According to Osho, in today’s world the true ‘bodhisattva’ is not a clergyman but a compassionate friend whose very presence, understanding, and love guide people through life’s thresholds—birth, marriage, death—without ritual or authority. Such beings midwife awareness, humanize care, and create conscious communities, replacing mechanical professionalism with intimate support, so that awakening spreads naturally, person to person, heart to heart.
A bodhisattva today is like a wise, loving friend who helps people live and grow kindly, not a priest doing rituals.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved master, the other day you spoke about siddhas, arihantas and acharyas. Could you speak about bodhisattvas. Is there any relevance in these sansads now?
The Rajneesh Academy has many dimensions to fulfill. One I talked to you about was to appoint acharyas, siddhas, arihantas. These are not clergymen, not bishops and cardinals and popes. They don't have any function to perform -- marriage, birth of a child, circumcision, death, no. Any friend, any sannyasin can do all these things. So there is no question of clergymen. In fact, it is a question of friends. Somebody dies... then those who were close to him, they should perform the death ceremony. The clergyman may not have even known the person; he will simply repeat a certain ritual. It is better that friends perform the ceremony. If there is a marriage, there is no need for any clergyman. Moreover, it is very strange that most of the religions' clergymen are celibate -- and they are performing marriages! -- just doing something which is a sin. Friends should…
Homage to the perfection of wisdom, the lovely, the holy! Avalokita, the holy lord and bodhisattva, was moving in the deep course of the wisdom which has gone beyond. He looked down from on high, he beheld but five heaps, and he saw that in their own being
Remember, you have to stop only when there is no answer coming, not before it. If some answer is coming that, "You are this, you are this," then know well that some center is providing you with an answer. When all the six centers have been crossed and all their answers canceled, you go on asking, "Who am I?" and no answer comes from anywhere, it is utter silence. Your question resounds in yourself: "Who am I?" and there is silence, no answer arises from anywhere, from any corner. You are absolutely present, absolutely silent, and there is not even a vibration. "Who am I?" -- and only silence. Then a miracle happens: you cannot even formulate the question. Answers have become absurd; then finally the question also becomes absurd. First answers disappear, then the question also disappears -- because they can live only together. They are like two sides…
Osho, you would like us all to become bodhisattvas. That means one has to make that firm decision to help others to the other shore. However, I do not feel able to make that decision. Sometimes I feel love towards others, sometimes I am just busy with myself. So should I wait or is the decision not such a thing as a statement but rather like a fruit that ripens by itself. And why then is buddha a buddha and not a bodhisattva?
First, these three things have to be understood. One, the ordinary state of human mind -- when you cling to the world, to this shore, and the other shore seems to be fictitious. You cannot trust the other shore. You cling so much to this shore that the only problem is how to help you to uncling from it. Right now, Sandeha, this is not going to help if you start thinking of being a bodhisattva. This is not going to help, this will be dangerous. This will only be a strategy to cling to this shore. You are not yet freed of this shore. This will be a new way to cling to the world again. And this is very tricky -- now it will be in the name of religion, compassion, love for people, service. Now it will have great ideology in it -- "I am here to…
What is all this stuff about bodhisattvas? I don't believe a word of it. There is no such thing.
Yes, Somendra, it is all nonsense. But you will have to understand the word nonsense. It is beyond sense. You need not believe it, you cannot believe it -- you can only experience it. It is a nonsense experience. But it is true, it is absolutely true. It happens. Till it happens there is no way to believe in it, and there is no need either. Buddha is never in favor of any kind of belief. Whatsoever he says, it is experience, it is existential. It is something beyond the mind. Ordinarily we use the word nonsense for that which is below mind. But there is something beyond mind too -- that too is nonsense. The mind cannot make any sense out of it. Unless your mind disappears you will not be able to see what this bodhi-being is. It is not a thing, true. It is an experiencing. You…
Question: First question: Osho, you said the thirsty one goes to the well, not the well to the thirsty. Those who are thirsty have already come, are coming, and will keep coming; but what of those so deeply asleep that they do not even know they are thirsty, or who, sipping the waters of dream, feel as if they are waking—how will they ever experience real thirst? Will your fountain of bliss not flow everywhere, awaken their thirst, and then quench it? It is said that the supreme expression of Lord Buddha’s compassion was his vow that until all living beings attain nirvana, he himself will not enter nirvana. Who knows how powerful he was. Even though in realization of the Absolute all enlightened ones are one, still their expressions and their capacity to help others realize the Absolute are different.