According to Osho, man lost the capacity for sublimation because modern civilization massively represses natural energies—especially sex—to fuel armies, discipline, and productivity. In Patanjali’s simple, childlike era energy flowed innocently; now repression closes natural doors and forces energy into anger, violence, and perversion. With societies mutually threatened, they cannot allow free love; thus energy cannot rise organically into higher creativity, meditation, or compassion.
We pushed down our natural feelings so hard that they turned into anger and trouble instead of quietly changing into love and creativity.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why has man lost the capacity of sublimation since patanjali's time?
In Patanjali's days people were simple, natural. No need for catharsis; nothing was repressed. There was no need to go into catharsis. But now everybody is repressed. And everybody is repressed in so many ways that years of catharsis will be needed: only then you become natural again. You have collected so much garbage in the unconscious, it has to be thrown out. Right now you cannot move on the path -- first you have to unload yourself. You must understand society has its own needs, every nation has Its own needs. They are not necessarily the needs of the individuals. this is the problem. The individual's need is to be happy, to be blissful -- to delight in this small life that has been given to you. That is the individual need, but that is not the social need. Society doesn't bother whether you are happy or unhappy: the…
Osho, human beings either go to the excess of sexual indulgence or to the opposite extreme of the frustration born of sexual repression. What is Sahaj Yoga’s vision on this subject—please be kind enough to explain it to us.
The Taj Mahal is the imagination of Sufi fakirs. An emperor had it built, but the conception was given by Sufis. Those who built it were Sufi fakirs too. That’s why, if you sit silently and look at the Taj on a full-moon night for an hour or two, an unparalleled meditation descends. The signatures of Sufis are upon it. Its very form is such that it dissolves you into meditation. Millions of statues of Buddha were made—who made them? Not shopkeepers. Not mere technicians either. Such images of Buddha were made that if you just sit by them—stone, yes, but they poured so much into the stone; gave it such a form, such a hue, such a feeling—that even sitting near the stone something within you becomes still. In China there is a temple—the Temple of Ten Thousand Buddhas. It took centuries. Monks kept making, kept making, kept making.…
Osho, what do those people mean who say that, so that there is no explosion, one should search within with a subtle, refined vision...
But the effortless awakening I speak of—once it arrives, there is no question of its departure, because you did not bring it; it came. Gradually you and awakening are not two; you are the awakening. You did not make even anger “the other,” so how would awakening be “other”? It becomes you. There is no question of its return. Whatever we have truly known cannot be unknown. You cannot undo knowing. Yes, what we have merely learned by rote can wobble. But what is known—like a child who comes to know love; once he knows, he cannot un‑know it. Knowing becomes part of you; it cannot fall away. Reading four books about love is different; that can be forgotten. Through the experiment of awakening, whatever happens in us reveals itself gradually. Awakening is not something that comes from outside; it is your inner being uncovering itself. If it were an…
A friend asked me this afternoon: Osho, unless we suppress our vices, we cannot rise above the animal. We will become animals. If we follow what you say and do not suppress our mind—do not repress our anger, do not repress our sex—then we will become animals.
But I want to tell you: as man is today, animals are better than him. It hurts to know this; it hurts me too. But animals are far better than man—in a thousand ways. What has happened to man is astonishing. Animals do not seem so anxious, nor so miserable. Have you ever heard of an animal or a bird committing suicide? You haven’t. I don’t think such a thing has yet occurred. If it ever does, every newspaper in the world will carry it in big letters on the front page: A dog has committed suicide. So far it has not happened. Only man takes his own life. What does this mean? Man’s life has reached such a condition that man himself wants to end it. Has it become so bad that we ourselves finish it? So meaningless? So filled with sorrow and pain? Yet this is what has…
In a crowd, in a group, a man finds the opportunity to throw off his adopted garb of humanity and to forget himself. In a crowd, he develops the courage to forget himself, to forget the real identity he has been restraining. The animal is released. As an individual, no man has committed as many sins as he has in a crowd. A solitary man is a bit afraid someone may recognize him; he worries about what he is wearing. A solitary man will think first about what he is going to do; he is afraid others may call him an animal. But in the midst of a big crowd of people a man loses his identity; he is not worried about being spotted at all. Then he is part and parcel of the mass; then he does what the people around him are doing. And what does he do?