According to Osho, doubt springs from the possessive demand that another be faithful to you. The remedy isn’t policing the other but uprooting the desire to own them: be faithful to yourself and give freedom to your partner. Love means honoring each one’s authenticity. When the expectation of ‘yours’ drops, fear and suspicion lose their fuel, and doubt naturally disappears—change the root, not the symptom.
Stop trying to own someone; be true to yourself and let them be free, and the worried thoughts fade.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, I know for sure that my wife is utterly faithful to me, but still doubt goes on lingering somewhere inside me. What should I do to get rid of the doubt?
IN THE first place, why should you ask that she should be faithful to you? It is from there that doubt arises. The very desire that your wife should be faithful TO YOU is the beginning of doubt. Why? Who are you that she should be faithful to you? She should be faithful to herself, you should be faithful to yourself. That's what love is. If you love the woman, you would like her to be faithful to herself, because you would like her to be authentic. You would like her to be an individual in her own right. Why should you demand that she should be faithful to you? Who are you? -- just a stranger. YOU need not be faithful to her, you have to be faithful to yourself. This is my basic approach; it has to be understood well. Down the ages it has been said: be…
Osho, you say the same thing in countless ways. But when I listen to you, it feels as if I am hearing it for the first time. And I feel so much joy that I don’t feel like going back home. What should I do—what can I do—so that I can just keep listening to you!
You will feel as if you have been made to rise out of season, before time—as if you were not yet to go and yet had to go. And if you go in that way, your home will become even more desolate than before. I do not want to make your home desolate; I want to make your home a temple. I want that when you go home, your home’s new form is revealed. I do not want to tear you away from home, from the world, from family life. That is the newness of my sannyas: I do not want to sever you from the world; I want to join you to the world in such a way that your connection with the world becomes a connection with the Divine. Let the world no longer be a barrier between you and the Divine; let it become a means. If…
Osho, I am a very doubt-ridden person. Is there any way to be free of it?
Mulla said, “Don’t worry. I told them to stand quietly. After all, how long can they stand? The moment they make a peep, they will have broken the rule.” An hour passed. But the thirty-five had been drinking too; they kept standing. Two hours passed; it was nearing midnight. Finally they said, “How long will we stand? This way it’ll be morning.” They knocked. Mulla sent his wife to the door: “Tell them Mulla is not at home.” She went and said, “Mulla is not at home.” They said, “This is too much! We have been standing here for three hours, and we saw him go in before our very eyes. Thirty-five pairs of eyes don’t get deceived. He is inside somewhere. Let us come in; we’ll drag him out.” She said, “He isn’t here. He went out in the morning to buy okra and never returned. I am sitting…
Osho,you are here -- then why do I still go on doubting?
THIS ANECDOTE: Sinclair had been married for ten years and had lived all of them in agony. He was unbelievably jealous of his coquettish wife; for years he had suspected she was having an affair with his business partner. Finally, he could stand the tension no longer and hired a detective to trail her. A few days later, the detective reported to Sinclair. "Well, did you follow them?" "Oh, yes," said the detective. "I have the report here. Last night she left your home about eight thirty, and then she met a man on the corner of Reid Street and Montgomery Place. They strolled around for about fifteen minutes, then they got into a car and went down to Patmore Lane. There they parked for a half hour and he made advances to her to which she ungrudgingly responded. Then they drove to the Franconia Hotel; I checked at the…
Question: First question: Osho, can doubt arise even in faith? Another’s truth can never become your truth—never has, never will. Truth is always one’s own—intimate, self-realized. And when truth is of one’s own experience, what doubt? Santosh, in faith no doubt can arise. Faith comes after killing, crossing, and drinking down all doubts—assimilating them—nothing is left to arise again. But in doubt, faith certainly arises. If you doubt, one day you will reach faith. Do not be in a hurry to believe. Do not be hasty. Do not settle for cheap faith. Do not accept because your father believes. Though a father dearly wishes to have you believe what he believes—for his ego’s satisfaction—do not accept it. Do not accept what your teachers believe—again, for their ego’s satisfaction. Do not accept what your priests, pundits, and politicians believe. All of them want quick assent.