Sunday Reflections — Navigating life with mystic Osho
3 min readJan 15, 2023
This week, Sunday Reflections brings you select quotes from mystic Rajneesh, popularly known as Osho:
“The desire for total happiness and for ultimate freedom lies dormant in everyone. It is in the form of a seed. It is like a seed that contains a tree within it. In the same way, the fulfillment of man’s ultimate desire is hidden in his very nature. In its perfectly developed state, it is our nature to be happy, to be free. Our real nature is the only thing that is true, and only perfecting it can bring complete satisfaction.”
“The real thing is that you are suffering from your expectations. When they are not fulfilled…frustration arises, failure arises, and you feel neglected, as if existence does not care for you. Drop expectations for the future. Remain open, remain available to whatsoever happens…Don’t make any psychological, fixed ideas about the future — that things should be like this — and much more suffering will disappear.”
“We need not worry about the future, we need not be prophetic about the future, we need not say a single thing about the future. We should be joyous and happy in this moment, and the next moment will be coming out of this moment. It will be suffused with the celebration of this moment, and naturally it will lead you into a higher celebration. The future is going to come out of this present.”
“The reality consists only of now, the present. It has nothing to do with the past and nothing to do with the future. It is so concentrated in this moment that if you can be in this moment, all that you are seeking and searching will be fulfilled. This moment is the door to the divine.”
“Everything comes out of nothingness and goes back into nothingness. Hence there is no need for attachment, because attachment will bring misery. Soon it will be gone. The flower that has blossomed in the morning, by the evening will be gone. Don’t get attached; otherwise in the evening there will be misery. Then there will be tears, then you will miss the flower. Enjoy while it is. But remember, it has come out of nothing, and it will go back to nothing. And the same is true about everything…”
“When you are not the doer how can the attachment happen? You do a small thing and you become attached. You say, “I have done this.” You would like everybody to know that you have done this and you have done that. This ego is the barrier for the supreme understanding. Drop the doer and let things happen.”
“Desire is our imprisonment. The man who wants nothing, who is absolutely contented as he is, is free of all bondage. He has attained to ultimate freedom, nirvana — and that is the goal of life. And it is only by attaining that freedom that you will know the significance of being, the song of being, the celebration of being.”
“You don’t have any problems — only this much has to be understood. This very moment you can drop all problems. because they are your creations. Have another look at your problems: the deeper you look, the smaller they will appear. Go on looking at them and by and by they will start disappearing. Go on gazing and suddenly you will find there is emptiness — a beautiful emptiness surrounds you. Nothing to do, nothing to be, because you are already that.”
“Accept whatsoever is there, and once you accept unconditionally, then everything is beautiful. One should simply go on enjoying whatsoever comes on the way. Non-asking will give you a state of non-desire. Not complaining will make you more contented. This moment is all. Never go beyond this moment, but whatsoever happens, be true to it. Be authentic to it.”
“When you have emptied all content — thoughts, desires, memories, projections, hopes — when all is gone, for the first time you find yourself, because you are nothing but that pure space… Unburdened by anything, that contentless consciousness, that’s what you are! Seeing it, realizing it, one is free. One is freedom, one is joy, one is bliss.”
This selection is from online publications/websites in the public domain
