According to Osho, dogmatism is a universal, persistent force—found in every culture—that resists change but also provides the necessary contrast for awakening: without darkness, lighting lamps has no joy; without prisons, freedom has no taste. Its opposition reveals what is alive, provokes courage, and makes the work of consciousness meaningful by turning conflict into an occasion to spread light.
Dogmatism is like nighttime: it’s everywhere and stubborn, but it helps us appreciate and choose the light when we shine it.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, why are people so fanatically committed to groups and organizations of all kinds: religious, social, and political?
It is good that these people don't participate in your Olympic races; otherwise your great runners will just look silly. You cannot move like monkeys from one tree to another tree. They go on jumping from one tree to another tree for miles; they need not touch the ground. You cannot fight even with a monkey. This has to be accepted: that man is the weakest animal on the earth. And this is the foundation of his whole behavior, his commitments, his groupings. He has to be part of something bigger than himself; only then does he feel safe. He had to invent all kinds of weapons. No animal has bothered to invent weapons. There is no need; their hands, their teeth, their nails, are enough. From the earliest days man had to invent weapons -- first made of stones, rocks, then slowly slowly with metals. Then he had to…
Osho, you talk of totality. You can’t have a diffused movement at the same time. This diffused movement—how would you try to bind it into a single sutra?
Think about it a little. In fact, what does organization mean? Organization means that people of one idea, people who imagine bringing about a certain kind of society, gather together. They gather and try to place a pattern of ideology upon society. My understanding is that it is dangerous to impose a very fixed pattern on society. Because society moves ahead every day; a fixed pattern is always left behind. It is like putting pajamas on a child. The child keeps growing day by day; the pajamas keep getting smaller day by day. Every day there is a need for the pajamas to be bigger. But those who organized the pajamas say, “This is the pajama we decided on; he must go on wearing this same pajama.” The child grows; the pajama becomes tight. All organizations—the more organized they are—the more fixed and dead they become. What is needed is…
Osho, what according to you is the most significant thing that is happening today in the world?
The new man will have no use for sham, facade or pretense, he will be true, because only through truth is there liberation. All lies create bondages. Tell a single lie and you will have to tell a thousand and one to defend it -- you will have to tell lies AD NAT(SEAM. Then there is no end to it. A single lie sooner or later will spread all over your being. It is like cancer. Be truthful and you need not hide, you can be open. Be truthful and you need not protect yourself against existence, you can be vulnerable. In that vulnerability existence penetrates you, God reaches your heart. Tell a lie and you are afraid. You will be afraid of God too, you will be afraid of facing him. You will be afraid of facing yourself. You will be continuously escaping from yourself, from others, from God.…
Osho, the question will be complete if I add one more doubt: if the conception of such negative training for the individual and for society is presented as an art and as a line of practice, will it not lead to anarchy?
The lawmaker is a sadist. He gives value to law. He says, “If you want to marry, you will have to live together your whole life!” He imposes a condition. And living together a whole life can be so sorrowful that under that sorrow and burden the little joy of marriage and togetherness is crushed under a stone—but that doesn’t matter to him. He says, “Only if you will live together for life can you marry! Otherwise you cannot marry.” If you want to remain free, you cannot marry—so you will be saved from the possibility of love. And if you want to love, you must marry. That sadist—my own understanding is that all lawmakers are sadists. Whether it is Manu or anyone else, all are sadists. They devise every way to torment. But they hide their tormenting in such a way that it appears they are undertaking great measures…
Osho, that is what is being taught. Yes, that is being taught. That very thing is being taught, and it is precisely because of that teaching that such a corrupted world has come into being, and such corrupted human beings have been produced—because of that teaching.
What is the fruit of these five thousand years of such teaching? The people we see all around us—this very world of ours. This world has been born of that “education,” hasn’t it? So where has five thousand years of all this teaching brought you? Day by day you fall lower, and you will go on falling. The mistake is at the very foundation. The mistake is at the very foundation. There is no need for reverence, no need for belief. What is needed is inquiry, what is needed is courage. One must search, one must dare. All that—reverence, belief—are symptoms of weakness. That is why the more a community leans on faith, the more it falls behind. Look. Any community that has relied on belief has lagged. Because the very question of taking the next step does not arise. If you are sitting in a bullock cart and you…