According to Osho, a question’s origin is the questioner: it carries their conditioning, culture, and personal context. Therefore he answers the person, not the abstract query. Unless the source is seen, replies become ready‑made and irrelevant. Tracing the roots makes the response living, precise, and transformative—addressing the real problem behind the words.
Every question shows who is asking it, so the best answer comes from understanding you, not just your words.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, the questions we ask you all arise out of unconsciousness. And your replies come from total awareness. How can the two ever meet? And if they cannot meet, then asking itself seems wrong. Then what do you mean when you tell us to ask?
What is the difference between resonance and string? The string is gross, the resonance is subtle. The string can be grasped; the resonance cannot be grasped. Catch hold of the string and you remain on the surface. Catch the string and you will be bound—the string becomes a chain. Resonance enters your very life-breath. And resonance sets aquiver the resonance already asleep within you. Resonance is liberation. Do not take my strings, my words. Do not be concerned with what I say; be absorbed in what I am. Take the aura, not the form! If you take the form, you are bound. Take a form and you enter a prison. Take the aura! The halo that surrounds a lamp cannot be clutched in a fist, cannot be locked in a safe. But if you look at it with full eyes, your eyes will begin to shine. If you drink in…
Beloved Osho, how did you know when you said the question was from an indian?
Arup Krishna, it is very simple. The question does not arise out of the blue; the question arises in the heart of the questioner. The question says so much about the questioner that if you don't start immediately figuring out the answer... which is done all over the world; people start searching in their memory for the answer. I don't have any ready-made answers. When I listen to your question, I have to go deeper into the question to find you first, because unless I know the questioner, I cannot respond. I am not a holy book; I am a living being. I am not a computer that you ask the question and the answer comes irrespective of who is asking the question. I can answer you, not your question. Your question is secondary. So when I hear your question, my first search is for the person who has asked…
Is it not true that answers are usually given without anyone asking for them?
It is both correct and incorrect in a way. Questions have been raised, otherwise answers would not be possible. It may be that you yourself have not raised the question but someone else has raised it. The first time the question was raised, it was raised from ignorance. And the first time it was answered, the answer was given by a person who knew. But then everything becomes formulated. The question becomes formulated and the answer becomes formulated. Then we have ready-made questions and ready-made answers. Every child is going to ask the same questions really -- because existence is the same, the problems are the same. To pass through existence is to pass through the same suffering and the same inquiry. So just as a safety measure, parents and teachers give answers before the question is raised. Neither the question has been raised nor does the one who is…
A friend has asked: Osho, if we come to know, accept, and recognize that this knowledge is not ours, what will happen within us? What will change? Will there be a revolution?
The minister too stood astonished. “What happened?” The youth said, The very thought that I have been called back and am heir to the throne—and everything changed in that moment. I became another man. The beggar who had been within me for five years—where has he vanished? I cannot find him though I search. My whole consciousness has become different. A small remembrance: for five years he held the notion “I am a beggar,” so he was abject; his eyes were abject; his face dull. In a moment a recognition, a remembrance, an awakening occurred: “I am an emperor”—and everything changed. That abjectness dissolved from his eyes; eyes once dull filled with brilliance; life-energy that had grown sluggish became vibrant; breaths that seemed dead inhaled the air of life again. What happened to that youth? The day you realize that what you have so far taken as knowledge is worth…
Osho, why do you answer our questions?
The moment, the very moment we ask, “Why do you answer our questions?”—there could be many reasons for answering your questions. My reason is this: so that I can raise more questions. That is my reason. I am, in fact, not giving you any answer. I do not even want to give you an answer—because who am I to give one? And my answer can never become your answer. So my whole effort—even though I may appear to be answering—is only this: that the question within you becomes deeper, becomes formidable, throws you into difficulty; that instead of one question being resolved, ten arise, a thousand arise, and within you there is nothing but questions. Because it seems to me that the more the question grows within us, the more our soul grows. And as the soul grows...