God is DeadCommuneBuddhafieldMeditative LifeFriendlinessMaster/DiscipleDon't follow anyoneDon't try to be a Master

 Don't try to be a Master 

"Everyone considers himself extraordinary. This is Ego"

"All the buddhas of all the ages

have been telling you a very simple fact:

Be - don't try to become.

Within these two words, be and becoming,

your whole life is contained.

Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance."

-Osho, "The Book of Wisdom, #10, Q1"

"A meditator needs no personal guidance.

A meditator, on the contrary, needs only one thing:

the atmosphere of meditation. He needs other meditators;

he needs to be surrounded by other meditators."

-Osho, "The Invitation, #12"

"First be a disciple;

don't try to be a master.

Mastership will come"

 -Osho, “The New Alchemy to Turn You On, #14”

"Resist the temptation to help others.

It is evil unless you have obtained some certainty of your own.

Don't try to be a guru, don't try to be a helper.

because you will disturb; you will create more problems"

-Osho, “The New Alchemy to Turn You On, Discourse #14”

"In my opinion only the meanest people in the world

are attracted towards politics; the meanest, the lowest,

because they know they can only do something if they have power.

You Need Power Only To Do Something Harmful;

otherwise Love Is Enough, Compassion Is Enough.

And for compassion you need not be a president of a country,

for love you need not be a prime minister."

-Osho, "From Unconciousness to Consciousness, #7"

No man considers himself ordinary.

Everyone considers himself extraordinary.

This is Ego.

If man knows and accepts himself to be ordinary,

Ego will leave him. All men are ordinary. 

All men are ordinary, no one is extraordinary. 

-Osho, “The Way of Tao, Volume 1, #22, Q6”

Don't waste your time in trying to dominate others.

The effort to dominate others creates political conflict; the whole world is full of it.

Even in personal relationships politics enters and destroys them.

Even when you love a woman or a man,

the mind starts its cunning ways to dominate,

to possess, to destroy the freedom of the other...

because you are afraid. You are afraid that if YOU don't dominate,

the other is going to dominate you. 

-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 6, #3“

Money, power, prestige — they all make you cunning.

Seek pleasure and you will lose your innocence;

and to lose your innocence is to lose all.

- Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 8, #5"

 Nobody should in any way interfere in anybody else’s life 
 

Nobody should in any way interfere in anybody else’s life and nobody should allow anybody else to interfere in his life. This is how a man should be: not trying to enslave others and not allowing anybody to enslave him. One should live a life of freedom and one should allow others to live freely. Don’t be afraid, if you love beautiful orange material, use it, it is good. Whatsoever you love is good. There is only one condition: if it doesn’t interfere it is beautiful, it is moral.

-Osho, “Tao The Three Treasures Vol 2”

 That’s why I called even enlightenment the last game. 

“My effort here is to make you drop all future, all hope, all illusion, and just relax in the moment knowing perfectly well that this is the only moment which exists. All else is either memory or imagination. [....]

I want you to drop all games – worldly games, spiritual games, games that the whole of humanity has played up to now. These games keep you retarded. These games hinder you from growing into consciousness, into your own ultimate flowering. I want to cut away all this rubbish that prevents you.

I want to leave you alone, absolutely alone, so that you cannot take anybody’s help, so you cannot cling to any prophet, so that you cannot think that Gautam Buddha is going to save you. Left alone – utterly alone – you are bound to find your innermost center.

There is no way, nowhere to go, no advisor, no teacher, no master. It seems hard, it seems harsh, but I am doing it because I love you, and the people who have not done it have not loved you at all. They loved themselves and they loved to have a big crowd around themselves – the bigger the crowd, the more they feel nourished in their egos.

That’s why I called even enlightenment the last game. The sooner you drop it, the better. Why not just simply be? Why unnecessarily hurry here and there? You are what existence wants you to be. Just relax.”

-Osho, "Om Mani Padme Hum, #9"

 Don’t try to be a guru 

Meditation is nonsocial. It is not concerned with anyone else; it is concerned only with yourself. So no mask is needed; you can be authentic. But you cannot be authentic because you don't know the distinction. Even in meditation I feel that you are doing many false things. [....]

Don't do anything that is not real. It is not going to help anyone. Be authentic, be real, at least in your meditation - because there, you alone are concerned.

Tillich has said somewhere that religion is the concern of the individual, a totally personal concern with oneself. It is not concerned with anyone else. Religion is individual, so you need not think of anyone else while meditating, not even of me. Be real. Throw your masks. Anything authentic will help you to move inward, anything unreal will help you to move outward.

That is the reason why Shankara calls the world illusion. The more you move away from yourself, the more you are moving into illusion; and the more you go inward, the more you are moving into reality. Your personality is the gateway toward illusion, toward an unreal dream world. Throw that gate, throw that bridge completely. At least in meditation. [....]

You have to put yourself aside: your personality, your ego. [....]

And before the moment that you yourself have come into deep contact with your innermost heart, you cannot do anything that is good, that is worthy. You cannot be of any service to anyone. Whatsoever you do, even with good will, will create evil, because the doer is ignorant. What you do is not significant. Who you are is more significant. [....]

It has happened that even without any goodwill, good happens - if you are filled with light and happiness. But much goodwill, without the inner light, may be dangerous for others. People who are engaged in service toward others without any inner sadhana create much mischief. The whole society is suffering from these mischievous people who go on serving others without in any way having realized their own inner light. Remember this: the first thing is your own self-realization. Serving others is secondary. And don't think that, through serving others, you can realize your self. Through realizing your self you can move into serving others, not vice versa. [....]

Remember this. It is impossible to help others till you have obtained some certainty of your own.

Resist the temptation to help others. It is evil unless you have obtained some certainty of your own. Don't try to be a guru, don't try to be a helper. because you will disturb; you will create more problems. Remember well that you cannot help. you cannot guide anyone. unless you have got the inner light. When the inner light is there, the help, the guidance, will flow from you.

Resist the temptation. The temptation is great, because the ego feels very fulfilled. Someone comes to ask your advice. The temptation is there to give advice without knowing what you are doing, without being aware that you don't know. If someone asks you whether God is, you are not strong enough to say, "I don't know." You say something. Either you say, "Yes. God is. I am a believer," or you say, "No, God is not. I am a disbeliever," but in both.cases you give advice. In both cases you confirm something that you don't know.

Remember this, for the spiritual seeker a very basic, very significant point: whatsoever you really know, confirm only that. If you don't know, it is better to say, "I don't know."

Someone asked Albert Einstein once, "What is the difference between science and philosophy?"

His reply is one of the wisest. He said. "If you come to a scientist and ask a hundred questions, about ninety-nine he will say, 'I don't know.' Only about one will he say, 'I know. But this too,' he will say, 'is only relative knowledge. Tomorrow it can change. It is not absolute.'

"If you go to a philosopher and ask one question, he will give a hundred answers. And with absolute conviction that this is so. If someone says something else, he will be condemned to hell. 'He is wrong!'"

That's why philosophy leads nowhere. Answers and answers and answers leading nowhere. Answering so much and not even answering a single question. The basic thing is lacking: the philosopher is not strong enough to say, "I don't know." [....]

Remember this, don't guide anyone unless you have a certain knowledge, a certain experience. And even then, tell others that "this is my experience. It may not be so for you. It is how I have come to it. Your way may differ; it may not prove true for you. So don't take my advice blindly. You can experiment with it. It is an open experiment."

Then you can be of some help. Otherwise. you can create disturbances. Don't get tempted. Don't advise unless you really know. Don't guide. First be a disciple; don't try to be a master. Mastership will come. When your discipleship has become complete and total, the master will emerge within you. But not before that moment, not before that time. Wait for it. It happens.

-Osho, “The New Alchemy to Turn You On, Discourse #14”

 None of My Sannyasins are to Become Saviors 

Question 2 :

Osho,

Though your emphasis has been for us, as individuals, to go within to save ourselves, I guess I am still naïve enough to feel that our love, our dancing, our joy could still save this beautiful planet. Can you please say something about this?

The question is meaningful, but very complex to understand. You are asking, "Though your emphasis has been for us, as individuals, to go within to save ourselves, I guess I am still naive enough to feel that our love, our dancing, our joy, could still save this beautiful planet."

It may save the beautiful planet, but you should not carry the idea within you; otherwise it will destroy your love and your dance and your joy. If deep down you are guessing that "my love, my dancing, my joy can save the whole planet," it is the strategy of the ego. You are becoming a savior. You are becoming so great that you can save the whole planet, just by your love and just by your dancing, just by your joy.

Try to understand the complexity. It is possible, if individuals are full of love, full of joy, and their life is not a drag, but a dance... as a by-product it is possible the planet may be saved. But as a by-product -- you cannot take the credit for saving the world.

This is the trouble: if you start thinking that you are dancing to save the world, your dance is destroyed. Then you are not dancing totally, then you are not dancing here and now; then your dancing has become a means to save the world. Then your love is not pure love -- it is just another means, but the end is to save the world. It will be easy for you to understand if I tell you a Sufi story....

One Sufi mystic was so full of love, and so full of joy -- his whole life was laughter, music, dancing. And the story says God became very interested in him because he never asked anything, he never prayed. His whole life was a prayer, there was no need to pray.

He never went to the mosque, he never even uttered the name of God; his whole existence was the argument for the presence of God. If anybody asked him whether God exists or not he simply laughed -- but his laughter was neither yes nor no.

God himself became intrigued with that strange mystic and he came to the mystic and said, "I am immensely happy because that's how I want people to be -- not that they should pray for one hour and do everything against it for twenty-three hours. Not that they should become very pious when they enter the mosque, and when they go out they leave their piousness in the mosque and they are just their old selves: angry, jealous, full of anxiety, full of violence.

"I have watched you and I have loved you. This is the way: you have become the prayer. You are, right now, my only argument in the world that something more than man exists -- although you have never argued, you have not even uttered my name. Those are superfluous things... but you live, you love, you are so full of joy that there is no need for any language; your very presence becomes the argument for my existence. I want to give you a blessing. You can ask for anything."

The sage said, "But I don't need anything. I am so joyous, and I cannot conceive there can be anything more. Forgive me, I cannot ask because I really don't need anything. You are generous, you are loving, you are compassionate; but I am so over-full, there is no space within me for anything else. You will have to forgive me, I cannot ask."

God said, "I had thought that you would not ask, so don't ask for yourself -- but you can ask for others, because there are millions of people who are miserable, sick, have never known anything for which they can be grateful. I can give you powers to do miracles, and you can change the lives of all these people."

The sage said, "If you are insistent, then with a condition I can accept your gifts."

God said, "With a condition? You really are strange. What is the condition?"

He said, "My condition is that I should not become aware of what is happening through me, by you. It should happen behind my back; it should happen through my shadow, not through me. I may be passing and my shadow may fall on a dead tree, and the tree may become alive again -- again lush green, again heavy with flowers and fruits -- but I should not know it, because I don't want to fall back.

"If I know it -- that I have done it, or even that God has chosen me as the instrument to do it -- it is dangerous. So my condition is: a blind man may start seeing, but neither should he know that it is because of me, nor should I know that it is because of me. My shadow behind my back will do all the miracles.

"If you can accept my condition, and remember that I should not know at all... because I am so full of joy, so blissful. Don't drag me back into the miserable world. Don't drag me back to become again an `I.'"

And it is said that God said to him, "You are not only strange, you are unique and rare. And this will be so: you will never know what things are happening around you. Miracles will be happening around you -- wherever you will go, miracles will happen. Neither those people will know that you have done those miracles, nor you will know that you have done those miracles. I will remember the condition."

Devaprem, there is a possibility: the individual coming to enlightenment and celebration is bound to affect the whole destiny of humanity. But it is going to be a by-product. It is going to happen behind your back, through your shadow -- not by you. Even guessing is dangerous, because that guessing can give you the ego and can destroy your joy, can destroy your dance. And if your joy and your love and your dance are destroyed, then there is not going to be any by-product to save the planet.

None of my sannyasins are to become saviors. The world has known many saviors, and the world is not saved. And the reason is that they were not as alert as the Sufi mystic; they started bragging about their miracles, they started nursing their egos through their miracles. Then their miracles became only magic, just tricks practiced well. There is nothing like a miraculous in it.

The greatest miracle in the world is that you should dance and disappear in the dance -- then let the dance do whatever it can do. That you should love and disappear in the love -- then let the love do whatever it can do. You cannot claim that you are doing it -- you have already disappeared.

In your disappearance is the whole possibility of some miracle happening. So please don't guess; otherwise deep inside your love will remain half-hearted -- you are doing it for some purpose. And when love becomes a purpose it is no longer love. Your joy will become phony, because if you are joyful so something can happen in the world, you are not really joyful -- you are using joy. And if your dance is a means towards an end, it cannot be total. Unless your dance is an end in itself, there is no possibility of its being total.

And only a total dance, an authentic love, a whole-hearted joy, perhaps may create some miracles around you. But you will not be the one who has done them; you will not be the one who can brag about them. They will happen only when you are not.

God happens only when you have moved out of the way and left yourself totally empty, spacious. It is a very strange phenomenon: The guest only comes inside the house when the host disappears.

- Osho, “The Hidden Splendor #16”

 All leadership is misleading, and to guide is to misguide. 

There is no goal, there is no way -- and Buddha taught the way? There is no way to be there but to be there. And, moreover, there is no there either, but only here. All leadership is misleading, and to guide is to misguide. Buddha was not a guide and Buddha was not a leader.

Neither am I a guide. I am simply sharing my understanding, not guiding you. If you love me, if you love this moment of sharing, you will see a few things -- immediately! You need not wait for tomorrow, because all that happens, happens now. The trees are green now, and the birds are singing now, and the rivers are flowing now, and I am speaking now -- and you are thinking to get enlightened tomorrow? Now or never.

It is a sharing! It is not guidance. There is no way so there cannot be any guide, and there cannot be any guidebooks either.

The master is one who guides without guiding and leads without leading -- who simply shares his understanding, his being, his love; who makes himself available to people who are ready to see, who are ready to open their eyes, who are ready to open their hearts. I am available -- if you are also available to me, then something is going to happen THIS moment! Then something is already happening. In that availability between the master and the disciple, something is immediately transferred, some transformation happens.

One cannot get out of illusion, because illusion is that which is not. You have never been in it! See the point and you are out of it -- the goose is out! The great illusion is to think that there is illusion.

-Osho, "Take It Easy, Vol 1, #3"

 Just Be Yourself, Exclusively! 

I want you all to be just yourself -- not followers of anybody, including me, but only fellow travelers. You can exchange your experiences with each other, but you don't have to exchange your paths, because your path is just your path, exclusively yours. Nobody will ever pass on that path again, and nobody has ever passed on that path before -- only you. This is the beauty of existence -- that it gives space to everyone, each unique individual.

-Osho, "Sat Chit Anand, #23"

 l am not your Leader 

- To be a Leader means to be a criminal -

“Each leader -- political, religious, or of any other brand -- is against the evolution of man. I am not your Leader. And I hate the very word from my guts, because I can see the implications of it. To be a Leader means to be a criminal! Of course, the crime is so subtle that you don’t see somebody being murdered. But the whole humanity is being crushed, murdered under the weight of it. You have been told for centuries just to follow: it is not your business to think, to contemplate, to meditate, to decide for your own life. Somebody else has to decide it. Somebody else has to give you ideals, values. Your function is only to be faithful.

Faith is poison, and to be faithful means you have committed suicide. But the leader needs faithful people, committed people, surrendered people. These are good words for making people enslaved.

But the guide is a friend, he is not your leader. He has found something which you can also find. His function is to make you aware of your potentiality. His function is not to create a certain personality according to his ideas but to give you freedom, to help you come out of all kinds of conditionings so that you can become an individual.

Personality is borrowed. It is what others have made of you. Individuality is your nature. It is what you have brought from your very birth with you.

The guide helps you to destroy the personality. The moment the personality falls apart, suddenly you discover your original face. And your original face is always a tremendous transformation. You have got hold of your natural being, of your spontaneity, of your freedom. And these are the basic elements which will help you on the way.

Now you can move on your own, without any leader, without any father figure, without any pope, without any God. You feel a strange contentment with yourself. You feel whole unto yourself.

So remember, whenever I say something or I give a message to you, it is simply to destroy your bondage, your chains, your imprisonment. I am not shaping your being, I am simply deprogramming you. Your being is already there, covered under so many programs -- Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, communist.”

-Osho,  "From Bondage to Freedom, #42"

 Only an  drdinary man can be enlightened. 

 - Don’t try to make me someone extraordinary -

“All that you have to remember is: no God, no priesthood, no holy scripture, no miracles, no superman. For the first time in the whole of history I am saying that an ordinary man can be enlightened. In fact only an ordinary man can be enlightened. Ordinariness for the first time is given this much respect. So don’t try to make me someone extraordinary. I am trying in every way so that you cannot make me.... I go on doing everything that will prove that this was not a superman or a messiah or a tirthankara. I will not fit with any image. You cannot manage to make me extraordinary. Beware of the human tendency: one wants one's Master to be extraordinary. But this is what leads ultimately to the death of religion.

You should not desire your Master to be extraordinary. You should rather rejoice that an ordinary man has become enlightened. That means he has opened the doors to enlightenment for everybody. You need not be the only begotten son of God, you need not be a tirthankara earning virtue for millions of lives, you need not be born with special qualities, talents. [....]

Remember, I don't have any talents -- because religion is not a talent. Music is, poetry is, painting is.

Religion is not a talent.

Religion is simply seeing yourself

You may be a painter, you may be a poet, you may be a musician, you may not be anybody, but you are!

This is not a talent, this is your existence.

And to experience it is everybody's birthright.

You can save this living religion only so long as you go on meditating and you go on creating new flowers, new blossomings -- so that you never become a desert; there is always some oasis. Just a single person amongst you is enough to keep the religion alive and prevent anybody from reducing it to a cult.

But please don't call it my religion.

It has nothing to do with me.

It is simply religion.

You have to understand, as totally as possible, that just a pure religion has more possibility of surviving, because then you don't put any boundaries on it.

I have not put any boundaries on it. And I don't want to put any boundaries on you: of discipline, of morality, of virtue. I have given you freedom, and I have given you individuality, and I have given you just a little taste of something that is always yours. Just you have to claim it.“

-Osho, "From Ignorance to Innocence, #20”"

 Avoid all spiritual nonsense 

“These are your priests, your evangelists, your great spiritual leaders! They are neurotic and they are driving the whole of humanity neurotic. Avoid all spiritual nonsense – and spiritual nonsense is real nonsense; all other nonsense is very ordinary, very mundane. In fact, with mundane matters you cannot be too nonsensical – reality will prevent it, science will prevent it, your own sense of pragmatism will prevent it. But with religious nonsense there are no checks. There is no reality, no criterion so that you can judge, so you can fly off into all kinds of esoteric bullshit. And your priests are such bullshitters; for centuries they have been bullshitting you! You are crawling in holy cowdung! It is time to get out of it.”

-Osho, "The Goose is Out, #3"

 Osho on Worship 

 That is the only right worship. If you love, become it. 

I am not interested at all to convert anybody to my ideology — I don't have any. Secondly, I believe that the very effort to convert anybody is violence, it is interfering in his individuality, in his uniqueness, into his freedom. So my function is not that of a teacher, not that of a prophet, not that of a savior, not that of a messenger. My function simply is that of a reminder. I want just to be a mirror to you so that you can see your original face.

And if you can see a buddha in me, there is no difficulty in seeing the buddha in you too — maybe a little lazy, a little sleepy, a little gone off the track. But a buddha is a buddha. It does not matter whether his nuts and bolts are a little loose, we will fix them.

One's buddhahood is one's essential nature. I don't want you to worship buddhas, I want you to become buddhas. That is the only right worship. If you love, become it.

-Osho, "Beyond Enlightenment, #26"

 One is crucifixion, another is worship. Worship is more cultured. 

Remember: it is the same whether you crucify or you worship. Both are the ways how to get rid of those people. One is crucifixion, another is worship. Worship is more cultured. We say you are an incarnation of God, we will worship you. But we will not do what you say. How can we do? We are ordinary human beings. You were extraordinary -- either you were a prophet sent by God, or a messenger, or the only begotten son of God, or you were a reincarnation of God -- you could do miracles. We have created all kinds of miracles, only for one reason. To create a distance between us and the people who have been seeking the truth and the people who have ultimately found the truth. We were not ready to go with them. There were only two ways: either to kill them, destroy them, so we can forget them and forgive them. They were a disturbing element, a nuisance. We were asleep and having such beautiful dreams and a Gautam Buddha comes and starts shaking you and tells, "Wake up!" Naturally you get angry.

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 6, #14"

  You can do all kinds of stupid things  

I am not against the VEDAS or against THE BIBLE; I am against your being lost in those dead words. Once they were alive, but now the people whose presence was needed to give them life, to keep their flame burning, themselves have disappeared into the universal consciousness. Just their footprints are left on the sand of time. You can call them holy footprints, but that does not make any sense. You can worship them, you can have photographs of them, you can hang those photographs. You can do all kinds of stupid things, which are being done in all churches, all mosques, all temples, all synagogues. The man who knows has to say something against all that is going on.

-Osho, "The Great Zen Master Ta Hui, #16"

 Don’t be dominated and Don’t try to dominate 

You should not try to influence anybody, and you should be alert that you are not influenced by others. The ego can do both but it cannot remain in the middle. The ego can try to influence, then it feels good, dominating, but remember that the ego also feels good being dominated. The masters feel good because so many slaves are dominated, and the slaves also feel good being dominated.

There are two types of mind in the world: the mind of those who dominate – the male mind, and the mind of those who like to be dominated – the female mind. By female I don’t mean women, or by male, men. There are women who have masculine minds and there are men who have feminine minds. They are not always the same.

These are the two types of mind: one which likes to dominate and one which likes to be dominated. In both ways ego is fulfilled because whether you dominate or are dominated YOU are important. If someone dominates you, then too you are important, because his domination depends on you. Without you, where will he be? Without you, where will his kingdom be, his domination, his possession? Without you, he will be nobody.

Ego is fulfilled at both the extremes, only in the middle does ego die. Don’t be dominated and don’t try to dominate. Just think what will happen to you. You are not important in any way, not significant in any way, neither as a master nor as a slave. Masters cannot live without slaves and slaves cannot live without masters – they need each other, they are complementary. Just like men and women, they are complementary. The other is required for their fulfillment.

Don’t be either. Then who are you? Suddenly you disappear because then you are not significant at all, nobody depends on you, you are not needed. 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.

A crippled child is confined to bed and its mother is constantly worried about what to do: I have to serve this child and my whole life is being wasted. But still, if this child dies, the mother will feel lost, because at least this child needs her so totally that she has become important. If there is nobody who needs you, who are you? You create the need to be needed. Even slaves are needed.

-Osho, “The Empty Boat, #1”

 Authoritarian People are suffering from Inferiority Complex 

Question -

Osho,

How can we avoid being Authoritative?

It is very simple. The people who are authoritarian are the people who are suffering from an inferiority complex. To hide their inferiority they impose their superiority. They want to prove that they are somebody, that their word is truth, that their word is law. But deep down they are very inferior beings.

This is one of the reasons that all of the politicians suffer from an inferiority complex. Anybody who does not suffer from an inferiority complex will not go into politics at all. There are so many beautiful things in the world to do -- to paint, to sing, to dance, to create literature, to make beautiful statues, to create a Khajuraho. There is so much creativity available, but that is available only to a person who does not suffer from inferiority.

So we have to make clear to all our sannyasins that nobody in the world is inferior and nobody in the world is superior. The whole idea is artificial and created by people who have a vested interest in it. They have created the same idea in many ways... man is superior, woman is inferior -- on what criterion?

The woman lives longer than man, five years longer. The woman falls sick less than man. For one hundred boys born, only ninety girls are born, because by the time the boys will be marriageable, ten will have gone down the drain.

At the time of marriage they will be equal, ninety of both. The girl has more stamina, more resistance to disease. She talks about committing suicide but she never does. Men commit suicide almost twice as much as women.

In what way is man superior? But the idea had to be created because it helped man to keep woman a slave. She is inferior, so inferior that in countries like China, woman has no soul. A husband can kill his wife -- it is not a crime. It is just like you destroy your chair. It is your chair, you have paid for it: what crime is there? And men have convinced women that they don't have any soul because they never allowed them to be educated, they never allowed them to move in society. Naturally, they could not argue.

Why is it so difficult to argue with a woman? Nobody thinks about it. If you argue with a woman she will start screaming, crying, throwing things; but she will not argue. And you, seeing this whole scene, will feel it is better to accept whatever she is saying; otherwise she will put the whole house on fire. And neighbors are watching, people in the street are gathering around your house. So it is better -- whether you are right or wrong does not matter -- to say she is right.

But who has put her in this condition? It is because you never gave her education, you never taught her logic. You never allowed her to be as intelligent as you are because you were always afraid. And you can see the fear in the universities. Women are always ahead of men, they top the list more than men. They always achieve more first class honors than the man.

We have created this idea of superiority and inferiority for some vested interests.

The sudras are inferior. Nobody has proved why. There seems to be no reason that the brahmin should be superior and the sudra should be inferior, but you have managed for thousands of years to keep them uneducated. You have kept them doing things which need no intelligence, and you have not allowed them to do anything else.

A man who has been making your shoes -- his family has been making shoes for thousands of years, generation after generation. Now there is no need of intelligence. There is no challenge -- he has only to make shoes. These are all strategies of exploitation.

We have to explain to our sannyasins that nobody is superior, nobody is inferior, and nobody is equal either. Everybody is unique. That point has to be remembered, because if you say nobody is superior and nobody is inferior, people are certain to conclude that everybody is equal -- which is not true.

Equality is psychologically wrong. Everybody cannot be an Albert Einstein and everybody cannot be a Rabindranath Tagore. But that does not mean that Rabindranath Tagore is superior because you cannot be him. Rabindranath cannot be you either.

My whole point is that everybody is a unique manifestation. So we destroy the whole idea of superiority and inferiority, equality and inequality, and we replace it with a new concept of uniqueness. And every individual is unique.

Just look lovingly and you will see that every individual has something which nobody else has. Once the idea of uniqueness spreads in the commune, there will be nobody who will try to enforce authority.

- Osho, "Light on The Path, #1"

 An Interview with Osho's medium, Ma Anando 

About people who claim that they are channeling Osho

(Appeared in the Osho Times International of May 1, 1991)

OshoTimes: Different people around the world are claiming to be receiving messages from Osho as mediums. Others say they are "channeling" him. On his last day in his body, Osho specifically chose you to be his medium. In fact, his very last words are.... "Anando will be my medium." So what is your response to these reports?

Anando: Yes, I heard there are some sannyasins in Switzerland claiming to be receiving messages from Osho. Osho speaks about this in The Hidden Splendor. In response to his old and much loved disciple, Sarjano, who said that he heard a message from Osho. Osho says:

"It is just your imagination, Sarjano. ... You love me, and you are so full of me that even if you speak in your imagination, you may hear my voice. But remember one thing: except for silence, everything else is your imagination - howsoever beautiful. ... My path is not the path of imagination. It is the path that does not use the mind at all. Imagination and projection and hallucination and illusion - they are all parts of the mind. My simple approach is transcendence of mind. So only when you start seeing absolute nothingness, utter silence, can you see that I am very close by. In that silence you have heard me. In that nothingness you have seen me. But if you see something, if you hear something, then it is your imagination - you have fallen from the beyond, back into the mind."

OshoTimes: So Osho is saying that his message is silence, and that except for silence, anything else people think they hear him say is imagination?

Anando: Yes. He says that people claiming to receive "messages" from the beyond, even if those people are authentic - and he says ninety percent are frauds - they are in fact only channeling their unconscious mind:

"Out of ten, nine are not authentic. If somebody is authentic, then all that happens in reality is that he relaxes, his conscious mind goes to sleep, and from his unconscious mind, collective unconscious mind, cosmic unconscious mind, things start coming up. You can say they are coming from ghosts. You can talk about them in psychological terms and say they are coming from the unconscious. Or you can talk about them in California terms: they are coming from channel number one, channel number two. But they are all coming from your own unconscious mind."

OshoTimes: Doesn′t Osho also suggest a way of checking who is authentic and who is a fraud?

Anando: Yes. First he tells a very funny story about how he used to go up to fakirs and poke them with a needle to see if they could remain in their trance. Then he says:

"If there is someone sincere, that means he is relaxing to the point where the unconscious mind starts throwing up its repressed contents. It has no spiritual value. But it will be good to check. Go to any person who is channeling with the galaxies, but keep a good needle with you! With the needle, the person will start dancing, jumping, and his galaxies will start going higher - from one channel to nine channels. You can check. If your needle does not work, that means the person is at least not a fraud, but he is simply falling into unconsciousness and allowing his unconscious to reveal its contents. But they have no spiritual value."

OshoTimes: But Osho also says that people who love him will be in contact with him even when he leaves the body, doesn′t he?

Anando: Yes. But he is talking about his presence, not about "messages" for people. It is said to a group leader who asks whether he is deluding himself about being a vehicle for Osho - allowing his love and silence to pour through him when he works. Osho responds:

"If you have loved me, even when I am not in the body there can still be a contact. For love it makes no difference."

That is a totally different phenomenon from someone claiming to be getting messages for people from Osho. As a vehicle for Osho, the sannyasin therapist is not claiming to be dialling Osho on the hot line and acting as a telephone operator. He is simply being who he is, and sharing whatever wisdom he has embodied as a disciple. If he is sincere he will say something like: "This is my understanding of Osho but don′t depend on me. Start your own search, read Osho′s books, watch his video discourses, do his meditations and discover your own connection with the Master." So the therapist will not create any dependence by putting himself between the person and Osho; he will not say "I have a message for you from Osho." Priests have been doing that for thousands of years because their whole business depends on it. But a meditator needs no intermediary.

OshoTimes: Doesn′t Osho speak about the gap that can happen when a master leaves his body, and the danger of the disciples being exploited?

Anando: Yes, many times. He says that in this vacuum people with guru minds will jump at the opportunity to exploit people - that the gap creates a feeling of vulnerability, and that in the whole world today there isn′t anywhere such a pool of seekers as here, and that is irresistibly attractive to the guru mind.

The guru mind he describes as like the mind of a wolf which sees vulnerable people as sheep and can′t help itself. He says there are guru minds both inside sannyas and outside, that the guru mind has always existed in sannyas, but was unable to move because of his presence in the body.

"When I leave the body," he warns, "the guru mind will sense the opportunity to move." He says Teertha was always in competition with him, but couldn′t make his move until Osho was not available to his people because of the world tour. Then the mind saw the opening and he had to move.

"When I am no longer present in the body," he says, "the people who were in competition with me under the surface will make their move. The guru mind, the exploiting mind, the wolf′s mind, can′t help itself. Like Teertha it will move. But it needs the sheep - without sheep, the wolf is no problem."

And what creates sheep is the gap - or the fear of the gap, the fear of being alone. This is inevitable when a master leaves his body. That is why he speaks of it so many times, warning us to be alert for this after he is no longer with us.

When a sannyasin asked Osho about needing personal guidance from someone tuning into him, Osho′s response is very clear:

"The idea of personal guidance is mind′s old habit to become dependent on someone... Nobody needs personal guidance because all personal guidance is a beautiful name for dependence on somebody, and he is going to distort you...

A meditator needs no personal guidance. A meditator, on the contrary, needs only one thing: the atmosphere of meditation. He needs other meditators; he needs to be surrounded by other meditators. Because whatever goes on happening within us is not only within us, it affects people who are close by. In this communion people are at different stages of meditation. To meditate with these people, just to sit silently with these people, and you will be pulled more and more towards your own intrinsic potentiality."

OshoTimes: As the one who is left by Osho in the role of his medium, you have probably looked into this whole issue pretty thoroughly, haven′t you?

Anando: Yes. As I see it, he rules out the idea of any verbal messages to people on an individual or personal level, or relating to issues of everyday life. In fact, for many years now he hasn′t been giving people individual advice about what they should do and what they shouldn′t do in their personal life, what is best for them, etc.

He says that he has said everything, that people should read his books and listen to his discourses, that his only interest is to get us into meditation. So it is not his way to give these kinds of messages. But it is an obvious way for the guru mind to establish spiritual authority.

There′s one more thing I′d like to say: Osho specifically speaks about messages from disembodied masters. He says:

"When a message comes from a master, it has to be something so absolutely needed that the masters who are no more in their bodies feel that a message should be sent to all unconscious, sleeping, blind people. But it is only when there is something urgent; otherwise there is no need."

He says that only in a state of No-Mind is it possible to receive such a message. If it ever happens, I′ll let you know!