According to Osho, life’s dualistic evolution is the ever-turning wheel—mind, time, becoming—while the state beyond duality is the unmoving nail at the center—the divine, the witness, timeless being. The wheel turns upon, but never disturbs, the nail. Liberation comes by shifting identity from the spinning pairs to the still center, where peace prevails and suffering ends.
Everything in life and your mind keeps moving, but your real self is a quiet center—stay with that stillness to be free and peaceful.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
What is the relationship between life’s dualistic evolution and the state beyond duality?
Here there is spring and there is autumn; there is the flower’s blooming and the flower’s falling. Here everything is in twos. There is birth and there is death; youth and old age; today all is well and tomorrow all is ruined; today all is ruined and tomorrow all is well. Here life goes like the teeth of a wheel going from below to above and above to below. In this duality nothing is stable. And because nothing is stable there remains great restlessness—for whatever is, cannot be relied upon. Today it is; will it be tomorrow? Position is there today; will it be tomorrow? Wealth is there today; will it be tomorrow? The loved one is near today; will they be tomorrow? Here everything is changing so swiftly that you cannot trust it. Only the blind can trust that what is today will be there tomorrow. Those with eyes…
Osho, the play-acting I have to do for security—should I keep doing it or drop it? And now even the acting itself seems to be abandoning me. Please guide me to the right path.
The whole of life is a play—of relationships, of the marketplace, of the household. Life is acting. Where will you leave it and go? Where can you run? Wherever you go, there again you will have to enact some drama. So I am not in favor of escapism. Become a skillful actor. Do not run away. Act knowingly, not in unconsciousness; act with awareness. Awareness has to be cultivated. A thousand tasks will have to be done—and perhaps they are necessary. But doing them with awareness is essential. Slowly you will find that life is no longer “life” as you knew it; it has become sheer play, and you have become an actor. To be an actor means that there is a great distance between you and what you do. For example, someone who plays Rama in the Ramleela performs the role completely—perhaps better than Rama himself, because Rama never…
Osho, the world is duality; all the laws of the world stand upon opposites. Then why are we instructed to be beyond duality? Are we outside the world?
You are not—but you can be. And no one is preaching to you to be outside the world. You yourself come asking, “I am surrounded by duality, there is great restlessness—what should I do?” If you remain in duality, restlessness will remain, because wherever there are two, there will be conflict. There is an old saying: where there are pots, there will be some clatter. Until only one remains, peace is not possible. No one is telling you, “Become beyond duality.” You come asking, “The mind is disturbed, tormented, unhappy—what should I do?” You ask; therefore I say: you are unhappy because you are still with two. Somehow the One has to be found. Find the One and the unrest will vanish. That is why Mahavira gave liberation the name kaivalya. He chose a very beautiful word. Kaivalya means utterly alone—only you, no other. Consciousness alone remains. Then with whom…
Osho, you say the same thing in countless ways. But when I listen to you, it feels as if I am hearing it for the first time. And I feel so much joy that I don’t feel like going back home. What should I do—what can I do—so that I can just keep listening to you!
You will feel as if you have been made to rise out of season, before time—as if you were not yet to go and yet had to go. And if you go in that way, your home will become even more desolate than before. I do not want to make your home desolate; I want to make your home a temple. I want that when you go home, your home’s new form is revealed. I do not want to tear you away from home, from the world, from family life. That is the newness of my sannyas: I do not want to sever you from the world; I want to join you to the world in such a way that your connection with the world becomes a connection with the Divine. Let the world no longer be a barrier between you and the Divine; let it become a means. If…
Beloved Osho, I remember you saying once that the growth of man is dialectical; and you have also explained about thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Would you please give more clarity in this reference on the growth towards enlightenment?
That feeling cannot be expressed by "I" because "I" is just another way of saying "ego." Before enlightenment there was ego; ego can exist only in conflict. This state can be spoken of only as "am"-ness, without any "I." It is a very strange feeling: you are not, and yet you are. You are not your old self; you are no longer a self, but you have not lost the feeling of am-ness. So the question of what happens to individuals when they dissolve into the universal.... They still remain individuals, but with no assertion of "I" in them... just a silent song of am-ness or isness. It is as if we put hundreds of candles in this room; all their light will become one. You cannot differentiate in the light -- which part belongs to which candle -- it has become a universal phenomenon. But still, each candle has…