According to Osho, life is a blank page, neither meaningful nor meaningless until you write on it. Meaning arises when you consciously 'write songs': act with awareness, love, and celebration, not escapism or unconscious negativity. Take responsibility for your choices, plant living seeds, and keep creating. If you scribble blindly, you'll harvest weeds; if you create mindfully, life blooms.
Life is like a blank sheet; if it feels empty, start drawing kind, careful pictures on it each day, and meaning will appear.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: Second question: Osho, life seems meaningless. What should I do? Naresh! Life is a blank book, an empty page. An empty page is neither meaningful nor meaningless; it is simply empty. What you choose to write on it determines everything. You can write abuses; you can write songs. Most people write abuses and then weep and repent. A few write songs; they become blissful, they dance, they celebrate. The one who writes abuses, I call a householder; the one who writes songs, I call a sannyasin. I have no other definition of sannyas. I do not call runaways sannyasins. Those who drop everything and set off—I don’t call them sannyasins; I call them escapists. They are timid, fearful, cowardly. A sannyasin, to me, is one who fills the book of life with songs. It is all in your hands.
Osho, what is the meaning of life? Life has no meaning by itself; we have to pour meaning into it. Life is an opportunity; if you infuse it, it becomes meaningful.
Life is like a blank canvas; paint upon it and meaning will appear. The meaning will depend on your skill. If a Picasso paints, it will be worth millions; if you paint, perhaps it won’t fetch millions. There is as much meaning in life as we put into it. Life in itself is empty; life is a bare opportunity. Possibility is all; actuality is nothing. That’s why people so often think: life is futile! What meaning? People come to me asking, “What is the meaning of life?” They are imagining that meaning is some ready‑made thing—lying around somewhere to be handed to you, like predigested food. No; meaning is born of creativity. Compose a few songs; make a sculpture; dance a little. Love a little; meditate a little. Explore; dive into inquiry. And you will find that meaning begins to arrive. And the more multidimensional your being, the more unending…
Life seems to he meaningless. Why?
Have you not heard of the madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place and cried incessantly 'I seek God! I seek God!' As many of those who do not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. 'Why, did he get lost?' said one. 'Is he afraid of us? Is he hiding?' said another. 'Has he lost his way? or gone on voyage? or emigrated?' said the third. Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his glances. 'Whither is God?' he cried. 'I shall tell you. We have killed him -- you and 1. All of us are his murderers. And now we are plunging continuously into nothingness. Do you not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night and more night coming on…
Osho, why do I feel that if life is meaningless and empty? It seems that I am deathly afraid of being alone. How can I go totally into my aloneness with joy instead of fear?
I am not in favor of all these five "existentialists" -- in quotes -- because I am not even ready to call them existentialists. Kierkegaard never really lived, or if you call his life, life, then it was worse than death. He came out of his house only once a month, and the house was not much, just a small room. His father, seeing that his son seemed to be a little crazy -- continuously reading and writing -- tried to read his books, and threw them away because he could not manage to figure out what Kierkegaard wanted to say. And he goes on and on about nothing, much ado about nothing. Kierkegaard never got married. One foolish woman was in love with him... must have been foolish, because he was an ugly man in the first place, and a strange type, eccentric, who lived in the darkness of…
Question: Third question: Osho, why does life seem futile? Life is a blank sheet; you will read what you write on it. You can write abuse on it, you can write songs. And remember, abuse is composed from the same alphabet as songs; the alphabet is neutral, impartial. The paper you write on is neutral, impartial. The pen you write with is neutral, impartial. All the cards are in your hands. You must have lived in a certain way—hence it appears futile. The mistake is in your way of living. Do not abuse life. It’s a great joke: people say, “Life is futile.” They don’t say, “Our way of living is futile!” And your so‑called sadhus, saints, mahatmas also keep telling you—life is futile. I want to tell you something else.