According to Osho, genuine dialogue between spiritual leaders must be a fearless, public, rational inquiry—questions answered with evidence, not authority. In practice, he says most leaders evade such encounter, hiding behind institutions and controlling media, speaking only to unquestioning followers. He challenges them to open debate before their own people, insisting that truth needs no protection and that hollow doctrines collapse under honest scrutiny.
Real spiritual talk means bravely answering questions in public with good reasons, not just “because I say so,” and many leaders avoid that.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, from your talks we get a fairly clear sense of what ought to be done. But how should it be done? And not so much on an individual basis—please tell us, in more detail, what should be done as a community and as a society.
That would be easier if I came again and stayed a day or two. But for now, there is only one thing before the country: do not be in a hurry to do anything, and spread a climate of thought. Do not rush into action right now. Until the country has a right clarity, any attempt at doing will more likely lead to mistakes and upheaval. The country does not yet have a clear mind; haste for action will drop us into a ditch and take us nowhere. So I say: for the next five to ten years, the nation should strive to create a mind. Then action follows that mind the way a shadow follows you. Action in itself is not the main issue. Once the country’s mind is clear, what to do and how to do it both become easy. The real difficulty is: who is the doer,…
Do you feel, Osho, that all leaders—whether political or religious—are caught in the same dilemma?
If someone were to ask Buddha, “Is there God?” Buddha would say, “There may be.” And if someone were to ask, “Is there no God?” he would say, “There may not be.” How can such a person assume leadership? Buddha is so perfectly in the middle. It is like this: in a room a glass is kept half-filled with water. One man comes out and says the glass is half empty; another says it is half full. These two can argue; two parties can form. A third man, utterly in the middle, having seen the whole, returns and says, “The glass is both half empty and half full.” He will say, “You are right, and you are right—and you are wrong, and you are wrong. It both is and is not half. It is half empty and also not; half full and also not.” Such a man makes such a…
Can you tell us why, as an admirer of socrates, you don't practice the socratic method of dialogue?
Dialogue is possible between two blind men; they can discuss ad infinitum about light without coming to any conclusion. Dialogue is impossible between two persons who can see light: the dialogue is unnecessary; light is the experience of both. The third possibility is that one man may be able to see light, and the other may be blind. What kind of dialogue do you think is possible between these two? Socrates was not an enlightened person -- a great philosopher, a great logician, but not an enlightened person, not a man with eyes. Gautam Buddha has no dialogue; he knows, there is no question of discussing it. You can sit silently with him. Even in his silence there will be a communication. Or you can ask him a question and he will respond spontaneously. No enlightened person in the whole world has ever used Socrates' method of dialogue. That's the…
Osho, you have titled this series of talks “Sahaj Yoga.” Do “sahaj” and “yoga” not seem mutually opposed?
Anand Maitreya! They don’t just seem opposed, they are opposed. But no ultimate truth of life can manifest without contradiction. Life is made of opposites—darkness and light, day and night, woman and man, negative electricity and positive electricity, birth and death. The very structure of life is woven of opposites. Hence the opposites are not only opposed; they are complementary to each other. If you have labored hard all day, you will be able to sleep deeply. Labor and rest are opposites, yet only the one who has worked can rest deeply—and the one who has not worked cannot. So the opposites are not only opposed, they complete each other. And only the one who has rested deeply at night can rise in the morning and engage in work again. One who has not rested through the night will not be able to work in the morning. Look closely at…
Beloved Osho, are we moving into the socratic dialogue form of discourses now? But I detect an essential difference. Socrates said: "know thyself." you have said: "let go thyself!"
I have been dragged into a court because I used to live outside a city where there was a Mohammedan cemetery, and people used to come there to meditate. The Mohammedans came to me again and again, saying that "This is not good; your disciples are disturbing our sleeping ones." I said, "Why? How can they disturb?" They said, "They go on saying, `Hoo, hoo.' Even a dead person feels like getting out of the grave to find out, `Who is this fellow?' " I said, "We cannot change it. And moreover it is really the last part of ALLAH-HOO. It is a Mohammedan mantra!" They said, "You are very clever, but we have never heard of ALLAH-HOO. ALLAH is okay, but HOO?" I said, "You can do anything you want to do. If your ghosts come out of their graves, it is our problem, we live here. We will…