According to Osho, totality means being undivided—your body, mind, heart, and awareness moving as one in the present. It is intensity without remainder, not perfectionism. Express it by living each act wholly and freshly—responding anew each moment, even 'saying it completely differently'—through silence, love, creativity, and alertness rather than secondhand words or rehearsed roles.
Be fully here with your whole self, and show it by how you live each moment, not by clever talk.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
How to he total? How to give everything?
Every evening, people come to ask me: "How to share?" And my problem is that I don't see anything that they are going to share! There is nothing. When you don't have anything, this question arises: "How to share?" This question keeps you happy that you have something to share but you don't know how to share. This keeps you unaware of the fact that you don't have anything to share -- because when you have, it happens spontaneously. You cannot resist it, it has to be given forth. There is no way to avoid, it is inevitable. So first thing, you ask: HOW TO BE TOTAL? Not to be is to be total. Second, you ask: HOW TO GIVE EVERYTHING? Know that you have nothing. And wait... and wait in silence, in patience. Something will start flowing out of your being. It will take you unawares. It will be…
Question: OSHO, DURING THE TWO MONTHS THAT I HAVE BEEN HERE, I OFTEN FEEL THE THREAT OF A NEW KIND OF TOTALITARIANISM. IT IS CONTINUALLY PRESENTED AS THE SOLUTION: BE TOTAL IN THIS AND THAT EVEN IN NOT BEING TOTAL. BEING TOTAL, WITHOUT FRAGMENTATION ANY MORE, IS NOT THAT A FINAL STATE, THE LAST STAGE ON THE WAY? SO IS NOT THIS ADAGE CREATING A NEW IDEAL WITH ALL ITS FRUSTRATIONS AND NEUROSIS TO FOLLOW? ANYWAY, FOR ME, NOT BEING A SUPERMAN, IT IS VERY RARE THAT I AM ABLE TO DO, TO EXIST, TO FEEL MYSELF TOTAL IN ANYTHING, AND I HAVE NO REASON TO HOPE THAT IT WILL EVER HAPPEN AS A CONTINUOUS STATE. SINCE IT SEEMS TO BE THE CONDITION FOR THE THINGS THAT ARE PROMISED HERE IS THERE STILL ANY HOPE FOR ME? TOTALITY IS NOT A GOAL. Totality is not perfectionism.
Beloved Osho, can you please talk about what it means to be total? Is it the same as not being split, or is there more to it?
Not to be split, not to be schizophrenic, is only the beginning. And then there is the whole infinity, the whole eternity of ecstasy, blissfulness, understanding, awareness. There is much more to it. My insistence on being total in each of your acts is just to give you the first step. But the first step itself is so blissful, you would like to go a little more ahead, because the second step will be facing you.... There is no end, you simply go on and on and on, and everything goes on expanding. Even the sky is not the limit! You can spread yourself over the whole existence. But a split person dies without knowing anything of life. And to make you split is very simple. Every society -- cultured, uncultured, primitive, contemporary -- they all have used the same methods to split you. The split is: they give you…
Osho, you have said that if any action is total, energy is not lost. Please explain what you mean by total action. And also, in the process of sexual intercourse, what does it mean to be total or complete? Does it mean there is no loss of energy?
And here is the delightful paradox: if one becomes total in action, anger gradually becomes impossible—because total anger burns you up, it scorches you. Hatred becomes difficult—because complete hatred becomes poison; blisters rise in every pore. Enmity becomes difficult—because enmity then appears as self-destruction, as driving a dagger into one’s own chest. We can be angry only so long as we act incompletely. We can be enemies only so long as our acts are not total. The day our acts are complete, that day only the flower of love can bloom in our life. The day our act is complete, prayer becomes the very longing of our being. The day each act of our life becomes whole, that day God alone remains the one truth for us. When oneness arises within, oneness is seen without. As long as there are two within, there are two without. Not even two—there are…
Osho, what is the totality of myself? Why do I go on avoiding it?
Two inmates of a mental asylum were trying to escape. They reached the outermost wall but were unable to climb over it. "What do we do now?" the first inmate asked. "I know," replied the second. "I will shine my torch up to the top of the wall. You climb up the beam of the torch to the top and then help me up." "Nothing doing," replied the first. "I am not THAT crazy. I would only get half way up and you would turn off the light!" To go into the whole, you will have to be THAT crazy. It is a death, it is a disappearance, it is risky, it is a gamble. You cannot know what is going to happen. You can only know what you are going to lose; you cannot know beforehand what you are going to gain. Unless you are tremendously courageous you will…