on Zorba the Buddha

 

 

Zorba is the foundation and Buddha is the palace

 

Zorba is the foundation and Buddha is the palace. Buddha is the peak, but the foundation stones are laid by Zorba. It will be foolish to choose to be a Buddha without having the foundation stones.

 

I am absolutely mathematical about it: Zorba should be there and the stronger a Zorba is there, the better a Buddha is possible. So I can become Buddha any moment, Zorba is absolutely needed as the basic energy out of which the Buddha is going to be carved. Zorba is the marble rock out of which the Buddha statue has to be carved. I choose the rock...and Buddha is easy.

 

It is just a question of opening your eyes. I don’t bother about Buddha; I am worried about people who are not Zorbas. How will they become Buddhas? They don’t have the basic material out of which a Buddha is made.

 

And this poverty has been given to people by our religious leaders. They have been told not to be materialists. They have been told to be celibate. They have been told to live in poverty. They have been told that life is out of sin. All these things have destroyed their Zorbas. Otherwise, every man is a born Zorba the Greek.

 

And if everything goes according to me, every man will die as Zorba the Buddha. Between the Greek and the Buddha there is not much distance, but first you must be the Greek.

 

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol. 2, #19"

 

 

 

 

I Have Called That the New Man — Zorba the Buddha

 

First I taught you about trust, the heart, feeling, love; and now I am teaching you about doubt, skepticism, reason, intellect, because I would like you to be a whole man. You can be completely satisfied with trusting, with the heart, but you will not be a whole man.

 

I would not call Mira a whole person, I would not call Ramakrishna a whole person. They are beautiful, but the intellect is missing; it is all heart. It is too much sugar, it creates diabetes. I am diabetic. Too much of the heart, too much sweetness, and you suffer from diabetes — and I don’t want any of you to suffer from diabetes. Yes, just living by the heart you will have spiritual diabetes. Intellect is salty, spicy; it is not all sugar.

 

I would like you to enjoy the wholeness of your being, when your body, your heart, your intellect all fall in tune. I have called that the new man — Zorba the Buddha.

 

-Osho, "From Personality to Inpiduality, #13"

 

 

 

 

Nothing to Choose, Nothing to Discard

 

Koji wrote:

ONLY NODDING TO MYSELF.
NOTHING TO CHOOSE, NOTHING TO DISCARD.

 

That’s what I mean by Zorba the Buddha:

 

nothing to choose.

 

Buddha had chosen: he had chosen to escape from the world, he had chosen to leave his wife and child and old father, he had chosen to run away instead of encountering the world and facing the reality. It was a clear-cut choice against the world, against the material, in favor of the spiritual.

 

A man of totality has nothing to choose. His life is a life of choicelessness. Nothing to choose, nothing to discard; they are two sides of the same coin. If you choose something, you will have to discard something.

 

-Osho, "No Mind: The Flowers of Eternity, #12"

 

 

 

 

Zorba Is Only the Beginning

 

I would like this man Zorba to be alive in everybody, because it is your natural inheritance. But you should not stop at Zorba.

 

Zorba is only the beginning. Sooner or later, if you allow your Zorba full expression, you are bound to think of something better, higher, greater. It will not come out of thinking; it will come out of your experiences – because those small experiences will become boring.

 

Buddha himself had come to be Buddha because he had lived the life of a zorba. That thing has not been noticed by the East -- that for twenty-nine years Buddha lived as no Zorba could ever live. Zorba was so poor.

 

-Osho, "Beyond Enlightenment, #7"

 

 

 

 

Silence Will Become a Song

 

The zorba loves singing, playing on his musical instruments, dancing.

 

Buddha will make it perfect, absolute. Even silence will become a song, even stones will become sermons, and whatever you touch will become a musical instrument because your hands will now have the magic of the whole existence; they will have the grace, the beauty, the poetry....

 

Your life will not be a struggle between zorba and buddha, but a love affair -- so deep that two lovers disappear into each other, never to separate again. The union, the harmony, the accordance is going to be eternal.

 

-Osho, "Beyond Enlightenment, #20"
 

 

 

 

A Whole Man is the Only Holy Man

 

If we want a whole man – and to me a whole man is the only holy man – then Zorba has to be absorbed into Buddha. They have to be accepted totally as one. And I don't see where the trouble is. In fact, Zorba plus Buddha will be a tremendous enrichment.

 

Buddha cannot laugh, cannot dance, cannot sing, cannot love. Now what kind of life will it be? Hollow!

 

Zorba can sing, dance, enjoy food, drink, love. He will have a life, but he will not know who he is. He will not know the meaning of existence. He will never come to experience the deathlessness of life, the eternity of his existence – that he has been here always, and will be always; only forms change. He will never enter into his own center. He will always remain in the cyclone, very busy, concerned with everything except himself.

 

And the center of the cyclone is the most ecstatic experience, the ultimate experience of human consciousness. Beyond that there is nothing; you have arrived home.

 

But I don't see that there is any problem, there is no contradiction. You can arrive home, you can be at your center – what prevents you from laughing? In fact, you should be the only one who can really laugh, can become laughter; who can really love, can become love itself – where the lover disappears and only love remains; one who can dance and dance to such abandon that the dancer is completely gone, there is only dance.

 

"This is my effort: To bring Zorba the Buddha into the world.

 

That will create a unity in you; your body and soul will have a unity. You will not have to fight against your nature, you can use it as a stepping stone. There is no need to fight, there is no need to repress. All psychological diseases are out of repression.

 

All psychopathological people are just incurable unless they accept their nature totally, without any grudge. You have to use your natural energies to grow. It will bring man into a totality.

 

All religions have made you schizophrenic, split. They have created guilt in you by creating a split; it is their whole business. Only a guilty man will go to church, will go to the synagogue, will go to the temple; otherwise there is no need.

 

If you are one, you would like to dance in the open air under the sun. That will be your real prayer. Nothing is said, nothing is asked, but you are showing your gratitude to existence.

 

Zorba the Buddha will not only destroy the split in man, it will destroy the split in society.

 

-Osho, "From Bondage to Freedom, #13"