Why think of gaining after losing?

Osho, I don’t know what my eyes keep searching for; in the heap of ashes there is neither flame nor spark. There is much in life, and yet by winning I gained nothing, nothing remained. The very thing I keep hoping for—why does it slip away again and again?

Mulla Nasruddin went to an eye doctor. His eyesight had begun to dim. The doctor said he would need glasses. The glasses were made; Mulla went to collect them. He asked the doctor, “Once the glasses are on my eyes, I will be able to read and write, right?” “Certainly,” said the doctor. “That is why they were made. You will read and write perfectly.” Mulla said, “That truly would be a miracle—because I don’t know how to read or write.” If you don’t know how to read and write, will spectacles make you literate? Even if the courtyard were perfectly square, every corner a neat ninety degrees, what would that do if you don’t know how to dance? You may have the most beautiful veena, and not know how to play it! Even if I were to give you Krishna’s very flute, what would you do with it? Krishna’s…

Another friend, yet another friend has asked: Does renunciation mean to gain, or to give up?

Ordinarily, the very word “renunciation” makes us think we must give something up. To drop something is renunciation—that is the echo in the word, the meaning that seems to be hidden there. But let me tell you: on this earth no one is ever ready to give up anything unless, behind that giving up, something has already been found. If a man’s hands are full of pebbles and we open a pouch and place diamonds before him, he will drop the pebbles. He must empty his hands in order to hold the diamonds. When the diamonds are about to come into his hands, the pebbles are dropped. The world will say—those still clutching their pebbles—“What a great renunciate he is! He has given up what we are still gathering.” But those who have found the diamonds will say, “How intelligent he is! It’s common sense—what ‘renunciation’ is there in it?…

All the things of this world, organic and inorganic, are filled with god. Enjoy them through renouncing them. Be detached; do not covet other people's riches.

This is why Marx and others of his way of thinking were not wrong when they felt that all religions have given protection to the affluent and rich, because interpretations of such sutras have been misleading and incorrect. From these interpretations it seems you should not try to grasp from another that of which he is the possessor. This clearly determines that the owner may get the help of the police to protect his property. So its intention is to maintain law and order, the status quo and the idea of ownership. But this sutra does not intend this; the very first proclamation of the Ishavasya is that everything belongs to existence. Existence alone is the master. Neither I nor you are the master, and our idea of ownership is an illusion. It alone is the master who never came to proclaim, "I am the master." Before whom would it…

Osho, the path of sannyas is unfamiliar and I am afraid. What should I do?

But this is everyone’s belief—that love arises from fear. So the husband frightens the wife as much as he can, thinking otherwise there will be no love. And the wife frightens the husband as much as she can, thinking the same. Parents frighten the children; and the children, for their part, do not hold back—they frighten the parents too; they have their own ways, their recipes. All devotees of Baba Tulsidas! Everyone is frightening everyone. Teachers are frightening students; students are frightening teachers. Fear pervades everywhere. Our notion of God is as if he were a policeman. We imagine he watches you twenty-four hours a day; he won’t even leave you alone in the bathroom—sitting there, peeping through the keyhole. I have heard: a Christian nun used to bathe with her clothes on. At last her companions became concerned. They said, “What sort of madness is this? Why don’t you…

Osho, what is the definition of God?

Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…