According to Osho, reality is a mirror palace of pure consciousness—mirrors reflecting mirrors. When the mind is unoccupied and transparent, one sees that everything is the same consciousness, named God, nirvana, or enlightenment. Separation is a thought-construct; in clarity, cup, tree, smoke, and self are one presence. Momentary glimpses can be gifted, but lasting realization arises by silencing thought and cleansing awareness.
Everything is like shiny mirrors showing the same light; when your mind is quiet, you see that the cup, the tree, and you are all that one light.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
What if there are only mirrors and mirrors and mirrors reflecting each other?
PRABUDDHA, IT IS SO. That s precisely how it is, because all is consciousness. Consciousness is a mirror -- a mirror reflecting mirrors. When your consciousness is clean, clear, unobsessed by anything, unoccupied, this is how one realizes reality. All is one -- the same consciousness. And this is the beatitude, the benediction, the splendour. Once it happened... Ramakrishna was drinking tea. A few disciples were sitting there, Vivekananda was also there, and Ramakrishna started saying 'This cup of tea is God himself.' NOW, this was too much for Vivekananda. He was a well-educated man, logical, rational -- this looked like absolute nonsense. 'A cup of tea... and God? Ramakrishna must be mad. Now, this is going too far.' Just to reject the whole idea he went out -- just as a protest. He didn't say anything to Ramakrishna, but the protest was there; he simply went out. Another friend…
A diamond appears—the Kohinoor gleams. You rush toward the Kohinoor. It does not even occur to you to ask: in what is this Kohinoor being reflected? What is this mirror within me that reflects the Kohinoor inside me? The moon shines in the sky—what is that within me in which the moon is mirrored? Within me is a revolving mirror that sees the whole world. As long as you go to grasp the world, you are trying to catch reflections. The day you grasp the mirror, your entry into the world of truth begins. One who holds the mirror is no longer entangled in reflections. It is not that reflections cease; they continue. But the urge to grasp them drops. And the mirror is never stained by reflections. However many worlds you wander through, your mirror remains stainless. Understand this a little. That is why it says, O stainless one!
Beloved Osho, where is the definition between my inner world and the outer world? When each event outside is seen through my eyes, my perception, it seems to become my world, so is therefore inner. And on the other side, if the witness is my inner reality, and yet the witness is universal, then I seem to have flipped inside out once again.
It is said that once a dog entered and killed himself in the night. Nobody was there: the guard had left the temple, locked it, and the dog remained inside. He would bark at the dogs -- millions of dogs. And he jumped from this side to that side and hit himself against the walls. And all those dogs were barking... You can see what would have happened to the poor dog: the whole night he barked and he fought, and he killed himself by hitting himself against the walls. In the morning when the door was opened the dog was found dead and his blood was all over the place -- on the walls -- and the neighbors said, "The whole night we were puzzled about what was the matter. This dog continued barking." That dog must have been an intellectual. Naturally he thought, "So many dogs, my God!…
Question: HE WHO SEES THE ENTIRE WORLD OF ANIMATE AND INANIMATE OBJECTS He won the competition, because shimmering in the mirror the Iranian painting became infinitely more profound than its original. The Iranian painting acquired great depth when seen in the mirror. It became a three-dimensional picture. The Iranian one was two-dimensional; it had no depth. The Chinese painter's picture gained a three-dimensional depth. The emperor asked him, "Why did you not tell us in the beginning that you only know how to make mirrors?" The Chinese painter replied, "I am not a painter, I am a sadhu, a monk." The emperor said, "This becomes more and more interesting. First you didn't tell us that you make mirrors, and now you tell us you are a sadhu. Why should a sadhu make mirrors?
This body is made from the excreta of your mother and father and is full of excreta and flesh. Therefore, moving away from it, as from a chandal, the lowly untouchable, and becoming brahma, the absolute reality, be fulfilled.
O SEEKER OF THE TRUTH! BY KNOWING THE ONENESS OF THE SOUL AND THE SUPREME SOUL, JUST LIKE THE ONENESS OF GHATAKASH, THE SKY WITHIN A POT, AND MAHAKASH, THE SKY WITHOUT A POT, BE ALWAYS PEACEFUL. BECOMING THE SELF-ILLUMINATED, SELF-CREATED, SUSTAINER OF ALL AND THE ETERNAL SOUL BRAHMA, THE ABSOLUTE REALITY, DROP THE SENSE OF YOUR BODY AND ALSO OF THE UNIVERSAL BODY, AS IF THESE WERE CONTAINERS OF EXCRETA. INVESTING THE SENSE OF EGO THAT HAS CONTROLLED THE BODY INTO THE EVER BLISSFUL CONSCIOUS SELF, GIVE UP THE GROSS BODY AND BE YOUR IMMORTAL LONE SOUL. O INNOCENT ONE! JUST AS A CITY MAY BE SEEN REFLECTED IN A MIRROR, I AM THAT BRAHMA, THE ABSOLUTE REALITY, IN WHOM THE REFLECTION OF THIS WORLD IS SEEN -- KNOWING THIS, O SINLESS ONE, BE FULFILLED. Just as a reflection is seen in a mirror.... But the reflection that is…