According to Osho, real giving is not handing over things but sharing your very being—love. And real receiving means the openness to let love touch you. Both are blocked by conditioning, self-rejection, and the false personality. When you accept yourself without guilt and become authentic, you can offer yourself wholeheartedly and welcome love without defenses; otherwise, both 'giving' and 'receiving' remain mechanical and empty.
Giving means sharing your heart, and receiving means letting love in by liking yourself first.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, what is it to give and what is it to receive? I understand now that I am only just beginning to glimpse these. Receptiveness feels like dying to me, and automatically everything inside goes on red alert! Help! Existence seems so huge.
You don't know anything about existence; you don't know anything about yourself -- which is the closest point of existence to you. Unless you start from your own being, you will never know existence. That is the starting point, and everything has to begin from the very beginning. Knowing yourself, you will know your existence. But the taste and the fragrance of your existence will give you courage to go a little deeper into the existence of others. If your own existence has made you so blissful... it is a natural longing to enter into other mysteries that surround you: human mysteries, mysteries of the animals, mysteries of the trees, mysteries of the stars. And once you have known your existence you are no longer afraid of death. Death is a fiction; it does not happen, it only appears... It appears from the outside. Have you ever seen your own…
[The Sahaj group is present. A member says she found it easier to give than to take.] It is always so. It is very difficult to take -- it is very easy to give, because the ego can give easily but cannot take easily. It is very easy for the ego to have the upper hand, it always enjoys to have the upper hand. When you give, you have the upper hand -- you are the giver -- you have obliged the other. Now the other has to be thankful to you: you are so great. [Osho said all the old scriptures say one needs to learn to be able to take. He said that to give or receive makes no difference to a real man -- he is grateful either way. Osho said she should begin to receive things -- just small things....
Beloved Osho, what is the source of your infinite spring of giving?
Beware! While the time is there, give, give as much as you can, give whatsoever you can. Sing a song, share a joke, dance! Give whatsoever you can give. It costs you nothing, but it will bring you more and more joys. Existence goes on repaying you tremendously. Whatsoever you give to existence, it returns a thousandfold; it comes back to you. You give one flower, and a thousand flowers shower on you. Don't be clingers. If you really want to be rich, if you want to have an enriched inner world, then learn the art of giving. THOSE WHO DARE GIVE NOTHING ARE LEFT WITH LESS THAN NOTHING; DEAR HEART, YOU GIVE ME EVERYTHING, WHICH LEAVES YOU MORE THAN EVERYTHING -- THOUGH THOSE WHO DARE GIVE NOTHING MIGHT JUDGE IT LEFT YOU NOTHING. GIVING YOU EVERYTHING, I TOO, WHO ONCE HAD NOTHING, AM LEFT WITH MORE THAN EVERYTHING AS…
Within, the mind suggests one arithmetic; life’s arithmetic is altogether different. To drop the mind’s arithmetic is sannyas. To grasp life’s arithmetic is sannyas. To awaken from the mind’s arithmetic is awareness. To recognize life’s arithmetic is Buddhahood. And life’s arithmetic is paradoxical. You too sometimes get a glimpse of it, because you too are linked with life. Whatever the mind says, you sometimes glimpse it in life. But since you cling so tightly to the mind’s arithmetic, you push aside those glimpses; you never contemplate them. Have you ever noticed—when you bow before another, suddenly the other bows before you. You have surely tasted this. When you become truly small before someone, suddenly you find great reverence arising in the other’s heart for you. Whenever you have heard a whisper of your own glory, it has been through humility.
"I am life, love, joy. Here I give you life, love, joy." Osho, when I heard you say this two mornings ago, my body trembled with awe and also a deathlike fear of getting lost in you or of missing out completely. Why am I finding it so hard to receive this life, love, joy, from you?
CHINTANA, EVERYBODY FINDS IT HARD, because to receive joy, to receive light, love, goes against your ego. The ego wants to be the donor, not the receiver; the ego always wants to give, not to receive. It is easier to give love; it is very difficult to receive it. To be at the receiving end ego feels very much hurt. It is always difficult, and it is going to be still more difficult if you are with a Buddha or a Christ or a Krishna -- because you have nothing to give to them. You have all to take from them and nothing to give them in return. Your ego feels annihilated. If you can give me something in return, it will not feel so bad, but what can you give? And whatsoever you can give will be just a token and nothing else, because whatsoever you have is nothing.…