If people act badly, their “great ideas” weren’t truly good—real good ideas make good actions and embrace life and joy, not escape from it.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, you and Shri Krishnamurti seem very opposed to having ideals in life. It is true that ideals create a great deal of hypocrisy. But if we look from the other end, the danger appears that without the challenge of ideals, growth will become impossible. There will be no difference between human and animal. So is the mistake in choosing the wrong ideals? Would you be gracious enough to say something on this?
By “ideal” you mean: distant stars in the sky… to become this, to become that. In that race of becoming you forget how you are. What is, gets forgotten; what should be, fixes your gaze. But what is—that alone is real. A man has tuberculosis—that is the reality. He “should” be healthy, he should be a wrestler like Muhammad Ali or Gama—that is an ideal. So he hangs Gama’s picture at home, does a daily arati to it. And he has TB—rotting within—while his eyes are fixed on Gama’s picture! What will come of it? Will TB vanish? The truth is: because of it, the very means of release from TB is lost. Your eye is not on TB; it is stuck on Gama’s picture. Your eye should have been on TB—then something could be done, treatment could happen. A man is burning with anger and sits with the ideal…
Osho, it is surprising that among animals there is hardly any hypocrisy or deceit, and among indigenous people it is also very little, whereas in the so-called educated and civilized society it is at its peak. Has humanity’s long and arduous journey from barbarism to civilization then gone in vain? And in that case, is the tribal order preferable?
Animals are without falseness, without hypocrisy—not because they have achieved something, but because they are incapable. They cannot be hypocrites; there is no way for them to be. They have no facility for being bad, no possibility of falling. But precisely because an animal cannot fall, it also cannot ascend to divinity. One who cannot fall cannot rise. And where there is no possibility of sin, there is no possibility of the divine either. The animal is in a kind of stupor; it does as nature makes it do. Its journey is mechanical. It has no free will. Therefore an animal cannot do evil, but it cannot do good either. It simply does what nature impels. It has no individuality of its own. Hence an animal can be neither wicked nor virtuous, neither a great sinner nor a great saint. An animal remains an animal. The animal is born complete.…
Question: Osho, about what you have been saying on the Jain perspective, it seems to me that two-thirds of it everyone could agree with, but there is one-third with which agreement is difficult. The first thing you say is about samyak-darshan (right vision). Anyone who has read even a little scripture knows that without right vision, character has no meaning; whatever happens without right vision cannot be called character at all. This view is very clear. And it is also clear that character has no meaning other than self-abidance: to be established in the soul is precisely what character means. On these two points I find myself in agreement with you. But between having right vision and being fully established in the self, in that interval your view seems to me different from the traditional view.
Osho, the other day you quoted the following verse of Adi Shankaracharya. Please elaborate on it— tatvaṁ kim ekaṁ śivam advitīyaṁ, kim uttamaṁ sac-caritaṁ yad asti. tyājyaṁ sukhaṁ kim striyam eva, samyag deyaṁ paramaṁ kim tv abhayam sadaiva. What is the one principle? The nondual Shiva-tattva alone. What is the highest? Virtuous conduct. Which pleasure should be renounced? In every way, the pleasure of woman alone. What is the supreme gift? Fearlessness, always.
The second outcome of declaring “virtue” supreme is for the simple, guileless people: their lives fill with guilt. They still end up doing what nature makes them do. There is not yet the lamp of samadhi to walk by. They are told, Don’t bump into walls; find the door. Exit only by the door—that is virtue. To bump into the wall is vice. But without light, without the flame of awareness, without the awakening of samadhi, without discrimination—how will one not collide? One will. It’s inevitable. The simple person, not being a deceiver, feels guilt: I am a sinner, a great sinner; I can’t even walk straight; I keep falling; I can’t even find the door. What heinous crimes must I have committed in past lives! How will I be redeemed? Once guilt settles in, self-respect is lost—the very foundation of all religion. Without self-trust, the ground slips from under…
It is also asked: Osho, if faith and belief fall away, won’t degeneration and immorality spread?
Whoever wants to give birth to himself must endure the pangs of birth. You must pass through the pain. Strip off all your garments, all your cheap moralities, and look: what is within, and who? If you see an animal, don’t rush to put the garments back on. It is precisely because of those garments that the animal survives and is protected. Drop those garments. Agree to know yourself as you are, and perhaps the very fact will pain you so much that you will be compelled to change. No other path will remain. If a thief clearly knows, “I am a thief,” if a violent person clearly knows, “I am violent,” it is hard to live long with that theft and violence. You cannot live long with an illness once you know you are ill. Once the memory arises that disease has seized you, you begin to seek treatment.…