Like strong medicine, we take a small daily dose of a powerful teacher’s presence so we can actually digest it.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
If satsang, being in the presence of an enlightened being, one who is now liberated, is so important, why do we only spend an hour and a half a day with each other?
More will be too much for you; it will create indigestion. You will not be able to absorb me more than that. I can be with you for twenty-four hours, but you cannot be. You need homeopathic doses.
Yes, there will be a few people who will have to follow the door of truth, which is a desert path, but for a few people the desert is beautiful; it also has its own beauty. It depends on the person and his inner structure. Bet out of one hundred sannyasins ninety will find the door of beauty the closest to their heart. Satsang is a very specific word. It is almost impossible to translate it, but the flavour can be transmitted. Satsang means the miracle that transpires between the disciple and the master. Something does transpire; what it is exactly is indefinable. The disciple sits in silence with the master and the master is already absolutely silent; the master has nothing to say because the truth cannot be uttered, and the disciple has nothing to ask because whatsoever can be asked cannot be significant.
A friend has asked: Osho, what is the difference between sin and virtue? And as long as the mind is filled with sin, how can there be faith, devotion, feeling? How will prayer happen while the mind is full of sin? So first let the mind be filled with virtue; then prayer will happen!
It sounds right. It seems reasonable. Yet it is not right—and it is full of unawareness. It sounds right to say, “As long as the mind is full of sin, how can there be prayer!” But that is like a physician saying, “As long as you are sick, how can I give you medicine! First get well and healthy, and then take the medicine.” But once you are well, why would you need medicine? If you decide to pray only after you’ve dropped all sin, you will never get the chance to pray. As long as there is sin, you won’t pray. And when there is no sin left, why pray? What would be the meaning of prayer then? Prayer is the medicine. Therefore, one has to pray while still a sinner. And another thing: how will sin go? It cannot go without prayer. Those who try to remove sin…
Osho, what is the definition of God?
Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…
Osho, the other day while listening to your discourse, a strange kind of vibration arose in the heart and along the auditory nerves; since then even ordinary sounds set off odd ripples and waves of bliss. Please tell me: is there something in the voice of enlightened ones that produces a special effect? Also, in your presence there is a particular, delightful fragrance; at times it is felt in the ashram and sometimes during meditation as well. In this regard, please say whether certain moments in time have their own special fragrance too.
I speak with the same purpose with which a musician plays the vina. He does not play to explain anything. Remember me as a vina player. My speaking is my vina. What I am saying to you—less am I speaking, more am I singing. If you understand its purpose, that is enough: listening to this instrument—as one sometimes, listening to a vina, falls into a trance—one begins to sway; something within begins to vibrate; something like a stone inside begins to melt and flow. For a moment a window, an opening, is there—sky is glimpsed. Like a flash of lightning—the darkness is gone—even if only for a moment; but then you know that light is, and you also know there is a path. It was revealed for a moment in the lightning’s flare, but revealed it was. Now no one can tell you there is no path; no one can…