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What is the sutra for avoiding the horizontal journey?

Do not avoid the horizontal journey; embrace it with total awareness, for only through acceptance can the compulsion dissolve and a vertical shift become possible.

— Osho
According to Osho, the sutra is paradoxical: do not avoid the horizontal journey. Avoidance sustains the very movement you wish to escape. Enter it with total awareness, meet it fully, and through non-avoidance the compulsion dissolves and a vertical shift becomes possible. Acceptance and presence transform; escape entangles.

To stop going in circles, don’t run away—face what’s here with full awareness.

In His Own Words

From the Discourses

Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.

Mahaveer Vani · Discourse 22Para 43 1972-09-07 Bombay Hindi
If habits are so weighty, Mahavira says: if you wish to be free of an experience, do not enter it. Once you enter, getting free becomes more and more difficult. Mahavira sees man as a machine, and ninety-nine percent of people are machines. So Mahavira says: the machine-like life should be stopped right where things begin. Is it possible that if a person is kept away from all experiences and circumstances of sex, then the flow of sex will not arise in his life? It is not possible that the flow of sex will not arise. One day the child will be young, full of power; energy will come; the body-machine will supply power; sex-energy will surge. Even if all circumstances of sex are blocked, the child will still be filled. But a difference will occur. That child will have no well-laid pathways of habit.

Osho, the Gita’s daring hypothesis was that a desireless karma-yogi, performing all actions, attains the imperishable state. Perhaps for the first time you have, on a wide scale, placed sannyas right in the midst of the world and actualized that hypothesis. In this concluding session on the Gita’s vision, please guide us in this difficult discipline.

And whenever someone says, “You I accept, but not your world,” he is playing a very cunning game. He himself may not know what he is saying; the cunning may be unconscious. He might even be startled if we tell him, “Do you realize what you’re saying? You are cleverly rejecting God.” An outright atheist is better who says, “There is no God, this world is all.” Consider this: one says, “I know nothing of the poet; this poem is sweet.” That too is a small praise of the poet. That believer is worse who says, “Your world I reject; You I accept.” Then you place yourself above God. You are the arbiter, the judge. You decide what is right and what is wrong. You even issue God a certificate that He is okay, but His world doesn’t look right. It is very easy to run away by leaving the…
Bhaj Govindam · Discourse 3 1975-11-13 Pune Hindi
Verse (Sanskrit): सूत्र का ते कांता कस्ते पुत्रः संसारोऽयमतीव विचित्रः। कस्य त्वं कः कुत आयातस्तत्त्वं चिन्तय तदिह भ्रातः।। सत्संगत्वे निस्संगत्वं निस्संगत्वे निर्मोहत्वम्‌। निर्मोहत्वे निश्चल चित्तं निश्चलचित्ते जीवनमुक्तिः।। वयसि गते कः कामविकारः शुष्के नीरे कः कासारः। क्षीणे वित्ते कः परिवारो ज्ञाते तत्त्वे कः संसारः।। मा कुरु धनजनयौवनगर्वं हरति निमेषात्कालः सर्वम्‌। मायामयमिदमखिलं हित्वा ब्रह्मपदं त्वं प्रविश विदित्वा।। दिनमपि रजनी सायं प्रातः शिशिरवसन्तौ पुनरायातः। कालः क्रीडति गच्छत्यायुः तदपि न मुञ्चत्याशावायुः।। का ते कांताधनगतचिन्ता वातुल किं तव नास्ति नियन्ता। क्षणमपि सज्जनसंगतिरेका भवति भवावितरणे नौका।। Transliteration: sūtra kā te kāṃtā kaste putraḥ saṃsāro'yamatīva vicitraḥ| kasya tvaṃ kaḥ kuta āyātastattvaṃ cintaya tadiha bhrātaḥ|| satsaṃgatve nissaṃgatvaṃ nissaṃgatve nirmohatvam‌| nirmohatve niścala cittaṃ niścalacitte jīvanamuktiḥ|| vayasi gate kaḥ kāmavikāraḥ śuṣke nīre kaḥ kāsāraḥ| kṣīṇe vitte kaḥ parivāro jñāte tattve kaḥ saṃsāraḥ|| mā kuru dhanajanayauvanagarvaṃ harati nimeṣātkālaḥ sarvam‌| māyāmayamidamakhilaṃ hitvā brahmapadaṃ tvaṃ praviśa viditvā|| dinamapi rajanī sāyaṃ prātaḥ śiśiravasantau punarāyātaḥ| kālaḥ krīḍati gacchatyāyuḥ tadapi na muñcatyāśāvāyuḥ|| kā te kāṃtādhanagatacintā vātula…

Osho, “parokshapriya iva hi deva bhavanti, pratyaksha-dvishah.” The gods love the indirect and hate the direct. Osho, please be compassionate and open this sutra from the Gopatha Brahmana.

You should have used the body. The body is a gift of God—a rare, wondrous, unique gift! We should be grateful to God. He has given you an extraordinary body that serves you for seventy, eighty, ninety, a hundred years—in every way it serves. If you want to go to a brothel, it takes you there—that is your choice; you are responsible. If you wish to go to a temple, it takes you there. The same feet that carry you to the prostitute also carry you to the temple. The same body that can lead you into sin becomes the foundation of virtue. The same body that can drive you in the race for wealth is equally a companion on the path of meditation. It is all a matter of your decision. The body is always willing; it is eager to serve you. If you choose the wrong place, that…
The Great Path · Discourse 1Question 1 1974-09-11 Chuang Tzu Auditorium English

Om! I bow down to lord shiva -- the one who is self-luminous, delighting in his own being. And now, the beginning of the shiva sutra. Consciousness is the atman, the soul; knowledge is bondage. The body is the union of raman, nature and raman, the ego, the doer. The spiritual endeavor is raman. One who applies his total energy, for him the world exists no more.

It would be a very simple matter if one could do away with his ignorance just by hiding it. The fact is, ignorance grows more when you hide it. It is like hiding a wound. But hiding a wound won't cure it; instead, it will grow inside deeper and deeper. And the pus will spread throughout within the body. Shiva says: KNOWLEDGE IS BONDAGE. Any knowledge -- whether learned from somebody or borrowed from somewhere -- the knowledge is the cause of bondage. Hence, drop all that which you have acquired from others. Go in search of that which you have received from no one. Set out in search of the face that is authentically yours. There is a spring of consciousness hidden within you, which no one has given to you. It is your very own nature, your own treasure, your very soul. The third sutra is: YONIVARGAHA KALASHARIRAM…