Osho's perspective on Self-Deception
When Osho Spoke About Self-Deception
Passages from the discourses where this theme comes alive.
Beloved master, sigmund freud has explained self-deception by postulating separate parts of the psyche, each part autonomous and capable of pursuing different goals, and each part unknown to the other because they function according to different principles: one according to rationality, and one non-verbal. I also feel this inner schism. Is something like this responsible for my unawareness?
Sigmund Freud is as unaware as you are. And one should ask first if the mind has two separate divisions which know nothing of each other: one functions verbally, linguistically, rationally; one non-verbally, non-linguistically, non-logically. The first thing to remember to ask Sigmund Freud is, how does he come to know? Who is this third one who knows that there are two divisions? There must be a third one, a witness, because there is no connection between the two. The two are not in communication, they function separately. Then how does Sigmund Freud come to know that there are two separate divisions of the mind? He does not know anything of awareness -- he never mentions it. He knows nothing of witnessing -- he never mentions it. Unknowingly, he is using awareness. He is not aware that he is aware of a division, because a third principle is absolutely needed…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, ONCE YOU DESCRIBED YOUR WORK AS A SEARCH FOR THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE BUDDHAS. YOU EXPLAINED THAT FREUD ESTABLISHED ONLY A PSYCHOLOGY OF PATHOLOGY. THEN CAME MASLOV, JANOV, ASSAGIOLI, PERLS AND THE PEOPLE WHO ELABORATED ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALTH. YOU ADDED THAT YOUR WORK WAS GOING FURTHER -- TRYING TO ESTABLISH A PSYCHOLOGY OF THE AWAKENED ONE, A PSYCHOLOGY OF THE BUDDHAS. YOU SAID THAT YOU WERE STUDYING US IN ORDER TO FIND OUT WHICH ARE THE DIFFICULTIES THAT A SEEKER FINDS ON THE PATH TOWARDS THE REALIZATION OF THE SELF, TOWARDS HIS OWN AWAKENING. NOW, YOU'VE BEEN STUDYING US FOR FIFTEEN YEARS, AND I WOULD LIKE YOU TO GIVE US SOME HINTS ON WHAT YOU FIND IN YOUR LIVING EXPERIMENT. The first thing: all the psychologies are of the mind. The psychology of the Buddhas will be of the no-mind.
How to differentiate between the dictates of the unconscious mind and that of the inner guide? How can one recognize that the inner guide has come into function?
The first thing: because of Freud, much misunderstanding has arisen around the word "unconscious". Freud completely misunderstood it, misinterpreted it. And he has become the very basis of modern knowledge about mind. To Freud, unconscious meant simply the repressed conscious, the suppressed part of the conscious. So all that is evil and bad, immoral, has been suppressed. Because the society cannot allow it, it has to be suppressed within. For Freud, that repressed part is the unconscious -- but not for mystics. Freud is not a mystic; he has not entered his own unconscious. He has been simply observing cases of patients: ill people, abnormal people, mad, insane, pathological. He has been studying the pathological mind, and through the study of the pathological mind -- and that, too, from without -- he concluded that just underneath the conscious there is an unconscious mind. That unconscious mind carries all that has…
Is it possible to deceive a master?
YES, IF THE MASTER WILLS SO. Sometimes the Master wants to be deceived. If it is for your growth, he is ready to do anything -- even to be deceived. If that is the only way to help your cheating characteristic to surface, he will allow himself to be deceived by you. Otherwise not. How can you deceive a Master? He knows you -- as you your-self don't know yourself. He knows the secret most desire of your heart. It may not be conscious even to you. He knows the subtle ways of your ego. And you CANNOT deceive. You can try, but from one point or another, from one side or another, they will be revealed. You will say one thing from your mouth: your eyes will say something else. And the Master is not very much concerned with what you say -- he tries to read you through…
"Without the witnessing awareness, you remain a prisoner of self-deception; with it, the split within dissolves, revealing your true authenticity."
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