Never be a Christian, be a Christ.
"I don’t want you to become Christians - that is useless, that is a lie. I want you to become Christs. And you can become Christs, because you have the same seed"
-Osho, "The Mustard Seed: My Most Loved Gospel on Jesus, #21"
You cannot believe that a man like Jesus can commit mistakes because you cannot believe that Jesus is a man like you. And unless you believe that Jesus is a man like you, you cannot believe the other part of the story, that you are as divine as Jesus.
Remember these are two sides of the same coin. If you can believe Jesus is a man just like you, then you can also believe that you have the same potential as Jesus. If he can become a christ you can become a christ too.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 8, #13"
“Why should one be a Christian? It is ugly. Be a christ if you can be, but don’t be a Christian. Be a buddha if you have any respect for yourself, but don’t be a Buddhist. The Buddhist believes. Buddha knows.”
-Osho, "The Book of Wisdom, #3"
It is almost impossible to understand Jesus through the priests. The only pure way, the only possible way, is to go in, return inside. There you will meet Christ-consciousness. The only way to understand Christ is to become a Christ. Never be a Christian - be a Christ! Never be a Buddhist -- be a Buddha! Never be a Hindu -- be a Krishna! And if you want to be a Krishna, Christ or Buddha, then you need not go into the scriptures and you need not ask the scholars: you will have to ask the mystics how to go in.
That's exactly what I am doing here: helping you to become aware of yourself. And the moment you know yourself you will be surprised: you have never committed a sin. Sin is the invention of the priest to create guilt in you.
You don't need any salvation. All that you need is a little shaking up so you can wake up. You don t need priests. You certainly need awakened people, because only the awakened ones can shake those who are fast asleep and dreaming. And humanity needs to be free of guilt, free of the idea of sin, free of the idea of repentance. Humanity needs innocence, and the priests don't allow you to be innocent; they corrupt your minds.
Beware of the priests. They are the people who crucified Jesus -- how can they interpret Jesus? They are the people who have always been against the Buddhas -- and the irony is that finally they become the interpreters.
-Osho, “Be Still and Know, #2, Q3”
God is only a metaphor - it represents. All that is beautiful and valuable. All that is significant. It represents eighty-four thousand poems.
Go beyond following. If you want to be a Christ. The most significant thing to understand is That following is not going to help you, It is a hindrance, it is a barrier. All followers are imitators. All followers are false and pseudo. Each individual has to be himself or herself.
Jesus is an authentic individual. He is not a follower of anybody. He is not a follower of Moses. He is not a follower of Abraham. These were enlightened people, Abraham and Moses. Jesus loved them, but he was not a follower.
He appreciated the beauty of these people. He appreciated, he imbibed their spirit. But he was not a follower. He tried to be himself. That's why he was punished. The society does not like individuals. It wants followers, imitators, pseudo people. It is afraid of real human beings. It is perfectly at ease with the phony ones. The authentic individual is bound to be punished. That's why Jesus was crucified:
He became Christ. Christ means he attained. Realisation of his own being. You cannot be a follower of Christ. You can be a Christ, you can be a Buddha - They are synonymous. 'Buddha' is the eastern word with the same meaning. 'Christ' is the western word For the same experience.
But never be a Buddhist. And never be a Mohammedan, never be a Christian - Just be yourself!
My whole effort here is to help you to be free From all kinds of religions and churches And Bibles and Gitas and Korans So that you can grow According to your intrinsic nature. Certainly the day you are awakened. You are a Christ.
Why settle for being a Christian? Christ was not a Christian – remember. And if you meet Christ he will immediately say, 'Don't be a Christian. It is not a beautiful phenomenon to be a Christian. Be a Christ!'
Christ means the crowned one, the annointed one, The blessed one.
-Osho, “Eighty Four Thousand Poems, #22“
Jesus is Jesus, I am me. Jesus is not there to follow me, nor am I there to follow him. And it is good that everybody is unique, otherwise life would be a boredom, a monotony. But people are foolish -- they go on co *ming to me and asking me: "Why did Buddha say this, why did Mahavir never say this?" But Mahavir is Mahavir, Buddha is Buddha. The Ganges flows towards the east and the Narmada goes on flowing towards the west -- what to do? If all the rivers were flowing towards the east, do you think the world would be better? Just think of a world with four thousand million Buddhas -- can you think of anything m ore boring? They would start committing suicide: wherever you went you would meet your replica, wherever you would look it would be as if you were always looking in the mirror -- only people exactly alike.
No, it is good that everybody is unique. Why do you hanker after such things? Jesus is-beautiful in his parables; without parables he would not be beautiful, without parables something would be missing. He is one of the most beautiful storytellers.
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Never compare: Why is Jesus like this? The trees are green because they are green. Jesus is just Jesus-like, and he is not like anybody else.
That is what I have been continuously insisting for you to be also: just be yourself, never be anybody else. Never be a Christian, never be a Hindu, never be a Jain, because then you are following a pattern and you will miss your soul. The soul is yours -- individual, unique -- and the pattern is public, collective, social. Never try to be somebody else. Just try to find out who you are and allow it, accept it, welcome it, delight in it, relish it, so that it is nourished, so that it grows. Through you, God is trying to become somebody He has never tried before.
God is not repetitive; His creativity is infinite. He never drives the same model again -- He is not a Henry Ford. He is absolutely inventive; every day He goes on trying the new, the fresh. He never bothers to repeat a model again, He always goes on improving. He is a great innovator. That's what creativity is. So don't try to become a Jesus -- because then God won't receive you.
-Osho, “Come Follow To You, Vol 1, #6, Q5“
It is very much easier to become a Christian than to become a Christ, very much easier to become a Buddhist than to become a Buddha, but the reality is known only by becoming a Christ or a Buddha. By becoming a Christian or a Buddhist you are again becoming carbon copies. Don't insult yourself that way. Have a little respect for yourself. Never be a Christian and never be a Buddhist and never be a Hindu. Just be consciousness undefined, unbound, unmotivated. If you can do that much, all else will follow on its own accord.
-Osho, “The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 2, #10“
The moment you give your whole responsibility to somebody, unknowingly you are also giving your whole freedom.
And naturally, all those masters had to die one day, but they have left long lines of slaves: Christians, Jews, Hindus, Mohammedans. What are these people? Why should somebody be a Christian? If you can be someone, be a Christ, never be a Christian. Are you absolutely blind to the humiliation when you call yourself a Christian, a follower of someone who died two thousand years ago?
The whole of humanity is following the dead. Is it not weird that the living should follow the dead, that the living should be dominated by the dead, that the living should depend on the dead and their promises that `We will be coming to save you.'?
None of them has come to save you. In fact, nobody can save anybody else; it goes against the foundational truth of freedom and individuality.
As far as I am concerned, I am simply making every effort to make you free from everybody -- including me -- and to just be alone on the path of searching.
-Osho, “Beyond Enlightenment, #11, Q1“
Following Christ does not mean following Jesus. When Jesus disappears Christ is born in him. When Gautam Siddhartha disappears Buddha is born in him. They are totally different phenomena, but people have got them mixed-up. They think that to follow Christ means to follow Jesus. Nobody can follow Jesus because nobody can be like Jesus; God never creates the same person again. But Christ can be followed because Christ is a state of consciousness. It has nothing to do with the person, Jesus. He is one of the Christs, that is true, but there have been many other Christs and there will be many more.
Anyone who attains to the ultimate flowering is a Christ. To be enlightened is to be a Christ. To know who you are is to be a Christ. But Christianity has taken a very wrong route. It became too focussed on Jesus, the person, they completely forgot about the flowering, the fragrance which really makes him valuable. Without that fragrance he is nobody, just an ordinary carpenter.
Christhood means that meditation has come to its peak. One has gone beyond misery, beyond ego, beyond mind, beyond time. One has become one with the whole.
Blissfully follow the subtle path of being a Christ. Never be a Christian, be a Christ. When one can be a Christ why settle for being a Christian? When one can be a Buddha why be a Buddhist? That's my basic message here, that you are carrying within you the ultimate. There is no need to settle for less than that.
-Osho, “If You Choose To Be With Me, You Must Risk Finding Yourself, #8“