According to Osho, inner transformation manifests not as accumulated knowledge but as the silent, mirror-like capacity to know without choosing any direction. When pure knowing (keval-gyana) flowers, the urge to seek subsides; one drops all 'knowing,' rests in stillness, and dissolves into the divine nowhereness. Outwardly this appears as quietness and non-entanglement; inwardly it is blissful presence unclouded by objects.
Like a clear mirror, you become so peacefully aware that you stop chasing things to know and simply rest in quiet being.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
What is its manifestation? How will people on the outside come to know?
Yes—about its manifestation, we will speak later. It is simply a matter of knowing—like a mirror. What does a mirror mean? It has the capacity to mirror. It is not necessary that, at this very moment, some image is forming in it, some person’s face is appearing; it may be lying empty. But whoever’s face comes before it can be known. A mirror holds the capacity to know. That is its potentiality. It is not necessary that someone be standing before it right now for it to know. Yes—if anyone stands before it, it will know. But if one person stands there, it becomes difficult to know the second; if two stand there, it becomes difficult to know the third. And if ten men surround it, and behind them there are millions in a crowd, it will be difficult to know them. Yet whoever stands directly before it—that one it…
And someone has asked: Osho, who is it that thinks when one is witnessing?
As it is now, whenever we know, three things are present: the one who knows—the knower; that which is known—the known; and the relationship between the two—knowledge. Knowledge is bound and burdened by the knower and the known. Keval-gyan means the known dissolves—the object disappears. And when the known dissolves, where will the knower be? He was bound to the known. When the known dissolves, the knower dissolves. What remains then? Only knowledge remains. In that moment of pure knowing there is the sense of liberation and of freedom. So keval-gyan means to experience pure knowledge. What I have called samadhi is the experience of pure knowing. These are different names in different traditions: what Patanjali called samadhi, the Jains called keval-gyan, and Buddha called prajna. Keval-gyan does not mean telling what is going on in your head. That is very easy—a simple thing. That is ordinary telepathy, thought-reading; it…
Osho, you said... then you will find that the devotee is God. The question arises: if one devotee prefers to be God and another wants to remain only a devotee, then which of the two is superior?
The one who wants to be God will not be able to be. And the one who wants to remain a devotee will become God. The question of superior or inferior does not arise, because only one of the two will happen. The one who does not want to be will be. The one who wants to be will be deprived. That very wanting is of the ego. But the matter is a little delicate. Sometimes humility too belongs to the ego. Beware that your humility may not be of the ego. Perhaps you are saying, “No, I don’t want to be,” because you know that those who refuse are the ones who attain. Then you are clever. Then your humility is adulterous. Your humility is not pure, not sacred, not virginal—it is like a prostitute. The one who wants to be God, whose ego says, “I must become God,”…
Osho, the one who sees all and dwells within everyone—why does he still not come to be known? How does that Seer and Witness of all come to be known? Please explain.
Only such a light, subtle sensing will be there—a faint intimation. But you will not be able to see it. You cannot hold it in your hand. It is inexorably the Seer and cannot become the seen. So what to do? Then what to do? Only one thing can be done: bid farewell to the seen. Whatever is seen, let it be dismissed. Let no scene remain upon the screen. Have you ever noticed? You go to the cinema to watch a film. It begins—the play of light and shadow starts upon a blank white screen—and you become absorbed. When you are completely absorbed in watching, when the story grips your very life, you lose awareness of yourself—you forget that you are the watcher. The seen becomes everything; the Seer becomes null. The Seer is forgotten; the scenes become all in all. If the scene is tragic, tears stream from…
We are not the body and we are not the mind either. Mind is also part of the body. The visible part is called body, the invisible part is called mind. It is a psychosomatic mechanism and we are the witness of it. We are in it but we are not it. This is the greatest experience. Once it has happened your life goes through a radical change. Then you are never the same again. It is a breakthrough. The whole effort here is to bring this breakthrough closer and closer. Every support, every technique and device is provided for this breakthrough so that you can see yourself as a witness of it all, as pure consciousness. To know oneself as pure consciousness is to be free of all bondage. It is to be free of birth and death, it is to be free of time.