The Empty Boat Quotes

“It is really a miracle how you have managed to be so miserable, so thirsty, when it is raining all over. You have really done the impossible! Everywhere it is light and you live in darkness. Death is nowhere and you are constantly dying; life is a benediction and you are in hell.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“Socrates would ask penetrating questions, analyzing everything, and everybody in Athens became angry. This man was trying to prove that everybody is a fool. They killed him. Had he met Chuang Tzu – and at that time Chuang Tzu was alive in China, they were contemporaries – then Chuang Tzu would have told him the secret: “Don’t try to prove that anybody is foolish because fools don’t like this. Don’t try to prove to a madman that he is mad, because no madman likes it. He will get angry, arrogant, aggressive. He will kill you if you prove too much. If you come to the point where it can be proved, he will take revenge.” Chuang Tzu would have said, “It is better to be foolish yourself, then people enjoy you, and then by a very subtle methodology you can help them change. Then they are not against you.” That’s”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“You are always afraid that somebody may think you a fool. You are afraid that if others think you to be a fool, you will start suspecting it. If so many people think you a fool your self-confidence will be lost. And if everybody goes on repeating that you are a fool, sooner or later you will come to believe it.

Only a wise man cannot be deceived, he can appear as a fool.

Have you observed yourself? You are always trying to exhibit your wisdom, always in search of a victim to whom you can show your knowledge, just searching, hunting for somebody weaker than you – then you will jump in and you will show your wisdom.
A wise man need not be an exhibitionist. Whatsoever is, is. He is not aware of it, he is not in any hurry to show it. If you want to find it, you will have to make efforts. If you have to know whether he is gentle or not, that is going to be your discovery.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Talks on the Sayings of Chuang Tzu

“Don’t try to prove that anybody is foolish because fools don’t like it. Don’t try to prove to a madman that he is mad, because no madman likes it. He will get angry, arrogant, aggressive. He will kill you if you prove too much. If you come to the point where it can be proved, he will take revenge.

It is better to be foolish yourself, then people enjoy you, and then by a very subtle methodology you can help them change. Then they are not against you.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Talks on the Sayings of Chuang Tzu

“A great psychoanalyst, Wilhelm Reich, was asked once—because he was studying children, their problems—he was asked, 'What is the most basic problem with children? What do you find at the root of all their misery, their problems, abnormalities?' He said, 'The mothers'.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Talks on the Sayings of Chuang Tzu

“Desire is alcoholic, desire is the greatest drug possible. Marijuana is nothing, lsd is nothing. Desire is the greatest lsd possible – the ultimate in drugs.
What is the nature of desire? When you desire, what happens? When you desire, you are creating an illusion in the mind; when you desire, you have already moved from here. Now you are not here, you are absent from here, because the mind is creating a dream. This absentness is your drunkenness. Be present!”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Talks on the Sayings of Chuang Tzu

“The moralists, the puritans, the virtuous, they are all heavy, and they carry a burden around them, dark shadows. Nobody likes them. They cannot be good companions, they cannot be good friends. Friendship is impossible with a good man – almost impossible, because his eyes are always condemning. The moment you come near him, he is good and you are bad. Not that he is doing anything – just his very being creates something, and you will feel angry.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“Drop desiring and bliss will be yours.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“When you love a person you are gathering momentum to hate him. That’s why only friends can become enemies. You cannot suddenly become an enemy unless you have first become a friend. Lovers quarrel, fight. Only lovers can quarrel and fight, because unless you love, how can you hate?”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“In childhood, you long to grow up fast because older people are more powerful, young men more powerful. A child just longs to grow up immediately. Old people are wise, and the child feels that whatsoever he is doing is always wrong. Then ask the old man – he always thinks that when childhood was lost, everything was lost; paradise was there in childhood. And all the old men die thinking of childhood, the innocence, the beauty, the dreamland. Whatsoever”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“PERFECT VIRTUE PRODUCES NOTHING, because it needs nothing. Production comes out of desire, production comes because you are imperfect. You create something as a substitute because you feel unfulfilled. When you are absolutely fulfilled, why should you create, how can you create? Then you yourself have become the glory of creation, then the inner being itself is so perfect, nothing is needed.
PERFECT VIRTUE PRODUCES NOTHING. If the world is virtuous, all utilitarian goals will be lost. If the world is really virtuous there will be play and no production. Then the whole thing will just become a game. You enjoy it, but you don’t need it. A perfect sage is absolutely useless.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Talks on the Sayings of Chuang Tzu

“Nobody else can destroy you except you; nobody else can save you except you. You are the Judas and you are the Jesus.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“When I say maturity, I mean an inner integrity. And this inner integrity comes only when you stop making others responsible, when you stop saying that the other is creating your suffering, when you start realizing that you are the creator of your suffering. This is the first step towards maturity: I am responsible. Whatsoever is happening, it is my doing.
You feel sad. Is this your doing? You will feel very much disturbed, but if you can remain with this feeling, sooner or later you will be able to stop doing many things. This is what the theory of karma is all about. You are responsible. Don’t say society is responsible, don’t say that parents are responsible, don’t say the economic conditions are responsible, don’t throw the responsibility onto anybody. YOU are responsible.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Talks on the Sayings of Chuang Tzu

“The moralists, the puritans, the virtuous, they are all heavy, and they carry a burden around them, dark shadows. Nobody likes them. They cannot be good companions, they cannot be good friends. Friendship is impossible with a good man – almost impossible, because his eyes are always condemning. The moment you come near him, he is good and you are bad. Not that he is doing anything – just his very being creates something, and you will feel angry. Tao”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“Because you have created so much tension in your life, now you are meditating. But this is the opposite of tension, not real meditation. You are so tense that meditation has become attractive.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“You go in the crowd and you mix, but no one knows that a buddha has entered the crowd. No one comes to feel that somebody is different, because if someone feels it then there is bound to be anger and calamity. Whenever someone feels that you are somebody, his own anger, his own ego is hurt. He starts reacting, he starts attacking you.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Talks on the Sayings of Chuang Tzu

“That’s why I insist again and again that Jesus is from the East; that’s why he could not be understood in the West. The West has misunderstood him. The East could have understood him because the East knows Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Buddha, and Jesus belongs to them. He says: “Those who are last will be the first in my kingdom of God.” The humblest, the meekest, will possess the kingdom of God. Poor in spirit is the goal. Who is poor in spirit? The empty boat, he who is not at all – no claim on anything, no possession of anything, no self. He lives as an absence.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“Western psychology insists that the ego should be strengthened. That is the difference between the Eastern attitude and the Western. Western psychology insists that the ego should be strengthened; the child must have a strong ego, he must fight, struggle; only then will he be mature.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“Many people are virtuous because they are cowards.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“He must become crazy like you, he must be a fool, he must allow you to laugh at him. Then you will not feel jealous, then you will not feel hurt, then you will not be angry with him, then you can tolerate him, then you can forget him and forgive him, then you can leave him alone to himself.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Talks on the Sayings of Chuang Tzu

“There is a great need to be needed. Remember, you feel good whenever you are needed. Sometimes, even if it brings misery to you, even then you love to be needed.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Talks on the Sayings of Chuang Tzu

“If you are drained there is no wonder your life is not fun. You have so many temples and so many lamps to put on and off, so many calculations in your life, it cannot be a fun.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“Live a headless life. Move as a total being, and accept things. Just for twenty-four hours, try it – total acceptance, whatsoever happens. Somebody insults you, accept it, don’t react, and see what happens. Suddenly you will feel an energy flowing in you that you have not felt before. Somebody insults you: you feel weak, you feel disturbed, you start thinking of how to get your revenge. That man has hooked you, and now you will move round and round. For days, nights, months, even years you will not be able to sleep or dream. People can waste their whole life over a small thing, just because someone insulted them.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“The ego is a construction; you can also drop it through chemicals. It is a construction; it is not a reality, it is not substantial in you. It is through society that you have learned it. Alcohol simply drops you out of society. That’s why society is always against alcohol, the government is always against alcohol, the university is always against alcohol, all the moralists are always against alcohol – because alcohol is dangerous, it gives you a glimpse of the outside of society. That is why there is so much propaganda against drugs in America and in Western countries.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“Western psychologists say: we will train the child to be independent, to be individual. Jung’s psychology is known as the way of individuation. He must become an individual, absolutely separate. He must fight. That’s why, in the West, there is so much rebellion in the new generation. This rebellion was not created by the new, younger generation; this rebellion was created by Freud, Jung, Adler and company. They have provided the basis.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“You are not in any way aware that you are already victorious, that life has happened to you. You are already a winner and nothing more is possible, all that could happen has happened to you. You are already an emperor, and there is no other kingdom to be won. But you have not recognized it, you have not known the beauty of the life that has already happened to you. You have not known the silence, the peace, the bliss that is already there.
And because you are not aware of the inner kingdom, you always feel that something more is needed, some victory, to prove that you are not a beggar.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Talks on the Sayings of Chuang Tzu

“You are weak – not because others are strong – you are weak because you are filled with so many desires. You are defeated, not because others are more cunning and clever – you are defeated because you have so many leakages.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“A man graduated from the college, became a doctor, and came home. His father was very tired of working and working – he was also a medical doctor – so he went on a holiday. He said, “I am going to the hills for at least three weeks rest, so now you start working.” After three weeks the father came back. The boy said “I have a surprise for you. The lady you have been treating for years and couldn’t cure, I have cured her in three days.” The father beat him on the head and said, “You fool, that lady was paying for your education and I was hoping that through her all my children would get through college. Her stomachache was not real. And I was worried while in the hills. I forgot to tell you not to touch that woman. She is rich and she needs a stomachache, and I have been helping her. For years she has been the source of our livelihood.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“So remember, meditation should be fun, it should not be work. You should not do it like a religious man, you should do it like a gambler. Play, for fun. You should be like a sportsman not a businessman. It should be fun, and then all the skill will be available, then it will flower by itself. You will not be needed. No effort is needed. Simply your whole being has to be available, your whole energy has to be available. Then the flower comes by itself.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness

“A man was going to get married and somebody asked him, “You have always been against marriage, why have you suddenly changed your mind?” He said, “Winter is coming and they say that this winter is going to be very cold, and central heating is beyond me and a wife is cheaper.” This is the logic. You live with someone because it is comfortable, convenient, economical, cheaper. To live alone is really difficult. A wife is so many things, the housekeeper, the cook, the servant, the nurse, so many things – the cheapest labor in the world, doing so many things without being paid at all. It is exploitation. Marriage exists as an institution for exploitation, it is not togetherness. That is why no happiness comes out of it as a flowering. It cannot. How can ecstasy be born out of the roots of exploitation?”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Encounters with Nothingness