According to Osho, suffering is inseparable from lila—the divine play of life’s opposites. Joy and pain, gain and loss, life and death are complementary moves in a cosmic game seen differently from each vantage. Nothing is ultimately wrong; the play requires duality. By seeing all facets and accepting both nectar and poison, one outgrows identification with the drama and is moved beyond it—toward nirvana.
Pain and happiness take turns in a big game; when you see it as play and accept both, you cling less and suffer less.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, if the world is lila, a play, then why is there so much suffering in it? Are tuberculosis and cancer, epidemics and death also parts of the lila?
Certainly—everything is part of the lila. Now you will have to think a little. It is said that a Sufi fakir had a wound in his heart and worms had bred in it. When he bent to offer prayer, the worms would fall out. He stopped praying. People asked him, “At your final hour, are you becoming an atheist? Are you leaving religion? All your life you prayed, came to the mosque—why do you not come now?” He said, “How can I come? When I bow down these worms fall off. The worms also have their life.” Seen from one side it is an ulcer and the man is in pain. Seen from another side, that man is life for the worms in the ulcer—the worms are very happy. You think that when you pluck fruit from the trees, the trees are delighted! To them, you are a disease. Seeing…
Osho, why is life nothing but suffering? What kind of life has God created?
Awaken a little. Search a little. Who told you life is nothing but sorrow? Your so-called renouncers and ascetics keep saying such futile things: “Life is only suffering, only thorns—everything is bad. Renounce it. Run away. Leave it.” But be careful: whoever renounces life, whoever leaves life, insults God. He is an atheist, not a theist. Why do I say this? I say it after deep reflection. If you love the painter, how can you renounce his painting? If you love the sculptor, how can you renounce his sculpture? If you love the musician, you will carry his veena upon your head in reverence. If God created this existence, how can you renounce it? In renunciation there is complaint against God: “What have you made?” In renunciation is the declaration: “We know better than you what the world should be like—given a chance, we would have made a better world.…
Osho, why is there so much secrecy in the ashram?
The ashram is not a marketplace; it is not open to the crowd. Here I am available to those few who genuinely want to be transformed. Sightseers, passersby—there is no purpose in their coming here. The invitation is only for those who have truly come close to transformation, for that small number. Therefore there is privacy in every respect. And the privacy will increase. Because as I see that more of the unnecessary can be sifted out, I will sift them out—since they themselves gain nothing, and by their presence they do not let others gain either. I have remained open to all for a long time and have seen what happens. I found that the crowd of the pointless becomes so thick that the meaningful person gets no chance at all. The merely curious surround so much that the true inquirer is left standing at the back. The mumukshu—the…
Osho, if this whole world is the play of Purusha and Prakriti, then where are we participants, who are suffering so much?
In Japan there is a form called Noh drama. There is no raised stage; actors perform right among the audience. A newcomer cannot tell who is spectator and who is actor. This Noh drama is a Zen invention. The script is not fully prepared; only cues are given—and even those are not rigid. Spontaneity is allowed. If a seated spectator gets carried away and joins in, he is not forbidden. If an actor changes his role completely, there is no prompter backstage, no facility to correct him. The play flows as life flows—into the unknown. What will happen is not fixed; the conclusion is not decided. It is thrilling—and just like life. This whole life is a great Noh drama. There is no spectator here; all are actors. And there is no written manuscript in the hand. No voice from behind the curtain says, “Say this.” Nothing is certain. Everything…
Osho, The Ultimate Reality has been called supreme consciousness and supreme wisdom. But when we see within it this circle of creation, then destruction, then creation again, and then destruction again, it feels very strange. Can you explain whether there is any cause, any meaning, any significance, any purpose behind this cycle?
But even as he says it, he does not see that he is contradicting himself. On the one hand he says, “Remove this terrible form and be pleased.” Pleasantness is also a mode of activity. And on the other hand he says he wants nothing to do with activity, he wants to know the essence. Pleasantness is not essence. Pleasantness too is a doing. Just as fierceness is a doing, pleasantness is a doing. Just as death is a doing, so too is life. Yet we keep choosing. He says, “Be cheerful, be joyful.” He probably believes joy is essence. It is not. Essence is emptiness—shunya. And to see shunya is very difficult. We only perceive activity. Where do we see emptiness? Only when emptiness takes on the form of activity does it come within our grasp. Otherwise, how can it be grasped? If I simply sit here in silence,…