According to Osho, ascension - the heaven-bound climb prized by many traditions - is a life-denying fantasy. He rejects going where saints and moralists promise reward, calling such heavens sterile, suffocating, and anti-creative. True spirituality, for him, moves opposite: into the rich, messy aliveness of earthly existence, the so-called hell of artists, rebels, and lovers, where creativity and authenticity replace borrowed ideals and posthumous consolation.
Don’t try to float up to a perfect heaven; pour your heart into this messy, creative life right here and now.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why are you against ascetic practices? Are they not religious? Is not asceticism a path to god?
But down the ages we have praised these insane people, we have worshipped them. Because of this worship humanity has remained immature and humanity has remained abnormal. The normal people are not normal. they are only called normal. They exist in great numbers but they are not the norm -- and they are not healthy either. They somehow manage to live their lives. The man who is destructive to his being is insane, and the people who worship him as a saint are also insane. I am utterly against ascetic practices because those practices are against life. I am all for life. I am all for God. God is a celebration. Look around... the whole existence is continuously in a celebration, in a kind of 'alleluia'. It continues singing and dancing, and loving, and enjoying. If you watch existence you will understand what it is to be religious: to be…
Beloved Osho, I have seen you in discourse for many years, and you appear to be more full of emptiness as time passes. I know this does not make sense, but is it possible that you are more empty?
The mystics have been failures in the world for the simple reason that they could not encourage your greed. Religions have succeeded because they were not based on the teachings of the mystics, they were based on the cunning minds of the priesthood. And the priest knows what appeals to you; whatever appeals to you the priest is ready to give to you. Of course he cannot give it here, but he can give you a promise for the future, in paradise, in heaven. It is of tremendous importance to understand different religions and their ideas about heaven and paradise, and to compare them. And you will be amazed at how they have exploited man. For example, the Indian hell is just eternally burning fire. India is a hot country. In hell you cannot find ice or a cold drink; that is not possible. In the Indian heaven it is…
Beloved Osho,
HOW DOES WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT HEAVEN AND HELL TIE IN WITH WHAT YOU'VE BEEN SAYING ABOUT ROOTS AND WINGS? WHEN YOU SAY ROOTS INTO THIS EARTH AND WINGS INTO THAT HEAVEN, I'VE GOT A FEELING OF BEING INFINITELY STRETCHED -- THAT THIS EARTH IS CLOSE AND THAT HEAVEN IS FAR AWAY. WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF "THIS" AND "THAT"? Be rooted in the earth so that you can stretch to the sky; be rooted in the visible so that you can reach into the invisible. Don't create duality and don't create any antagonism. If I am against anything, I am against antagonism. I am against being against anything; I am for the whole, the complete circle. The world and God are not divided anywhere. There is no boundary: the world goes on spreading into God and God goes on spreading into the world. Really, to use two words is…
(Religions in the past succeeded only in making man unwholey, Osho told us.) The old idea of all the religions of the world was to renounce, to reject, to condemn this world in order to praise the other world. They were creating an unnecessary opposition between this and that, between this shore and the further shore. And they are not in opposition at all. This shore and the further shore are in deep cooperation with each other. They help the same river to flow between them. They belong to the same river, they are not separate. Underneath the river they both are joined together; they are holding he river. If one shore disappears the river will die -- it needs both shores, both are absolutely needed. But they are not two, just two extremes of one energy, two polarities like positive and negative electricity.
Yes, There comes a moment of transcendence, but that comes through living it, experiencing it, going through it. That transcendence comes of its own accord, not through any effort. when you force something you become ugly. that's why your old so-called saints are ugly. they don't have the grace, the beauty, the joy, the splendour of the divine. they are like parrots: repeating, reciting scriptures, torturing themselves. In the name of religion they are really practising masochists, and teaching others also to torture themselves. The whole of religion up to now has remained pathological, sado-masochistic: torture yourself and teach others to torture themselves. The more you torture yourself, the greater a saint you are, the more holy you are; the less you torture yourself of course, the smaller a saint you are.