Conscience is a tape society put in your head; the Fourth Way says throw it out and trust your own living awareness.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, I believe that nothing is impossible. What do you say about it?
Then try to strike a match on a cake of soap. The fourth question: OSHO: THE FOURTH WAY, AS TAUGHT BY GURDJIEFF, HAS BEEN CALLED THE WAY OF CONSCIENCE. WHAT PLACE HAS CONSCIENCE IN YOUR TEACHING? The question is from Cecil Lewis. Conscience is created; it is a conditioning. All that you think is good or bad is nothing but a conditioning. But this conditioning can go on managing your whole life. The society has entered in you and controls you from there, from within. It has become your inner voice. And because it has become your inner voice, you cannot hear your REAL inner voice. So my suggestion is: Unburden yourself of conscience. Throw all the conditioning OUt, cathart it, be free from it. That's what I mean when I say don't be a Christian, a Hindu, a Jaina, a Buddhist. Just be. And be alert. In that alertness…
Osho, how can one develop a conscience -- something within that will guide one in one's everyday life towards what is necessary for one's development? To do what is required for the unfolding of one's inner life? It seems as if I am always torn and yet there does exist something within at times which I hope could be helped to grow and become a light for me. Carl one learn to intensify one's feelings and emotions in order to bring one closer to a place of real being?
It was difficult to discard Aristotle, very difficult -- a two thousand years' long love affair. But electrons have no obligation, they don't bother at all about Aristotle. They were saying "Get lost!" And finally the physicists had to agree with the electrons. And when they were asked again and again "How is it possible?" they said, "What can we do? It is not a question of possible or not possible -- it is happening! It is so! We understand that it is illogical, that it should not be so, but what can we do? We are helpless! The electrons don't believe in Aristotle." Aristotle has been discarded -- the two-thousand-year-old tradition of logic has become simply irrelevant. Another phenomenon happened after a few years: they came to know that when the electron moves from point A to B, in the middle it disappears. Moving from point A to B,…
There was once a woman who abandoned the religion in which she had been brought up. She left the ranks of the atheists too, and joined another faith. Then she became convinced of the truth of yet another. Each time she changed her beliefs, she imagined that she had gained something, but not quite enough. Each time she entered a new fold she was welcomed, and her recruitment was regarded as a good thing, and a sign of her sanity and enlightenment.
HER INWARD STATE, HOWEVER, WAS ONE OF CONFUSION. AT LENGTH, SHE HEARD OF A CERTAIN CELEBRATED TEACHER, IMAM JAFAR SADIK, AND SHE WENT TO SEE HIM. AFTER HE HAD LISTENED TO HER PROTESTATIONS AND IDEAS, HE SAID, 'RETURN TO YOUR HOME, I SHALL SEND YOU MY DECISION IN A MESSAGE.' SOON AFTERWARDS THE WOMAN FOUND A DISCIPLE OF THE SHEIK AT THE DOOR. IN HIS HAND WAS A PACKET FROM THE MASTER. SHE OPENED IT, AND SAW THAT IT CONTAINED A GLASS BOTTLE, HALF FULL WITH THREE LAYERS OF PACKED SAND -- BLACK, RED AND WHITE -- HELD DOWN BY A WAD OF COTTON. ON THE OUTSIDE WAS WRITTEN: 'REMOVE THE COTTON AND SHAKE THE BOTTLE TO SEE WHAT YOU ARE LIKE.' SHE TOOK THE WADDING OUT AND SHOOK THE SAND IN THE BOTTLE. THE DIFFERENT COLOURED GRAINS OF SAND MIXED TOGETHER, AND ALL THAT SHE WAS LEFT WITH WAS…
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.
Question: THE SUFI ANCIENT, JUNAID, TAUGHT BY DEMONSTRATION, THROUGH A METHOD IN WHICH HE ACTUALLY LIVED THE PART WHICH HE WAS TRYING TO ILLUSTRATE. THIS IS AN EXAMPLE: ONCE HE WAS FOUND BY A NUMBER OF SEEKERS, SITTING SURROUNDED BY EVERY IMAGINABLE LUXURY. THESE PEOPLE LEFT HIS PRESENCE AND SOUGHT THE HOUSE OF A MOST AUSTERE AND ASCETIC HOLY MAN, WHOSE SURROUNDINGS WERE SO PLAIN THAT HE HAD NOTHING BUT A MAT AND A JUG OF WATER. THE SPOKESMAN OF THE SEEKERS SAID, 'YOUR SIMPLE MANNERS AND AUSTERE ENVIRONMENT ARE MUCH MORE TO OUR LIKING THAN THE GARISH AND SHOCKING EXCESSES OF JUNAID, WHO SEEMS TO HAVE TURNED HIS BACK UPON THE PATH OF TRUTH.' THE ASCETIC HEAVED A GREAT SIGH AND STARTED TO WEEP. 'MY DEAR FRIENDS, SHALLOWLY INFECTED BY THE OUTWARD SIGNS WHICH BESET MAN AT EVERY TURN,' HE SAID, 'KNOW THIS, AND CEASE TO BE UNFORTUNATES!