Osho on Swami Vivekananda

 

 

Question: Ramakrishna missions are flourishing everywhere in the world. they are not facing any problems. why your commune, your missions -- whatever may be the form of that -- is facing so much problem?

 

Osho : It is very simple. Ramakrishna missions are not against any religion, are not against any superstition, are not against any politics. My situation is just the opposite.

 

I am against all organized religions, because to me, truth cannot be organized and the moment you organize it you kill it. I am against all the superstations which have gathered in thousands of years.

 

For example, manusmriti in India is five thousand years old, but still has the grip on the Hindu mind. Ramakrishna mission has not to say a single word against it.

 

Question : Against manu...

 

Osho : Against Manu.

 

Question : Against manu shahida*...

 

Osho : MANU SAMHITA.... And I want MANU SAMHITA to be burned, because that is causing so many troubles for India that no other book can be compared. It has created the caste system, it has created one fourth of India almost in a subhuman condition, reduced them.... But Ramakrishna mission will not speak against Manu.

 

Question : But ramakrishna mission... ramakrishna and swami vivekananda...

 

Osho : Just wait a minute. Don't use those two names together, because to me those are totally different names, of different qualities of man. First, Ramakrishna mission: Ramakrishna mission is not created by Ramakrishna; it is Vivekananda's creation. So one thing, it does not come out of an enlightened mind.

 

Vivekanand is a very clever politician. If he is speaking amongst Christians, he will praise Christ. He has not the guts to criticize on any point.

 

I cannot do that. If I see that something is wrong, I have to say it. If there is something good, I praise it, but I keep the right to criticize also.

 

If he is speaking amongst Buddhists, he will not speak anything against Buddha or Buddhist scriptures. He created Ramakrishna mission as a synthesis of all religions.

 

Now, for me the very idea of synthesis of all religions is like synthesis of all lies, which will be far bigger a lie. There is no need of so many religions -- all that is needed is a certain quality of religiousness, which is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian. When you are truthful you are religious; when you are loving you are religious; you are respectful of life, you are religious.

 

That does not mean you are Hindu, does not mean you are a Buddhist. I want the whole world to be religious, but not a synthesis of Christianity and Judaism and Mohammedanism and Hinduism -- and what kind of synthesis that will be? If you just conceive the idea, it will be such a hodgepodge.

 

Mohammed says four wives are allowed: Now how you are going to synthesize with those who think that only one wife is religious, more than that is sin. So the synthesis will be two wives! Neither the Mohammedan will be... agree to it nor the non-Mohammedan is going to agree. Mohammed himself married nine women, naturally -- he is no ordinary man. Ordinary men are marrying four; an extraordinary man, a prophet of God has to marry nine.

 

How you are going to synthesize? Jainas think unless you are naked and live naked without any possessions you cannot be enlightened. Now, according to Jainas even Gautam Buddha is not enlightened, because he uses clothes. How you are going to synthesize these people?

 

If you ask Jainas and Buddhas and Hindus that Jesus Christ crucifixion is for the salvation of humanity, that it is the greatest sacrifice God has given, His own son, to save humanity -- all the three will laugh. They will say that "This is stupid! God who is omnipotent can create the whole world, He can change it any moment -- without any sacrifice, without any crucifixion, without all this drama."

 

Secondly, they cannot accept Jesus as enlightened, because he is being crucified. According to Hindus, Jainas and Buddhists -- all the religions born in India -- anybody who is enlightened cannot be crucified. Existence is not so unkind.

 

Of course, in India it has never happened. I am not saying they are right; only I am saying how you are going to compromise all these people? It will be a bazaar, and everybody disagreeing on every point.

 

Mohammedans say God created animals for man to eat -- no question of argument, because it is written in the book of God and the book of God cannot be questioned.

 

One of the jailers in America, very educated man, came to give me a BIBLE seeing that I am just sitting the whole day with closed eyes, doing nothing -- good chance to convert a man. So he gave me a BIBLE. He said, "This is the book of God."

 

I said, "If it is a book of God, then certainly I will keep it with respectfully, but how did you come to know? When God told you?"

 

He said, "No, God has not told me, it is written in the book."

 

I said, "You are educated, intelligent... I can write a book and can write it: `These are the words of God.' Will you believe that book, that it is words of God?"

 

He said, "No."

 

"But then why you can believe Jesus' words? What is the difference in my words and Jesus' words to you? And if this is the book of God, then what about KORAN? -- the same claim.... What about VEDAS, the same claim; what about GITA, the same claim.

 

So Ramakrishna mission is a political movement, trying to be nice to everyone. So everybody is right, everybody is good. And don't bring any controversial things in -- just compare those things which can be compared without any controversy. That's why they are not opposed.

 

My situation is just the opposite: I don't believe that any of the organized religions is worth saving. They are too old, too rotten, and too dirty. And as time has passed they have become more and more stinking.

 

A totally new religious consciousness is needed in the world, which will not be under any label -- Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian.

 

And that's my effort. My people are not Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jew... they are just people, human beings. Naturally, every religion is against me because I have taken their Jews, I have taken their Hindus, I have taken their Mohammedans and I am dangerous to every religion.

 

Strange fact: They don't agree on any point; they agree only on one point, and that is me. They agree on me, that I am wrong -- about anything else they don't agree. And nobody is ready to argue with me. I have been challenging them openly, "Come, face to face. And I am not calling you to my people; I will come to your congregation. And I am ready to argue with you on point by point, how you are false and how you are creating a bogus kind of religiousness" -- which does not help anybody. On the contrary, it creates only wars and bloodshed.

 

For five thousand years how many wars they have fought, jihad, religious wars.... And they have been killing each other, and doing nothing.

 

So my position is different from Ramakrishna mission. And my position is also different about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. Ramakrishna is an enlightened being, but uneducated, inarticulate -- very simple, a villager. He could not create a religion; he experienced it, but he could not express it.

 

This is one of the troubles -- there are people who can express things which they have not experienced and there are people who have experienced things but they cannot express. It is not necessarily that you see the sunset and you may be able to paint it the way Picasso paints it. And it is possible Picasso may paint it without seeing it, and you have seen it but you cannot paint it -- those are two different qualities. And that has created a problem.

 

Ramakrishna knew; Vivekananda had no experience of his own, but he became the leader of the movement. So one blind man who is articulate became the leader of other blind people. Ramakrishna is left completely out. Only his name is there; neither his experience nor his methods of experience.

 

I have met many Ramakrishna Mission people; they don't understand Ramakrishna at all. All that they know is what Vivekananda has said. Ramakrishna never wrote a single book, never gave sermons -- just sitting, talking in a ordinary way.

 

Question : What is (inaudible*) on him?

 

Osho : He was a great man. Ramakrishna is a man one can be proud of. But Vivekananda is third-rate. But Vivekananda has become the high priest, and he has created the whole movement -- all the books and all the literature is created by Vivekananda and his followers. It will be right to call it Vivekananda Mission rather than calling it Ramakrishna Mission.

 

Question : Among the enlightened persons in the world -- true, (inaudible) -- you find ramakrishna most (**unintelligible) being, or what?

 

Osho : No, there are many. Gautam Buddha is there, Mahavira is there, Lao Tzu in China is there, Chuang Tzu in China is there, Basho in Japan is there, Nagarjuna in India, Vasbandhu* in India....

 

Enlightenment has happened only in the East, for the simple reason because the whole Eastern concept. So science has come to a peak in the West, and religion has come to a peak in the East. So there have been many hundreds. In Tibet there have been many people -- Milarepa, Marpa, Naropa.

 

In India, thousands.

 

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 4, #22"