According to Osho, naming names fractures unity because it fixes attention on personalities and differences, while at the root ‘their consciousness is exactly the same.’ Labels belong to the mind and breed camps, comparison and conflict. By dropping names and seeing the shared consciousness, we dissolve divisions, honor the essence, and remain aligned with oneness rather than egos.
Names make us pick sides and forget we share the same inner awareness, so skip labels to stay together.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why?
Here, merely taking someone’s name becomes a troublesome affair. If I so much as mention a name, you’ll at once land in difficulty. And then I am continually having to deal with your difficulties... If you are prepared for your own difficulties, I could give examples beyond counting. But that would only stir up quarrels; there’s no point in that. You understand, don’t you? And then, what you have to struggle against is Indian society itself—and its entire tradition. You don’t have to fight the Western tradition. Another advantage is this: when I give an example from the West or from abroad, for you it remains just an example in thought; you have no connection with the context surrounding that example. If I take Gurdjieff’s name, your connection is only with the point I have just made; beyond that you have no idea what Gurdjieff is or is not. But…
Osho, why has this silent experience of the Nameless been given dualistic names like Heaven and Earth, or consciousness and matter? Why has nonduality not been expressed?
Expression can only be of duality; nonduality remains inexpressible. So, at the most, in speaking, what can be done is two—in speech. The nearest to truth that speech can come is two—in speech. Outside speaking, only one remains. But language cannot say anything without breaking it into two. If Lao Tzu is speaking, writing, he is committing the minimum mistake possible. Nothing more accurate can be done with words. And even if we want to deny this, we will still have to use words. Then we say “nondual”—not two. Yet to say “not two” we still use the two. Even to say “not,” one has to say it. The two will follow us. As long as we make the effort to speak, the two will follow us. Leave speaking, and the one remains. You may say, “Why don’t we just say ‘one’?” But we don’t notice what happens. The moment…
Question: OSHO, HOW DO YOU ALWAYS FIND NEW NAMES TO GIVE TO YOUR SANNYASINS? Hence I change the name -- to give you a break, to give you the idea that name is just a given thing. Your old name disappears, a new name becomes your reality, but now you will not get so much identified because you are now more mature. The first name was given when you were a small child; you were not aware. Now you are a little bit aware. And by becoming a sannyasin you are becoming committed to more and more awareness, to a life of witnessing in which all identities have to be dropped. A man is absolutely free only when there is no identity left.
O how may I ever express that secret word? O how can I say he is not like this, and he is like that? If I say that he is within me, the universe is ashamed. If I say that he is without me, it is falsehood. He makes the inner and the outer worlds to be indivisibly one; the conscious and the unconscious, both are his footstools. He is neither manifest nor hidden, he is neither revealed nor unrevealed: there are no words to tell that which he is.
II. 56. dariya ki lahar dariyao hai ji THE RIVER AND ITS WAVES ARE ONE SURF: WHERE IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE RIVER AND ITS WAVES? WHEN THE WAVE RISES, IT IS THE WATER; AND WHEN IT FALLS, IT IS THE SAME WATER AGAIN. TELL ME, SIR, WHERE IS THE DISTINCTION? BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN NAMED AS WAVE, SHALL IT NO LONGER BE CONSIDERED AS WATER? WITHIN THE ABSOLUTE, THE WORLDS ARE BEING TOLD LIKE BEADS. LOOK UPON THAT ROSARY WITH THE EYES OF WISDOM. THE TRUTH IS KNOWN AND YET NOT KNOWN -- known in a sense and not known in another -- known because we are part of it, but not known because we are not separate from it. To know something, the knower has to be separate; and yet again, to know something really, how can you know it if you are separate? This is the basic…
Question: Maneesha is asking, "WHAT IS IN A NAME?" Looking at me he said, "It cannot be coincidence that you have come at the right time. I was waiting, because I wanted to thank you before I leave the body. These years have been difficult in dropping knowledge, information, and finding that which is hidden behind names. But you have put me on the right track, and now I can say all names are false, and all knowledge may be useful but is not existential, is not true. I am dying with absolute peace, the silence which you have been talking about again and again." I had to delay because it seemed that he was going to die within a few minutes, or maybe a few hours at the most. Within five or six hours he died, but he died with such peace, with such joy.