According to Osho, Sahjobai stresses inwardness because in authentic bhakti there is no opposition between love and meditation: perfected love ripens into dispassion (vitaraga), surrender dissolves the outward ego revealing pure inward being, and worship of the outer guru is only a ladder to the inner guru. Love and meditation are different vehicles to the same destination; at the end, both are identical to inner awakening.
Real love and devotion make you drop your ego and turn inside, and the outer guru simply points you to the guru within.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, Sahjobai’s path is love, devotion, surrender, and worship of the guru. Then why does she begin to emphasize inwardness, the inner journey, and dispassion?
The guru is outside. But the outer guru is merely a ladder leading to the inner guru. When you lay yourself completely at the feet of the outer guru, open your eyes and you will find that the outer guru has bid you farewell. It was your outward mode of seeing that made the guru appear outside. Suddenly you find this music is resounding within. This is no one outside—someone within is speaking. I have heard: a fakir came to a mosque. Perhaps he was a little late; people were already dispersing. He said, “Brothers, the congregation is breaking up so quickly. Why such haste? Pray more slowly, more gently.” One man said, “You don’t blame yourself for coming late, and you blame the congregation. The Prophet has completed the prayer.” This is a story from Muhammad’s time. “The Prophet has completed the prayer. Now what is there to do,…
Osho, you have titled this series of talks “Sahaj Yoga.” Do “sahaj” and “yoga” not seem mutually opposed?
Anand Maitreya! They don’t just seem opposed, they are opposed. But no ultimate truth of life can manifest without contradiction. Life is made of opposites—darkness and light, day and night, woman and man, negative electricity and positive electricity, birth and death. The very structure of life is woven of opposites. Hence the opposites are not only opposed; they are complementary to each other. If you have labored hard all day, you will be able to sleep deeply. Labor and rest are opposites, yet only the one who has worked can rest deeply—and the one who has not worked cannot. So the opposites are not only opposed, they complete each other. And only the one who has rested deeply at night can rise in the morning and engage in work again. One who has not rested through the night will not be able to work in the morning. Look closely at…
Osho, it seems that in bhakti the guru is held supreme. Does love most of all need the support of the other, of one who is higher?
Even in searching, the cure for the heart’s pain is not found, Though spring arrives, the lotus of the heart does not bloom. Then, coming to someone, the lotus of the heart opens—that is the guru. In whose presence the lotus of your heart opens; one who is like the sun for you, at whose touch your petals open at once. All night long the lotus remains closed; at dawn the sun rises, and it opens. In the world you wander and wander—that is the night, the dark night. Even in searching, the cure for the heart’s pain is not found, Though spring arrives, the lotus of the heart does not bloom. Many times small lamps are lit, stars twinkle, yet the lotus will not open. In whose presence the petals suddenly open—in whose presence you suddenly find you are no longer a bud, you are a flower—you have come…
Osho, to cross the ocean of becoming and dissolve into the Supreme Self, which should one rely on—insensate devotion, foolish devotion, or blind devotion?
So drop this worry—whether insensate devotion, foolish devotion, blind devotion, or deranged devotion. Drop it; devotion is enough. And in devotion all these labels will take care of themselves. Become a devotee once, and “blind” you will automatically be—meaning: the whole world will call you blind. You will not become blind; rather, you will gain eyes. You will begin to see what ordinary eyes cannot see. The invisible will become visible; the imperceptible will come within perception. That which no one has ever touched will be felt as touch. But the world will call you blind. The world will not be able to accept it—because the world is blind, and the blind call you blind. H. G. Wells has a story: somewhere in Mexico there is a valley where children go blind within three months of birth. The story is based on fact. The climate, the food—something there ruins the…
Osho, you call sannyas, meditation, and love a leap. What do you mean by a leap?
Narendra! Whatever is essential in life—be it meditation, love, or sannyas—does not come the way mathematics does. It has no method, no staircase. There is no sequential movement in it. It is an explosion. Everything happens in a single instant. It is not a conclusion of thought; it is a condition of the heart, a state of feeling. Suddenly! When you light a lamp, darkness doesn’t go away gradually—first a little, then a little more. Here the lamp is lit, and there the darkness is gone—in one moment, at once. I call the lighting of the lamp and the vanishing of the darkness a leap. If it left little by little, in sequence, in measurable increments, then it would be a process. So too with sannyas: it is not a process. In a moment of awakening, the futility of life is seen. It is seen with such intensity that nothing…