Is There Any Point in Living?

By: Osho

Narrated by: Osho

Existentialist come to the conclusion, well no there is no meaning in life so what’s the point?

Osho in his genius way again looks at the question put before him from a very different point of view. See for yourself…

“A beautiful flower, or a beautiful painting, or beautiful music, beautiful poetry–they don't have any point. They are not arguments to prove something, neither are they means to achieve any end. And living consists only of those things which are pointless.

Let me repeat it: living consists only of those things which have no point at all, which have no meaning at all–meaning in the sense that they don't have any goal, that they don't lead you anywhere, that you don't get anything out of them.

In other words, living is significant in itself…”

©1984 OSHO International Foundation (P)2022 OSHO International Foundation

The meaning of life defined by Osho: Why are we here?

In this Osho talk Osho said that some of the greatest things in life have no purpose and the act itself has its own purpose. Most things in life are a means to an end but Osho said that meditation for example has no end and the purpose of meditation is meditation. He then said life is the same, the purpose of life is life itself. It's a bit of a conundrum for sure but ultimately life is a beautiful thing even if for some they find it hollow and empty. Perhaps even emptiness and hollowness has meaning as well? A simple change in perspective can take something that was meaningless and give it meaning and this can go the other way too. Ultimately that's what life is all about, finding our own way, creating ourselves and experiencing polarity is what this realm is all about. Life and death, cold and hot, good and evil: so on and so forth the dichotomy reveals itself here, two sides of the same coin are revealed every day. The second part of this speech was about trust and he spoke a lot about the American government and his Ashram in Oregon. Whereas the first answer was far more spiritual in nature the second answer was far more down to earth.

Only for the Osho completionist

The first half was good. I liked his discussion of Vincent Van Gogh, in particular. However, things sort of meandered away from the core topic in the second half. You'll still enjoy that part if you like listening to Osho, but he has much better talks available here on Audible.