According to Osho, the Vedas are saguna—expressed knowledge shaped by the three gunas—because any spoken or written word must take form and thus becomes limited. They are valuable pointers, not the boundless truth itself (nirguna). This is not a condemnation but a reminder: all scriptures, including the Gita, lie within guna; only direct, unexpressed realization transcends them.
The Vedas are like helpful maps drawn with colors (gunas), but the real land (truth) has no color and can’t fit into any map.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, the creation that runs on the three gunas was made by God. God has placed the tamas guna in human nature—what purpose does God have behind it?
Have you ever watched a tightrope walker? He is never still. You might say, “Why doesn’t he stand still?” If he stood still, he would immediately fall and die. Why doesn’t the acrobat stay steady? Because he is continuously balancing. When you see him lean to the left, don’t be mistaken: he leans left only when there is a danger of falling to the right. He leans right when there is a danger of falling to the left. He is balancing all the time. When the fear of falling to the right arises, he shifts his weight to the left so balance is restored. When he has saved himself from the right and the danger arises on the left, he shifts to the other side to save himself. And nature is working below. If the acrobat doesn’t balance, he falls to the ground, bones break. He cannot then complain to…
18. The seen which is composed of the elements and the sense organs is of the nature of stability, action, and inertia, and is for the purpose of providing experience and thus liberation to the seer.
19. THE THREE GUNAS -- STABILITY, ACTION, AND INERTIA -- HAVE FOUR STAGES: THE DEFINED, THE UNDEFINED, THE INDICATED, AND THE UNMANIFEST. 20. THE SEER, ALTHOUGH PURE CONSCIOUSNESS, SEES THROUGH THE DISTORTIONS OF THE MIND. 21. THE SEEN EXISTS FOR THE SEER ALONE. 22. ALTHOUGH THE SEEN IS DEAD TO HIM WHO HAS ATTAINED LIBERATION, IT IS ALIVE TO OTHERS BECAUSE IT IS COMMON TO ALL. 23. THE SEER AND THE SEEN COME TOGETHER SO THAT THE REAL NATURE OF EACH MAY BE REALIZED. 24. THE CAUSE OF THIS UNION IS IGNORANCE. Everybody experiences: sometimes you feel lazy, sometimes you feel so full of energy; sometimes you feel so good and light, and sometimes you feel so evil and bad; sometimes you are a darkness, and sometimes you are a dawn. You feel all these gunas. Many moments of them come continuously, you move in a wheel, but they are…
They seem repressive. But their aphorisms stand on the principles of the three gunas. They are saying: the question is not that she is your daughter. Fundamentally she is a woman and you are a man. And hormones know neither daughter nor mother nor father nor sister. Hormones have no morality. If a father remains long in seclusion with his daughter, gradually the daughter remains only a woman, the father only a man. The natural attractions of both may begin. This can be stopped only when the witness has awakened. But in how many has the witness awakened? So Manu’s saying is profound, grounded in Sankhya. Sankhya is a unique explorer. Its discovery is deep: within you are two elements—prakriti and purusha. Purusha is your consciousness; prakriti is the organization of your body and mind. All actions come from nature; no action issues from consciousness.
11. Being bound together as cause-effect, the effects disappear with the disappearance of causes. 12. Past and future exist in the present, but they are not experienced in the present because they are on idfferent planes.
13. WHETHER MANIFEST OR UNMANIFEST, THE PAST, THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE ARE OF THE NATURE OF GUNAS: STABILITY, ACTION AND INERTIA. 14. THE ESSENCE OF ANY OBJECT CONSISTS IN THE UNIQUENESS OF THE PROPORTIONS OF THE THREE GUNAS. 15. THE SAME OBJECT IS SEEN IN DIFFERENT WAYS BY DIFFERENT MINDS. 16. AN OBJECT IS NOT DEPENDENT ON ONE MIND. 17. AN OBJECT IS KNOWN OR UNKNOWN DEPENDING ON WHETHER THE MIND IS COLORED BY IT OR NOT. BEING BOUND TOGETHER AS CAUSE-EFFECT, THE EFFECTS DISAPPEAR WITH THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CAUSES. But still, Patanjali is not saying the same things as Bishop Berkeley. Berkeley says that things are absolutely dependent on mind. He says that when you go out of your room everything in the room disappears. If there is nobody to see, how can things exist? And, in a way, it is difficult to disprove him because he says,…