According to Osho, awakened people avoid autobiographies because all such stories are ego-biographies; after self-knowledge the 'person' dissolves, dates and events feel dreamlike and meaningless, and the essential truth is ineffable. What can be written trivializes it; what matters cannot be said. Hence masters point to the path through living teaching, not personal narratives.
When you truly know yourself, the 'me' story fades and words can’t hold it, so there’s nothing real to write.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why do you not write your autobiography?
If you can be quiet and silent, what remains except breathing? Only breathing remains; nothing else. Like the air inside a bubble, breathing remains. If you can be silent at least once for a few moments, then you will realize that when there are not thoughts there is nothing but breathing. The inhaling and exhaling of air is nothing more than the going out and coming in of air in a bubble or a balloon. So Buddha says, "I was only a bubble. Where was I? A bubble has burst and you are asking where it has gone." If someone like Buddha knows that he is like a bubble, how can he write his autobiography or tell about his experience? Whatever he might say will be misunderstood. In Japan there was one saint called Lin Chi. One day Lin Chi ordered the removal of all the idols of Buddha. There…
Osho, why don’t you write your own experiences—your autobiography?
At the time of Buddha’s death people asked, “When you die, where will you go?” Now what can Buddha say? He says, “I was never anywhere, so where will I go when I die? I have never gone anywhere; I have never been anywhere.” Yet the questioners persist: “Still, tell us something—where will you go?” He is stating the bare fact. Buddhahood means nowhereness. In that state there is no one anywhere, and no question of being or not being. You too, if you become utterly still for a moment, what will remain except breathing? Only breath will remain—what else? Breath remains in a bubble; what else is there? We never consider this; it never occurs to us, because we are never even for those few moments. Sit silently even for two moments, and what will you find in you apart from breath? If there are no thoughts, what remains…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, SINCE MY CHILDHOOD, I HAVE SEEN YOU AS A BUDDHA, EVEN BEFORE YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT I SAW YOU AS A BUDDHA -- THE SAME SERENITY, THE SAME NATURAL GLOW, THE SAME SPONTANEITY, THE SAME LOVE, THE SAME COMPASSION, THE SAME CAREFREENESS, THE SAME BLISSFULNESS AS IT IS TODAY. I HAVE SEEN MANY OF YOUR PHASES, AND I SAY AGAIN AND AGAIN THAT YOU WERE A BUDDHA BEFORE YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT. THE STORY OF YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT IS A DEVICE FOR US, IS A BEAUTIFUL ASSURANCE FOR US. I AM IMMENSELY GRATEFUL. I FEEL FORTUNATE THAT YOU SHOWERED YOUR LOVE AND COMPASSION ON ME FROM THE BEGINNING. YOU HAVE HELPED ME AT EACH STEP, AT EACH TURNING POINT OF MY LIFE. YOU CHANGED MY LIFE, YOU FILLED MY LIFE WITH LOVE AND JOY, YOU GAVE ME IMMENSE CLARITY, YOU MADE ME FREE. I BOW DOWN TO YOU.
Question: The first question: Osho! About thirty years ago in Jabalpur, when a pandit was disputing topics like moksha, Daddaji said, “You may know the scriptures and doctrines; I only know that this is my last birth.” On another occasion, he went to Kashi on work and attended a muni’s satsang. Finding Daddaji a stranger, after the discourse the muni asked, “I haven’t seen you here before!” He said, “Yes, I am not from here.” He asked, “Where have you come from, and where will you go from here?” He said, “I have come from Nigod and I will go to moksha.” Five years ago, when he had a heart attack, seeing Mother anxious he said, “Do not worry. I still have five years of life left.” Osho, please shed compassionate light on the mystery behind these proclamations of his.
What was that event that made you turn toward the spiritual? What was that miracle?
Yes, it may happen that someone living in an irreligious way may just become tired of it, and his irreligiousness might break down. Then religiousness will not come, but his non-religiousness will simply break. His non-religiousness will shatter and disappear completely. And one day he may suddenly find that he has become naked. The clothes of irreligiousness will have dropped away and to his surprise he will exclaim, "Aha! This is something new! What has happened is a religious experience!" Thus, religious experience is a happening, something that is an unplanned occurrence, not an achievement, not a preplanned, progressively attained accomplishment. No one can reach there step by step as if it were on a ladder. But from living -- and living irreligiously -- that irreligiousness may simply shatter. I say that supreme knowledge cannot be a goal, but the ignorance and false knowledge can disintegrate. And the moment ignorance…