According to Osho, no one should push you to strive; your own suffering from the energy’s natural downward flow compels transformation. Downward movement tempts with short-lived pleasure but culminates in pain and degeneration; upward movement begins with tapas and discipline, then flowers into bliss and inner growth. If you truly want joy, consciously turn energy upward—through yoga, tantra, and meditation—like water heated into steam that rises to the sky.
Because chasing quick pleasures hurts later, but patiently lifting your energy with practice feels hard at first and then makes you deeply happy.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Another friend has asked: Why should we strive for the upward movement of the natural energy that is flowing downward?
No one is telling you to strive. Your energy is flowing downward; from it comes sorrow, from it comes suffering; because of it your life becomes wasted and hollow. So it is you who feel the pain, the distress, the sense that life is going to waste—then you feel it should be taken upward. No one is asking you to take it upward. And on anyone’s say-so, you will never take it upward either. But the experience of the downward is in itself painful. Energy flowing downward means misery; energy flowing upward means bliss. If the downward-flowing energy gave only misery, everyone would stop. But the downward flow dangles the lure of pleasure and, in the end, delivers pain. That is why so many are swept along by it. The energy flowing down raises the hope that pleasure will come. The hope remains; what comes is suffering. But we are…
And the interesting thing is that once energy has started flowing downward, then to make it flow upward becomes difficult. Paths are formed. If you spill a glass of water on the floor, the water makes a channel and flows away. Then the sun shines, the water evaporates—nothing remains on the ground. But the dry line of the water’s flow remains. If you pour water in that room a second time, ninety-nine times out of a hundred the water will again follow that same dry line. It is the nature of energy to choose the path of least resistance. Wherever there is the least trouble, there it longs to flow. Once an immature mind descends into the world of sex, then all his life, whenever energy gathers, obeying the law of least resistance it shows readiness to flow along that same path.
It is natural to follow the path of least resistance. There is desire to flow in that direction where there is the least amount of difficulty. When an immature mind enters the World of sex, the life energy, according to the rule of least resistance, show eagerness to flow on that path. And it experiences pain and uneasiness in the mind as long as it does not flow away. When it flows out, the mind is relaxed. It feels as if it has become light and has been freed from a burden. But once the path to take us up is obtained, then we experience this freedom constantly. It is necessary to understand three things in relation to how the mind can divert the sex energy upwards. The first thing to understand is that anything which can go down can also go up. A scientific principle can explain this.
Another friend has asked: Osho, what is the relationship between the method of meditation and jati-smaran (recollection of past lives)?
But the one who becomes skilled in this—who can fully awaken any day’s memory up to the age of five—will find that the memories begin to awaken completely. And you should test it. As today passes, note down some events and lock them up. After two years, try to recall today. Most of it will have been forgotten. Then remember—and after remembering, break the lock and compare whether what you recalled matches what you had written. You will be amazed—astonished—that besides what you wrote, many more details have come back which you did not even note at the time. They will all be there in memory. Buddha called this alaya-vijnana. There is a corner of the human mind he called the storehouse of consciousness. Like a junk room in the house where we keep all the odds and ends, there is a storehouse that collects memories—where everything from birth after…
Unmani bhaavah paddyam the upward flow of the mind is paddyam -- the water of divine worship.
The thief I was mentioning just fell at the feet of Rinzai, and he said, "If you can use such things, allow me to use myself also. You ran like a thief and you are the master of the house. You confounded me. I have been in many, many situations, but never like this. You have hypnotized me also. You are the first man who has not behaved with me as a thief, who has not thought about me as a thief, so I cannot leave you now. Everyone has tried with me that I should leave this profession, and I had my own reactions. But with you I change. Now initiate me into your path." Rinzai said, "How can I initiate you? Really, when I laughed, in that moment I became Enlightened. When I laughed, I became Enlightened! I was trying and trying and trying; I had been meditating…