According to Osho, the new religious man has no obsessions at all. Obsession is a one‑dimensional narrowing of mind—useful for science or art, but it blinds you to life’s wholeness. The religious consciousness is not concentration but awareness: spacious, multidimensional, balanced. He participates in many dimensions—love, work, creativity, silence—without being possessed by any. He remains total, fluid, and present.
He isn’t hooked on any single thing; he stays calmly aware and enjoys the whole of life without getting stuck.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, it seems that all the pioneers in art and science have reached the unknown spaces through some kind of obsessions. What kind of obsessions has the new religious man?
"'If they can go astray even hearing you, then what do you think -- that without hearing you they will not go astray? Take it for granted: those ninety-nine are determined to go astray whether you speak or not. But what about that one percent? We appeal to you for that one percent who may not be able to find the path without your speaking.'" And Buddha said, "I am speaking for that one percent." Strangely, I am still speaking for that one percent. The world has not moved a single inch. Twenty-five centuries and man is as blind, as asleep, and unconscious as he ever was. Charles Darwin was absolutely wrong, because looking at man there seems to be no evolution: as far back as we can see, he is the same. If for ten thousand years there has not been any evolution in man, do you think one…
Osho, what according to you is the most significant thing that is happening today in the world?
The new man will have no use for sham, facade or pretense, he will be true, because only through truth is there liberation. All lies create bondages. Tell a single lie and you will have to tell a thousand and one to defend it -- you will have to tell lies AD NAT(SEAM. Then there is no end to it. A single lie sooner or later will spread all over your being. It is like cancer. Be truthful and you need not hide, you can be open. Be truthful and you need not protect yourself against existence, you can be vulnerable. In that vulnerability existence penetrates you, God reaches your heart. Tell a lie and you are afraid. You will be afraid of God too, you will be afraid of facing him. You will be afraid of facing yourself. You will be continuously escaping from yourself, from others, from God.…
Beloved master, how can one drop an obsession? Or is it not to be dropped at all, but enjoyed?
Satya, an obsession simply means a wound in your being, which keeps attracting you again and again, which goes on declaring itself, which wants your attention. You cannot drop it. How can you drop your wound? An obsession is a psychic wound, you cannot drop it. Understand it. Watch it. Pay attention to it. Be meditatively with it. And the more you are meditatively with it, the more it will be healed. Meditation is a healing force. The words 'meditation' and 'medicine' are derived from the same root; they both mean healing forces. Meditation is medicine -- medicine for the soul. So if you have any obsession, don't call names. The moment you call it an obsession you have already started condemning it. And if you condemn something you cannot watch it -- you are prejudiced against it. How can you watch the enemy? No need to condemn; whatsoever is…
You talk a lot about people obsessed with sex -- but what is obsession? Obsession with food or clothes or cleanliness, etcetera?
OBSESSION SIMPLY MEANS you are paying too much attention and energy to something which is not that important. Out of all proportion you have become focussed, hypnotized by something. Obsession is a kind of hypnosis that you have created within yourself. Then everything else disappears in your life and only one thing remains that becomes your focal point. Your life becomes one-dimensional: that is obsession. Life has to be multi-dimensional. There are people who are thinking only of sex, only of sex -- twenty-four hours a day. Deep down in their minds it is always lurking. They may be doing something else, but they are thinking of sex. Then it is an obsession. Sex itself is not an obsession, remember -- I am not against sex. I am not against anything. Obsession means now sex has taken the place of everything. There are people who are obsessed with food; they…
The new man accepts the whole man. It does not divide. It teaches an organic unity. Its fundamental philosophy is that you are one whole, not body and soul, not this world and that world. Your body is only the visible part of your soul. Your soul is only the invisible part of your body. This world contains that world within it. Just you have to go deep into it. In each experience, if you are intense and total, you will find within this world that world too. This contains that. They are not separate. There is no guilt, there is no sin. Yes, you can commit mistakes, which is absolutely human. And you commit mistakes because you are not aware. I say to you, you are allowed to commit mistakes, but don't repeat the same mistake again and again. That means unawareness.