23 Profound Osho Quotes from The Book of Understanding

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Excerpt: This was the first book by Osho I had ever read—and it shook me. Read my collection of Osho quotes from The Book of Understanding to see why.

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Introduction: From “Who is Osho” to “Who Am I?“

The Book of Understanding was the first book I read by Osho. I was sitting on an airplane several thousand feet above ground with no internet connection when I first opened the cover. It was unusual for me because I don’t normally read in any kind of moving environment (I get pretty intense motion sickness) and because I normally take notes online as I read.

Feeling peculiarly drawn to this book (and despite being in a moving aircraft), I figured I would use my phone’s notepad app to take notes and would start the book anyway. It worked out great. That is, until I got to page 2.

I literally couldn’t stop thumbing away notes on my phone. Everything he was saying felt like it had so much value and I wanted to record each sentence. It got to the point where my thumbs just couldn’t keep up and I ended up having to postpone reading until I had a keyboard in front of me. Covers closed; Interest peaked.

Needless to say, I finished reading The Book of Understanding shortly thereafter. It is packed with insightful and thought-provoking content; it certainly got me thinking in ways I haven’t thought before. And the great thing about Osho is that he speaks about complex and challenging subjects in easy-to-follow and easy to understand ways.

• Who am I?  
• How do I find myself?  
• Why do I feel like something is missing in my life?  
• What is the meaning in life and living?  
• How do I find fulfillment?

These are just some of the tough questions that Osho answers oh, so beautifully in his book. And since finishing, I have re-evaluated and changed the way I spend my days living. I have taken up meditation, am spending more time alone, and have changed the way I interact with and connect with people. It has had a profound impact on my life—maybe it will for your life, too?

The List: 23 Deep and Insightful Osho Quotes from The Book of Understanding

Below, you’ll find our list of quotes from The Book of Understanding that go deep into the ideas of identity, joy, and meaning in life. Spend some time on them and pay particular attention to those quotes that make you pause, nod, or otherwise reflect. Thanks and enjoy!

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“Everyone is born unique. No comparison is possible. You are you, and I am I.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 85)

“Being is so significant that it is irreplaceable. You are just yourself. Do something that comes out of you – not to assert, but to express! Sing your song, dance your dance, rejoice in being whatever nature has chosen you to be.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 180)

“Two identical things do not exist at all, so there is no need to be ‘somebody.’ You just be yourself, and suddenly you are unique, incomparable. That’s why I say that this is a paradox: those who search fail, and those who don’t bother, suddenly attain.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 171)

“Each person is born with a unique individuality, and each person has a destiny of his or her own. Imitation is crime, it is criminal. If you try to become a Buddha, you may look like Buddha, you may walk like him, you may talk like him, but you will miss. You will miss all that life was ready to deliver to you. Buddha happens only once.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 146)

“You don’t feel empty because you don’t have much money. You feel empty because you have not yet encountered your real self, you have not come to your authentic individuality. Individuality makes you a light unto yourself.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 159)

“When a poet writes a poem, meaning arises – because the poet is not alone; he has created something. When a dancer dances, meaning arises. When a mother gives birth to a child, meaning arises. Left alone, cut off from everything else, isolated like an island, you are meaningless. Joined together you are meaningful. The bigger the whole, the bigger is the meaning.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 155)

“Do things with your whole heart, with as much intensity as you are capable of. Anything done halfheartedly never brings joy to life. It only brings misery, anxiety, torture, and tension, because whenever you do anything halfheartedly you are dividing yourself into two parts, and that is one of the greatest calamities that has happened to human beings – they are all split.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 20)

“Man creates what he is, man creates himself. The meaning has to be created. You have to sing your meaning, you have to dance your meaning, you have to paint your meaning, you have to live it. Through living, it will arise; through dancing, it will start penetrating your being. Through singing, it will come to you. It is not like a rock just lying there to be found, it has to bloom in your being.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 227)

“Only disciplined people become free, but their discipline is not obedience to others: their discipline is obedience to their own inner voice. And they are ready to risk anything for it.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 202)

“There is an intrinsic law: thoughts don’t have their own life. They are parasites; they live on your identifying with them. When you say, ‘I am angry,’ you are pouring life energy into anger, because you are getting identified with anger. But when you say, ‘I am watching anger flashing on the screen of the mind within me,’ you are not anymore giving any life, any energy to anger.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 117)

“Meditation is not of the body, not of the mind, not of the soul. Meditation simply means your body, your mind, your soul, all functioning in such a harmony, in such wholeness, humming so beautifully… that they are in a melody, they are one. Your whole being – body, mind, soul – is involved in meditation.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (Page 268)

“The outer is easier, and the outer is objective. For example, one man, Thomas Alva Edison, discovers electricity and the whole of humanity uses it; there is no need for everyone to discover it again and again. Inner growth is a totally different phenomenon. A Gautama Buddha may become enlightened, but that does not mean that everybody else becomes enlightened. Each individual has to find the truth for him or herself.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 96)

“A man of understanding, a man who understands himself and others, always feels compassion. Even if somebody is an enemy you have compassion toward him because a man of understanding can understand the viewpoint of the other also. He knows why the other feels as he feels, he knows why the other is angry, because he knows his own self, and in knowing that, he has known all others.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 206)

“The mediocre mind has no capacity for understanding. It is stuck somewhere near thirteen years in its mental age, or even below it. The person may be forty, fifty, seventy years old – that does not matter, that is the physical age. He has been growing old, but he has not been growing up. You should note the distinction. Growing old, every animal does. Growing up, only a few human beings manage.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 177)

“The desire to rule over others, the will to power, is one of the greatest crimes that man has committed.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 177)

“Joy arises only in creating joy for others; there is no other way. The more people you can make happy, the more you will feel happy.  This is the real meaning of service.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 238)

“Seventy-five percent of our energy around the earth is being poured into war efforts. Are we servants of death and destruction? This 75 percent of energy could be poured into life, into the service of life-and there will be laughter, and there will be greater health, and there will be more wealth, more food. There will be no poverty. There is no need for poverty to exist at all.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 52)

“There are very few joys in life greater than spontaneity. Spontaneity means to be in the moment; it means acting out of your awareness, not acting according to your old conditionings.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 211)

“You have to be again innocent, ignorant, not knowing anything, so that the questions can start arising again. Again the inquiry becomes alive, and with the inquiry becoming alive you cannot vegetate. Then life becomes an exploration, an adventure.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 79)

“People wonder why there seems to be no meaning in life. Meaning does not exist a priori. There is no meaning existing in life; one has to create it. Only if you create it will you discover it. It has to be invented first. It is not lying there like a rock, it has to be created like a song. It is not a thing, it is significance that you bring through your consciousness.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 221)

“A true religion will have the humbleness to admit that only a few things are known, much more is unknown, and something will always remain unknowable. That ‘something’ is the target of the whole spiritual search. You cannot make it an object of knowledge, but you can experience it, you can drink of it, you can have the taste of it – it is existential.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 73)

“Religion can be condensed in a single phrase: total freedom to be oneself.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 34)

“The world has known only very few rebels. But now is the time: if humanity proves incapable of producing a large number of rebels, a rebellious spirit, then our days on the earth are numbered. We have to change our consciousness, create more meditative energy in the world, create more lovingness.”

Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 3)

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If you enjoyed these Osho quotes from The Book of Understanding then you’ll definitely want to check out his book in full.  It comes highly recommended!