According to Osho, after the sense of doership drops, a sannyasin should not seek prescribed actions; instead let witnessing awaken and allow action to arise spontaneously from clarity. Trust your inner seeing rather than borrowed rules; be your own master. From the light of awareness, what is appropriate becomes evident in each situation, so you respond freshly to circumstances without new crutches.
When you stop thinking “I’m doing,” just stay aware like someone with open eyes—then you naturally see what to do without asking anyone.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, you said... then you will find that the devotee is God. The question arises: if one devotee prefers to be God and another wants to remain only a devotee, then which of the two is superior?
The one who wants to be God will not be able to be. And the one who wants to remain a devotee will become God. The question of superior or inferior does not arise, because only one of the two will happen. The one who does not want to be will be. The one who wants to be will be deprived. That very wanting is of the ego. But the matter is a little delicate. Sometimes humility too belongs to the ego. Beware that your humility may not be of the ego. Perhaps you are saying, “No, I don’t want to be,” because you know that those who refuse are the ones who attain. Then you are clever. Then your humility is adulterous. Your humility is not pure, not sacred, not virginal—it is like a prostitute. The one who wants to be God, whose ego says, “I must become God,”…
Osho, I am unfamiliar with light; I know only darkness. And the web of hypocrisies spun in the name of light also frightens me. Give me a path, give me vision, give me light!
Sannyas means: to live in the world with awareness. Not to escape, but to awaken. Sannyas means: to live in the state of witnessing. To take life as a vast stage of play-acting—a drama in which you are performing a role. Do not identify with the role. If in the Ramleela you play Rama, do not bring the bow and arrows home! Your wife may plead, “Now put the bow down,” and you insist, “How can I? I am Rama!” Then you will have to be taken to the asylum. It happens—often. People identify with their roles. I used to stay as a guest in a Calcutta home—the home of a High Court judge. His wife said to me, “My husband respects you so much that if you tell him something he might listen; he listens to no one else!” I asked, “What’s the trouble?” She said, “It’s serious. He…
Osho, I have taken great pains in pursuit of Your devotion; every joy of mine has been erased in pursuit of Your every joy. How far and wide I have wandered for Your worship! Now please have the compassion to tell me what I should do next.
Poems can be beautiful; that does not make them true. Truth is certainly beautiful; but not everything beautiful is true. Truth is supremely beautiful. But don’t take something to be true just because it is beautiful. For you deem all kinds of things beautiful! You take even a body of bone, flesh, and marrow to be beautiful—which is utterly untrue. You take a rainbow in the sky to be beautiful—which in fact isn’t there. You take the dreams of night to be beautiful—and a thousand times you have awakened to find them false! There is not much truth in your sense of beauty; there cannot be—unless truth has blossomed within you. You did choose a beautiful verse. It isn’t even yours—borrowed as well. “My every joy has been wiped out in pursuit of Your every joy.” No, God asks no sacrifice of you. And those who taught you that God…
Osho, the play-acting I have to do for security—should I keep doing it or drop it? And now even the acting itself seems to be abandoning me. Please guide me to the right path.
The whole of life is a play—of relationships, of the marketplace, of the household. Life is acting. Where will you leave it and go? Where can you run? Wherever you go, there again you will have to enact some drama. So I am not in favor of escapism. Become a skillful actor. Do not run away. Act knowingly, not in unconsciousness; act with awareness. Awareness has to be cultivated. A thousand tasks will have to be done—and perhaps they are necessary. But doing them with awareness is essential. Slowly you will find that life is no longer “life” as you knew it; it has become sheer play, and you have become an actor. To be an actor means that there is a great distance between you and what you do. For example, someone who plays Rama in the Ramleela performs the role completely—perhaps better than Rama himself, because Rama never…
Osho, you said, “Don’t get into any bondage; become quiet and happy.” Then isn’t sannyas also a bondage? And aren’t methods, techniques, and processes bondages too? Please explain!
A true knower is neither a renunciate nor an enjoyer. He knows only this much: I am just the witness. Then whether the money is in another’s pocket or your own—what difference does it make? He is the witness. If there is wealth, he is a witness; if not, he is a witness. If poor, witness; if rich, witness. Witnessing is not altered by poverty or wealth. Do you think a beggar’s witnessing will be a little less, and a king’s a little more? Does witnessing come in degrees? Whether one is poor or rich, healthy or ill, educated or uneducated, beautiful or ugly, famed or infamous—it makes no difference. Witnessing is a treasure equal in all; there is no more or less in it. We can be witnesses in every situation—of success and failure, of honor and insult. Be a witness—that is all Ashtavakra says. But if you find…