According to Osho, sensitivity isn’t a flaw but your original nature—every child is born utterly sensitive. Society tries to thicken skins for soldiers, laborers, and intellectuals, numbing the heart. If you feel sensitive, rejoice: it springs from your very being and is a religious quality. Nurture it through lovingness, nourishing company, and attunement to life’s subtle nuances, rather than seeking external causes.
You were born with a gentle, feeling heart; the world tries to harden it, but your sensitivity is natural and good.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, why do I get so sensitive? Where does it come from and is it possible to share sensitivity?
And President Truman said, "Of course! I slept as deeply as possible for the first time in a few months. The work is done perfectly. Now Japan is bound to surrender. When I received the news, I was so contented that for once I slept the whole night without even waking up." These are the insensitive people -- and his name is "True Man!" Since that day I have started calling him President Untrueman. But from the very childhood, the head is trained and the heart is left absolutely untrained. Ernie was talking to Ronnie, the little boy from next door. "How old are you?" asked Ernie. "I don't know," replied little Ronnie. "Do women bother you?" inquired Ernie. "No," said Ronnie. "Then," said Ernie knowingly, "You are four." Prem Anugita, my final suggestion to you is, keep climbing upwards. You may never reach the top, but it is definitely…
What are the reasons for man's insensitivities and how to remove them?
That is why insensitivity sets in. It helps you to be in this ugly world without being disturbed; but there is a cost -- and the cost is very much. You are at ease in this world without being disturbed, but then you cannot enter into the divine, into the total, into the whole. You cannot enter the other world. If for this world insensitivity is good and for that world sensitivity is good, that creates the problem. If you are really interested in entering that world, you will have to create sensitivity, you will have to throw away all these walls, these securities. Of course, you will become vulnerable. You will feel much suffering, but that suffering is nothing in comparison to the bliss you can reach through sensitivity. The more sensitive you become, the more you will feel compassion. But you will suffer because all around you there…
You said that to be sensitive is to be religious. But it seems that sensitivity leads me to sensuality and indulgence. What is the way for me?
Then indulge! Then be sensual! Why are you so afraid of life? Why do you want to commit suicide? What is wrong with indulgence and what is wrong with being sensual? You have been taught so, and this is what I am saying. Then you become afraid of being sensitive because if you are sensitive, then everything will grow with sensitivity. Sensuality will grow -- it is beautiful, nothing is wrong with being sensual. An alive man will be sensual. What is the difference between a dead man and an alive man? The dead man is no longer sensual; you touch and he doesn't feel, you kiss and he doesn't respond. I have heard one anecdote about Picasso. A lady was appreciating Picasso's pictures and she said, 'Yesterday I went to a friend's house and there I saw your self portrait. And I loved it so much, and I was…
Osho, meditation increases sensitivity. But as sensitivity grows, living seems to become more difficult—because the mind’s reactions become sharp and intense, and it feels as if one’s whole life is at stake at every small turn. In such a state, how can one find and hold the point of balance?
Certainly: as meditation deepens, sensitivity will also deepen. And with heightened sensitivity, problems grow too. Sensitivity means you will experience everything—every event—in its full velocity, with full intensity. If someone insults you, the way that hurt reverberates inside a meditator will not be the same for a non-meditator. If a thorn pricks, the meditator’s awareness of that sting will be much clearer than that of the non-meditator—because the non-meditator lives in a kind of stupor, a haze of unawareness. The duller the awareness, the less the pain is consciously felt. Perhaps that is exactly why we reduce our awareness—so we can feel less pain. Ask a psychologist and he will say: every child learns early how to numb their awareness. All children are born sensitive. Then they begin to kill their sensitivity—because living with raw sensitivity is very difficult. A certain blunting of feeling becomes “necessary.” That is why, at…
Beloved Osho, with meditation sensitivity increases, making life more difficult because one's reactions are so sharp and intense, and at every step it feels as though one's very life is at stake. How to attain the golden mean, the balance point, in this situation?
A very rich industrialist in Japan has erected a statue of himself outside his office. A very clever man! His psychologists counselled him to keep a statue of himself opposite his office. In his factory there are some ten thousand employees, and it has been announced to them that they should all feel free to maltreat the statue any way they choose! And it is an easy matter for anyone -- especially an employee -- to get angry. He does not need a reason. To have to serve someone else, to be someone's paid slave, is enough in itself to provoke anger. The workers, and even sometimes the managers, habitually abuse and mistreat the statue before they enter the factory, and this has had important results. What it has done is to create a psychological equality between the owner and his employees. We all behave like this. Even today we…