Osho was born on 11 December, 1931 in Kuchwada, Bhopal State, British India, under the name Chandra Mohan Jain. Later in his life, he became to be known as Acharya Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and eventually as Osho. In this article, we share with you the best Osho quotes to date.
Osho was the founder of the Rajneesh movement, an Indian godman, mystic and cult leader. Osho rejected everything that was part of institutional religions and preferred to focus on the importance of freethought, mindfulness, courage, love, creativity, meditation, celebration, and even humor.
He was a very controversial figure, especially during the late 1960s, when his views and teachings were about open attitude to human sexuality, and because of that and from that time, Osho was also known as “the sex guru.”
On 19 January, 1990 Osho died in his ashram in Pune, India. He was 58 years old. The official cause of death was reported as heart failure, and his ashes were placed in his newly built bedroom in Lao Tzu House at the ashram in Pune. The epitaph reads, “Never Born – Never Died. Only visited this planet Earth between December 11, 1931 and January 19, 1990.”
Osho’s teachings had a huge impact and also following in Western countries as well, and his philosophy and way of living is still being taught and followed to this day.
Here is a sneak peek at the quotes in this article:
Table of Contents
- Osho Quotes on Love
- Osho Quotes on Life
- Osho Quotes on Death
- Osho Quotes on Meditation
- Osho Quotes on Friendship
- Osho Quotes on Creativity
- Osho Quotes on Darkness
- Interesting Facts about Osho
Osho Quotes on Love
If you love a flower, don’t pick it up. Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love. So if you love a flower, let it be. Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation.
Lovers never surrender to each other; lovers simply surrender to love.
Falling in love you remain a child; rising in love you mature. By and by love becomes not a relationship, it becomes a state of your being. Not that you are in love – now you are love.
Millions of people are suffering: they want to be loved but they don’t know how to love. And love cannot exist as a monologue; it is a dialogue, a very harmonious dialogue.
In love the other is important. In lust you are important.
I love, because my love is not dependent on the object of love. My love is dependent on my state of being. So whether the other person changes, becomes different, friend turns into a foe, does not matter, because my love was never dependent on the other person. My love is my state of being. I simply love.
Love is not a relationship; love is a state of being; it has nothing to do with anybody else. One is not “in love”, one is love. And of course when one is love, one is in love – but that is an outcome, a by-product, that is not the source. The source is that one is love.
You need power only to do something harmful. Otherwise, love is enough, compassion is enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn8A6io9b8U&ab_channel=Kuotes
Love is the goal; life is the journey.
It is beautiful to be alone, it is also beautiful to be in love, to be with people. And they are complementary, not contradictory.
Love and respect yourself and never compromise for anything. And then you will be surprised how much growth starts happening of its own accord… as if rocks have been removed and the river has started flowing.
Love the person, but give the person total freedom. Love the person, but from the very beginning make it clear that you are not selling your freedom.
If you love a person, you accept the total person. With all the defects. Because those defects are a part of the person. Never try to change a person you love, because the very effort to change says that you love half, and the other half of the person is not accepted. When you love, you simply love.
When you love, love as if the person is a God, not less than that. Never love a woman as a woman and never love a man as a man.
People say love is blind because they do not know what love is. I say unto you, only love has eyes; other than love, everything is blind.
Love in its purest form is a sharing of joy. It asks nothing in return, it expects nothing. Love is a spiritual phenomenon; lust is physical. Ego is psychological; love is spiritual.
Don’t move the way fear makes you move. Move the way love makes you move. Move the way joy makes you move.
A single moment of love is equal to the whole eternity of love.
A woman is to be loved, not understood. That is the first understanding.
I also teach you to love yourself first. It has nothing to do with ego. In fact, love is such a light that the darkness of the ego cannot exist in it at all. If you love others, if your love is focused on others, you will live in darkness. Turn your light toward yourself first, become a light unto yourself first. Let the light dispel your inner darkness, your inner weakness. Let love make you a tremendous power, a spiritual force.
Even if they can find a lover they demand perfection, and the love is destroyed because of that demand.
So the second thing to remember is never to demand perfection. You have no right to demand anything from anybody. If somebody loves you, be thankful, but don’t demand anything—because the other has no obligation to love you.
When somebody on the outside fits with your inner image, you fall in love – that is the meaning of love.
Love a woman as a goddess, then love becomes worship.
Osho Quotes on Life
Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That’s its balance.
Listen to your being. It is continuously giving you hints; it is a still, small voice. It does not shout at you, that is true. And if you are a little silent you will start feeling your way. Be the person you are. Never try to be another, and you will become mature. Maturity is accepting the responsibility of being oneself, whatsoever the cost. Risking all to be oneself, that’s what maturity is all about.
Life begins where fear ends.
Experience life in all possible ways – good-bad, bitter-sweet, dark-light, summer-winter. Experience all the dualities. Don’t be afraid of experience, because the more experience you have, the more mature you become.
Always remember to judge everything by your inner feeling of bliss.
Truth is not something outside to be discovered, it is something inside to be realized.
Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it.
Be. Don’t try to become.
You feel good, you feel bad, and these feelings are bubbling from your own unconsciousness, from your own past. Nobody is responsible except you. Nobody can make you angry, and nobody can make you happy.
I love this world because it is imperfect. It is imperfect, and that’s why it is growing; if it was perfect it would have been dead. Growth is possible only if there is imperfection. I would like you to remember again and again, I am imperfect, the whole universe is imperfect, and to love this imperfection, to rejoice in this imperfection is my whole message.
Take hold of your own life. See that the whole existence is celebrating. These trees are not serious; these birds are not serious. The rivers and the oceans are wild, and everywhere there is fun, everywhere there is joy and delight. Watch existence, listen to the existence and become part of it.
That is the simple secret of happiness. Whatever you are doing, don’t let past move your mind; don’t let future disturb you. Because the past is no more, and the future is not yet. To live in the memories, to live in the imagination, is to live in the non-existential. And when you are living in the non-existential, you are missing that which is existential. Naturally you will be miserable, because you will miss your whole life.
Truth is not to be found outside. No teacher, no scripture can give it to you. It is inside you and if you wish to attain it, seek your own company. Be with yourself.
Never interfere in anybody’s life and don´t allow anybody to interfere in your life.
The real question is not whether life exists after death. The real question is whether you are alive before death.
Nobody has the power to take two steps together; you can take only one step at a time.
Your whole idea about yourself is borrowed, borrowed from those who have no idea of who they are themselves.
Whatever you feel, you become. It is your responsibility.
I live my life based on 2 principles. One, I live as if today was my last day on earth. Two, I live today as if I am going to live forever.
Don’t seek, don’t search, don’t ask, don’t knock, don’t demand ~ relax. If you relax it comes, if you relax it is there. If you relax, you start vibrating with it.
Find ecstasy within yourself. It is not out there. It is in your innermost flowering. The one you are looking for is you.
Tomorrow never comes, it is always today.
Be less of a judge and you will be surprised that when you become a witness and you don’t judge yourself, you stop judging others too. And that makes you more human, more compassionate, more understanding.
Fame is foolish, it is pointless, meaningless. Even if the whole world knows you, how does it make you richer? How does it make your life more blissful? How does it help you to be more understanding, to be more aware? To be more alert, to be more alive?
One just needs a little alertness to see and find out: Life is really a great cosmic laughter.
Here, start living moment to moment totally and intensely, joyfully and playfully — and you will see that nothing goes out of control; that your intelligence becomes sharper; that you become younger; that your love becomes deeper. And when you go out into the world, wherever you go, spread life, playfulness, joy, as far away as possible — to every nook and corner of the Earth.
Don’t try to understand life. Live it! Don’t try to understand love. Move into love. Then you will know – and all that knowing will come out of your experiencing. The more you know, the more you know that much remains to be known.
Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny – he or she has something to fulfil, some message that has to be delivered, some work that has to be completed. You are not here accidentally – you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you.
All the buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact: Be — don´t try to become. Within these two words, be and becoming, your whole life is contained. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance.
You will find meaning in life only if you create it. It is a poetry to be composed. It is a song to be sung. It is a dance to be danced…
Respect life, revere life. There is nothing more holy than life, nothing more divine than life.
Never belong to a crowd; Never belong to a nation; Never belong to a religion; Never belong to a race. Belong to the whole existence. Why limit yourself to small things? When the whole is available.
Don’t seek, don’t search, don’t ask, don’t knock, don’t demand – relax. If you relax it comes, if you relax it is there. If you relax, you start vibrating with it.
Life is not a problem. To look at it as a problem is to take a wrong step. It is a mystery to be lived, loved, experienced.
Commit as many mistakes as possible, remembering only one thing: don’t commit the same mistake again. And you will be growing.
Only laughter makes a man rich, but the laughter has to be blissful.
I love life. That’s why I give teachings of celebration, celebrate everything. From body to soul, physical to spiritual, sex to superconsciousness, everything is divine for me.
Tomorrow never comes, it is always today.
To be a happy person; one has to drop all comparison. Drop all these stupid ideas of being superior and inferior. You are neither superior nor inferior. You are simply yourself! There exists no one like you, no one with whom you can be compared. Then, suddenly, you are at home.
Remember, that which appeals to the ego, cannot help your spiritual growth.
If you really want peace on earth, create peace in your heart, in your being. That is the right place to begin with and then spread.
If you suffer it is because of you, if you feel blissful it is because of you. Nobody else is responsible – only you and you alone. You are your hell and your heaven too.
A man becomes a Buddha the moment he accepts all that life brings with gratitude.
Just look at life with more playful eyes. Don’t be serious. Seriousness becomes like a blindness. Don’t pretend to be a thinker, a philosopher. Just simply be a human being.
Nobody can say anything about you. Whatsoever people say is about themselves. But you become very shaky, because you are still clinging to a false center. That false center depends on others, so you are always looking to what people are saying about you.
You should live in the world but remain untouched by it. You should remain in the world, but the world should not remain in you.
If you live with unhealthy people, to be healthy is dangerous. If you live with insane people, then to be sane is dangerous. If you live in a madhouse, even if you are not mad at least pretend that you are mad; otherwise those mad people will kill you.
Life in itself has no meaning. Life is an opportunity to create meaning.
You are being taught everything, but you are not being taught to be yourself. This is the ugliest form of society possible, because it makes everybody miserable.
Nothing in life is ever wasted, especially steps taken towards truth.
Osho Quotes on Death
Life is spread out over a long time – seventy years, one hundred years. Death is intense because it is not spread out – it is in a single moment. Life has to pass one hundred years or seventy years; it cannot be so intense. Death comes in a single moment; it comes whole, not fragmentary. It will be so intense you cannot know anything more intense. But if you are afraid, if before death comes you have escaped, if you have become unconscious because of the fear, you have missed one of the golden opportunities, the golden gate. If your whole life you have been accepting things, when death comes, patiently, passively you will accept and enter into it without any effort to escape. If you can enter death passively, silently, without any effort, death disappears.
The fear of death is fear of time. And the fear of time is, deeply down, fear of unlived moments, of an unlived life. So what to do? Live more, and live more intensely. Live dangerously. It is your life. Don’t sacrifice it for any sort of foolishness that has been taught to you. It is your life: Live it! Don’t sacrifice it for words, theories, countries or politics. Don’t sacrifice it for anybody. Live it! Don’t think that it is courageous to die. The only courage is to live life totally; there is no other courage.
The more you fight with death, the more anxiety-ridden you will become, you are bound to become. It is a natural consequence. If you fight with death you know that you are going to be defeated. How can you be happy with a life which is going to end in defeat? You know that whatsoever effort you make, nothing is going to succeed against death. Deep down you are certain about only one thing and that is death. In life everything else is uncertain, only death is certain. There is only one certainty, and in that certainty you have an enemy. Fighting with certainty and hoping for uncertainties how can you be in a repose? How can you be relaxed, calm, collected? Impossible.
You start dying really when you start breathing, at the same moment. It is not right to say that death comes in the end, it has always been with you from the very beginning. It is part of you, it is your innermost center, it grows with you, and one day it comes to a culmination, one day it comes to flowering. The day of death is not the day of death’s coming, it is the flowering. Death was growing within you all this time, now it has reached a peak; and once death reaches a peak you disappear back into the origin.
If you have not lived rightly, you will not be able to die rightly. Death is the final offering. It is the highest; it is the crowning or the peak. Death is the essence and the flowering of life. How can your death be right if you have spent your life wrongly? How can your death be full of meaning if your life has been a waste? How can a tree whose roots are rotten bear sweet fruit? It is impossible.
Once you understand that death is not the opposite of life but part of it, an intrinsic part of it, which can never be separated from it – once you accept death as a friend, suddenly a transformation happens. You are transfigured, your vision now has a new quality in it. Now there is no fight, no war, you are not fighting against anybody, now you can relax, now you can be at home. Once death becomes a friend only then does life become a friend also. This may look paradoxical but it is so, only the appearance is paradoxical. If death is the enemy, then deep down life is also the enemy, because life leads to death.
If you have lived your life, you will welcome death. It will come like a rest, like a great sleep. If you have peaked, climaxed in your life, then death is a beautiful rest, a benediction. But if you have not lived, then of course death creates fear. If you have not lived, then certainly death is going to take time from your hands, all future opportunities to live. In the past you have not lived, and there is going to be no future: fear arises. Fear arises not because of death but because of unlived life.
A man is really a mature man when he has come to this conclusion: ‘If death is happening to everybody else, then I cannot be an exception.’ Once this conclusion sinks deep into your heart, your life can never be the same again. You cannot remain attached to life in the old way. If it is going to be taken away, what is the point of being so possessive? If it is going to disappear one day, why cling and suffer? If life is not going to remain forever, then why be in such misery, anguish, worry?
Once you know what death is you will receive it with great celebration. You will welcome it. It is the fulfillment of your whole life’s effort. It is the fruition of your whole life’s effort. The journey ends. One comes back home. In death you don’t die. Just, the energy that was given to you through the body and through the mind is released and goes back to the world. You return home.
If you understand, if you see, if you can feel and experience that you are not separate from existence, that you are one with it, all fear of death disappears because there is nobody to die inside you. In the first place there is nobody at all, existence lives through you.
Osho Quotes on Meditation
My meditation is simple. It does not require any complex practices. It is simple. It is singing. It is dancing. It is sitting silently.
No thought, no mind, no choice — just being silent, rooted in yourself.
Get out of your head and get into your heart. Think less, feel more.
Sadness is silent, it is yours. It is coming because you are alone. It is giving you a chance to go deeper into your aloneness. Rather than jumping from one shallow happiness to another shallow happiness and wasting your life, it is better to use sadness as a means for meditation. Witness it. It is a friend! It opens the door of your eternal aloneness.
Intelligence comes from meditation, intelligence comes from rebellion, intelligence does not come from memory.
These are the qualities of meditation: a really meditative person is playful; life is fun for him, life is a leela, a play. He enjoys it tremendously. He is not serious. He is relaxed.
Meditation is nothing but a device to make you aware of your real self—which is not created by you, which need not be created by you, which you already are. You are born with it. You are it! It!
Meditation is witnessing. To meditate means to become a witness.
meditation simply says how to go withinward: whether there is a soul or not doesn’t matter; whether there is a God or not doesn’t matter.
Osho Quotes on Friendship
Friendship is the purest love. It is the highest form of Love where nothing is asked for, no condition, where one simply enjoys giving.
Friendship is possible between equal human beings, totally free from all bondage of society, culture, civilization, only living true to their authentic nature.
Only individuals can relate; personalities cannot. Personalities are like shadows. They cannot meet, they cannot merge, because they don’t exist. Personalities are fake. That’s why in the whole world people are talking of love, but there is no love. They are talking of friendship, but there is no friendship — even talking of trust. But for that a tremendously powerful individuality is needed. Personalities cannot trust; they are always afraid — afraid that their reality may be exposed, may be known.
Friendship can turn into enmity, and enmity can become friendship. You all know — happiness can turn into sadness, and sadness can change into happiness. Although they are polar opposites, they are almost like twins, very close. Just a slight change in circumstances and one disappears …the other was just behind it. So remember the transcendent — existence belongs to the transcendental. Don’t divide it; otherwise you will be continuously tortured by the duality.
In this ambitious world, friendship cannot bloom, love is almost impossible, compassion cannot exist. We have created such an ugly mess, and the root is that we think that there is something to achieve.
A man who seeks friendship, love, companionship, out of loneliness is not going to find it. In fact, with whomsoever he will associate he will feel cheated and he will make the other feel cheated. He will feel tired and bored, and he will make the other feel tired and bored. He will feel sucked and he will make the other feel sucked, because both will be sucking on each other’s energies. And they don’t have much in the first place. Their streams are running very thin; they are like summer streams in a desert land. You cannot take any water out of them. But if you seek friendship and love and companionship out of aloneness, you are a flooded river, a river in the rains. You can share as much as you want. And the more you share, the more you will have.
The proverb is: A friend in need is a friend indeed. But deep down that is greed! That is not friendship, that is not love. You want to use the other as a means, and no man is a means, every man is an end unto himself. Why are you so worried about who is a real friend?
The real question has to be: Am I friendly to people? Do you know what friendship is? It is the highest form of love. In love, some lust is bound to be there; in friendship, all lust disappears. In friendship nothing gross remains; it becomes absolutely subtle.
Friendship is absolutely human. It has something for which there is no inbuilt mechanism in your biology; it is non-biological. Hence one rises in friendship, one does not fall in friendship. It has a spiritual dimension.
Friendship becomes a relationship, fixed; friendliness is more flowing, more fluid. Friendship is a relationship; friendliness is a state of your being. You are simply friendly; to whom, that is not the point. If you are standing by the side of a tree you are friendly to the tree, or if you are sitting on the rock, you are friendly to the rock. To human beings, to animals, to birds, you are simply friendly. It is not something static; it is a flow, changing moment to moment.
Friendship is so valuable that whatsoever the consequence, remain friends even with your wife, even with your husband, and allow absolute and total freedom to each other.
Create more friends, and as your friendship goes deeper into different dimensions, you will find yourself becoming richer and richer; your own heights will start reaching Everest, your own depths will start reaching the Pacific.
Osho Quotes on Creativity
Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence.
When I say be creative I don’t mean that you should all go and become great painters and great poets. I simply mean let your life be a painting, let your life be a poem.
To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.
You need either to create something or to discover something. Either bring your potential to actuality or go inwards to find yourself, but do something with your freedom.
Creativity is the fragrance of individual freedom.
A creative person is one who has insight, who can see things nobody else has ever seen before, who hears things that nobody has heard before – then there is creativity.
Dreams have to be made real, not reality changed into dreams.
Act in harmony with nature. Creativity is a very paradoxical state of consciousness and being. It is action through inaction, it is what Lao Tzu calls wei-wu-wei. It is allowing something to happen through you. It is not a doing, it is an allowing. It is becoming a passage so the whole can flow through you. It is becoming a hollow bamboo, just a hollow bamboo.
Creators almost always go mad.
Everybody is born creative, but very few people remain creative.
Osho Quotes on Darkness
A certain darkness is needed to see the stars.
Darkness is an absence of light. Ego is an absence of awareness.
A certain darkness is needed to see the stars.
Darkness is beautiful. It has tremendous depth, silence, infinity. Light comes and goes; darkness always remains; it is more eternal than light. For light you need some fuel; for darkness no fuel is needed – it is simply there.
Light is shallow; darkness is infinitely deep. Light is always bounded, it has boundaries. Darkness has no boundaries, it is unbounded. Light comes and goes; darkness always is. When there is light you cannot see it. When light is not there you can see it. But it is always there; you cannot cause it. Light has a cause. You burn the fire, you put on wood. When the wood is finished the light will be gone. It is caused, hence it is an effect. But darkness is not caused by anything, it is not an effect. It is uncaused eternity.
Interesting Facts about Osho
Now that you’re done with these wise Osho quotes, here are some interesting facts about Osho that may surprise you. Enjoy!
- His Name was Given to Him by His Disciples – They explained that “Osho” is derived from the expression “oceanic experience” by William James. It means “dissolving into the ocean”.
- Osho Loved His Cars – Osho owned no less than 98 Rolls Royce cars! They were donated to him by his disciples, and they even planned to buy more cars for Osho. How many more? 267 more. Making it a total of 365 cars, one for each day of the year.
- Not a College Person – Osho used to confront his teachers and professors, which caused him to be expelled from many colleges.
- Celebrating Death – The day of Osho’s death is a day of celebration. And so, at this day, his disciples celebrate, and not mourn on his passing.
- Not Followed in India – Osho was not followed in his birth country of India, and so in 1981, he moved to the United States, where an international community was established near Antelope, Oregon, south of The Dalles. It is known as Rajneeshpuram.
- Taking interest in Hypnosis – At some point in his life, Osho became anti-theist and started taking interest in the practice of hypnosis.
- A Main Tourist Attraction – The Osho International Meditation Resort is Osho’s ashram which is located in Pune. It is a main visitors’ destination in India, and approximately 200,000 people worldwide visit this ashram each and every year.
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