Osho Quotes on Maturity

1. To grow old is not to grow up, to become old is not to become mature. Maturity has nothing to do with old age, nothing to do with age at all. Maturity has something to do with becoming more and more conscious, becoming more and more silent and aware, becoming more and more watchful of what you are doing and why, where you are going and why.
2. If you can function right now, here in this moment, through your consciousness, through your being aware, putting aside all that you have known  –  this is what I call functioning through no-knowledge, this is functioning through innocence. And this is maturity.
3. Maturity happens when you start living without hope. Hope is childish. You become mature when you don’t project hope into the future. In fact, you are mature when you don’t have any future; you just live in the moment — because that is the only reality there is.
4. Lose the mind and gain consciousness and you are mature. Die to the past and be born to the present and you are mature. Maturity is living in the present, fully alert and aware of all the beauty and the splendor of existence.
5. The more he goes deeper into himself, the more mature he is. When he has reached the very center of his being, he is perfectly mature. But at that moment the person disappears, only presence remains… The self disappears, only silence remains. Knowledge disappears, only innocence remains. To me, maturity is another name for realization: you have come to the fulfillment of your potential, it has become actual. The seed has come on a long journey, and has blossomed. Maturity has a fragrance. It gives a tremendous beauty to the individual. It gives intelligence, the sharpest possible intelligence. It makes him nothing but love. His action is love, his inaction is love; his life is love, his death is love. He is just a flower of love.
6. When man attains to maturity, he becomes wise; when man comes to fulfillment, then wisdom arises. Wisdom is the essence of man, the fragrance of the lotus flower.
7. Maturity means becoming more conscious; there is no other way to become mature. I am not saying don’t commit mistakes, because that will not help. I am not saying avoid mistakes, no. I am saying whatsoever you want to do, do it, but do it very consciously. Bring your full being in it, so once done you can decide whether it is worth doing again or it is utter nonsense, useless; so once done you know whether it is a real diamond or just a colored stone.
8. The professor only knows questions. He is lost in the jungle of questions. The philosopher remains immature. Maturity is of consciousness, not of intellectuality. It is not of knowledge, it is of innocence
9. Maturity has nothing to do with age because it has nothing to do with experience; maturity has something to do with responsiveness, freshness, virginity, innocence. So when I use the word ‘mature’ I don’t mean that when you become more experienced you will be more mature. That’s what people usually mean when they use the word  –  I don’t mean that. The more you gather knowledge, the more your mind will become immature; and by the time you are seventy or eighty, you will be completely immature because you will have a stale past to function through. Watch a small child…knowing nothing, having no experience, he functions here and now.
10. Awareness is the method; maturation is the result. Become more aware and you will have more maturity; hence, I teach you awareness and don’t talk about maturity. It is going to happen if you are aware.
11. Zen is not concerned with your childish state of mind. It has no desire to nourish it any more. Its concern is maturity; it wants you to become mature, it wants you to become ripe. Hence it has no idea of God — no father in the sky. It leaves you totally alone because only in aloneness is maturity possible. It leaves you totally in insecurity. It gives you no security, no guarantee. It gives you all kinds of insecurities to move into. And that’s what sannyas is also: a quantum leap into insecurity, a quantum leap into the unknown, because only with that encounter will you become mature. And maturity is freedom, maturity is liberation.
12. To think that you know is to be immature. To function from knowledge, from conclusion, is to be immature. To function from no-knowledge, from no conclusion, from no past, is maturity. Maturity is deep trust in your own consciousness; immaturity is a distrust in your own consciousness. When you distrust your consciousness you trust your knowledge, but that is a substitute and a very poor substitute at that.
13. Maturity has nothing to do with mind because mind means all that you know; mind means your experiences, mind means your past, your rehearsals, your preparations. All these things are implied in the word ‘mind.’ Mind is not something in particular, it is the whole accumulation, all the junk, the whole heap, of your dead past. When I say, ‘Be mature,’ I mean become a no-mind. If you act spontaneously, you will act out of no-mind. If you remain capable of learning, you will remain capable of being a no-mind again and again and again  –  the mind will never be accumulated. If you are capable of remaining alert-and spontaneous, able to be surprised by life and by yourself, you will become by and by more and more interested in the interior-most life, in the core of life. When you see a person, you will not see just the body, your gaze will become penetrating, your gaze will become like an x-ray. It will catch hold of the person  –  of the consciousness there, of the inner light there in the other person.
14. What is immaturity? Whatsoever you are doing, you are doing almost unconsciously. Yes, I say be spontaneous, but I don’t mean be unconscious. I mean be alert and spontaneous. By ‘being spontaneous’ you immediately understand to become a driftwood; so whatsoever happens, whatsoever and wheresoever the mind leads you, you are led by it. You become accidental. Immaturity makes a man accidental; maturity gives man a direction.
15. Nothing has to be renounced. Everything has to be lived with deep awareness, with totality, with understanding, because escape is not a way of growth; hence all the so-called saints who have escaped from life remain psychologically immature. Maturity is in life, in all its bitterness and sweetness, in all its misery and joy, in its nights and days. One has to learn through these polarities to move alert, conscious, so that one can remain balanced between the two, exactly in the middle. That’s what sannyas is. It is not renunciation. It is rejoicing in life, of course with a different quality than ordinary people live it. Ordinary people live unconsciously — a sannyasin tries to live consciously. That’s the only difference, otherwise both live the same life.
16. What kind of religion can there be when there is no sincerity, no authenticity? You cannot even give reasons for your beliefs, and still you go on clinging to them. Look closely and you will find fear behind. A mature person should disconnect himself from anything that is connected with fear. That’s how maturity comes. Just watch all your acts, all your beliefs, and find out whether they are based in reality, in experience, or based in fear. And anything based in fear has to be dropped immediately, without a second thought. It is your armor. I cannot melt it. I can simply show you how you can drop it.
17. Remember the difference between childlike and childish: to be childlike is to be a sage, to be childish is not to be a sage. To be childish means to be immature; it needs much improvement, growth, maturity.
18. The moment you become aware that to be a part of any society, any religion, any culture is to remain miserable, is to remain a prisoner, that very day you start dropping your chains. Maturity is coming. You are gaining your innocence again.
19. Maturity means gaining your lost innocence again, reclaiming your paradise, becoming a child again. Of course it has a difference, because the ordinary child is bound to be corrupted, but when you reclaim your childhood you become incorruptible. Nobody can corrupt you, you become intelligent enough. Now you know what the society has done to you and you are alert and aware, and you will not allow it to happen again. Maturity is a rebirth, a spiritual birth. You are born anew, you are a child again. With fresh eyes you start looking at existence. With love in the heart you approach life. With silence and innocence you penetrate your own innermost core. You are no more just the head. Now you use the head, but it is your servant. First you become the heart, and then you transcend even the heart…. Going beyond thoughts and feelings and becoming a pure isness is maturity. Maturity is the ultimate flowering of meditation.
20. You should learn how to be free from all father-figures. You should learn how to be yourself. You should learn how to be aware and responsible. Then only you start growing. Maturity is always maturity towards freedom. Immaturity is always a sort of dependence and a fear of freedom.