When you totally relax, a quiet, clear watching appears—and this relaxing and watching support each other to make life deeper and happier.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho: would you please say something about the relationship between spontaneity and working on oneself? Shouldn't we be loving as much as we can? If there are certain things to do or ways to be to increase our capacity for joy, shouldn't we do them? Shouldn't we let our egos drop? Many good men have written that love can begin as an impulse of the will, and trying to be spontaneous seems to be a contradiction. Would you comment on this?
You have forgotten what real love is. You fall in love with the color of the hair -- now, what has that to do with love? After two days you will not look at the color of the hair at all. Or you fall in love with a certain shape of nose or a certain kind of eyes, but after the honeymoon these things are just boring! And then you have to go on managing somehow, pretending, cheating. Your spontaneity has been corrupted and poisoned, otherwise you would not fall in love with parts. But you only fall in love with parts. If somebody asks you, 'Why do you love this woman or this man?" your answer will be, "Because she looks so beautiful," or, "Because of her nose, eyes, proportion of the body, this and that" -- and all this is nonsense! Then this love cannot be very deep…
Someone has asked, “Is there an inner relationship between shraddha and witnessing?”
Certainly. Shraddha is the door; the witness—the image enthroned in the temple. Without shraddha no one has ever reached the witness, nor reached truth. Without shraddha you can be a pundit, not a knower. Without shraddha you can be a believer, not one who has experienced. So there are two kinds of wanderers in the world. One we call atheists; the other we call theists. Both wander. Both are filled with belief—one for, one against. Neither the atheist knows that God is, nor the theist knows that God is. That is why I place the religious apart from both; he is neither atheist nor theist. He has slowly attempted to see. Your notions are not needed at all for seeing. Your notions become obstacles; your prejudices bring hindrances. You set out having assumed something in advance; because of that, seeing does not remain pure. If you have already assumed, you…
Osho, in Ashtavakra’s entire scripture there is no mention of love anywhere. But in your Mahageeta, alongside the witness there is always a stream of love flowing. Why is that? Is there an inner relationship between witnessing and love?
Certainly. Love is the music of the witness. Love is the fragrance of witnessing. Only when one becomes a witness does love begin to shower. And certainly Ashtavakra did not speak of this love—deliberately. Knowing well that what you call love, you might mistakenly take to be the same. So Ashtavakra spoke of witnessing and left love aside. He spoke of the seed and the tree, and left the fruit out—the fruit will come. You sow the seed, tend the tree, water it, keep gardening—the fruit will come. When it comes, it comes; why talk about it beforehand? Deliberately he left love aside because there has always been a danger in speaking of love: you also believe you love; you have known a certain kind of love. Hearing the word “love,” you might assume your love and Ashtavakra’s love are the same. To save you from this danger, Ashtavakra kept…
Osho does witnessing always bring joy? The moments that I call witnessing sometimes feel distant -- almost cold in their neutrality. Other times it is like sprouting wings and soaring in joy over the open sea.
THE STATE OF WITNESSING IS NEITHER COLD NOR hot. It is neither happiness nor unhappiness. It is neither dark nor light. It is neither life nor death. The Upanishads say NETI NETI -- neither this nor that. If you feel joy you have already become identified; witnessing is gone. If you feel sad you are no more a witness; you have forgotten witnessing, you have become involved. You are colored by your psychology of the moment. Joy, sadness, all these qualities, are part of your psychology. And witnessing is a transcendence; it is not psychological. The whole art of meditation consists in witnessing. Then what does it bring? At the most we can say it brings total peace; it simply brings eternal silence. You cannot define it as joy. The moment you define it as joy you have fallen into the world of duality again. Then you have become part…
Osho, witnessing and absorption appear mutually opposed. Are they really opposed?
And if you begin with absorption, at first it feels, “I am becoming absorbed. Ah, how I am descending into rapture!” But so long as the I is there, what absorption is there? You are only persuading yourself. The I will return again and again. Slowly, as absorption deepens, the I melts. Then absorption remains—you are drowned, but there is no one left who is drowned. The I-sense is gone. And where the I-sense is gone, witnessing is born; it cannot but be. Therefore, Jagdish Dave, choose one of the two and start. And remember, this is not an intellectual question; it is existential. The secret opens only through experience; it has always opened that way. Say what you like, explain as you wish—this is not a matter of explanation. Choose whichever is dear to you. Know yourself a little; observe your inclinations, your temperament. And whichever attracts you… If…