According to Osho, an autobiography is an ego-graphy; once the soul is known the 'I' dissolves, facts lose meaning, and the page becomes blank. The realized cannot compress the living experience into words without falsifying it, nor would telling his story help; instead he speaks only to lead seekers to their own realization, which alone convinces.
He won’t write his life story because awakening erases the ‘me’ and words can’t hold it—better to help you awaken yourself.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, why don’t you write your own experiences—your autobiography?
At the time of Buddha’s death people asked, “When you die, where will you go?” Now what can Buddha say? He says, “I was never anywhere, so where will I go when I die? I have never gone anywhere; I have never been anywhere.” Yet the questioners persist: “Still, tell us something—where will you go?” He is stating the bare fact. Buddhahood means nowhereness. In that state there is no one anywhere, and no question of being or not being. You too, if you become utterly still for a moment, what will remain except breathing? Only breath will remain—what else? Breath remains in a bubble; what else is there? We never consider this; it never occurs to us, because we are never even for those few moments. Sit silently even for two moments, and what will you find in you apart from breath? If there are no thoughts, what remains…
Why do you not write your autobiography?
If you can be quiet and silent, what remains except breathing? Only breathing remains; nothing else. Like the air inside a bubble, breathing remains. If you can be silent at least once for a few moments, then you will realize that when there are not thoughts there is nothing but breathing. The inhaling and exhaling of air is nothing more than the going out and coming in of air in a bubble or a balloon. So Buddha says, "I was only a bubble. Where was I? A bubble has burst and you are asking where it has gone." If someone like Buddha knows that he is like a bubble, how can he write his autobiography or tell about his experience? Whatever he might say will be misunderstood. In Japan there was one saint called Lin Chi. One day Lin Chi ordered the removal of all the idols of Buddha. There…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, SINCE MY CHILDHOOD, I HAVE SEEN YOU AS A BUDDHA, EVEN BEFORE YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT I SAW YOU AS A BUDDHA -- THE SAME SERENITY, THE SAME NATURAL GLOW, THE SAME SPONTANEITY, THE SAME LOVE, THE SAME COMPASSION, THE SAME CAREFREENESS, THE SAME BLISSFULNESS AS IT IS TODAY. I HAVE SEEN MANY OF YOUR PHASES, AND I SAY AGAIN AND AGAIN THAT YOU WERE A BUDDHA BEFORE YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT. THE STORY OF YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT IS A DEVICE FOR US, IS A BEAUTIFUL ASSURANCE FOR US. I AM IMMENSELY GRATEFUL. I FEEL FORTUNATE THAT YOU SHOWERED YOUR LOVE AND COMPASSION ON ME FROM THE BEGINNING. YOU HAVE HELPED ME AT EACH STEP, AT EACH TURNING POINT OF MY LIFE. YOU CHANGED MY LIFE, YOU FILLED MY LIFE WITH LOVE AND JOY, YOU GAVE ME IMMENSE CLARITY, YOU MADE ME FREE. I BOW DOWN TO YOU.
Beloved Osho, I wish your forgiveness for asking you very personal questions. I am only asking because I feel these are the questions which are burning in the hearts of many people. Who are you? Why have you come into the world? What is your work here, and how will your work be accomplished?
You ask and I answer you, but I myself cannot ask any questions. As far as I am concerned there is no answer, and there is no question. I go on living just like the waves in the ocean or just like leaves of the tree or just like clouds in the sky, without any question and without any answer. And the moment I became aware of this whole absurdity of questions, something fell down completely, totally. It was a resurrection. I was reborn, reborn in a cosmic dimension -- not as an I, but as cosmic consciousness itself. In this cosmic dimension, everything is a play. Once you understand -- not only understand but realize that all is a play -- you are at ease completely, absolutely. Then there is no tension. You are relaxed. There is no ego. The ego cannot relax. It lives on tensions, it feeds…
What was that event that made you turn toward the spiritual? What was that miracle?
Yes, it may happen that someone living in an irreligious way may just become tired of it, and his irreligiousness might break down. Then religiousness will not come, but his non-religiousness will simply break. His non-religiousness will shatter and disappear completely. And one day he may suddenly find that he has become naked. The clothes of irreligiousness will have dropped away and to his surprise he will exclaim, "Aha! This is something new! What has happened is a religious experience!" Thus, religious experience is a happening, something that is an unplanned occurrence, not an achievement, not a preplanned, progressively attained accomplishment. No one can reach there step by step as if it were on a ladder. But from living -- and living irreligiously -- that irreligiousness may simply shatter. I say that supreme knowledge cannot be a goal, but the ignorance and false knowledge can disintegrate. And the moment ignorance…