According to Osho, regret is the residue of a divided mind that never acts totally. When parts of you pull in opposite directions, whichever choice you make, the unchosen part punishes you with remorse. Act wholeheartedly, then there’s no backward glance—what’s done can’t be undone, and totality turns even discomfort into joy, dissolving the very basis of regret.
If you choose with your whole heart and don’t look back, there’s nothing left to feel sorry about.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Is there anything in your life that you nowadays regret?
No -- because I do everything with such totality that no part is left out of it. Regret happens only when you do something halfheartedly, when you are in a state of either/or: to do or not to do. To marry this woman or not to marry this woman... Whatever you do, you will repent. If you marry, then the other half which was saying "Don't marry" will take revenge, and that will be the repentance. It will continuously say to you in each situation when the woman does not fit with you, "Look, I have been saying to you, `Don't marry this woman,' but you didn't listen. Now suffer!" If you don't marry the woman, then too you will repent your whole life because you missed an opportunity. Who knows... maybe that was the woman who was made for you. You will marry some other woman and there will…
Osho, like Krishna, do you also tell us that all our resolves are false?
People come to me and say they are in great difficulty. If they do not take sannyas, day and night there is regret: “We are falling behind; others are moving ahead. Others are courageous; we are weak, cowardly; others are daring.” So guilt persists in the mind; there is pain. If they do take it, then troubles arise: “What mistake have I made!” People ridicule them. People say, “He too has gone mad. You have dropped your mind! Lost your intelligence!” Don’t take it, and regret catches you; take it, and regret catches you. Then what will you do? Whatever you do, regret will seize you. The meaning of regret is only this: you are divided. One part of the mind says, “Take it”; another part says, “Don’t.” Whichever of the two you obey, the one you did not obey sits inside, waiting for the right moment to say to…
Osho, you have earlier said, “Live moment to moment, live in the present.” Now you are saying, “Return to the past.” What should we do?
So it is with the mind—there are ruts. The past means endless grooves. However much you understand, your intellect agrees, you make decisions, you resolve—at the moment of resolve you feel something is going to change. But not even an hour passes before your decision breaks. Then only self-condemnation is produced, nothing else. Your saints, your fakirs, your priests and pundits—most of the time they only succeed in producing self-condemnation in you, nothing else. Their words are logically correct. You cannot even say they are wrong; you have to admit they are right. In that admission you take a decision. But against what are you deciding? Inside are grooves carved since who knows when, deep tracks. Walking in them has become a habit. It is easy to walk in them. They will pull you again and again. The meaning of returning into the past is: these grooves must be erased.…
Osho, what is the most astonishing law in this world?
A Sufi story. A thief, at night, began to climb into a house through a window. The window frame gave way, he fell, and broke his leg. The next day he went to court and blamed the householder for his broken leg. The owner was summoned and said in his defense: The one responsible is the carpenter who made the window. The carpenter was called; he said the contractor who built the wall hadn’t made the windowed section strong enough. In his defense the contractor said: My mistake happened because of a woman who was passing by—she drew my attention away. When the woman was presented in court, she said: At that time I was wearing a very fine dress. Normally no one even looks at me. So the fault lies with the dress, which was so exquisitely sewn. The judge said: Then summon the tailor who sewed it; he…
If there is absolute emptiness inside an enlightened one, then how is it that he seems to be making decisions, discriminating, liking this or disliking that, saying yes or no?
The same is the situation with unenlightened minds and enlightened minds. An enlightened mind simply looks. Everything is clear. He has a clarity. His whole being is light. He looks around and he simply moves, acts -- he never thinks. You have to think because you don't have eyes. Only blind men think; they have to think because they don't have eyes. They need substitute eyes, and thinking provides that. I never say that Buddha or Mahavira or Jesus are great thinkers. That would be just nonsense. They are not thinkers at all. They are knowers, not thinkers. They have eyes, they can see, and through their seeing they act. Whatsoever comes out of a Buddha comes out of emptiness, not out of a mind filled with thoughts. It has come out of an empty sky. It is the response of emptiness. But for us it is difficult because nothing…