According to Osho, the ‘goose in the bottle’ koan shows that your real nature (the goose) only seems imprisoned by the mind/ego (the bottle). Any seeking or effort strengthens the bottle. When the ‘I’ drops and you rest in herenow awareness, the illusion of confinement collapses—the goose is already out. Truth appears in your absence; no breaking, no saving, just a shift of identification.
Stop trying to escape your mind and notice you were never trapped—your true self is already free.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, is the goose really out?
There is no "problem of the opposites." Opposites are not opposites, they are complementaries, hence there is no problem as such. Darkness and light are one phenomenon, two aspects of the same coin. Life and death are inseparable, you cannot separate them -- how can you make them opposites? They are complementaries, they help each other. Hence there is no problem and there is no need for any solution. And Zen is not a solution to opposites, it is a transcendence, it is a higher vision -- a bird's-eye view from where all dualities look stupid. The most important thing that happened to the first man who walked on the moon was that he suddenly forgot that he was an American. Suddenly the whole earth was one, there were no boundaries, because there is no map on the earth. The American continent, the African continent, the Asian continent, this country…
Beloved Osho, if we have always been out of the bottle, how did our minds ever get control and fool us that we were in?
In fact in no other language does anything like the koan exists. It is not a puzzle, it is not something that you can solve. Puzzles exist in every language; this is a totally different thing. If it were a puzzle then there would be some way to bring the goose out without breaking the bottle, but it is not a puzzle. It is made absolutely clear to the disciple that the bottle cannot be broken and the goose cannot be killed. You cannot kill it and take it out in parts -- and still the goose has to be out. It is a meditation for the disciple to meditate on, day in, day out. It takes months. Even though he knows the answer, that does not mean that he can go to the master and say, "The goose is out." He will get a good hit on his head…
The official, riko, once asked nansen to explain to him the old problem of the goose in the bottle. "if a man puts a gosling into a bottle," said riko, "and feeds him until he is full grown, how can the man get the goose out without killing it or breaking the bottle?" nansen gave a great clap with his hands and shouted, "riko!" "yes, master," said the official with a start. "see," said nansen, "the goose is out!"
To carry fantasies about the future is a problem. A passport is not such a burden. To think about tomorrow and to go and book a ticket is not a problem. These are factual things, ordinary, practical things. But to think that tomorrow you will be happy, not today, that tomorrow you will love, not today, that tomorrow you will sing, not today, is dangerous -- because tomorrow never comes. Again when it comes, it will be today, and your old habit will say, "Tomorrow I will be happy." Tomorrow again and again, you will be happy, and you will never be happy. What I am saying is psychological future has to be dropped. The ordinary future is okay, it is not a problem at all. The fifth layer consists of conditionings. You have been conditioned -- Hindu, Mohammedan, Jaina, Buddhist, English, German, Indian -- these layers are there. Start…
Osho, I feel that we need to hurry, that there is not much time left. The cocoon of slumber I am existing in seems to suffocate me, and I am afraid I will never make it. You say the goose is out already. Why does it feel so impossible to grasp?
Just the other day Sheela brought a cutting from an English newspaper. A bishop -- who else? -- had been sentenced to twelve years' jail for raping many women. That was his only work -- he was doing it religiously. But this is not an exception; the bishop's only fault was that he was caught, otherwise all bishops are bound to do it. They are ordained to do it, disciplined to do it! Their whole structure of life is such that it has to be phony, pseudo, double. He was living a double life, and all the rapes that he committed were committed after his beautiful, spiritual sermons. First he would sermonize about the great things of life -- and celibacy must have been one of those great things of life -- and then, because of his beautiful sermons, his learned scholarship and his mask of a religious holy man,…
Question: OUR BELOVED MASTER, SANSHO, A DISCIPLE OF RINZAI, ONCE SAID TO SEPPO, "THE GOLDEN CARP IS OUT OF THE NET! TELL ME, WHAT WILL IT FEED ON?" SEPPO SAID, "WHEN YOU HAVE GOT OUT OF THE NET, I WILL TELL YOU." SANSHO SAID, "THE RENOWNED TEACHER OF FIFTEEN HUNDRED MONKS CANNOT FIND EVEN ONE WORD TO SAY ABOUT THIS TOPIC." SEPPO SAID, "I AM THE CHIEF ABBOT AND HAVE MUCH TO ATTEND TO." ON ANOTHER OCCASION, SOME TIME LATER, SANSHO SAID TO A MONK, "WHERE HAVE YOU JUST COME FROM?" THE MONK SAID, "KWATZ!" SANSHO SAID, "KWATZ!" THE MONK AGAIN SAID, "KWATZ!" SANSHO SAID, "KWATZ!" THE MONK SAID, "IF YOU STRIKE ME BLINDLY, I SHALL SAY `KWATZ!'" SANSHO PICKED UP HIS STAFF, AND THE MONK PUT HIMSELF IN READINESS TO RECEIVE A HIT.