According to Osho, bad habits persist because judging and prohibiting them forges a powerful relationship of resistance and rebellious freedom. Labeling them “bad” feeds the ego’s urge to defy others, giving the habit roots. Instead, drop judgment and bring alert, meditative awareness to the act; enjoyed consciously, its borrowed power fades and the unnecessary habit naturally falls away.
We keep doing ‘bad’ things because calling them bad makes us want to rebel; calmly watch them without fighting, and they lose their grip.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why is it that the habits I judge bad for me -- smoking, overeating etc, are the most persistent?
That will be. If you judge them bad they will be persistent because you are creating a relationship with them. To call anything bad is to create a relationship with it. And whenever you call a thing bad, why do you call it bad? You call it bad because it defeats you. It is powerful. You call it bad because you are impotent before it; and by name-calling nobody is helped. So the first thing to do is: stop judging! If you want to smoke -- smoke! Smoke meditatively, forget what others say about it. Smoking can be such a beautiful meditation. Don't fight with it, smoke meditatively, create perfect rings, and enjoy the whole thing. And suddenly one day you will find the need has disappeared. The whole thing looks so foolish. Not that you judge, because when you judge then it is either good or bad. When you…
Question: Second question: Osho, can lifelong habits be dropped easily? First, be sure what your ‘habit’ is. Ninety-nine out of a hundred are utterly harmless. Needlessly the sadhus and mahatmas make a fuss about them. Someone drinks tea and thinks he’s committing a great sin. What sin? You sip your tea—who is harmed? Tea is thoroughly vegetarian. No harm at all. A little nicotine—no sin in that either. It warms the body a bit, gives a little zest—nothing wrong; a bit of zest is good, it helps you engage in work. But no! In Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram, tea was sin—except for one person: Rajaji alone had the right to tea, being the in-law. Rules cannot apply to the in-law; one must keep in-lawly courtesy—so he had an exemption. For the rest, tea was sin. Once a young man was caught making tea in secret. A scandal in the ashram.
Osho, I keep turning back to look at the past. It’s futile, yet the habit doesn’t drop. What could be the reason?
Even to a dry tree the vine clings. Support! No other support seems visible. Ahead, only darkness; within, only darkness. The one bright thing seems to be the line of the past along which you have come—this path that is over, that will never be again, that has already happened. You sit arranging these preserved blossoms, these dried flowers. You cling to them. The creeper has twined round a lifeless tree— how much the past coddles the unborn It’s all dead, a corpse. Sometimes it happens: a she-monkey goes on carrying her baby pressed to her chest. Even when the baby dies, she keeps carrying it. It takes days—only when it rots and starts to stink does she drop it in a fright. Otherwise she goes on clutching the corpse—old habit. The past is a corpse—gone, done. Dust. Ash; the ember is out. Don’t keep lying on this ash, don’t…
Osho, yesterday you told the story of Saint Peter and the three women. Please tell us what happened after that?
Saint Maharaj! Do use a little of your own intelligence. No story is ever told in full, because some trust must also be placed in your imagination—that you, too, can think a bit. You could have figured out for yourself what would happen next. The matter was so clear. My friend, what else could happen! What had to happen is exactly what happened. Saint Peter had barely dealt with those three women when three goddesses arrived. One had a white mouth-cloth tied over her face—she was a Jain nun. The second was a beautiful French model, and the third a Rajneesh sannyasin. Saint Peter first pointed toward the part below the French girl’s waist and asked, “What did you use this for?” Preening, the beauty replied, “I used it to revel with my eight wedded husbands and about a hundred and fifty lovers. I also used it to earn money…
Osho, the samskaras of the previous life become habits in this one. The habits of this life will again become samskaras in the next. Then where is the end?
Yes, preserving yourself, you can play as many games as you like. When the Divine himself is at play, why should you be troubled? But God is the master; and when you too become master of your habits and samskaras, then in your small world you too become divine. Buddha called this “awareness”: do everything, but do it consciously. Even to lift a foot, lift it with awareness. Getting up, sitting down, lying down—with awareness. Do not do anything in a stupor. If you go on cultivating awareness, habits will still form and you will use them, but behind the habit a current of awareness will be flowing. The lamp of consciousness will be burning. That too will be taking shape, its intensity increasing, its light deepening. If in life there remain only habits and more habits, the soul is lost. Be there behind the habits as well—separate, distinct. And…