourse →