According to Osho, scriptural knowledge is borrowed memory, not living knowing. Words are mere pointers; clinging to them breeds belief, imitation and pride, not realization. Even his words must be dropped. Truth flowers only through one’s own direct experience—your eyes, your wings. Trust may inspire the journey, but only self-experience liberates; otherwise the blind lead the blind and books replace being.
Don’t rely on books or anyone’s words—even Osho’s—because only your own lived experience can show you what’s true.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, why do you liken devotion to love? Is there no other apt analogy?
I know why this question has arisen in you. For centuries your so‑called religious people have condemned love—called it base, impure, a sin. Hence you feel, “Wouldn’t some other analogy be better?” Somewhere within you there is condemnation of love—rejection, fear. I understand you—and I understand your so‑called saints as well. But the one who fears love has not understood love; the fear has arisen out of ignorance. The one who is afraid of the courtyard has not understood it. The courtyard had walls—and it had the sky; he focused on the walls and forgot the sky. I want you to focus on the sky and forget the walls. The walls are there and will remain. Man is encased in the wall of body; as long as you have a body, there will be walls. How will they disappear? You cannot get rid of even your own wall—how will you…
Why, Osho, isn't knowledge of the scriptures helpful in finding the truth?
Maneeshi, KNOWLEDGE IS NOT YOURS, THAT'S WHY. It is borrowed. And can you borrow truth? Truth is untransferable; nobody can give it to you. Not even an alive Master can transmit it to you. You can learn, but it cannot be taught. So what to say about dead scriptures, howsoever holy they may be? They must have come from some original source; some Master, someone awakened must have been at the very source of them -- but now they are only words. They are only words about truth, information about truth. To be with Krishna is a totally different matter from reading the Bhagavad Gita. To be with Mohammed, attuned, in deep harmony, overlapping with his being, allowing his being to stir and move your heart, is one thing. And just to read the Koran is a far, faraway cry; it is an echo in the mountains. It is not…
Osho, you say the same thing in countless ways. But when I listen to you, it feels as if I am hearing it for the first time. And I feel so much joy that I don’t feel like going back home. What should I do—what can I do—so that I can just keep listening to you!
You will feel as if you have been made to rise out of season, before time—as if you were not yet to go and yet had to go. And if you go in that way, your home will become even more desolate than before. I do not want to make your home desolate; I want to make your home a temple. I want that when you go home, your home’s new form is revealed. I do not want to tear you away from home, from the world, from family life. That is the newness of my sannyas: I do not want to sever you from the world; I want to join you to the world in such a way that your connection with the world becomes a connection with the Divine. Let the world no longer be a barrier between you and the Divine; let it become a means. If…
Osho, how can one be free of scriptures and doctrines? They have such a grip that no way to be free seems visible.
Scriptures are not to be discarded. Where have I discarded them? Has anyone given as much respect to scriptures as I have? So how can I tell you to drop them? I am saying something else. I am saying that nothing of your purpose will be fulfilled by scriptures until your own samadhi happens. To give value to samadhi I say, “Drop scriptures,” otherwise you will cling to scripture and go on missing samadhi. I have heard: A young man went to America’s great millionaire, Morgan, and said, I have written this book. It is so astounding that millions of copies will sell and millions will benefit. Please publish it. Morgan asked—without even taking the book in his hand—What is the name of this book? The young man said: Its name is “A Hundred Ways to Make Money.” Morgan looked him up and down—shabby condition. He asked: How did you…
Osho, if reading and listening do not bring knowledge, then what is the need for reading and listening? And besides, you yourself have been reading and listening for so long! What is the difference there?
Yes. In truth, life is woven of great opposites. And it is true that by reading and understanding, by listening, knowledge does not simply arrive. If the awareness remains alive in you that reading and listening alone do not bring knowledge, then reading and listening can become a means to invite knowledge within—provided that awareness stays clear that by these alone knowledge does not come. But if the notion takes hold that reading and listening themselves give knowledge, then knowledge will never dawn in you. Reading will not be a means; it will become a hindrance. Now, on the surface these things look reversed. If it is firmly clear to you what reading can and cannot give, you can even gain something through reading—because then you won’t cling to the reading. It is already clear to you that nothing final is obtained by reading. Then you won’t clutch at listening…