Why does living in the world and yet not being of the world feel impossible?

Osho! To live in the world and yet not be of the world is sannyas. Why does this feel impossible to me?

Prem Chaitanya! It certainly feels impossible, but it isn’t. It only seems so because, until the taste of witnessing arises, whatever we do and wherever we are, we identify with it. That very identification settles on us like dust. Then the mirror of consciousness no longer reflects existence. A Zen saying: cranes and egrets fly over a lake; they have no desire that their reflections form in the water, yet reflections appear. The lake has no desire to reflect them either, yet reflections appear. The cranes and egrets fly on, and the reflections vanish. Such is the state of witnessing: reflections appear and disappear. Ordinarily, we clutch at the reflections. As they begin to fade we cling, we plead with them, “Stop! Stay!” They cannot stop; hence pain, hence sorrow. We cannot let go of the past; we cannot be free of the familiar—that is the hindrance. And upon the…

Osho, how to be free of the world? The world’s fetters are very strong.

A friend of mine became a sannyasin—of the old type. Whenever we meet he says, “I kicked away lakhs.” I asked him, “Years have passed—seems the kick didn’t land right; otherwise why does the memory still linger? If the kick landed, finished—why remember?” And there weren’t any lakhs anyway. I told him, “You yourself, in front of me, used to say how much you had. I know exactly how much you had in your post office savings book.” He looked a bit scared; two or three of his disciples were sitting there. “We’ll talk later,” he said. “Not later—now,” I said. There were no lakhs. He was a homeopathic doctor. Do homeopaths have lakhs? If one had lakhs, would he practice homeopathy! “You used to swat flies in your clinic; I never saw patients—only we friends came to chat. That was it! Tell the exact amount; I know it,” I…

Osho, is it necessary to live a worldly life to attain self-realization?

The world is fire—vast, blazing. All around you are flames. It is necessary to pass through these flames, for each flame carries a lesson, a teaching, and each will make you stronger. By knowing and knowing again, by falling and rising, one day you will recognize that here everything is insubstantial. The day you know this, the flower of supreme renunciation will bloom in your life. I can tell you, “All is insubstantial,” but will it become insubstantial for you just because I said so? Without tasting, it will not. I can tell you, “Neem is bitter,” but if you have not tasted it, will neem be bitter for you? Even if you trust me, somewhere a doubt will slip in: Who knows, perhaps the man is lying? Perhaps he himself was deceived? Perhaps his tongue is odd, and to him it tasted bitter? Apart from one’s own experience, there…

Osho, “A human being can never realize the Divine while living in this world”—this is my statement. Is it true?

Come down and smear yourself with earth; be alive; drop this disease; bring color, laugh out loud, pour out fragrance; when lovers pluck you, count it as good fortune; come into their hands, go with them. O block of ice, cool and resplendent— until you melt and flow, slide down and meet the earth, you will never, as grass-green, express the thrill of the living soil; nor, as her laughter, will you bloom in colored buds and flowers; nor, as the tears of her sorrow, will you gather on the morning lashes of the petals. The concept of sannyas so far has been a dead concept—one of escapism and flight. Its foundation is fear. Run away from wherever there is fear you may get entangled, may fall into mud—run away from there. But by running you become only a coward. The old sannyas, at root, was cowardly. Therefore it could…

Osho, it is not clear to me how the conscious witness can become identified with the inert three gunas!

That is why cars are designed—because we know human nature—so that you use the same foot for the accelerator and the brake. We fear you might try to do both at once. If you could press both together, trouble would arise. So to press the brake, your foot must come off the accelerator. But with the mind we do not manage this. With the mind we try to do both things at once. I asked that friend, “What is the trouble? Why are you restless?” He said, “The cause of my unrest is that my son does not obey me.” Whose son obeys whom? The son is not the cause here. Why do you want him to obey? The son will live his own life. I asked, “Did you obey your father?” Who obeys his father? A son will walk paths the father never walked. He will live in a…