According to Osho, playfulness is a fundamental spiritual quality: it keeps the inner child alive, dissolves ego, breaks societal conditioning, and makes one unfit for domination, ambition, and borrowed ideals. A playful heart enjoys existence, laughs, rebels naturally, and lives by its own nature. Repressing playfulness breeds seriousness, deadness, and a shrunken life.
Being playful lets you stay real, happy, and free instead of being controlled by others’ rules.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, would you please tell us more about what the sufis call "adab"? Is it a "tariqa"... A method that extends beyond the physical presence of the master, becoming part of the innermost being of the disciple and reflecting, in every action of his daily?
Radha Mohammed, yes, adab is a tariqa, a method. It is the beginning of something very immense, of something utterly incomprehensible to the intellect. It is the first step of a great eternal pilgrimage. To be with the Master is simply a lesson in how to be with God. That's why down the ages the Master has been called "God". It is very symbolic, it is a metaphor. The word "metaphor" is beautiful. Meta means beyond, phor means going: that which takes you beyond. The Master is a metaphor -- he takes you beyond himself. He is just a beginning, a jumping-board. To be with the Master is nothing but a discipline in how to be with God. God is not visible, the Master is visible; it is easier to learn from the visible and then move to the invisible. Have you looked into children's books? We have to make…
Osho, you emphasize playfulness, leela. But is it possible for a playful mind to be a plastic surgeon or a scientist?
You will see it in the East: people have become dull, people have lost all joy of invention -- because all luxury has been condemned; it is a sin to seek comfort. But if you are not seeking comfort then there is no point in exploring, if you are not seeking luxury then all search stops. Then all that you need is a shelter, food, clothes -- but there you are finished. And when you don't explore you don't become rich, when you don't explore you stop growing. In the East it has happened, it has happened terribly: because the so-called priests and religious people condemned all luxuries, man became uninventive. The East is poor because of the saints -- because people are bound to remain poor if they don't explore. If people are satisfied with just whatsoever is the case they become more and more poor every day, because…
Because the mind drops its reservations.
And its playfulness is its strength. If it were not playful, you’d be dead. An idiot’s mind is not playful, you know? The more intelligent a person, the more playful the mind. That playfulness is its movement, the dynamism within.
Osho, my wise shiatsu teacher at home told us, "you cannot fight against the devil, you can only play with him." I feel that this could help me but I do not understand it completely. Would you speak about it?
But this is not what is ordinarily understood by a religious person. A religious person becomes very, very serious. He looks at you as if you are sinners condemned to go to hell, doomed. He walks erect, with great pride. You can see in his eyes that he knows that he is 'holier than thou', higher than thou, that he is saved and you are condemned. And of course he becomes very serious; his going to the church, to the temple, his prayer, his ritual, all are very serious affairs. He does not take it non-seriously, playfully. And you cannot know what prayer is if you don't know what playfulness is. Real religion teaches you playfulness -- sincerity of course, but seriousness no, authenticity of course, but seriousness no. You have come to the right place, Christiane, that's what we are doing here. This whole space that is being created…
Invocation
AUM, MAY BRAHMAN PROTECT US BOTH. MAY HE NOURISH US BOTH. MAY WE BOTH ACHIEVE ENERGY. MAY THIS STUDY MAKE US BOTH ILLUMINED. MAY WE NEVER HATE EACH OTHER. AUM, PEACE, PEACE, PEACE. AUM, MAY MY LIMBS BECOME STRONG. ALSO, LET MY SPEECH, PRANA -- VITAL AIR -- SIGHT, HEARING, AND ALL THE SENSE ORGANS, BE VIGOROUS. THE ENTIRE EXISTENCE IS THE BRAHMAN OF THE UPANISHADS. MAY I NEVER DENY BRAHMAN; MAY BRAHMAN NOT DENY ME. LET THERE BE NO DENIAL AT ALL. LET THERE BE NO DENIAL AT LEAST ON MY PART. WHATEVER VIRTUES ARE IN THE UPANISHADS, MAY THEY ABIDE IN I WHO AM DEVOTED TO THE ATMAN -- SELF. MAY THEY ABIDE IN ME. AUM, PEACE, PEACE, PEACE. It is just like heating water. At a particular degree, a hundred degrees, it evaporates. Do not think that at fifty degrees half will evaporate. It will not evaporate…