According to Osho, biblical images of lameness, deafness, blindness, drunkenness, sleep and death are not about bodies but our unconscious spiritual condition: we haven’t reached, heard, or seen the Real, though we live in God like a fish in the ocean. They diagnose egoic intoxication and habitual sleep, and challenge us to awaken through alert, moment‑to‑moment awareness so true life and joy can begin.
These pictures mean we act like we can’t walk, hear, or see God because we’re sleepy and drunk on ego, so we need to wake up and pay attention.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why does the bible talk about man's state with metaphors such as lameness, deafness, blindness, drunkenness, sleep and death?
A friend has come to your home. Be alert. Each moment has to be taken as if this were the last moment. And there is every possibility this may be the last moment! So use it totally. Squeeze the juices out of it totally. In that very totality you will be alert and the drunkenness will be gone. This is what Jesus calls METANOIA. A drunk staggered up to a policeman, and said 'Officer, Officer, where am I?' 'You are in front of the Shree Rajneesh Ashram' said the policeman. 'It is Koregaon Park.' 'Never mind the details' said the drunk. 'What town am I in?' A drunk is drunk. He is not interested in details. He is not even aware what town this is. Are you aware of where you are? Are you aware of what planet this is? Are you aware of what life you have got which…
Question: GENSHA COMPLAINED TO HIS FOLLOWERS ONE DAY: 'OTHER MASTERS ARE ALWAYS CARRYING ON ABOUT THE NECESSITY OF SAVING EVERYONE -- BUT SUPPOSE YOU MEET UP WITH SOMEONE WHO IS DEAF, DUMB AND BLIND: HE COULDN'T SEE YOUR GESTURES, HEAR YOUR PREACHING, OR, FOR THAT MATTER, ASK QUESTIONS. UNABLE TO SAVE HIM, YOU'D PROVE YOURSELF A WORTHLESS BUDDHIST.' TROUBLED BY THESE WORDS, ONE OF GENSHA'S DISCIPLES WENT TO CONSULT THE MASTER UMMON WHO, LIKE GENSHA, WAS A DISCIPLE OF SEPPO.'BOW PLEASE,' SAID UMMON. THE MONK, THOUGH TAKEN BY SURPRISE, OBEYED THE MASTER'S COMMAND -- THEN STRAIGHTENED UP IN EXPECTATION OF HAVING HIS QUERY ANSWERED. BUT INSTEAD OF AN ANSWER, HE GOT A STAFF THRUST AT HIM. HE LEAPT BACK.'WELL,' SAID UMMON, 'YOU'RE NOT BLIND. NOW APPROACH.' THE MONK DID AS HE WAS BIDDEN. 'GOOD,' SAID UMMON, 'YOU'RE NOT DEAF EITHER. WELL, UNDERSTAND?' 'UNDERSTAND WHAT SIR?' SAID THE MONK.
Men are as forgetful and heedless in their waking moments of what is going on around them as they are during their sleep.
FOOLS, ALTHOUGH THEY HEAR, ARE LIKE THE DEAF; TO THEM THE ADAGE APPLIES THAT WHENEVER THEY ARE PRESENT THEY ARE ABSENT. ONE SHOULD NOT ACT OR SPEAK AS IF HE WERE ASLEEP. THE WAKING HAVE ONE WORLD IN COMMON; SLEEPERS HAVE EACH A PRIVATE WORLD OF HIS OWN. WHATEVER WE SEE WHEN AWAKE IS DEATH, WHEN ASLEEP, DREAMS. What will you do? How can it become possible? -- because you are so fast asleep that you can make that a dream also. You can make that itself a thinking object, a thinking process. You can become so tense about it that just because of it you cannot be in the present. If you think too much about how to be in the present, this thinking won't help. If you feel too much guilt... if you sometimes move into the past you will; it has been such a long routine and…
Once in a while a conscious, wide-awake man is born, and those who are asleep cannot tolerate him. They lose their tempers and they kill him. We crucified Jesus Christ because he was awake. People in deep sleep cannot bear the presence of such a man. He is a symbol of disrespect to those who are not awake. Such men disturb our sleep, and so we give a cup of poison to a Socrates. We behave toward conscious, awakened men as madmen would were they to find a sane man in their midst. A friend of mine went insane and was locked up in an asylum. In his madness he drank a whole bottle of a disinfectant he found in a cleaning cupboard. As a result he had such intense attacks of diarrhea and vomiting that within two weeks his whole body was transformed.
Hasan asked ajami, 'how did you reach your present heights of spiritual attainment?' ajami said, 'through making the heart white in meditation, not by making paper black with writing.'
Now all the words that he has used are unspiritual. First, 'HOW DID YOU REACH.... ' Spirituality is not something that you reach to, it is already the case. It is not a goal somewhere, it has already happened in you. It is there in your heart. But you are not there in the heart, hence you go on missing it. The treasure is in the heart and you are In the head. This is the only difference between you and God: the difference between head and heart. It is not much -- maybe one foot, one and a half feet -- it is not much. Somebody asked Rabia al-Adawiya, 'What is the difference between truth-and a lie?' And Rabia said, 'Four inches.' The man was puzzled. He asked again, 'I don't understand. What do you mean?' She said, 'The difference between the ear and the eye is the difference…