According to Osho, idiocy is not a defect but the natural state of the unenlightened mind: unconscious, borrowed, mechanical, ruled by ego and fear. There are only two kinds of people—awake or asleep. Idiocy is sleep: living by secondhand ideas, reacting rather than seeing. Intelligence flowers when awareness dawns.
Idiocy means you’re sleepwalking through life until you wake up with awareness.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, before telling us to sing the song of the divine why do you and shankara address us as 'idiot' every time?
Because you are! To call you anything else will be a lie! When Shankara says: OH IDIOT! SING THE SONG OF THE DIVINE, he says this with great love, he says this because of his compassion. He is not cursing you, he is not calling you names, because Shankara just cannot curse or call names; it is impossible for him. He is shaking you, he is waking you up. He is saying "Get up! It is morning and you are still sleeping." He is calling you 'idiot' because until he uses some strong words your sleep is not going to be disturbed and you are not going to wake up. He is calling you 'idiot' because this is true, this is a fact. Idiocy means unconsciousness. Idiocy means to live in sleep. Idiocy means to be without discretion. Idiocy means not being wakeful, not being conscious when you are angry.…
Question: BELOVED MASTER, ARE IDIOTS BORN OR TRAINED? I call this whole history of mankind a long, unjustified crime against every human individual. It has served the vested interests: the people who are in power, the people who are scholars, which is another kind of power, the people who are rich, which is another kind of power. They would not like everybody to be centered in himself because a man centered in himself cannot be exploited, cannot be enslaved, cannot be humiliated, cannot be forced to grow a cancerous sense of guilt. These are the reasons humanity has not been allowed its growth. In Japan they have very ancient trees, four hundred years old... and they think that it is an art because the tree's height is only six inches and it shows signs of old age.
Why is religion a dirty word for me, and why does it threaten me far more here in poona than it ever did before?
Religion HAS become a dirty word. It has been used too much and abused too much. It has passed through thousands and thousands of hands. It is just like an old coin or an old currency note which has been passing through many hands and has become dirty. Everything used too much becomes dirty -- not only religion. All beautiful words have become dirty.'God','love','ecstasy' -- all have become dirty. The reason is natural, obvious. Because the words are so beautiful, humanity tends to use them too much. Just look at advertisements and you will find all the beautiful words -- used for cigarettes, soaps, cars, furniture. All beautiful words. The advertisement for a cigarette can even say that the cigarette is ecstatic. Now, a beautiful word is being dirtied. Every film, every movie, is thought to be'marvelous','fabulous'. If everything is fabulous, and every movie is fabulous, then nothing is fabulous.…
Osho, sometimes I do not know whether I am stupid or just mad. What is the difference between stupidity and madness?
But there is a clear-cut difference between madness and stupidity. Mad people are the people who are really more sensitive than others, that's why they go mad. They are more intelligent than others, that's why they go mad. They are so intelligent that they cannot cope with all the stupid masses around and they are so intelligent that they cannot force themselves to behave stupidly. They start functioning like individuals and that creates trouble. They are so intelligent that they can see the futility of many projects that have been imposed upon you. You have been taught to be ambitious. An intelligent person can immediately see that this is nonsense -- it can never give you any joy. Yes, it will destroy many other people's lives -- it is violent, it is ugly, it is destructive -- and it is not going to give you anything in return. The ambitious…
Beloved Osho, for over thirteen years now, you have been ignoring me. What I could never fully grasp is that what you ignored was my neediness, greed and all kinds of garbage. For my part, though I have been physically close to you, I have managed in my ignorance and fear to keep a certain distance. Really I have been ignoring you. Beloved master, from the first day I knew I was yours. But I was, and still am, a coward and an idiot.
It is better not to cover it up. It is better to understand it because that is the way to get rid of it, to find ways that can make you aware that death is a fiction. Then you are no longer a coward. And the same is true about your being an idiot. The world is full of idiots. It is very difficult to find someone who is not, but everybody believes he is an intellectual giant. He may not say that to others, it wouldn't look right. He leaves it to others to understand, but he knows himself that he is an intellectual giant. And because nobody recognizes his great intellect, he feels very offended. I have come across many intellectuals who are feeling very offended that they don't have any recognition. I said, "If you are certain of your intelligence, you don't need anybody's recognition. Do you…