According to Osho, we shun the obvious because the mind craves difficulty and conquest; the simple truth of our own being offers nothing to win and heralds the mind’s death. To survive, mind runs outward—to Everest, moon, God, heaven—anywhere but inward silence. Turning into your isness dissolves mind and reveals a lush, musical mystery: freedom, beauty, and the highest truth already here.
We avoid what’s simple—just being ourselves—because the mind loves hard adventures and fears it will vanish if we sit quietly and look inside.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, the path of simplicity is the second one. What is it?
The first path is to try to be simple, to make an effort, to practice it. Cultivated simplicity is always false. Because to practice, by its very meaning, is to practice against your own mind; otherwise, what is the practice against? If being naked is blissful for me, I will not call it practice. If wearing clothes is blissful for me and then I start practicing being naked, will nakedness be a “practice”? And if being naked is simply blissful—if wearing clothes never gave me the joy that comes from being naked—then no one would call it a practice. It is my joy. We practice only that which is contrary to us; practice means repression. Practice is inevitably repression. And wherever effort is required, against whom is that effort made—against oneself? No effort made against oneself can ever win. How could it win? Who would win? How can I win…
Jesus says the kingdom of god is within you... But we are running everywhere else. We are going everywhere else except in. Meditation is simply a strategy to turn your outgoing consciousness into an ingoing consciousness. It is a way of turning in. All my efforts here are to turn you on and to turn you in. [Live in the mind and you inhabit a madhouse Osho told his newest swami.] The mind goes on driving you crazy for the simple reason that it has many contradictory desires. In fact each desire in the mind is always balanced by its opposite. Mind lives in a constant struggle, conflict. For example you want to be with someone, you love someone, and at the same time you want to have your own space, you want to be alone.
Osho, you always praise a simple, innocent consciousness. What is this simplicity, this innocence?
The man said, “Then send me to the Indian one; I don’t want the German.” That difference was enough. The Germans refined it further—they read your scriptures and perfected them. German intellect knows how to refine things, arrange them, run everything by the clock. Even in the ashram I have given the electricity work to Haridas—a German sannyasin. However many times Pune’s electricity fails, the ashram’s does not. Let Pune fail, but not the ashram. Haridas takes great care; he has arranged everything—automatic generators: the moment the power fails, they kick in; you can’t even tell there was a failure. Where has this been learned? This much evil in the world—your saints had already arranged for it in the scriptures. Hell for others, heaven for themselves. These are not marks of simple-hearted people. A simple person—why would he think of hell and heaven? He has no such notions, no such…
The eyes cannot approach it, neither can speech nor mind. We do not, therefore, know it, nor do we know how to teach it. It is different from what is known and it is different from what is unknown. Thus we have heard from our predecessors who instructed us about it. What speech cannot reveal but what reveals speech -- know thou that alone as brahman and not this -- anything objective -- that people worship here. What mind does not comprehend but what comprehends the mind -- know thou that alone as brahman and not this that people worship here.
God is not indubitable. Remember this: God is not indubitable. He can be doubted -- not only doubted, he can be disproved. And really, when someone doubts God you cannot prove his existence. You can only convince those who are already convinced, but you cannot convert a new man; that is impossible. Not a single atheist can be converted because he needs proof and you cannot prove God. God is not indubitable. He can be doubted, rejected. The whole hypothesis can be said to be false. There is no proof that can help. So Descartes goes on discussing, inquiring, and he says that unless he comes to a point, to something in existence that is indubitable.... Not that it can be proved -- no. Rather, it cannot be doubted. And ultimately he comes to the self and says that the self is a greater reality than God. It is, because…
Osho, Master Shuzan raised his short staff and said: If you call it a short staff, you oppose its truth. And if you do not call it a short staff, you deny the fact. Now tell me, what would you like to call it? Osho, kindly explain the intent embedded in this Zen master's riddle.
As human opinion changes, beauty and ugliness change. What is beautiful? What is ugly? There is no definitive yardstick; it depends on your intellect. The intellect lives by comparison, so the very moment you see something you start comparing. This Zen master says to his disciple: do not compare—and without comparison, tell me what this is. He says: if you call it a short staff, you oppose truth—because in truth there is no comparison; comparison is of the mind. As long as mind remains, you will not know truth. Truth is incomparable. It is neither beautiful nor ugly; neither auspicious nor inauspicious; neither good nor bad. There is no division—there is only “is-ness.” Will you call this entire existence beautiful or ugly? Good or bad? People have called it one thing or another: the theist says “absolutely good—God created it.” The atheist says, “How can it be good with so…