According to Osho, the poet stands at the threshold of Truth, receiving luminous glimpses and reflections, while the seer (rishi) dissolves into it, becoming one with the source. All seers are poets, but not all poets are seers; the passage requires meditation, discipline, and surrender of ego—moving from moon-in-the-pond reflections to the boundless sky of direct realization.
Poets get beautiful peeks of truth, but seers disappear into it and live there.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, what is the definition of God?
Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…
Osho! You say the poet is close to the seer. Yet it is surprising that even poets and artists with such sensitive hearts—who have set out in life seeking satyam, shivam, sundaram—hesitate to come here. You say meditation deepens sensitivity. Then what are these poets and artists afraid of? Are meditation and creation not possible together?
Arun Satyarthi! The poet is certainly close to the rishi. Poet means: one who has begun to receive glimpses of the Divine. Rishi means: one who has become one with it. Poet means: one who has seen, from afar, the snow-white peaks of the Himalayas. Rishi means: one who has made his home upon those peaks. Between the poet and Truth there is a slight distance; the rishi is one with Truth. But without being a poet no one becomes a rishi. Though not all poets become seers, all seers are bound to be poets. One can choose to cling to the glimpses, to revel in them. The poet is showered by a drizzle; the rishi is drenched in a cloudburst. The poet, you can say, lives by ponds and pools; the rishi is merged into the ocean—he becomes the ocean. Yet a poet may mistake his pond for the…
Osho, is being attracted to Krishna not the same as being free of life’s other attractions?
One has to think a little. Here lies Krishna’s distinction. If you are attracted to Mahavira, you will have to be free of all the world’s attractions. If you go toward Mahavira, you will have to go against the world. That is Mahavira’s path. But with Krishna the matter is a little delicate and deep. Krishna says, if you want to come to me, you must seek me right within the attractions of the world; for I am present there too. There is no need to run away from there. Understand it like this. You relish food. If you listen to Mahavira, there will be a vow of non-taste (aswad-vrat). Then you must drop taste. Eat as a function, a necessity; do not savor. Put food into the body so that the body’s work may continue, but take no relish in it. Drop taste, continue eating. Let food become tasteless,…
Osho, yesterday you said that when anger is watched consciously, it dissolves. But why is it that when sexual desire arises, even in awareness its intensity persists? Why is it so?
There is no entanglement in the breath. If you try to practice on anger… Anger is not happening every moment; it happens sometimes. And when it happens, it happens with such intensity that you are already going deep into it; so much is at stake in those moments that you may think, “We will look into awareness later; first let’s settle this now.” Lust is very deep, because existence has made it so deep; life depends on it. If lust were so easy that you decided and were freed, perhaps you would not even have been born—because many before you would have become free, and the possibility of your being would have been almost nil. But your parents, and their parents, did not become free; therefore you are. You too will not get free so easily, because your children are also to be—they are waiting: “Do not run away midway.”…
Question: Third question: Osho, I am a poet; isn’t that enough to attain truth? Dinesh! Being a poet is beautiful, even necessary—but not sufficient. One must also be a rishi, a seer. Above the poet is the seer. In language the two words may seem to overlap, but existentially there is a great difference. The poet sees as if in a dream; the seer sees with eyes open, awake. The seer is a witness; the poet is imaginative. In the poet’s imagination, sometimes reflections of truth appear, as when the full moon is in the sky and its reflection forms in the lake. The poet is like the moon’s reflection in the lake, while the seer has lifted his eyes and seen the moon in the sky. The poet keeps singing of the reflection and gets entangled in it.