What is the significance of confession in personal growth?

Beloved master, I notice that the questions I write to you usually turn out to be "confessions." I assumed it was because of some kind of conditioning, although my upbringing did not include the practice of confession to a priest. It seems that I have an expectation that by telling you, you can free me. Is this so? Or am I, in fact, abdicating responsibility by asking in this way? Perhaps it is not authentic asking?

I have heard, that a priest had a great friendship with a rabbi and they had decided one Sunday that, after the church work was over, they would go to play golf. The rabbi came and waited outside in his car. Finally, he entered the church and asked, "What is the matter? Why are you being delayed?" There was a long line of people who were waiting to confess -- that was the reason why the priest was delayed. So the rabbi entered from the back door into the booth and said to the priest, "This line will take the whole day!" The priest said, "Let us do one thing: let me get ready for the golf game; meanwhile you sit in my place." There is only a small window, a hole, so that the person does not feel too humiliated. He confesses from the other side. The hole is…

Osho, if up until yesterday I too have, in one way or another, stolen in your ashram, and today a strong urge arises to come before you and confess my offense, while another voice within says, “Forget what is past; take care of what lies ahead,” then what guidance would you give in such a situation? Krishnapriya has asked.

First of all, when a feeling is arising, it is arising now. The feeling that you should go and admit your theft, or your mistake, or your offense—this feeling is arising now. It is not something from the past. The theft may have happened sometime—what use is that now? But this feeling, that I should acknowledge the wrongdoing, is arising right now. This feeling is not past; it is not in the past, it is in the present. The theft was in the past—let the theft go; what is done is done. But this feeling is arising now; do not postpone it. Let this feeling arise; let it be expressed. There is benefit in the emergence of this feeling. If this feeling is expressed fully, if there is complete acceptance of it, only then will it be possible—“Forget what is past.” Because once we have accepted something, its burden becomes…

This much is certain: Jesus was not in his own land. From birth he had to be taken away—his parents fled with him. Later Jesus lived in Egypt, in India, in Tibet. It is even possible he reached Japan, for there is a place in Japan where folk legend still tells that Jesus came there. He searched all the East. Certainly when Jesus came to India, Mahavira’s voice was still a fiery voice. Only five centuries earlier Mahavira had departed. Buddha’s voice was still alive. The fragrance still lingered in the air though the flower had gone. Surely the sutra Jesus held—what Christians call confession—must be linked somewhere to Mahavira’s very sutra. Only Christianity has given confession such value: go before the priest and reveal whatever sin you have committed. Say simply, “This mistake happened.” In the very acceptance—“A mistake happened through me”—liberation begins. In acceptance is freedom.

It seems that because of society and its different sections, our daily needs—first: clothes, food, water, the running of everyday affairs, the extra pressure of daily news and demands—have to be produced by straining the mind. When we go out to produce these things, anger seems inevitable. If our worldly day-to-day necessities could be met without getting angry, does any section or arrangement exist by which we could cover them in that way?

What do you know of the body yet? You have seen it only from outside. You know only the outer surface. You have not yet seen the body as if sitting within it. You have seen from outside, like a man standing outside a house looks at it—and another sits inside the house and looks. You have not yet sat within and seen the body. Enter a little deeper into observation, and you will look from within. Then you will see: inside is a mass of light, and outside is an encasing shell. It will be clear. You have not yet seen the mind. As you go within, you will see the mind: light inside, and around it the flies of thought buzzing; beyond that, the shell of skin and bone. Observation will lead you gradually inward, into the interior. And then only that remains experienced which has been observing—the…

Osho, you said that the acceptance of sin gives birth to worthiness. But can it not also give birth to self-abasement? Please explain.

If the acceptance of sin truly happens, self-abasement can never be born. Self-abasement arises because you do not want to accept, and yet you are forced to accept. Understand the difference between these two. What you want is to be supremely wise. You want the world to know you as a great knower. Within yourself you already believe you are; only others have not recognized it yet. In time they will; people are ignorant, foolish—that’s why they don’t see your great wisdom. Otherwise, of course, you are supremely wise. There is an Arab saying: at the final moment of sending each creature into the world, God calls them close and makes one last joke, whispering in their ear, “I have never made anyone greater than you.” And each person carries this within all life long. If he tells anyone, people laugh—because God has played the same joke on them too.…