What is the relationship between the mind and the heart in spiritual practice?

Mind is always old. Even a one-day-old child has a one-day-old mind, because mind means the past. It accumulates the past; it is accumulative it goes on accumulating experiences and everything that happens. It is always old and it goes on becoming older and older. But the heart is always young; it never accumulates, it is non-accumulative. It lives in the moment. That's why the mind and the heart are never in agreement, they cannot be in agreement, because the mind talks about the past and the heart wants to live spontaneously, right now. The mind always gives advice, tries to be very wise, calls the heart a fool, mad, and all kinds of names, but the heart never becomes wise in that sense; it remains a fool.

What is the guru/disciple relationship?

Wittgenstein has said somewhere that what cannot be said can be shown. Saying needs no patience, but showing needs much patience. If I want to say something to you, I can say it this very moment. Your patience, your preparation is not needed. I can say it, and you will hear it. But if I want to show you something then you will have to make great preparations in order to see it. I cannot show it to you unless you have the capacity to see. The guru is basically not saying anything but trying to show something; and if the disciple is aware, then things become clear by not intervening. Things are always clear, but the mind is confused -- and a confused mind confuses things. As far as worldly things are concerned your mind cannot distort them too much because they are so objective that they do not…

Osho, all the saints have called the heart the doorway to spiritual experience, and the mind the domain of thought and intellect. What is the difference between heart and mind? What is the difference between heart and soul? How can this difference be made clear? How to recognize it?

There is also danger with love. It is difficult to make a man into a soldier; to make him a soldier you must kill his love completely. Otherwise, when he takes a gun in hand to kill an enemy, his heart will say: “He too has a mother, just as you do. He too has a wife. As your wife wept bitterly when she bid you farewell, his wife must also have wept. He too has small children, and you are about to make them orphans. He too has an old father who has no other staff to lean on in his old age. What are you doing? And why? This man has done nothing to you. For a job paying a mere hundred rupees you will kill a man; and he too, for a pittance, has a gun pressed to your chest!” If even a ray of love arises…

Osho, you often tell us to listen to the heart rather than the mind. But how is one to know which voice is the mind’s and which is the heart’s? Please explain with compassion.

Renuka! The matter is absolutely straightforward. There is not the slightest confusion. The mind always points you outward; the heart always points you inward. When something within says, “Go out—earn money, gain position, prestige, ambition,” know it is the mind speaking, because these are not the heart’s longings. When something says, “Sit silently, close your eyes, dive within yourself, take a plunge into your own being, listen to your life-breath, step into the inner sound that is rising,” then know the heart has spoken. The inner journey is the heart’s message; the outer journey is the mind’s. There is no reason for mistake here. When hatred arises, know the mind has spoken; when love arises, know the heart has spoken. When thoughts surround you, know the mind has seized you; when waves of feeling rise, know you are in the heart. When negation arises—an urge to say “no,” when doubt…

Beloved Osho, since I have been here, one feeling gets stronger and stronger -- the only thing that I really want to do is sit on your lap.

USHA, JUST FAR OUT! But please don t start doing it. I have fifty thousand sannyasins: just think of me too, otherwise I will be killed in a stampede. But the idea is great, just as an idea -- don't practise it. The idea is symbolic: a great love is arising in you. It is good, it has to be so. Unless you are in deep love with me nothing is going to happen. Only through love, the transformation happens. And it is good that you have not projected it on me -- otherwise, that too happens... Just the other day, I read in the latest issue of YOUTH TIMES a statement of an Indian film actress, Pratima Bedi. She says,"Rajneesh is sexy." Now, I really enjoyed it! She came to see me once; she must have been there for four or five minutes in front of me. She says…