Jude Paler
Osho was an exceptionally intelligent and charismatic spiritual leader of the twentieth century. He was a gifted speaker who later on became leader of a spiritual movement.
But what made him controversial was his eclectic mix of philosophy and traditions from Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, Taoism, and even Christianity. He was famous for being critical of organized religion, saying that burdened us with useless rituals.
His teachings focused on living a celebratory lifestyle, which didn’t sit well with other leaders at that time. However, amidst the controversies, no one can deny the brilliance of Osho’s mind.
The core of his philosophy is satisfying every repressed desire in order to heal emotionally. And by doing so, one will know the truth and live life fully.
The following are a compilation of his most famous quotes to help you live out of the box:
Quotes about inner calm and happiness
“Be a lotus flower. Be in the water, and do not let the water touch you.”
“Always remember to judge everything by your inner feeling of bliss.”
“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.”
“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.”
Quotes you need when you’re alone
“A certain darkness is needed to see the stars.”
“It is beautiful to be alone, it is also beautiful to to be in love, to be with people. And they are complementary, not contradictory.”
“Courage is a love affair with the unknown.”
“Never be ashamed of your tears. Be proud that you are still natural. Be proud that you can express the inexpressible through your tears.”
“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.”
“Darkness is an absence of light. Ego is an absence of awareness.”
Quotes about independence and freedom
“Find ecstasy within yourself. It is not out there. It is in your innermost flowering. The one you are looking for is you.”
“The greatest fear in the world is the opinion of others, and the moment you are unafraid of the crowd, you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom.”
“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.”
“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.”
“No thought, no mind, no choice — just being silent, rooted in yourself.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence.”
“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.”
Quotes that talk about life
“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.”
“One just needs a little alertness to see and find out: Life is really a great cosmic laughter.”
“Commit as many mistakes as possible, remembering only one thing: don’t commit the same mistake again. And you will be growing.”
“Be – don’t try to become.”
“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.”
“What is discipline? Discipline means creating an order within you. As you are, you are a chaos.”
“Life begins where fear ends.”
“Don’t try to understand life. Live it! Don’t try to understand love. Move into love. Then you will know and that knowing will come out of your experiencing.”
“Only laughter makes a man rich, but the laughter has to be blissful.”
“To avoid pain, they avoid pleasure. To avoid death, they avoid life.”
“Many people have come and left, and it has been always good because they emptied some space for better people.”
“The real question is not whether life exists after death. The real question is whether you are alive before death.”
“The truth is that existence wants your life to become a festival because when you are unhappy, you also throw unhappiness all around.”
“Snowflakes swirl down gently in the deep blue haze beyond the window. The outside world is a dream.”
“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.”
“Be realistic: Plan for a miracle.”
“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.”
“Don’t be so short of trust, and don’t be in a hurry. If I say something, wait, search, and you will find the way.”
“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.”
“Be ordinary, but bring a quality of awareness to your ordinary life. Bring God to your ordinary life introduce God into your ordinary life. Sleep, eat, love, pray, meditate, but don’t think that you are making or doing something special—and then you will be special.”
“Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny – he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work 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.”
“It is a strange thing, that every child is born with a closed hand, and every body dies with an open hand.”
“Life in itself has no meaning. Life is an opportunity to create meaning.”
“Wherever you are afraid, try to explore, and you will find death hiding somewhere behind. All fear is of death. Death is the only fear source.”
“My whole love and respect is for the person who accepts himself totally, as he is. He has courage. He has courage to face the whole pressure of the society which is bent upon splitting him into divisions – into good and bad, into saint and sinner. He is really a brave, courageous being who stands against the whole history of man, of morality, and declares to the skies his reality, whatever it is.”
“Help the world to become better. Don’t leave the world just the same as you have found it – make it a little better, make it a little more beautiful.”
“A little foolishness, enough to enjoy life, and a little wisdom to avoid the errors…. that will do.”
“Respect life, revere life. There is nothing more holy than life, nothing more divine than life.”
“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?”
Quotes about women and parenting
“The feminine is more powerful than the masculine, the soft is more powerful than the hard, the water is more powerful than the rock.”
“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.”
“If you are a parent, open doors to unknown directions to the child so he can explore. Don’t make him afraid of the unknown, give him support.”
Quote about the importance of doing your best today
“Tomorrow never comes, it is always today.”
“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.”
“They say: Think twice before you jump. I say: Jump first and then think as much as you want!”
Quotes about self
“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.”
“Nobody has the power to take two steps together; you can take only one step at a time.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Awareness functions almost like magic.”
“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.”
Quotes about mind and intelligence
“Mind: A beautiful servant, a dangerous master.”
“Only a blind man can easily define what light is. When you do not know, you are bold. Ignorance is always bold; knowledge hesitates. And the more you know, the more you feel that the ground underneath is dissolving. The more you know, the more you feel how ignorant you are.”
“Intelligence comes from meditation, intelligence comes from rebellion, intelligence does not come from memory.”
Quotes about love and trust
“Love is the goal, life is the journey.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Get out of your head and get into your heart. Think less, feel more.”
“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.”
“You need power only to do something harmful.Otherwise love is enough,compassion is enough.”
“Don’t move the way fear makes you move. Move the way love makes you move. Move the way joy makes you move.”
“A woman is to be loved, not understood. That is the first understanding.”
“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.”
“If you want to learn anything, learn trust – nothing else is needed. If you are miserable, nothing else will help – learn trust. If you don’t feel any meaning in life and you feel meaningless, nothing will help – learn trust. Trust gives meaning because trust makes you capable of allowing the whole descend upon you.”
“Even if they can find a lover they demand perfection, and the love is destroyed because of that demand.”
“No relationship can truly grow if you go on holding back. If you remain clever and go on safeguarding and protecting yourself, only personalities meet, and the essential centers remain alone. Then only your mask is related, not you. Whenever such a thing happens, there are four persons in the relationship, not two. Two false persons go on meeting, and the two real persons remain worlds apart.”
“It is not a question of money, power, and prestige; it is a question of what intrinsically you want to do. Do it, irrespective of the results, and your boredom will disappear.”
“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.”
“A single moment of love is equal to the whole eternity of love.”
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