Live like you’re in a movie—do what’s needed, but remember you’re the watcher, not the character, and the hurt fades.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
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, you say, “As He wills, let us become mere instruments; whatever role in life we have been given, let us fulfill it.” But letting what happens happen—i.e., flowing along with the body, mind, and ego—gives rise to suffering. So should we keep applying the principle of instrumentality even in relation to the body, mind, and ego, and go on suffering? How do we solve the riddle between the principle of instrumentality and the continuous reality of suffering?
That supreme bliss is beyond both pleasure and pain. It is neither like night nor like day. It is twilight. The sun has set, night has not yet come; the light remains—very gentle, sweet, non-aggressive—that is twilight. Morning has come, the sun is not yet risen, the night has gone—such is the twilight. One who abides in that twilight—that is what we call prayer. That is why Hindus call their prayer sandhya. Sandhya means one who has stopped in between the dualities, who has found the truce between the two. Between pleasure and pain, love and hate, victory and defeat, night and day, life and death—one who has found the pact and stands in that concord. Seek that interval of conjunction. Krishna says, it is simple to find. If you cease to be the doer, you will find it instantly. It is only through your doer-ship that you keep missing.…
So, as for the other matters you have asked about, they will all fall into place with these two events. Let your awareness of suffering become intense. Drop identification with the sense of suffering. In suffering, do not remain one with the body. And in all the actions and processes of life, be a witness, not an experiencer.
Let me explain further through a small incident that has always been dear to me. Only recently, I think, the birth anniversary of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar passed. He had once gone to see a play. The play is on, and there is a villain—a man who is after tormenting a woman in every way. Now Vidyasagar was a great man, an intelligent man. He had been invited to watch from the very first seat, seat number one. He sat watching. A gentleman—but his restraint snapped. He became so possessed by anger that he forgot it was a play. He pulled off his shoe... And it was the final moment, the climax of the play: in a dense forest on a dark night, the actor—the character—catches hold of the woman. Dark night, silence. No one around. The woman screams, but her cries echo only into the silence. Right then Vidyasagar pulled…
Osho, the play-acting I have to do for security—should I keep doing it or drop it? And now even the acting itself seems to be abandoning me. Please guide me to the right path.
The whole of life is a play—of relationships, of the marketplace, of the household. Life is acting. Where will you leave it and go? Where can you run? Wherever you go, there again you will have to enact some drama. So I am not in favor of escapism. Become a skillful actor. Do not run away. Act knowingly, not in unconsciousness; act with awareness. Awareness has to be cultivated. A thousand tasks will have to be done—and perhaps they are necessary. But doing them with awareness is essential. Slowly you will find that life is no longer “life” as you knew it; it has become sheer play, and you have become an actor. To be an actor means that there is a great distance between you and what you do. For example, someone who plays Rama in the Ramleela performs the role completely—perhaps better than Rama himself, because Rama never…
Osho, they too are acting!
Then even what they say will not make us unhappy. If someone abuses you, you know it is just part of the acting. When within we know we are unattached, we should know that everyone is unattached. In that state the mind will remain calm—calm even amidst disturbance. And until this art is learned, where will you run? Nothing will come of it. Here children make a racket; go and sit in the forest and the birds will make a racket and disturb you. Life is present everywhere and in every way. Right now you have a big house and you worry so much about it; a sannyasin worries just as much about his loincloth—that it might get stolen. Once, this happened: I boarded the train at Jabalpur. Some people had come to see off a sannyasin—seemed to be great devotees of his, perhaps he was from out of town.…