Osho on Yogananda Paramhansa

 

 

Paramahansa Yogananda is the first yogi in the whole history of yoga who has written an autobiography. This is foolish because the yogi, by the very nature of his being, has no autobiography. Autobiographies exist around the ego. A yogi, by the very nature of his being, is nobody; that is his whole autobiography.

 

-Osho, "Returning to the Source, #1"

 

 

 

 

Faith is not based in any history, faith is based in experience. And when I say experience I mean 'experiencing' -- because once one experience has become complete, it is past. While you are in it, pulsating, alive, throbbing, dancing, only then, only then and there can you contact God. And with that contact arises faith. Faith is not a conditioning, it is your own experience of the divine in life.

 

So remember, faith does not have a base in the history of the race. It does not even have a base in your own autobiography, it is not autobiographical. The real man of faith has no autobiography.

 

That's why in the East we have a tradition that the sannyasin should not write his autobiography -- because he should not think in terms of autobiography. If you ask a sannyasin from where he comes, he will laugh; to what society he belongs, he will laugh; what his old name was, he will laugh. He will not give you any clue about his past. Yogananda is the first Hindu sannyasin who has written an autobiography -- THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI -- otherwise, the sannyasins have always insisted that they don't have any past. They efface their past. They have only the present; the now is all that they have -- hence the freedom, the absolute freedom, of the sannyasin. Because he has no past he is not imprisoned anywhere. He has no autobiography.

 

Just think -- if you can drop your autobiography completely, how free you will become in that very instant.

 

And that is the meaning of my sannyas too. When I give you sannyas, what I am in fact telling you is to drop your history, drop your autobiography. Now be connected with your past no more, become discontinuous with it. Now live the moment, and live the moment with clarity, intelligence, awareness, love, but not according to rules. Rules come from the past; love arises herenow. Intelligence is herenow; rules come from the past.

 

And always remember, a person who lives through rules is bound to be unintelligent. In fact, to live according to rule is just a way to avoid intelligence. Then you can afford to be stupid. There is no problem. The rule takes care. You don't feel responsible. You are simply following a certain dead rule, you are following it perfectly. Then you need not be intelligent. What is the point of being intelligent?

 

When you go to the church ever Sunday you don't go out of your own inspiration, you simply go as a rule. You say a certain prayer that has been given by tradition down the ages -- you simply repeat it. You are a gramophone record. It is not in any way connected with you and your heart, it is not your pulsation, it is not your vibe. It is not you, it is tradition speaking through you. It is other people's voices ringing through you, resounding through you. You are just an echo -- how can the echo be intelligent?

 

People who don't want to be intelligent become followers -- followers of tradition, followers of scriptures, followers of rules and regulations, rituals.

 

-Osho, "Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 1, #13"

 

 

 

 

Once a great mystic, Eckhart, was asked that, "Why don't you write your biography? Your autobiography will be very, very helpful to people." He said, "Difficult, impossible -- because if I write my autobiography it will be the autobiography of the whole, because everything is related. And that will be too much, and how one can write the autobiography of the whole?"

 

That's why those who have known have always resisted; they have never written autobiographies -- except this man Paramahansa Yogananda, who has written AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI. He is not a yogi at all. Otherwise a yogi cannot write the autobiography -- it is impossible, simply impossible, because when somebody has attained to nirvichara samadhi, then he is a yogi, and then, the sheer vastness... Now he has become all. If you really want to write the autobiography, it will be the autobiography of the whole from the beginning -- and there is no beginning -- to the end -- and there is no end.

 

In me, if I have become aware, the whole culminates. I don't start with my birth, I start from the very beginning, and there is no beginning, and I will go on to the very end, and there is no end. I am deeply involved with the whole. These few years that I am here are not the whole. I was before I was born, and I will be there after I am dead, so how to write? It will be a fragment, a page, not an autobiography, and a page absolutely absurd and out of context because other pages will be missing.

 

Few friends come to me and they also say, "Why not? You should write something about you," and I know the difficulty of Meister Eckhart. It is not possible, because from where to begin? -- every beginning will be arbitrary and false; and where to end?-every ending will be arbitrary and false. And between two false things -- the false beginning and the false end -- how can real be managed? -- not possible. Yogananda has done something which is not possible. He has done something which a politician can do, but not a yogi.

 

-Osho, "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 3, #9"

 

 

 

 

Vivekananda praised Christianity as much as he praised anything else, so why should they be against him?. But I simply say the truth, I am not saying what you want to hear. I am saying what is the reality. I cannot say that Jesus Christ walked on water -- that is nonsense. If it is true, then the pope should at least walk on a swimming pool -- being the representative of Jesus Christ.

 

They say Jesus Christ is born out of a virgin girl. This they call morality. Just the other day I was reading a joke: A young girl, seventeen years old, became pregnant. The mother was shocked. She took her to the doctor, the doctor examined the girl. The girl asked the doctor, "I have never met any man. No man has ever touched me, never kissed me -- how can I be pregnant?"

 

The doctor went to the window, opened the window, and looked at the stars; a few minutes passed. The mother said, "What is the matter? What are you doing there?"

 

He said, "This has happened only once, when Jesus Christ was born, but then a star appeared. I am looking for the star again. Without a man, how can this girl become pregnant? And I don't see any star, I don't see any three wise men from the East coming to worship."

 

Scientifically, it is so absurd. I have even challenged the pope that I am ready to argue with him in the Vatican amongst his people. He cannot prove a single thing about Christ. His whole religion stands on superstition: Jesus touches people and they are healed, he makes dead people come alive. Just think of a person today who makes dead people alive, touches people and they are healed, walks on water... will he not be the topmost news? But in the contemporary literature of that time Jesus' name is not even mentioned -- except in the Christian BIBLE. No other writing even mentions his name, such a man who turns water into wine; although that is not a miracle, it is a crime.

 

Krishnamurti or Maharishi Mahesh Yogi or Yogananda or Vivekananda... none of them touched these sore spots, that's why they have not been condemned.

 

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 6, #5"