Few subjects made Osho as deliberately provocative as Mahatma Gandhi. Where the world saw a saint, Osho saw a moralist whose glorification of poverty and rejection of technology would, he argued, keep India spiritually and materially poor. He returned to Gandhi again and again across his Hindi and English discourses — sometimes with a story from his own life, sometimes with a scalpel.
These are not second-hand opinions about Osho's view of Gandhi; each section below links into the full discourse where he says it.
“Idolizing masters chains you to their names; true freedom comes when you stand on your own feet, unbound by labels, and open yourself directly to the divine.”
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks on gandhi — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT GANDHI'S FOURTH MONKEY? In China, based on almost twenty-five centuries of the teachings of Lao Tzu, some sculptor made a statue of four monkeys. Lao Tzu used to say, "Don't see anything wrong, because even by seeing it, you become in some subtle way a participant. And moreover, just by seeing it, it leaves an impression in you which may become a seed and some day it may explode into action. It is better not to see it." It is not my philosophy, remember. My philosophy is to see it as accurately as possible from all sides, so you know it perfectly well and there can be no misunderstanding, and you are free of it -- not because you have not seen it, not because you are ignorant about it, but because you have understood it, that it is useless.
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…
Osho, you say you don’t speak for the crowd, that you won’t speak merely to please them. But people are saying that whenever someone speaks against Gandhi or against the Congress, people like it, and that’s why such large crowds gather.
For all of India—more so for Gujarat, of course, but certainly for the whole of India. There isn’t much distance between us and him yet; the generation that lived close to him is still alive. And for India’s future, decisions will have to be taken in some relation to Gandhi—whether in support or in opposition. Gandhi will remain significant for the next hundred years in India—that’s my understanding—whether for or against is another matter. Therefore Gandhi should be thought about very clearly. That was one reason. Second, it seems to me that not only in India but outside India too, reflection on Gandhi has begun—sometimes it even seems that people outside India are thinking more. In this country, reflection has almost stopped. So Gandhi is just a beginning. I would say we should also try to reawaken reflection on Mahavira and the Buddha. But there is a great distance between…
Osho, you seem opposed to Gandhian ideology and supportive of modern technology and machines. But you know that because of technology and machines the life of the West has become disturbed, tense, and agitated. It stands on the brink of collective madness. Then why do you blindly support it?
Man has almost arranged heaven on earth. Only one lack remains: within there is a sense of meaninglessness, a hollowness. Meditation will fill it. Add meditation to science, and what has never happened on earth will happen. Then heaven needn’t be kept in the sky; we can build it here. We put it in the sky only because we failed to create it here. The West is capable of building heaven; the East has the science of meditation. A trade is possible; neither will lose—both will gain. You ask, “Then why do you blindly support it?” Is it my blind support—or your blind opposition? I support what I see. But you do not see. How much do you know of the West? I have so many Western people around me, and I see in them a quality the Eastern man lacks: whatever they do, they do with total dedication—complete craftsmanship,…
Read 8 more passages on gandhi
In this connection some friends have asked: why do you say things against Gandhi?
What purpose would it serve me to speak against Gandhi? A man like Gandhi is born only after the earth has practiced austerities for thousands of years. What concern do I have in being against Gandhi? But because you have entered the race of clinging to Gandhi, I speak against Gandhi too—against Ram as well, against Buddha and Mahavira too. Not against them; even toward them I have to be stern. Because I feel a new idol is being fashioned and people have begun to cling to it. We fail to get free of the old idols and new ones are manufactured, and man’s slavery continues. The masters change; the slavery remains. Someone frees himself from Ram and then grabs hold of Buddha; if he lets go of Buddha, he clings to Christ; if he gets rid of Christ, he clings to Mohammed. First he grabs another, then he lets…
I have been surrounded since my childhood by people who wanted me to believe in god and to follow his commandments. Why are the god believers always trying to convert others?
Mahatma Gandhi interpreted them -- I don't agree with his interpretation. He interpreted that the monkey who is holding his hands on the ears says, "Don't listen to anything evil." And the monkey who is holding his hands on the eyes says, "Don't see anything evil." And the third monkey who has his hands on the mouth is indicating, "Don't say anything evil." Now, you can understand why the fourth monkey has been dropped -- in fact he should not have been dropped if Gandhi had really been a man of truth. The fourth monkey is the logical conclusion: "Hide the origin of all evil." But this is not my interpretation. Knowing the people, and knowing that Charles Darwin has this great idea that man has come from monkeys -- and there is every possibility, because your mind still functions like a monkey. My interpretation, when I went to see…
Osho, why does there seem to be so much conflict between the world and God?
It is as if someone were sleeping deeply in this garden. The cuckoo comes and sings, birds are chattering, the sun rises, breezes dance through the trees; but someone is fast asleep. The breezes touch him, the birds’ songs echo at his ears, the sun’s rays play on his face, but he knows nothing. Then someone comes and shakes him awake. His eyes open—the glory of the sun is revealed, the song of the passing breeze is heard, suddenly the cuckoo’s call, the fragrance of flowers. Do you think something new has happened? Everything was already there, just as it is. Only this man has become new—nothing else has changed. The same garden, the same sun, the same flowers, the same birds—everything the same; only a small difference: he was asleep; he is awake. The meaning of “world” is: you are asleep in God. The meaning of “God” is: you…
Yesterday you talked about gandhi and criticized him. But gandhi always wanted the country to be prosperous, happy and its people to be good. What do you say?
Now everyone thinks that whatever Gandhi said is bound to benefit the country, because he was a mahatma, a saint. But it is not necessary that, being a saint, one only does good to the community. I visited Rajkot recently. In the open area where I was going to address a meeting, I saw a number of bulls and cows. They were all very sick and skinny, almost dying. Inquiring, I learned that there was a scarcity of water as a result of a drought in the villages around Rajkot, and these animals had been collected from there so they might be saved from dying. I then asked what efforts were being made to save them. The man who was explaining things told me a strange story. A saint came to Rajkot and fed the emaciated cows with quality sweets that people usually have for feasts, and the same day…
Osho, but from your night discourses it seems as if you are the very first to be saying these things—as if Swami Vivekananda and others have said nothing at all. So according to you, the statues of Swami Vivekananda and Gandhi should be completely demolished...
I understand. Why am I doing this? It may be that something I say was also said by Vivekananda. But my mind is entirely different from Vivekananda’s; the context is different. And so, when I say something that Gandhi too may have said, that can happen, but my mind is wholly different and the context different. In a fragment or two there may be a point of overlap. But I cannot invoke Vivekananda’s name, because the moment I do, it will create the illusion that I am in agreement with him. I am not in agreement with Vivekananda on many counts. Not even in this matter—not very far. For example, Vivekananda speaks of “daridra-narayana,” the poor as God. I consider this sheer foolishness. To confer any kind of honor on the poor is to honor poverty. The poor do not need respect in this world; poverty needs to be eradicated,…
Beloved Osho, during your recent interview with der spiegel, you made a statement about hitler, saying you love the man because he's crazy, and also that he lived a life of a discipline just as a saint lives in a monastery. You also compared him with mahatma gandhi and called him as moral as mahatma gandhi. This has caused a great deal of concern and confusion in germany, holland, and other european countries. My question is: is this an accurate reflection of your feelings about hitler?
And about small things Gandhi was really nasty. He wouldn't allow anybody to drink tea. In his ashram tea was prohibited, coffee was impossible to bring in. The question of alcohol did not arise. For forty years the people followed all kinds of ascetic disciplines, prayed morning and evening -- and the answer was millions of people either murdered or half-murdered; and Gandhi himself assassinated. If this is the result of practicing nonviolence, then I don't think there is any difference practicing violence. Adolf Hitler and Mahatma Gandhi both ended the same way. They both landed their countries in the same mess. I have said I have a certain love for Adolf Hitler, for the simple reason that at least he was straightforward; Gandhi was not. Adolf Hitler was not cunning. Whatever he wanted to do he did. He was a little crazy, but a crazy man managed to be…
As you say that only the capitalists know how to produce wealth, the brahmins in the past claimed that they alone could produce knowledge. Where are those brahmins and their monopoly of knowledge? Now anyone is creating knowledge. In the same way when the capitalists will have disappeared, everybody will create wealth.
Whether you threaten to kill yourself or kill others, it is all the same and it is violence. Both kinds of threats are violent. But we fail to observe it, and we think that the threat to kill oneself is non-violent. Truth is otherwise; it is subtle violence. It is not non-violence. Non-violence is very different. Non-violence means that there should be no threat, no coercion whatsoever, to kill oneself or others. Ask the people who were associated with Gandhi. Ask his own sons. Ask Haridas Gandhi if his father was non-violent. If so, then why did he become a Mohammedan? If Gandhi was non-violent, why did his son take to drinking and meat-eating? If Gandhi was non-violent, why did he have to fight his father all his life? It was because Gandhi's non-violence was so sadistic, so torturous that he tortured his own sons. Haridas left home and ran…
Osho, what is the first experience of samadhi like?
You will know only when it happens. It cannot be said; at most a few hints can be given. It is as if, in the dark, a lamp is suddenly lit. Or as if a dying patient, right at the edge of death, suddenly finds a medicine that works; life’s wave, life’s thrill spreads again—so it is. As if a corpse becomes alive—such is the first experience of samadhi. It is the taste of nectar. The experience of the ultimate music. But it will be only when it happens; and only then will you understand. You will not understand by my saying it. It is as with love. How can anyone explain it? To someone who has never loved, never known love, no matter how many explanations you offer—he will hear it all and still ask, “I haven’t understood; please explain a little more.” It is like explaining light to…
“Avoiding sexuality is not liberation; true spiritual revolution lies in the conscious understanding and transmutation of sexual energy into awareness.”
Understanding Osho's Vision of Gandhi
The threads that run through his discourses on gandhi.
Why Did Osho Speak Against Gandhi at All?
Asked directly why — of all the revered figures available — he singled out Gandhi, Osho answered that reverence was precisely the problem: an unexamined saint shapes a nation more deeply than any examined idea.
Another friend has asked: Osho, why is it that, leaving everyone else aside, you speak only against Gandhi? So many gods are worshiped — is there any shortage? There are some three hundred religions in the world, and each religion has countless deities and gods. In India there are thirty-three crore deities.Trisha Gai Ek Bund Se, Chapter 4 →
The Meeting That Never Recovered: A Childhood Story
In Glimpses of a Golden Childhood Osho tells of encountering Gandhi's entourage as a boy — and walking away unimpressed by what he found behind the mahatma's image.
I felt sorry for that man and left the box, saying, "No, you are the poorest man, it seems... I had come to see a mahatma, but I saw only a businessman."Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, Chapter 44 →
Against the Worship of Poverty and the Rejection of Technology
Osho's central charge: Gandhian economics romanticizes deprivation. Challenged that technology had driven the West to the brink of madness, Osho refused the premise that India's salvation lay in the spinning wheel.
Osho, you seem opposed to Gandhian ideology and supportive of modern technology and machines. But you know that because of technology and machines the life of the West has become disturbed, tense, and agitated... why do you blindly support it?Bahuri Na Aiso Daon, Chapter 2 →
Gandhi's Nonviolence vs Mahavira's Nonviolence
Osho drew a sharp line between ahimsa as a spiritual state (Mahavira) and nonviolence as a political instrument (Gandhi) — and gave a characteristically unsentimental reading of why the independence movement worked.
In Gandhi's success there is as much the British moral sense as Gandhi's. It is fifty-fifty: fifty percent Gandhi's movement, fifty percent British decency. That is why it succeeded.Sabai Sayane Ek Mat, Chapter 10 →
“Gandhi's philosophy, though rooted in noble intentions, is a relic of the past that clings to medieval tools while ignoring the realities of modern existence, ultimately risking the very lives it seeks to uplift.”
Questions Osho Answered on Gandhi
4 questions in the library — the most sought-after:
It means the part everyone hides—sex—should be understood and turned into awareness, not suppressed, because that’s how real growth happens.
Osho says Gandhi meant well but pushed old methods that cannot feed today's world, and he did not live by them himself.
I speak against Gandhi so you stop worshipping people and find your own inner strength and direct connection to God.
I criticize Gandhi to make people think again, not because I hate him.
“Real homage to a great leader is not blind reverence but the courage to question and critically engage with their ideas.”
Frequently Asked
Osho acknowledged Gandhi's discipline and sincerity but rejected his philosophy root and branch — particularly the moral elevation of poverty, the suppression of sexuality, and the anti-technology stance, which Osho saw as spiritualized self-denial rather than liberation.
That it sanctifies scarcity. Osho argued a starving society cannot meditate: material abundance through science and technology is the ground on which inner exploration becomes possible — 'Zorba first, then Buddha.' Gandhi's spinning wheel pointed, in Osho's view, exactly backwards.
His most sustained critiques appear across the Hindi discourses (Trisha Gai Ek Bund Se, Bahuri Na Aiso Daon, Sabai Sayane Ek Mat) and autobiographical passages in Glimpses of a Golden Childhood — all readable in full in this library via the links above.