According to Osho, the 'dry line' theory is needed as a provisional map for certain temperaments—the austere, cerebral, self-disciplined—who grow through dryness, detachment, and economy of energy. It protects them from dissipation and gives direction. Yet it is only a skillful means: useful until awareness flowers; then one must drop all theories and live from direct experience.
Some people need a plain, strict path that saves their energy; it helps for a while, then they can let it go.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, is sadhana only necessary so long as there is lust and desire?
Have you seen a tightrope walker? The whole time he sways left to right and right to left. When he leans left, a moment comes when a little more and he will fall; instantly he leans right, to correct the excess. Then on the right the same brink appears; again he leans left. In this way, by swaying, he manages to stay on the rope. But once he climbs down, will he keep swaying? He sits. Why would he lean then? He stands firmly; ground has been found. He is no longer on a rope. Moving in the world is like walking a tightrope. Every moment you must lean: now love, now hate; now sympathy, now anger—left and right. Lovers come to me and ask, “How can it happen that we never get angry with the one we love?” I say, it cannot be so—unless you climb down from the…
Question: 5. TAMING THE BULL THE WHIP AND ROPE ARE NECESSARY, ELSE HE MIGHT STRAY OFF DOWN SOME DUSTY ROAD. BEING WELL TRAINED, HE BECOMES NATURALLY GENTLE. THEN, UNFETTERED, HE OBEYS HIS MASTER. COMMENT: WHEN ONE THOUGHT ARISES, ANOTHER THOUGHT FOLLOWS. WHEN THE FIRST THOUGHT SPRINGS FROM ENLIGHTENMENT, ALL SUBSEQUENT THOUGHTS ARE TRUE. THROUGH DELUSION, ONE MAKES EVERYTHING UNTRUE. DELUSION IS NOT CAUSED BY OBJECTIVITY; IT IS THE RESULT OF SUBJECTIVITY. HOLD THE NOSE RING TIGHT AND DO NOT ALLOW EVEN A DOUBT. 6. RIDING THE BULL HOME MOUNTING THE BULL, SLOWLY I RETURN HOMEWARD. THE VOICE OF MY FLUTE INTONES THROUGH THE EVENING. MEASURING WITH HAND-BEATS THE PULSATING HARMONY, I DIRECT THE ENDLESS RHYTHM. WHOEVER HEARS THIS MELODY WILL JOIN ME. COMMENT: THIS STRUGGLE IS OVER; GAIN AND LOSS ARE ASSIMILATED. I SING THE SONG OF THE VILLAGE WOODSMAN, AND PLAY THE TUNES OF THE CHILDREN.
Osho, while listening to your talks, at times I am so overwhelmed with love that my eyes begin to shed tears. But then, unconsciously, the ego seems to take delight, too, thinking, “I am weeping tears of adoration.” Doesn’t this make the dry path of Advaita better—the path where the one who sheds tears does not remain at all?
It’s a fine, delicate question; it needs a little understanding. Reflect a little: if even in devotion the ego survives, then in nonduality it certainly won’t be destroyed. If even tears cannot carry it away, on a dry path it will only stiffen and stand more rigidly. If tears cannot melt it, and it even feeds on tears, then where there are no tears at all there will be no means left to dissolve it. Understand this. Ego is opposed to tears. That is why we tell men, “Don’t cry. Why are you behaving like a woman?” We make men egoistic. Even when a small boy starts to cry, we say, “Quiet! Are you a boy or a girl?” It’s a man’s world; men have been in control, so they kept ego for themselves. To be a man has come to mean: “Don’t cry.” That is the stiffness. “Women cry.…
A friend has asked: Osho, people often think that only those who are mentally disordered, overly emotional, or tormented by life's difficulties turn toward yoga or spirituality. Madness or frenzy is often assumed to be the starting point of spiritual practice!
Those who think so are right—up to a point. Their mistake is not in seeing that people troubled and tormented by the mind are drawn toward meditation, yoga, and spirituality; that much is true. But those who believe themselves to be mentally untroubled are just as afflicted—and they, too, should bow toward it. To be human is to be afflicted. The very way man is constituted carries pain. Human existence is sorrowful. So the truly foolish one is the person who imagines they will attain bliss without turning toward the spiritual. There is no other way to bliss. And the sooner one bows, the better. It is true that those who incline toward spirituality are mentally troubled. But note the other side: the very moment they bow, their mental pain begins to dissolve. With that bowing, the frenzy begins to disappear. Passing through the process of spirituality, they become healthy,…
Osho, yesterday you said that jealousy is included in respect. I have immense respect for you, but the jealousy inherent in it keeps poisoning it, and I feel guilt and pain. Does reverence transcend this poison-laced respect?
It needs a little explaining—it's a delicate point. Whenever you respect someone, you do so because you see in that person something you do not have. You respect because you glimpse in the other something you would also like to possess. A beggar respects an emperor because he, too, longs to be an emperor. So on the one hand he respects, and inside he also envies. Because he is not yet an emperor but wants to be. You have attained what he wants to attain. He respects you as skillful, successful: “I stand far back in the line; you have gone ahead to where I should have been.” So you are powerful, clever, intelligent, strong—he respects you. But inside a fire of jealousy also burns—if he gets the chance, he would like to be in your place and push you aside. And if the beggar gets that chance, he will…