According to Osho, raising both hands engages both brain hemispheres—the right hand linked to the left brain and the left hand to the right brain—so your gesture represents your whole being. A single raised hand expresses only half-hearted assent, shaped by a cultural bias toward the right. He asks for both hands to cultivate totality: wholehearted mind, heart, and body aligning in an authentic, undivided yes.
Using two hands means your whole brain and heart are saying yes, not just one side.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved, it was you who sang whatever songs I wrote. It was you who gave crimson to the sky that day, you mirrored yourself in the dawn, you lent your raga to birdsong, your light to the sun’s rays, your fragrance to the southern breeze, and to the trembling lotus you gave your sweet pollen of delight. The devotee is no more—the Lord himself dances in the devotee. A unique rasa! A festival of joy, a great celebration! Flowers upon flowers bloom; reed upon reed plays; ever-new curtains of mystery rise; lamps flare everywhere. Diwali has come—and Holi too—both at once. Jagjivan beseeches and asks only this: let me never forget. Only one prayer remains: that I never forget, never again fall into oblivion. Mark this—and ask for nothing else. “I know this vision did not come because I was worthy. I am unworthy.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THE RAISED HAND AND "YAA-HOO"? Neelam, you must have seen that today I have raised both my hands, because the German idiots have made a law in Germany that raising one hand is a criminal act. And what about all the dogs? They are not just raising one hand, they are raising one leg all over the Fatherland and pissing! They are the real followers of Adolf Hitler. I had not been aware that Germany will never become intelligent. It is unfortunate that they have banned me from entering Germany; otherwise I would have been in jail by now, another deportation... I have missed a great experience! Because if you have seen a German jail the American jail is nothing you have seen the very hell. But the Germans themselves have prevented me; otherwise I would have raised one hand, without fail!
Beloved Osho, there is a saying, "the hands are the extension of the heart." is that why you cannot talk without your hands? -- a meeting of the verbal with the heart, adding another dimension?
It is true. The people who speak just from the mind will not have any gestures because the hand is not needed. The mind feels that words are complete, that words carry the meaning and there is no other addition needed. But if you speak from the heart then there is a problem. The heart continuously feels that what you are saying is not enough: something has to be added to it to make it complete and entire. And hands are immensely powerful as expressions. They complement the feelings of the heart. I certainly cannot speak if you tie my hands to the chair and I cannot move them. I will not be able to speak. It became very clear for the first time in America... because my hands had never been tied. Only in America they handcuffed me and I suddenly felt that it is not just that my…
What are you doing with your hands? I find myself more emotionally moved by watching them, than by listening to the words you speak.
It is natural, because when I am speaking I am speaking to your heads. Emotion cannot be involved, emotion cannot be there. I am talking to your reason to persuade it. And what am I doing with my hands? When I am talking to your heads I am continuously playing with your hearts also. I have to work on two layers. For your head to be convinced that the time has come to drop itself, to commit suicide, that the time has come for committing a suicide of reason -- I go on talking. But that alone won't be enough. Because if suddenly your head is cut, and the heart has not started functioning, you will be in a very very deep confusion. With my hands I go on working with your heart -- that's why in India we have called gestures, MUDRAS; when a Buddha makes a gesture it…
Osho, Zen masters often ask their disciples, How does one hand clap? We, your new disciples, ask you: How does one hand clap?
It happens every day—and you simply don’t hear it. What you don’t want, that is what I am giving you. What you never asked for, that is what I am distributing to you. The clap is sounding with one hand. Even for what you are not yet ready, I am pouring into you. The clap is indeed with a single hand. Try to understand this a little. Where you don’t wish to go—where you had not even dreamt of going—I am taking you there. The hand from your side that should be there for the clap is missing. My single hand is clapping. And the day your hand appears there, I will withdraw mine. Still, the clap will be of one hand. Then there will be no need of my hand. Then you will have become capable yourself. “One hand clapping” is a symbol—a very deep symbol of the anahat…