According to Osho, ‘immorality’ is not disobeying borrowed rules but living unconsciously—hurting yourself or others because you’re asleep, repressed, or hypocritical. Social moral codes create guilt and perversion; awareness, love, and responsibility flower into natural morality. When you are present and true to your being, compassion arises by itself; then the question of immorality disappears, because harm becomes impossible.
Immorality is just acting without awareness; be conscious and loving, and right action follows.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Morality is a phony lie, because the ideas are given by others and you are living them -- you are just an imitator. I am against all morality -- that does not mean that I am for immorality. In fact it is morality that creates immorality too. I am for transcendence, transcendence of the very idea of morality -- and of course, this implies immorality too. I am for consciousness, not for conscience. I don't want to give you any shoulds or should nots. I simply want you to become more aware, alert, watchful, clear, unclouded. When you are like a flame without smoke, whatsoever you do will be right. In a state of clarity the wrong is impossible, but then your character comes from your consciousness, not from your conscience, then it comes from yourself.
Moses has said that something is right and something else is wrong and so has Manu and so has Mohammed, but it is not your heart. And the ultimate decision has to be yours. How can Manu, Moses or Mohammed decide for you? -- everything has changed. So much water has gone down the Ganges since Manu. Manu existed five thousand years ago and Hindus are still following his dictates; he has decided what is moral and what is immoral. No, this is sheer nonsense. Life has completely changed. If Manu comes back he will not be able to recognise anything he will be simply bewildered. He will only be able to understand his own book, MANUSMRATI, the book that he wrote five thousand years ago; everything else has changed. But he will certainly laugh at the foolishness of the Hindus -- that they are still following him.
That is the moralistic attitude, the puritan attitude, that the moral rules are always right. If something is wrong it is always you, so you have to fit with the moral rules. If you don't fit it creates guilt; if you try to fit, it creates discomfort. If you are stupid you try to fit, but then your whole life becomes a misery. If you are clever, cunning, then you become a hypocrite. You pretend 'Yes, everything is okay. I am fitting in perfectly -- the dress is beautiful, it is lovely!' But then you have to live a double life: one life in your drawing room, the other life, which is your real life, from the backdoor. And then there is a split; then you are constantly in a kind of inner struggle, an inner tension, and you can never be at ease.
a friend has asked: Osho, the way you speak—won’t it spread immorality?
As though immorality weren’t already widespread, and now it will spread because of what I say. The situation is such that however much you try to spread it now, it would be very hard to make it go any further than it already has. They say, “Let immorality not spread.” Perhaps they think morality is what has spread. So they ask, “Won’t your words spread immorality?” This fear haunts us constantly. And it’s rather amusing—a funny kind of fear. Because it is immorality that has spread. If morality had spread, there would be no need for such fear. Even after ten thousand years of effort, morality hasn’t spread; it’s immorality that has. And now we’re afraid that immorality might spread! Our fear is like a beggar sitting nervously beside a police station worrying that he might be robbed. What is there of yours to be stolen? Roam freely! You don’t…
Osho, have you been drinking?
This harm can take many forms. If a man, drunk, goes and hits someone on the head, that is harm. If a man, after drinking, mistreats his wife, that too harms another. If a man, after drinking, leaves his job and his children begin to starve, that too harms others. In all such situations that drinking becomes immoral. But if a man’s drinking does not injure his health; if, instead of spoiling, his relationship with his wife becomes better; if the next day he can go to the office and work more at ease, then I do not consider that such drinking has done anything immoral. Immorality means that through us someone else suffers harm. If no one is being harmed through us, then the word immorality has no meaning. (The audio recording of the question is not clear.) I was saying to you: what should we call immoral? Our…