According to Osho, in the final reckoning life is like a game that ends at noon: what remains is your inner residue. Deception—whether you cheat or feel cheated—spoils your sleep with guilt or grievance. What counts is not winning, status, or others’ opinions, but whether you played in awareness and joy. A non-dual, accepting attitude lets bliss continue after the play.
If you cheat or feel cheated, you won’t rest easy; if you play kindly and happily, peace stays when the game ends.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
We don’t keep it in mind, do we! Yes—so we have no thought of the final reckoning. And since the final reckoning evens everyone out, what difference does it make who… No; therefore the real question is not who deceived and who was deceived. The point is: that is the last accounting. Before that, who lived in joy and who lived in sorrow? That is the real question.
And my understanding is this: if eight or ten children were playing, then by twelve o’clock the game is over; they’ve shut up all their shops and gone. But the one who thinks, “I was cheated,” his night will be different; his sleep will be affected. The one who thinks, “I cheated,” his sleep too will be troubled. That is to say, it was all just play, wasn’t it? So the real question now is: while we were in the play, were we happy then? If we were happy then, even after the play a stream of joy will keep flowing. In this entire life, that we construct such-and-such a life—this is not what is valuable. What is valuable is that life be such that it leaves you in bliss, and that is what I am speaking of. It will always be non-dialectical. There will be no duality in it,…
Osho, when someone deceives and betrays me, or uses me like an object—what should I do in such a situation? I don’t want to hurt that person either. How can I find peace of mind? I feel broken.
In the tangles of life, others are never responsible; the whole responsibility is our own. You say that when someone deceives and betrays you, your heart is hurt. Think a little: the heart is not hurt by someone else’s deceit or betrayal. It hurts because you wanted that no one should deceive or betray you. It is the fruit of your desire. And it is not in your hands to make the whole world comply with your desire. It is in no one’s hands. But we have become accustomed to shifting the responsibility for everything onto others. It seems easy; it gives relief—the relief that I am not responsible. Now someone is cheating, therefore I suffer—so we say. But why did you want that no one should cheat you? And where is it in our hands to create a world in which there is no deceit and no hypocrisy? There…
The eye toward the world and the back toward oneself—this is the householder’s sign. The eye toward oneself and the back toward the world—this is the sign of the sannyasin. There is nowhere to go, nowhere to run; this revolution has to happen within you. It is a shift of the eye. Keep your shop, raise your children, care for your wife—but a single eye has changed; the vision has shifted. Now your gaze remains within; the nectar you drink is inner; outwardly, you do the work given by God. But it is no longer your race; your hope is no longer attached; your craving is not in it. If it happens, good; if not, good. Now you remain utterly balanced in that matter. If there is loss, fine; if gain, fine—both alike. It is a chess game.
Osho, you often say that the very thing that brings a person happiness also brings sorrow; whatever brings profit also brings loss. So please tell us: what is the ratio here between happiness and sorrow, profit and loss? Is it perhaps fifty-fifty, canceling each other out so that a perfect zero is all that remains in one’s hands?
In the world there is only one pain: that the seed does not become a tree; that what you were born to bring forth is not coming forth from you; that the seed keeps lying like a knot, like a stone. What you are hiding cannot find expression. A seed falls into the soil— Its meaning is simple: Behold, its destiny has opened. What royal secret it kept in its heart, Now it has permission to unfold Bud, sprout, leaf, and blossom— To speak in the language it longs for. With just one shove of time That iron chain of helplessness, Solid and strong, cracks apart. But what time does for a seed, you must do for yourself; time will not do it for you. With just one shove of time That iron chain of helplessness, Solid and strong, cracks apart. What time does for the seed, you must do…
Both were hauled to the police station. Their village devotees were distressed, pained—for it was not only the monks’ prestige at stake, but that of the devotees who loved them. They paid money to hush the police so the story wouldn’t spread. A naked man too is doing exactly what a shopkeeper does. Better to sit in the shop, then. At least do not defile nakedness. No one is saying, Renounce the world. Renounce only if you truly are renouncing. If you leave it outwardly and hoard it inwardly, nothing will come of the deception. “He whose forehead bears matted locks, who has shaved his head, who has plucked his hair, who wears ochre, or assumes various disguises—if foolish, he remains blind though having eyes.” Why does Shankara say, he remains blind though having eyes? Because whom is he deceiving!