Real wisdom shines like light yet feels at home in the dark, and Osho uses playful contradictions to free you from either-or thinking.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
O how may I ever express that secret word? O how can I say he is not like this, and he is like that? If I say that he is within me, the universe is ashamed. If I say that he is without me, it is falsehood. He makes the inner and the outer worlds to be indivisibly one; the conscious and the unconscious, both are his footstools. He is neither manifest nor hidden, he is neither revealed nor unrevealed: there are no words to tell that which he is.
II. 56. dariya ki lahar dariyao hai ji THE RIVER AND ITS WAVES ARE ONE SURF: WHERE IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE RIVER AND ITS WAVES? WHEN THE WAVE RISES, IT IS THE WATER; AND WHEN IT FALLS, IT IS THE SAME WATER AGAIN. TELL ME, SIR, WHERE IS THE DISTINCTION? BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN NAMED AS WAVE, SHALL IT NO LONGER BE CONSIDERED AS WATER? WITHIN THE ABSOLUTE, THE WORLDS ARE BEING TOLD LIKE BEADS. LOOK UPON THAT ROSARY WITH THE EYES OF WISDOM. THE TRUTH IS KNOWN AND YET NOT KNOWN -- known in a sense and not known in another -- known because we are part of it, but not known because we are not separate from it. To know something, the knower has to be separate; and yet again, to know something really, how can you know it if you are separate? This is the basic…
Das Satyen. Das means a slave; satyen means truth -- a slave of truth. And swami means a master. It is a paradox, but existence is full of paradoxes. In fact if something is not paradoxical it cannot have much value, it cannot have much depth, it cannot be profound. If something looks very logical it means it is very superficial. The deeper you go, the deeper you enter into mystery, into paradox. The way to become a Master is to become a slave. The way to conquer is to surrender. The way to be is not to be. Hence the question is not "to be or not to be"; if you really want to be you have not to be. You will have to choose non-being if you want being to arrive. Become a slave of truth and you will be crowned as a Master. Deva Arend.
God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, satiety and want.
SEA WATER IS AT ONCE VERY PURE AND VERY FOUL: IT IS DRINKABLE AND HEALTHFUL FOR FISHES, BUT UNDRINKABLE AND DEADLY FOR MEN. THE NATURE OF DAY AND NIGHT IS ONE. THE WAY UP AND THE WAY DOWN ARE ONE AND THE SAME. EVEN SLEEPERS ARE WORKERS AND COLLABORATORS IN WHAT GOES ON IN THE UNIVERSE. IN THE CIRCLE THE BEGINNING AND THE END ARE COMMON. Something psychological is involved. Man is afraid of darkness; man feels very good when there is light -- it is part of your fear. Why do you call God light? The Koran says God is light, the Upanishads say God is light, The Bible says God is light. There has only been a small school -- in that small school Jesus was taught and brought up to be ready to receive the divine -- that small school was known as the Essenes; they were…
Beloved master, last month I was faced with a recognition that where there is light there is also a shadow side of darkness. Yet until the last few days I still clung to the illusion of some separation between them, in particular that here on the ranch with you there was light, and outside there was darkness. Now I'm experiencing the inseparability of light and darkness, both within myself and within the commune. Are light and darkness also inseparable within you? Is this a reality we have to face to let our love grow deeper?
The existence consists not of contradictions, but of complementaries. Light and darkness are neither separable nor inseparable; they are one. Darkness simply means less light. Light means less darkness. The difference is only of degrees. There are animals, birds, who see only in darkness. Your day is their night. Their night is your day. And what you see is a very small fraction of the immense phenomenon of lightdarkness. I am using it as a single word, not even with a hyphen between the two. You don't see X-rays. Your vision has a limited capacity. Below it there is infinity, above it there is infinity. So you have to drop the Aristotelian logic from your mind. Aristotle has dominated the human mind, particularly the Western mind, for almost two thousand years. But now it is possible to get rid of the old man. Aristotle's basic strategy was to divide things…
Osho, this game began unknowingly, in laughter and play. I had no idea it would drown me. Ahead there is darkness, behind a chasm. Nothing can be seen ahead, and going back feels impossible. The day somehow passes—why does this dark night come?
Days of fear, nights of fear—and you call it heaven! No one thinks so in childhood; only in old age do people look back and say, “Ah, how beautiful those days were!” It is a way to console the mind. The same happens to societies on a large scale. They say the golden age is gone—Satya Yuga was in the past; now is Kali Yuga. “Rama-rajya was before!” Was there Rama-rajya even in Rama’s time? What kind? Rama’s own life was full of suffering—let others be. His father deceived him—and at whose behest? An old man married to a young woman—the usual plight of old husbands. They are the most accommodating—obey their youthful wives like slaves. Dasharatha, a slave to his bird-like queen! He exiled a son like Rama for fourteen years—no backbone. And what joy in Rama’s life? Fourteen years wandering; then war with Ravana; he lost his wife;…