According to Osho, race has no spiritual significance: his commune transcends black and white, welcoming all with equal respect. He urges dropping racial identities and prejudices, celebrating each color’s unique beauty while refusing hierarchies. Real growth comes from shared joy, love, and presence—not from belonging to a race. A truly spiritual community honors every individual beyond color.
Race doesn’t matter for spiritual life—be kind to everyone and enjoy being together beyond labels.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: OSHO, ARE NOT DIFFERENT RACES OF MAN REALLY AND BASICALLY DIFFERENT? There are Jains in India who believe in absolute vegetarianism. I was born in a Jain family. In my childhood, even tomatoes were not brought in the house because of their color -- they look like meat. In fact, I don't know whether they look exactly like meat or not because I have never seen meat; not even now, I have not seen meat yet. Just the idea that meat must be red and the poor tomatoes also look red... My grand mother was very much against the poor tomatoes. I had not eaten tomatoes up to I was eighteen, and when for the first time I ate tomatoes I vomited immediately. I could not take it in, I had to throw it out; it was so repellent. Now I know there is no problem.
Rajneeshism allows everyone into its fold, states Osho
Our religion should not be categorized with any other religion of the world because it has not tradition or dogma and it allows everybody without any discrimination into its religious fold. Rajneeshism does not ask anyone to renounce their religion and does not have any conflict with Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Lao Tzu, etc. Basically Rajneeshism has the essential core of all religiousness. The other religions are against each other's traditions and attitudes. In fact, these other religions are fanatic and each believes and fights that theirs is the true religion and others are false. This is not the case with me or Rajneeshism. A Christian can become a Rajneeshee and he is not asked to drop his love for Jesus, in fact he finds Jesus in me. The same is true for a Buddhist or a Mohammedan. Our commune consists of people from all religions who have found their religion's…
Beloved Osho, are there real differences in different races, or is it just superstition?
And this is not a superstition. One of my secretaries, a beautiful Italian woman, well educated -- she was a professor in the university of Rome. She had all the degrees in philosophy, post graduation, Ph.D., D.Litt., and she was the first Italian to come into contact with me. She destroyed my interest in spaghetti, because she prepared spaghetti one day for me. That woman never used to take a bath. I don't think she had ever taken one in her whole life. Her face had layers of powder, centuries old; she went on putting more powder but she would not take a bath. I used to tell her to sit a little far away. Very lovingly she brought the spaghetti. I could not refuse -- it looked too unmannerly -- so I said to her, "Leave it on my dining table, but you leave the room." She said, "I…
Beloved Osho, I am one of your black sannyasins. My childhood was spent in africa, my family lives there. I have been with you for ten years, and I've put aside my questions about africa. Now I find that what you are saying about black people and africa makes me feel raw and shaky. I feel ashamed as well. Can you explain what is happening? I am glad that it is happening, but it hurts.
I don't ever discriminate between the black people and the white people. To me, anybody who is trying to seek, search inwards.... Inside nobody is black and nobody is white. Inside there are no colors. Inside it is luminous whiteness. Remember, white is not a color, just as black is not a color. It is strange that we say black people, white people; both are colorless, in different ways. You can see... in the rainbow you will not find white and black. These two colors you will not find in the rainbow; all other colors are there. Why is the rainbow not interested in white and black? -- because they are not colors. Black simply means that all colors have been absorbed. You have to understand a little bit of scientific fact. When you see something black, that means none of the sunrays falling on it are reflected back. It…
Now the difference between a black man and a white man is so small. In the old days the difference used to be near about four anas. Now prices have gone high -- it may be a difference of one rupee. And remember, that difference is in favor of the black man. The black man has a pigment of color which makes him worth one rupee more than the white man. That black pigment of color protects him from the sun, the white man is unprotected. God seems to be more concerned to protect the black man than the white. The white man's body is weaker, the black man's body is stronger. It was a surprise to me, whenever I entered a jail in America there were black people behind bars who had seen me on the television, because in every jail there are televisions.