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The Death of the Oldand the Birth of the New
"I teach a new man, a new humanity, a new concept of being in the world. [....] only with the death of the old can the new be born. The cessation of the old is the beginning of the new. My message to humanity is a new man." - Osho, "Philosophia Perennis, Vol 2, #2"
"I am the beginning of a totally new religious consciousness. Please don't connect me with the past. It is not even worth remembering. It will a great blessing to humanity if we burn all the past histories, destroy the whole past, and give man a fresh beginning, unburdened. Make him again Adam and Eve, so that he can start from scratch - a new man, a new civilization, a new culture." - Osho, "From the False to the Truth, #22"
"I am the beginning of something new, but not the beginning of a new religion. I am the beginning of a new kind of religiousness" - Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 5, #26"
"I am an invitation for all those who are seeking, searching, and have a deep longing in their hearts to find their home. [....] I am an invitation to take a courageous jump into the ocean of life. Lose yourself, because that is the only way to find yourself." - Osho, "The Invitation, #1"
"In one single word, my religion is complete, and that is meditation." - Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 2, #15"
I will be with you
Even if I am gone - if your love is deep enough – I will be present for you. Whenever you close your eyes, You will find me beating within your heart. I have sown the seed. It is only a question of when the Spring will come-and it always comes. Just remain open, available. I will be here to help you. If I am not in the body, still I can be here to help you. In fact, I can be of more help when I am freed from the body. Then my consciousness will spread all over.
Those who have loved me - they will become part of me.
They have already started melting and merging with me. So the only question that should be important to you is not to hinder the process of your merging and your melting. Whether I am in the body or not, you should not wait for tomorrow. Today is the day this moment is the moment. And this is my promise: I will try to linger on this shore as long as possible.
And even when my ship is gone, whenever your tears will call me, or your laughter, I will be with you. And whenever you will dance and sing, you will find my shadow also present there."
- Osho, "The Rebellious Spirit, #1"
I am not a Guru
(Interview by India Today) Question : When you are no more, what would you like to be remembered as - mystic, spiritual leader, philosopher, or what?
Just a nobody. I would like it to be as if I had never been.
- Osho, The Last Testament, Vol 4, #8
In the first place, I am not a guru. That is a dirty word. Because all gurus have been just exploiting people in the name of spirituality. I don't belong to that gang. And I am not an Indian in the sense that I don't believe in nationalities. I simply believe that the whole earth is one.
- Osho, The Last Testament, Vol. 3, #4
Question : Osho, Do you think there is any possibility of your being recognized, or even accepted, by mankind during your lifetime? You have said you don't care about what happens to you after you leave your body, but for the poor historians who will be struggling with the impossible - to capture the phenomenon which is osho - can you say something about the impact of your presence and your teachings in a future historical context? Also, how would you like to be remembered?
I would simply like to be forgiven and forgotten. There is no need to remember me. The need is to remember yourself! People have remembered Gautam Buddha and Jesus Christ and Confucius and Krishna. That does not help. So what I would like: forget me completely, and forgive me too - because it will be difficult to forget me. That's why I am asking you to forgive me for giving you the trouble.
Remember yourself.
And don't be bothered about historians and all kinds of neurotic people - they will do their thing. It is none of our concern at all.
- Osho, "The Transmission of the Lamp, Talk #29"
"The so-called masters and teachers of the religions of the whole world - I have come across almost all kinds and all categories of teachers - want their disciples to be addicted to them, to be dependent on them. That is their power trip. I don't have any power trip. I love you, whether you are with me or not with me.
I want you to be independent and confident that you can attain these precious moments on your own. If you can attain them with me, there is no reason why you cannot attain them without me, because I am not the cause. You have to understand what is happening"
- Osho, "The Invitation, #14"
The mystics have been, for thousands of years, talking about it, visualizing it, but unfortunately people worship the mystics but don't allow the mystic to transform them. Worshipping is really a way of escaping from transformation; it is saying, in other words, "You are right, but it is not time for me yet. I respect you, I worship you, and I will remember what you are saying; but I cannot act accordingly right now. I am just an ordinary human being, you are a great realized soul -- the distance is vast."
Worshipping the mystics is not real respect. It is a strategy of the mind to avoid seeing the finger that is pointing towards the moon.
Man is very cunning. He can crucify somebody to get rid of him, he can worship somebody to get rid of him. Crucifixion and worshipping are not different because the basic purpose is the same: "Just leave me alone; your stupid utopia is good, I don't have any argument against it, but you are a special being, and I am just an ordinary creature."
To prove this fact, people have called their mystics incarnations of God, messiahs, saviors, messengers. In some way they have made them so far away, they have created such a distance between themselves and the mystics, that the vision of the mystic remained a vision. It is impossible with this approach to make it a reality.
-Osho, “The Transmission of the Lamp, #35, Q1“
Now many of you are ready to accept Me as the Friend
My situation is just different. I have said the whole forest; only one thing I have kept secret, just one leaf. Buddha declared before his death that he would be coming again after twenty-five centuries, and that his name would be Maitreya. Maitreya means the friend. Buddhas don't come back; no enlightened person ever comes back, so it is just a way of saying....
What he was saying is of tremendous importance. It has nothing to do with his coming back; he cannot come back. What he meant was that the ancient relationship between the Master and the disciple would become irrelevant in twenty-five centuries. It was his clarity of perception -- he was not predicting anything -- just his clarity to see that as things are changing, as they have changed in the past and as they go on changing, it would take at least twenty-five centuries for the Master and disciple relationship to become out of date. Then the enlightened Master will be only the friend.
I had always wanted not to be a Master to anybody. But people want a Master, they want to be disciples; hence, I played the role. It is time that I should say to you that now many of you are ready to accept me as the friend. Those who are in tune with me continuously, without any break, are the only real friends. [....]
So remember one thing: when you are with me, then it is a continuum, without any gap. What I say, what I do, does not matter, because you are not a judge. You love me the way I am. I don't judge you. I love you the way you are. And if it changes, then remember it is a judgment, and rather than going with me, you are trying to drag me with you. And that is not very loving.
I can come with you, but you are in darkness and you will lead me in darkness. I have no trouble in coming with you. You cannot destroy my light; I can destroy your darkness.
I cannot lose anything by coming with you. You will have to lose many things by coming with me. And when you love someone, you are ready to lose anything, everything, even yourself. The moment you are ready to lose yourself, the friendship is complete. And then there is great beauty.
- Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol. 3, #23"
I am not a mediator between you, and the ultimate.
My sannyasins are not my followers. I am not a mediator between you, and the ultimate. My function is to help you to be directly connected to the universe -- just to give you a deep understanding of your own being and how to relax with the whole.
-Osho, "The Old Pond ... Plop, #23"
I am just myself
Q: Who are you? A: I am just myself. No prophet, no messiah, no Christ. Just an ordinary human being... just like you.
Q: Well, not quite! A: That's true... not quite! You are still asleep -- but that is not much of a difference. One day I was also asleep; one day you will be able to awaken. You can wake up this moment, nobody is preventing it. So the difference is just meaningless. A person who is capable of being asleep is capable of being awake.
Q: Is there such a thing as god? A: No.
-Osho, “The Last Testament, Vol 1,#14” From an interview with Roberta Green, 'Santa Ana Register' Orange County, California
I am not a priest, I am just a friend
"I am not a priest, I am just a friend. I am here to explain to you how I have discovered truth. Doubt has been my own process, my own way to reach to truth. And I would like you to become more and more sharp, intelligent. Doubt more scientifically. Just as in science doubt helps you to discover. it also helps in the inward journey."
- Osho, "Theologia Mystica, #9, Q1"
I am not a missionary
Question 8 : Padmasambhava says, "when the iron bird flies, the dharma will come to the land of the red man." is it part of your work to fulfill the prophecy?
I am not here to fulfill anybody's prophecy. And why should I? It may be Padmasambhava's trip, but why should he force his trip on me? I am here to be myself. I am not a prophet, and I am not here to deliver somebody from their sins. I am not here to bring an age of religion. All these things are mediocre and stupid.
I enjoy myself. If you want to enjoy yourself you can share my delight, that's all. To me, life is not a very serious affair. Prophets take life very seriously. Saints are innocent! Prophets? -- always dangerous. Buddha is not a prophet; in fact India has not produced prophets. Prophets are a particular phenomenon of Judaism. Saints we have produced -- millions -but they are innocent people. Like flowers you delight in -- not of much use. Prophets are in fact politicians in religion. They are to change the whole world; they have a mission to fulfill and do this and that.
I have no mission; I am not a missionary. I would like a world without missionaries and without prophets, so that people can be left to live their own lives. Prophets never allow. They are always after you -- with judgement. They are always after you -- with ideas to be followed, comparison. They are always there to throw you in hell or award you by heaven.
I have nothing -- no hell to throw you in and no heaven to give you -- just a delight of being. And that is possible, simply possible. If you allow it to happen it is possible.
To me, life is not a serious affair. In fact life is nothing but a gossip in the eternity of existence, a gossip. I am gossiping here; you are listening, that's all. If you enjoy you are here. If I enjoy I am here. If it becomes difficult to enjoy each other, we separate -- no other bondage.
And I don't allow anybody -- he may even be a Padmasambhava -- to lay his trap on me.
- Osho, "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 6, #2, Q8"
I am not a prophet
I am not a prophet. You cannot sell me. I have never dictated to you to do anything. I have never commanded you to follow me. I have never pretended that I am somebody specially sent from above to deliver a message to you.
I am nobody's postman: I am simply doing my own thing.
Right or wrong, I am simply doing my own thing. If you feel that it is enjoyable, you are welcome. If you feel it is not worth your while, you are welcome to drop it again. There is no problem in it. It is not enforced on you.
- Osho, "From Personality to Individuality, #30, Q1“
My Message is very simple.Live life as dangerously as possible
Question : Osho, What is your Message?
My Message is very simple. Live life as dangerously as possible. Live life totally, intensely, passionately, because except for life there is no other God. Friedrich Nietzsche says God is dead. That is wrong because God has never been there in the first place. How can he be dead? Life is, always has been, will always be. Allow yourself… and I repeat again, allow yourself to be possessed by life.
The so-called religions of the past have been telling you just the opposite. They say, “Renounce.” I say, “Rejoice.” They negate life, I affirm it. They say life is something wrong, illusory, and they create an abstract idea of God which is nothing but a projection of their own minds. And they worship that projection. It is so unintelligent, so utterly stupid that one wonders how millions of people have believed in such sheer nonsense.
That which is, is denied for that which is only an abstraction of the mind. God is only a word, but they say God is real. And life is a realit. You feel it in your heartbeat, it pulsates in your blood, it is all over the place — in the flowers, in the rivers, in the stars. And they say this is all MAYA, all illusion. They say that it is made of the same stuff as dreams are made of.
And they create a God — and of course, everybody creates a God in his own image. So there have been thousands of gods. It is your imagination. You can make a God with four heads, you can make a God with a thousand hands. It is up to you, it is your game. And these people have been telling an poisoning the minds of others. They say, “BRAHMA SATYA” — God IS true, and “JAGAT MITYA” — the world, life is untrue.
I say to you, life is the only truth there is. There is no other God than life. So allow yourself to be possessed by life in all its forms, colors, dimensions — the whole rainbow, all the notes of music. If you can manage this simple thing… It is simple because it is only a question of let-go. Don’t push the river, let the river take you to the ocean. It is already on the way. You relax, don’t be tense and don’t try to be spiritual.
Don’t create any division between matter and spirit. Existence is one, matter and spirit are simply two sides of the same coin. Relax, rest, and go with the river. Be a gambler, don’t be a businessman, and you will know more of God because the gambler can risk. The gambler is non-calculative, he can put all that he has at stake.
But the thrill of the gambler when he stakes every thing and waits;… what is going to happen now? In that very moment a window can open. That very moment can become a transformation of the inner gestalt.
Be a drunkard, drunk with life, with the wine of existence. Don’t remain sober. The sober person remains dead. Drink the wine of life. It has so much poetry and so much love and so much juice. You can bring the spring any moment. Just give a call to the spring and let the sun and the wind and the rain enter into you.
It is because of THIS message that the spiritualists are against me because they think I am denying God. I am not denying God. For the first time I am bringing God into a real perspective, I am making him alive, I am bringing him closer to you, closer than your very heart. Because he’s your very being, nothing separate, nothing far away, nothing there in the sky, but herenow. I am trying to destroy the very idea of there and then.
My whole vision is of HERE AND NOW because there is no other space than the here, and no other time than the now. The spiritualists are against me because they think I am making people materialists. And the materialists are against me because they think I am taking people into meditative drunkenness.
The Shankaracharya would not agree with me because he says, “God is true and everything else is false.” I cannot agree with him. And Karl Marx will not agree with me because he says, “Religion is the opium of the people,” that religion is something utterly false, that there is no God, no spirit, no life except matter, that what you think is your consciousness is an phenomenon — just a by-product. The moment you die everything dies.
I tell you you are born and you will certainly die but something in you was before your birth, and something in you is there which will remain after your death. And that something is life. Life is eternal. [....]
-Osho, "Guida Spirituale, #8"
Image Courtesy: osho.com
I don't want followers, obedient people.I want intelligent friends, fellow travelers.
Question 12 Do your sannyasins obey your view about destroying the family?
Obedience is not my teaching. Disobedience is not a sin. I explain to my people my understanding, and then it is their freedom to do whatsoever they want to do. It is not a question of obeying me, it is a question of obeying their own intelligence.
My appeal is to their intelligence. I explain as clearly as possible, and then leave it to them. I don't take their freedom of decision, and whatsoever they decide, I am happy with it -- because I love their individuality and I want to enhance their individuality as much as I can.
Their yes is good, their no is good. It makes no difference, because it is coming out of their love, out of their understanding.
I don't want followers, obedient people. I want intelligent friends, fellow travelers.
And once I have said anything, I never enquire whether anybody is following it or not. I go on towards other things. I have so many things...
But I am happy with my people, immensely happy, and grateful. It is difficult to find in history any instance of so many beautiful, intelligent people following a human being who is not pretending to be a savior or a prophet or a god, who is just saying, "I am as ordinary as you are -- with just a little difference: I am awake and you are asleep. But it is not much of a difference... you can open your eyes any moment."
-Osho, "Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries, #5"
Don't Follow Me : Come and Share me
"My religion is a religion of sharing, not of following. It is a religion of love."
Osho, Jesus says, "come follow me." you're against this statement. What would you like to say about it?
Jesus says, "Come follow me." It is not only Jesus who says it: Krishna says it too, Buddha says it too.
All the old religions of the world are based on that statement. But that statement is a psychological exploitation of man. I cannot say, "Come follow me."
First, those who have said it have crippled humanity, have made humanity helpless. They certainly fulfilled a certain need. People don't want to be on their own. They don't have the guts to create their own path, to walk and create it. They want to be led. But they don't know that if you are being led, slowly slowly, even if you have eyes, you will lose them. You will be seeing through the eyes of Jesus, Krishna, Mohammed. Your eyes will not be needed; in fact your eyes will cause a disturbance.
The leader wants you to surrender your eyes and see through his eyes; surrender your legs and walk with his legs; to not believe in yourself but believe in him. To me it is a crime; it is crippling you, paralyzing you, destroying you. And you can see it all over the world. The whole of humanity is destroyed by such statements and such people.
I can say to you, "Come and share me," but I cannot say, "Follow me." Who am I that you have to follow?
And you have to understand also that each individual is so unique that if you start following somebody you will be automatically imitating. You will lose your identity. You will start becoming phony, a hypocrite. You will not be yourself, but somebody else. You will become split.
You will have a mask: Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, Buddhist. That will be just the mask that you and the person you have been following have created - it is not your authentic face. You are going against yourself, and you will be in suffering... and the whole of humanity is in suffering.
It sounds very strange to say that such statements are criminal, because they come from nice people like Jesus, Buddha, Confucius. You can understand my difficulty too. I have to say it the way it is.
Every child is trying to imitate his parents, his neighbors, his schoolfriends, his teachers... and they are all trying to enforce it.
I remember in my own childhood. It was just an accident that I was born in a Jaina family. That is a very ancient religion in India, perhaps the ancientmost religion in the world. But my father was certainly a human being. He used to take me to the temple, but he told me that I need not imitate him. He had followed the ways of his forefathers and he had not found anything. He said to me, "I cannot force you to follow my ways. I can make you acquainted - that this is the way I have followed, these are the gods I have been bowing down to, these are the prayers I have been doing, but nothing has happened to me. I will not insist that you do it; on the contrary, I will insist that unless you feel to do something, never do it.
I have never followed anybody and it has paid me tremendously.
It has been the greatest benediction to me that can be possible for a human being: not following.
I have tried to remain just myself.
You will need courage. You will need intelligence. You will need a true search and seeking; then only can you risk. Otherwise there are people all around you, they are all salesmen....
Now, Jesus is just a salesman, saying, "Come follow me, because those who will follow me will find God, will find heaven and all the pleasures therein. And those who will not follow me will fall into dark hell for eternity." Now, this man is not going to help anybody. He is exploiting your need for guidelines, your need to find a path; basically, your need to have a certain meaning in your life.
And he is promising that, "I am ready to give it to you. All that you have to do is to believe in me, unquestionably, without any doubt. All that is needed on your part is absolute faith."
To ask anybody to believe is to cripple his intelligence, is to make him mediocre, is to condemn him to remain an idiot forever.
A Christian cannot ask, "What is God? What is all this nonsense about the holy ghost?" And he does not seem to be very holy either. He is a rapist; he rapes the virgin Mary. And this trinity: God, son and holy ghost - they have not allowed a single woman in it. Without a mother, the son is born....
In the trinity there is no possibility for a woman. Nobody has asked, "And what are the proofs that you are the only begotten son?" But you are not supposed to ask, you are supposed to believe. It is a bargain. He will give you, after death, all the pleasures of life; all imaginable fantasies will be fulfilled. And you will be surprised what kind of fantasies these religious people have been offering to fulfill.
Mohammed says in his paradise - and remember, the English word paradise comes from the Arabic firdous; it is basically Mohammedan - in his paradise, there are rivers of wine. "Drink as much as you want, drown yourself, swim in the wine." And there are beautiful women available who remain always young, stuck at the age of sixteen. They are still sixteen. Whenever you will go, they will be sixteen; they don't grow. And not only that - because in Mohammedan countries homosexuality has been a very long tradition Mohammed promises young, beautiful boys also, for the great saints.
It is a bargain. You remain crippled, unintelligent, mediocre, stupid - and after death you will achieve everything. And nobody knows what happens after death. Nobody has ever returned and told what happens after death. So they are doing such a fabulous business - they are selling such a commodity, which is invisible, intangible, and what they are taking in return is your whole humanity, your whole integrity. They are destroying you completely.
I can say, "Come and share me." That is a totally different standpoint. I have known something. I have seen something. I have lived something. And I can share it with you.
And remember, I am not obliging you when I share it with you; you are obliging me, because when a cloud is heavy with rainwater, the earth is obliging it by receiving the water. I say to you: I am heavy with some ecstasy, some blissfulness. And it is not a question of a bargain after death. I am not promising you something in the future, and I am not asking you anything in return, not even a thank-you, because I am grateful to you that you shared with me.
My religion is a religion of sharing, not of following. It is a religion of love.
The very idea of following makes me sick. It is sickening. You have to be yourself, and when you blossom, you are not going to be like me or like Jesus or like Buddha. You are going to be just like you: you have never happened before, and you are not going to happen again. It is only possible with you. You are unrepeatable. If you start following somebody you are missing a great opportunity that existence has provided for you, and you will never be happy. No Christian is happy, no Hindu is happy, no Buddhist is happy; they cannot be. How can you be happy?
Just think in this way: if the roseflower tries to become a lotus, the lotus tries to become a rose, both will be in tremendous suffering because neither can the rose become the lotus nor can the lotus become the rose. At the most they can pretend, and pretensions are not fulfilling. The roseflower can only be a roseflower. And the unfortunate thing is, when the roseflower starts trying to be a lotus, its energy goes into that effort of becoming a lotus. A lotus it can never become, it has no potential for it. It is not a lotus, and there is no need for it to be a lotus. If existence wanted a lotus there would have been a lotus. The existence needs a rose. Trying to be a lotus, the rose will be losing its energy in a fruitless, hopeless effort, and perhaps may not be able to even become a rose.
From where will it find the energy to become a rose, the vitality to become a rose?
It is one of the most important psychological phenomena to understand: each individual is unique.
There has never been that kind of individual before, and there will never be again that kind of individual.
If you follow somebody you are betraying existence because you are betraying your own innermost being. You are betraying your flowering. And why do people so easily become followers? Why is the whole world following somebody or other? And if sometimes one becomes fed up with Christianity, he becomes Hindu; the Hindu becomes fed up with Hinduism, he becomes a Buddhist... but the following continues. The whole pattern remains the same. The book changes, the leader changes, but the following, the follower... and the whole process remains the same, the same destructive suicidal process.
I am against following because it is against the basic psychological principle of the uniqueness of the individual.
You should pay a little more attention to the word individual. It means indivisible - it cannot be divided. The moment you follow, you are dividing. You are something, you are trying to become something else; you are somewhere, you are trying to reach somewhere else. Now you are creating a tension in your being. Hence the anguish all over the world.
My religion is not the religion of following. I can only share with you whatever has happened to me.
And I am not saying that the same will happen to you. I am simply saying that if I can see, you can also see. If I can feel, you can also feel. Certainly, you will feel in your own way and you will see in your own way. The poetry that will be born to you will be your poetry, it will not be mine.
So the people you see here around me are not my followers. I am nobody's leader. That silly word leader is perfectly okay in politics, but not in religion. In politics, of course, you need idiots. The greater idiot leads the smaller idiots. But in religion, a flowering of intelligence is needed, not idiocy.
So my work is basically of sharing. It is just... I would like to tell you an old, beautiful parable.
A lioness gives birth to a child in a crowd of sheep. The child grows amongst the sheep and naturally believes that he is a sheep - what else can the young lion do? One day an old lion, just passing by the crowd of sheep, looks at this miracle: a young, beautiful lion just walking in the middle of a crowd of sheep. Neither the sheep are afraid of him, nor is he in any way behaving differently.
The old lion becomes interested. He runs after the young lion. It is with great difficulty that he catches hold of him because the young lion escapes, just like every other sheep escapes. But finally he catches hold of him. The young lion starts crying and weeping, like a sheep. And the old lion says, "Stop all this nonsense!" He takes him to a nearby pond, drags him by his side to the pond, forces him to look into the water... and suddenly the young lion roars like a lion.
The old lion has not done anything. He has just shown him his face, his real face, and he has recognized that he is a lion - he is not a sheep. And just that recognition is enough. It is transforming.
The old lion has not done anything at all. He has not told the young lion to "follow me," to "imitate me," and "These are the commandments for you, and this is the character you have to attain, and these are the principles, and these are the things you have not to do." He has not done anything of that sort.
That is the function of the master: just to bring you so close to his own experience that something transpires in you.
A sudden lion's roar... and the transformation, and you are yourself - neither a Hindu, nor a Mohammedan, nor a Christian. But the world wants a mob, a crowd. It is afraid of the individual because every authentic individual is bound to be a rebel, because he will insist on being himself.
Adolf Hitler would not like individuals, nor does Jesus like individuals. And the strange thing is that even Jesus cannot understand that he is not liked by the Jews. He was born a Jew, he lived as a Jew, he died as a Jew. Remember, he had never heard the word Christian in his life. He was never a Christian, because the word christ does not exist in the Aramaic language that he spoke, which was his mother tongue. Nor does the word exist in Hebrew, which was the language of the learned rabbis.
It was three hundred years after Jesus, when The Bible was translated into Greek, that the word messiah, from Hebrew, was translated as christ. It was after three hundred years that the word christ became significant, and after Christ of course the followers became Christians.
But Jesus was not a Christian, and his only crime was that he was himself an individual, trying to live authentically his own way of life, not bothering much about the tradition. That's why the Jews were so very angry. They would have loved him, they would have made him a great rabbi, but he tried his individual way, not the traditional way. He had to die on the cross just because he insisted on being an individual.
I am surprised that even such a man who suffered because of his individuality is again making the same mistake with other people: asking them to follow him. That's what the rabbis were asking Jesus, "Follow us, don't try to be on your own." They were saying, "Follow Abraham, follow Moses, follow Ezekiel." They were asking Jesus, "What is your authority?" And Jesus says, "I am my authority."
This is how an individual should speak: "I am my authority - and I am before Abraham was."
Abraham was three thousand years before Christ, and he says, "I am before Abraham was." He is simply proclaiming that he does not belong to the tradition, that he is a flowering on his own accord.
But even Jesus could not see that he is making the same mistake that the rabbis were making. And of course the popes have been repeating the same mistake. If Jesus could not see, then how can you hope that popes will be able to see? They are just blind followers. They are trying to convert the whole world into a Christian world; they are not satisfied that you already have so many Christians - and what have you attained? What has man gained through it?
More blood has been shed by Christians than by anybody else, more wars have been fought by Christians than by anybody else. People have been massacred, butchered, burned alive by Christians... and they are all following Jesus! They are really following those Jews who had crucified Jesus. They have been crucifying other individuals; whoever asserts his individuality, they have been crucifying him.
My way is not the way of following anybody.
It is just sick to be a follower. It is just sick to be a leader. The leader is somehow not certain about his authentic individuality. He wants followers because if he has followers then he becomes more certain he must be right. If so many people are following him, how can he be wrong? Alone he becomes suspicious. Alone doubts arise: Who knows whether he is right or wrong? He needs followers. It is his need that followers should be there. The greater the number of followers around him, the more satisfied and contented he is. He knows he is right; otherwise how can so many people be following him? That is the logic.
And why are the followers with him? They are seeing his contented, authoritative statements, his determined effort, unwavering. Now, when Jesus says, "I am the only begotten son of God," with authority, naturally the poor people.... Who were the people who followed him? Have you ever thought about it? The twelve apostles - who were these people? All uneducated: fishermen, farmers, woodcutters, carpenters. Only Judas was a little educated; so he betrayed him. All the others were absolutely uneducated, poor people in search of somebody who could hold their hand and could give them a certain strength that they were lacking in themselves.
The followers feel it is a mutual conspiracy. Perhaps both are unaware: the leader is unaware that he needs followers to feel comfortable with his own idea, with his own fiction, and the follower is unaware of why he is following this man. He is following because the leader looks so authoritative, and he himself, the follower, feels so wavering, so doubtful, so untrusting. He thinks it is better to be with a man who knows. They are supporting each other.
I don't need any followers because whatsoever I know, I know; and whatsoever I am, I am.
Even if the whole world is against me it will not create a single doubt in me, not a single question in me. They have all disappeared.
I am absolutely at ease with myself and with existence. I don't need any followers, and I insist that knowingly or unknowingly you should not fall in the trap of being a follower, because then you will never be able to be authentically yourself, an individual flowering.
Communism has created an idea in the world that every man is equal, which is absolutely absurd.
Every man is so unique that he cannot be equal to anybody else. That does not mean that he is higher or lower; that simply means everybody is unique. And there is no question of comparison, the comparison does not arise. The rose is perfectly beautiful being a rose; the lotus is perfectly beautiful being a lotus. The grass leaf is perfectly beautiful being a grass leaf.
If you remove man from the earth, the grass leaf, the rose, the lotus will not have different values.
They will be all equally unique. The winds will not behave differently with them, the sun will not shine differently on them, the clouds will not rain differently on them. It is man and his stupidity that brings the idea of comparison, of higher, of lower; and then the question that - no, everybody is equal. Neither man is higher than anybody else, nor is he lower than anybody else, nor is he equal to anybody else.
Remember, my third point is of utmost importance: everybody is unique. And I respect this uniqueness.
How can I say to you, "Come and follow me"? Out of respect I can only say, "Come and share with me. Share my abundance."
And the beauty is that the more you share the inner riches, the more you have them. The more you give, the more you have them. If you hoard them, you will lose them. So nobody who attains to inner blissfulness can hoard it. Hoarding kills it. He has to share it, it is an absolute necessity to share it.
Only by sharing it remains alive and flowing. And more and more it goes on coming to you. One is simply amazed.
Ordinary economics do not work here. If you have money and you give to people, of course you will have less money. That is ordinary economics. But if you have silence, peace, love, joy, ecstasy - give it and see what happens. The more you give it, the more existence goes on pouring it in you.
So you are not obliged to me, I am obliged to you.
- Osho, "From Unconciousness to Consciousness, #2"
I am simply making every effortto make you free from everybody including me
Question 1 : Osho, The fruit falls on the ground when it is ripe. one day, you will leave us, and it will be impossible to have another master in your place. How can anybody else be the substitute for the master of masters? Osho, when you leave the physical body, will your meditation techniques help our inner growth as they do now?
My approach to your growth is basically to make you independent of me. Any kind of dependence is a slavery, and the spiritual dependence is the worst slavery of all.
I have been making every effort to make you aware of your individuality, your freedom, your absolute capacity to grow without any help from anybody. Your growth is something intrinsic to your being. It does not come from outside; it is not an imposition, it is an unfolding.
All the meditation techniques that I have given to you are not dependent on me -- my presence or absence will not make any difference -- they are dependent on you. It is not my presence, but your presence that is needed for them to work. It is not my being here but your being here, your being in the present, your being alert and aware that is going to help. I can understand your question and its relevance. It is not irrelevant.
The whole past of man is, in different ways, a history of exploitation. And even the so-called spiritual people could not resist the temptation to exploit. Out of a hundred masters, ninety-nine percent were trying to impose the idea that, "Without me you cannot grow, no progress is possible. Give me your whole responsibility."
But 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.
This existence respects a person who dares to be alone in the seeking of truth. Slaves are not respected by existence at all. They do not deserve any respect; they don't respect themselves, how can they expect existence to be respectful towards them?
So remember, when I am gone, you are not going to lose anything. Perhaps you may gain something of which you are absolutely unaware.
Right now I am available to you only embodied, imprisoned in a certain shape and form. When I am gone, where can I go? I will be here in the winds, in the ocean; and if you have loved me, if you have trusted me, you will feel me in a thousand and one ways. In your silent moments you will suddenly feel my presence. Once I am unembodied, my consciousness is universal. Right now you have to come to me. Then, you will not need to seek and search for me. Wherever you are... your thirst, your love... and you will find me in your very heart, in your very heartbeat.
-Osho, "Beyond Enlightenment, Talk #11"
When I am gone, I hope there may stillbe courageous people in the world to criticize me
Gautam Buddha criticized the seers of the VEDAS, he criticized the seers of the UPANISHADS, he criticized Mahavira, he criticized everybody that he could find -- Krishna, Rama, all the Hindu gods. Continuously for forty-two years he was criticizing every old scripture, every old prophet, every old savior.
But he was not an enemy of anyone. He was criticizing all those people so that you could be unconditioned, so that you could be freed from the clinging with the past which cannot help you.
When a living enlightened being is present, he cannot allow you to remain clinging with the dead, which can only be a weight on your heart but cannot become wings for your freedom.
It needs tremendous insight and meditative understanding to have a little glimpse of the world of the enlightened person. I have criticized many: only a few of them were enlightened; most of them were simply frauds. The frauds have to be absolutely exposed to humanity.
Even those who were enlightened have become only a tradition, a convention, a dead belief. You have to be freed from their grip also, because they cannot help you, they can only hinder your path. They can become your chains, but they cannot become your freedom.
I can become your freedom. I am your freedom.
When I am gone I hope there may still be courageous people in the world to criticize me, so that I don't become a hindrance on anybody's path. And those who will criticize me will not be my enemies; neither am I the enemy of those whom I have criticized. The working of the enlightened masters just has to be understood.
You should remember only one word, and that is compassion -- compassion for you, compassion for all those who are still not centered in their being, who are still far away from themselves, who have to be called back home.
-Osho, “Satyam Shivam Sundram, #6”
My whole effort is to persuade you - look within
My message is simple – that I have found the god within me. My whole effort is to persuade you - look within, the master cometh. Yes, it is possible. Yes, he comes. And he does not come from the outside; he explodes from the inside. He arises in you. He is your future, he is your destiny.
You may know it, you may not know it. You are already in him and he is already in you. The only question is how to become aware. ‘Watch ye, for ye know not when the master cometh.’
The only question is of becoming a watcher on the hills. Become a witness - alert, observing - and you will be fulfilled.
-Osho, "The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 2. #4, Q1"
By not dropping me and by not followingthe real, the alive Master, you will be betraying me.
I would like to remind my disciples especially: if you really love me, when I am gone I will direct you to people who will be still alive. So don't be afraid of that. If I send you to Tibet or if I send you to China or if I send you to Japan or to Iran -- go. And don't say that because you belong to me you cannot belong to another real Master. Just look in the eyes and you will find my eyes again. The body will not be the same but the eyes will be the same.
-Osho, "Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 1, #3"
I can show you the moon
Religions are like dead flowers you can find in Bibles, in Gitas... When they were put in the Bible they were living, they were fragrant, but now it is only a corpse. All holy books are corpses, dead flowers and nothing else.
Truth, the living truth, has to be discovered by each individual by himself. Nobody can give it to you. Yes, somebody who has achieved it can transpire a thirst in you, a tremendous desire for it. I cannot give you the truth, but I can give you the desire for it.
I cannot give you the truth, but I can show you the moon... please don't get attached to my finger which is indicating the moon. This finger will disappear. The moon will remain and the search will continue. As long as there is a single human being on the earth the flowers of sannyas will go on blossoming.
-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 6, #15"
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. […]
The way to understand me is to always remember that I am insisting – from every corner, in every possible way – only on a single target, and that is your innermost being. Whatever I may have said... never be too much concerned with what is said. Be concerned about what it indicates.
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”
The Master of Masters- After me it is going to be really difficult to be a master. -
Osho, You have described how the ability to communicate his experience is the essence of the master. yet in you something even more beautiful has happened.
Buddha conveyed his message to a select few thousand men in the local pali language -- in response to the failings of brahminism.
By comparison, you are talking to millions of men and women from every continent, from every race, from every religion, from every possible background. rather than being restricted to the shortcomings of brahminism, you draw from, and synthesize, every spiritual, psychological and scientific element ever conceived by man.
You were able to express existence in hindi so poetically that people said you were the finest hindi speaker alive. on top of that, you are able to do the same in a second, foreign language, to people from these widely differing cultures who are, for the most part, a generation away. you don't just express yourself in that second language, but manage to catch the fine nuances and colloquialisms of everyday speech that usually only natives have a grasp of.
Osho, is this supreme ability to communicate what makes you the master of masters?
The situation of the world has changed dramatically. Just three hundred years ago, the world was very big. Even if Gautam Buddha had wanted to approach all human beings, it would not have been possible; just the means of communication were not available. People were living in many worlds, almost isolated from each other. That has a simplicity.
Jesus had to face the Jews, not the whole world. It would not have been possible, sitting on his donkey, to go around the world. Even if he had managed to cover the small kingdom of Judea, that would have been too much. The education of people was very confined. They were not even aware of each other's existence.
Gautam Buddha, Lao Tzu in China, Socrates in Athens -- they were all contemporaries but they had no idea of each other.
That's why I say that before the scientific revolution in the means of communication and in the means of transportation, there were many worlds, sufficient unto themselves. They never thought of others, they had no idea even that others existed. As people became acquainted more and more with each other, the world became smaller. Now a Buddha will not be able to manage, nor Jesus nor Moses nor Confucius. They will all have very localized minds and very localized attitudes.
We are fortunate that the world is now so small that you cannot be local. In spite of yourself, you cannot be local; you have to be universal. You have to think of Confucius, you have to think of Krishna, you have to think of Socrates, you have to think of Bertrand Russell. Unless you think of the world as one single unit, and all the contributions of different geniuses, you will not be able to talk to the modern man. The gap will be so big -- twenty-five centuries, twenty centuries... almost impossible to bridge it.
The only way to bridge it is that the person who has come to know should not stop at his own knowing, should not be contented to only give expression to what he has come to know. He has to make a tremendous effort to know all the languages. The work is vast, but it is exciting -- the exploration into human genius from different dimensions.
And if you have within yourself the light of understanding, you can create, without any difficulty, a synthesis. And the synthesis is not only going to be of all the religious mystics -- that will be partial. The synthesis has to include all the artists -- their insights -- all the musicians, all the poets, all the dancers -- their insights. All the creative people who have contributed to life, who have made humanity richer, have to be taken into account. And most important of all is scientific growth.
To bring scientific growth into a synthetic vision with heart and religion was not possible in the past. In the first place there was no science -- and it has changed a thousand and one things. Life can never be the same again.
And nobody has thought ever of the artistic people, that their contribution is also religious.
In my vision it is a triangle -- science, religion, art.
And they are such different dimensions, they speak different languages, they contradict each other; they are not in agreement superficially -- unless you have a deep insight in which they all can melt and become one.
My effort has been to do almost the impossible.
In my university days as a student, my professors were at a loss. I was a student of philosophy, and I was attending science classes -- physics, chemistry and biology. Those professors were feeling very strange; "You are here in the university to study philosophy. Why are you wasting your time with chemistry?"
I said, "I have nothing to do with chemistry; I just want to have a clear insight into what chemistry has done, what physics has done. I don't want to go into details, I just want the essential contribution."
I was rarely in my classes, I was mostly in the library. My professors were continually saying, "What are you doing the whole day in the library? -- because so many complaints have come from the librarian that you are the first to enter the library, and you have to be almost physically taken out of the library. The whole day you are there. And not only in the philosophical department, you are roaming around the library in all the departments which have nothing to do with you."
I said to them, "It is difficult for me to explain to you, but my effort in the future is going to be to bring everything that has some truth in it into a synthetic whole and create a way of life which is inclusive of all, which is not based on arguments and contradictions, which is based on a deep insight into the essential core of all the contributions that have been made to human knowledge, to human wisdom."
They thought I would go mad -- the task I have chosen can lead anyone to madness, it is too vast. But they were not aware that madness is impossible for me, that I have left the mind far behind; I am just a watcher.
And the mind is such a delicate and complicated computer. Man has made great computers but none is yet comparable to the human mind. Just a single human mind has the capacity to contain all the libraries of the world. And just a single library -- the British Museum library -- has books, which if you go on making them like a wall, one by one, they will go three times round the earth. And that is only one big library. Moscow has the same kind of library -- perhaps bigger. Harvard has the same kind of library.
But a single human mind is capable of containing all that is written in all these books, of memorizing it. In a single brain there are more than a billion cells, and each single cell is capable of containing millions of pieces of information. Certainly one will go mad if one is not already standing out of the mind. If you have not reached the status of meditation, madness is sure. They were not wrong, but they were not aware of my efforts towards meditation.
So I was reading strange books, strange scriptures, from all over the world; yet I was only a watcher, because as far as I was concerned, I had come home. I had nothing to learn from all that reading; that reading was for a different purpose, and the purpose was to make my message universal, to make it free from local limitations.
And I am happy that I have succeeded in it completely. I don't have anything which is local. I don't have a land, a mother country. I don't have a house to live in. I don't have any place on this earth anywhere. This is a very strange situation.
I am a world citizen, but in the world I don't have even a space to stand, anywhere.
I can remain here only four or five days more; then I have to move. But perhaps that is good. What I have known through books, this way I am coming to know in reality.
I have become a universal gypsy.
Because you love me, you call me "master of masters." It is out of your love.
As far as I am concerned, I simply think of myself only an ordinary human being who was stubborn enough to remain independent, resisted all conditioning, never belonged to any religion, never belonged to any political party, never belonged to any organization, never belonged to any nation, any race.
I have tried in every possible way just to be myself, without any adjective; and that has given me so much integrity, individuality, authenticity, and the tremendous blissfulness of being fulfilled.
But it was the need of the time. After me, anybody trying to be a master will have to remember that he has to pass through all the things I have passed through; otherwise, he cannot be called a master. He will remain just localized -- a Hindu teacher, a Christian missionary, a Mohammedan priest -- but not a master of human beings as such.
After me it is going to be really difficult to be a master.
-Osho, "The Transmission of the Lamp, #37"
Immediately after Osho’s enlightenment,and why he became a master
Most of the enlightened people in the world have died almost immediately after enlightenment -- the shock is too much. The body may not be able to take it, unless the body is specially prepared to take it.
- Osho, "Light on the Path, #35"
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Question 3 Osho, The silences between your words are becoming more and more nourishing to me. often when a word comes after a gap of silence, i am surprised and i wonder how it is that, with your being in such silence, you are able to speak so articulately -- it seems like it would require such tremendous effort. Would you please say something about the relationship between enlightenment and language?
Puja Melissa, I am just a storyteller. From my very childhood I have loved to tell stories, real, unreal. I was not at all aware that this telling of stories would give me an articulateness, and that it would be of tremendous help after enlightenment.
Many people become enlightened, but not all of them become masters -- for the simple reason that they are not articulate, they cannot convey what they feel, they cannot communicate what they have experienced. Now it was just accidental with me, and I think it must have been accidental with those few people who became masters, because there is no training course for it. And I can say it with certainty only about myself.
When enlightenment came, I could not speak for seven days; the silence was so profound that even the idea of saying anything about it did not arise. But after seven days, slowly, as I became accustomed to the silence, to the beautitude, to the bliss, the desire to share it -- a great longing to share it with those whom I loved was very natural.
I started talking with the people with whom I was in some way concerned, friends. I had been talking to these people for years, talking about all kinds of things. I had enjoyed only one exercise, and that was talking, so it was not very difficult to start talking about the enlightenment -- although it took years to refine and bring into words something of my silence, something of my joy.
You are asking what the relationship is between enlightenment and language. No relationship at all, because enlightenment happens in silence; there is no language, no chattering of the mind, not even a single word. And most of the enlightened people have remained silent their whole life.
Just here in this city a few years ago was a man, Meher Baba. He lived more than thirty years in silence. He was announcing every year that he would be speaking. The date would come, his disciples would gather, they would come from faraway lands -- and again he would not speak. He could not manage a connection between silence and language.
If you have not been a poet before you become enlightened, after enlightenment you cannot express yourself in poetry. But if you have been a poet before then you have a mind trained for poetry. Now this mind can be used as an instrument to express what has happened to you -- the mysterious. If you have been a painter before, you can paint your enlightenment. Your paintings will give a peace to the eyes and those who sit by the side of your paintings -- just watching them -- will fall into meditation. So it all depends on what kind of mind you had at the time of enlightenment.
If you were an architect, after enlightenment you can create a Taj Mahal, or the temples of Khajuraho, or the caves of Ajanta and Ellora. But your mind has to be ready for it before enlightenment. After enlightenment you cannot do anything with the untrained mind.
I have loved talking on all kinds of subjects. I was a trouble in school; mostly I was standing outside the room, because the teacher would throw me out. He would give me the alternative, "Either you remain silent or you go out." I thought it was better to go out. But from the window I continued questioning.
My teachers used to hit their heads with their hands. "What kind of person are you? You don't even understand that you are punished! Just go and run seven rounds of the whole campus." I would say, "If I do ten rounds, do you have any objections?" He said, "My God, I am not rewarding you." And I would say, "Because I have not done my everyday morning exercise -- it is a beautiful exercise...."
I was expelled from many colleges, expelled from universities, because no professor could cope with me. They would threaten the vice-chancellor, "We will resign if this boy continues to be in the university, because he is not allowing us to move a single inch. You say a single word and he raises so many questions -- when are we going to do the course?"
I was told by vice-chancellors, "We cannot lose our well-respected professor -- he has served many years, and he is known all over the country -- just because of an unknown student." I said, "I'm perfectly ready; you will just have to make arrangements for me in another university. I will do the same there, because I am not wrong. Your professor is saying things which are out of date -- things which have been proved wrong. He's not up to date in his information. And you are punishing me just because I am an unknown student. But remember, someday I can become a well-known person."
And when I told them the whole problem -- what the professor was saying and what my question was, they understood, saying, "You are right, but still we cannot, because that professor has not turned up for three days. He has sent his resignation. We will not expel you, but I will talk to some other college or university..."
And when I would go to some other university, their first condition was, "You are not supposed to ask any questions." I said, "What kind of university is this? If the professor is talking nonsense and I am not supposed to ask questions, this is not a seat of learning." They said, "We don't want to discuss it; your vice-chancellor phoned me saying, `Somehow accept him.' I can accept you only on one condition -- that you will not ask questions."
I said, "That is impossible. When I see someone is falling into a ditch, I cannot resist preventing him; I will forget the promise. The only solution is that you give me enough percentage for being present in the university, and I will not come at all."
And finally this was what they had to agree to -- that they would give me enough percentage for being present so that I could appear in the examination, but I need not come to the university again; just when the examinations came, I would come. So most of my time was spent in the libraries, not in the classes.
It was just accidental that I became acquainted with the subtle nuances of words, their beauty, their poetry; so when enlightenment overwhelmed me, slowly slowly I was able to at least give some indication of the beyond. But it was purely an accident.
A poor Jew is walking down the street, when he sees a rich funeral procession go by -- black Rolls Royces, lots of flowers, women in furs, a bronze-handled coffin. He shakes his head: "Now that's what I call living."
There is no relationship between enlightenment and language; just as there is no relationship between enlightenment and poetry, painting, singing, dancing, music and pottery. But if you become enlightened, and you were already a good potter, after enlightenment your pottery will have a new significance. It has happened in this country... Gorak, one of the great masters, was a potter. After his enlightenment, he continued -- that was the only art that he knew. But the art changed totally. His pottery became almost sculpture.
Another man was Kabir, who was a weaver. When he became enlightened he continued to weave, but his weaving of the clothes became a totally different thing than for any other weaver in the whole history of mankind. The love, the blissfulness, the silence -- as if it all became part of his weaving.
Raidas, another master, was a shoemaker. When he became enlightened he continued shoemaking, but now his shoes were such that people would love not to wear them on their feet, but to keep them on their heads! They were coming from a source; they showed the love, they showed the blessings of the man. It was no ordinary shoemaking -- it had a quality of its own. [....]
A lifelong practice... it does not make any difference whether the person is eighty-eight years old -- he must be having girlfriends. The wife is worried, but the old fellow asks, "Who did you say was calling?"
Enlightenment can come to anybody at any age, but you will have to use your mind to communicate it, and that mind will be the old mind. If it is articulate in something, then that will become your expression. Haridas, a great musician and a master, never spoke about his enlightenment but only sang songs -- songs of tremendous beauty played on his sitar; and just his music conveyed something of his inner music.
Enlightenment is unrelated with anything, and after enlightenment it is very difficult -- almost impossible -- to train your mind. Mind becomes such a faraway reality, and you are so beyond.... The mind is in the valleys and you are on the sunlit peaks of a mountain. The distance is so much that unless the mind is already trained in something, there is no way other than to remain simply silent.
Most of the mystics have not spoken -- not a single word -- although a few very sensitive souls became aware that something great has happened to them. People started sitting by their side, at their feet, just to be showered by their silence and by their presence. It has been found to be tremendously blissful, but only for a very few, because the language of silence and the language of presence is not understood by many.
- Osho, “The Rebel, #2”
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Question : While you were speaking, this idea came! you say people have to be helped to be awakened, and basically, i think, none of the psychiatric or medical techniques are awakening the self. so how is it possible to create meditation courses if somebody is not awakened to lead those meditation courses?
It is not much of a problem. Even a man who has no cancer himself can be an expert in cancer surgery. You don't ask the surgeon, "Do you have any personal experience? Have you gone through cancer surgery?" No, he has just expertise, no experience, but his expertise can be used to give you an experience.
So it is not a question. If somebody has gone into meditation it is tremendously helpful to help others, because they will bring many problems, and if you have no experience it will be difficult for you to solve their problems. But you can make it clean and clear to them, "I have not experienced anything but I know the whole method. I can teach you the method, you can try it."
The method can be taught even through a tape recorder, a cassette. Not even a man is needed, just a cassette can be played and people can meditate accordingly. Of course, the cassette will not be able to answer your questions, but in fact there is no need to answer any questions. If you continue to meditate, those questions disappear by themselves.
So it is not an absolute necessity that only a man who knows meditation existentially can be a teacher.
Teachers and Masters are different things. The teacher is one who technically is an expert, who knows the method but has no experience. The Master is one who has the experience, who can even create methods, who can change old methods, who can make new methods, who can answer your questions. To have a Master is a benediction, but that is difficult: many will have to be satisfied with teachers. But even through a teacher you can become a Master. This is the miracle. It has happened many times that the master was not enlightened but the disciple became enlightened. The master was simply an expert about every step in detail. He taught the method and the disciple followed it -- and reached to that experience which the teacher himself was missing.
The teacher only gives information: the Master can give transformation. But if transformation is not available, then something is better than nothing. So even a teacher is good, rather than having no idea of what meditation is. Perhaps the teacher, seeing the disciples flowering, becoming blissful, silent, may start himself moving beyond knowledge into the world of existential experiencing. There is no harm anyway.
Right now you cannot find so many Masters, but one Master can create thousands of teachers immediately. Masters cannot be created. It is something that is unpredictable. It may happen to someone..., and even then, if somebody becomes enlightened it is not necessary that he will be able to become a Master -- or even a teacher. He may know, but he may not be articulate enough to lead others to the same experience. That is a different art.
It was easy for me to speak because I started speaking before I became enlightened. Speaking became almost a natural thing to me before I became enlightened.
I have never learned any oratory, never been to any school where oratory is taught. I have never even read a book on the art of speaking. From my very childhood, because I was argumentative and everybody wanted me to keep silent.... In the family, in the school, in the college, in the university, everybody was saying to me, "Don't speak at all!"
I was expelled from many colleges for the simple reason that teachers were complaining that they could not complete the syllabus, the course for the year, because "this student leads us into such arguments that nothing can be completed."
But all that gave me great opportunity and made me more and more articulate. It became just a natural thing to me to argue with the neighbors, to argue with the teachers, to argue on the street -- anywhere. Just to find a man was enough and I will start some argument.
Question : It was needed?
I loved it -- there was no question of need -- just the way I love it now! So when I became enlightened it was not difficult for me. It was very easy.
So everybody is not necessarily going to be a Master or a teacher. That is a totally different art.
For example, enlightenment does not make you a poet. There have been a few enlightened people who have written immensely beautiful poetry, but they were poets. Even if they had not become enlightened they would have been great poets; poetry was something inborn in them. They became enlightened -- that was a different phenomenon. They used their poetic abilities to express their enlightenment.
There have been painters who became enlightened. Then certainly their painting has a quality which no other painter can compete with. It is luminous with something mysterious. They have poured into the canvas something which only they can. Some enlightened people become... became sculptors. Their sculpture is something to sit silently and meditate upon. They were not just creating art, they were using art to express the inexpressible. The way I am using words, they were using marble, stones, paints.
But thousands of enlightened people have lived on the earth and died silently because they did not have any talent to make their enlightenment available to other people in some way.
And there have been teachers who were not enlightened but many of their disciples became enlightened. These teachers had the articulateness of expressing something which they don't know, they have just heard about.
You will be surprised to know that every Buddhist scripture starts with the words, "I have heard." It is written by a teacher, not by a Master -- every scripture. Buddha has not written anything. He was a Master. Ananda, his disciple, who goes on writing, is very sincere. He simply goes on writing every scripture with the words, "I have heard Gautam the Buddha saying this." He does not say, "This is my experience" -- he cannot say it. But he was very articulate. He managed to collect tremendous treasure for centuries to come. Many have become enlightened through Ananda and his scriptures, but he himself became enlightened only after Buddha's death.
And then comes a second surprise. When he became enlightened, he never spoke. Asked why, he said, "That will be ungrateful towards the Master. I cannot say things the way he could. I cannot put the same fragrance in my words, the way he was capable of. It is better for me to remain silent now. All that is worth saying he has said, and I have collected it."
But when he collected it, he was not enlightened. And when he became enlightened he declined to write anything, to say anything, for the simple reason, "It will be sheer ungratefulness to the Master and it will be cheap compared to him. He has showered such a treasure and I am a poor man: whatever I say will not stand any comparison. I know now what he knew, but he was he and I am I. I am still just a disciple.“ Okay?
- Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 3, #19"
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Question : How did you first get your inspiration for your philosophy, your approach to religion and life? when was it that you first started thinking about it, and how?
Very difficult to answer, because from my very childhood, as long as I remember, I have been arguing, fighting. Of course, a child will fight and argue in a child's way, but from my very childhood I have never been ready to accept anything without being rationally convinced about it. And I found very soon, very early in life, that all these people with very big heads -- professors, heads of the departments, deans, vice-chancellors -- are just hollow. You just a scratch a little bit, you find nothing inside. They don't have any argument for what they have been thinking is their own philosophy. They have borrowed it, they have never discovered it on their own. So I have been continuously fighting, and in this fighting I have been sharpening my own argument. I don't have a philosophy of my own. my whole function is deprogramming, so whatever you say, I will destroy it. And I never say anything, so I never give any chance to anybody to destroy it. My purpose is to deprogram you, to clean you, to uncondition you and leave you fresh, young, innocent. And from there you can grow into a real, authentic individual -- otherwise you are just a personality, not an individuality. A personality is borrowed, it is a mask. And my whole effort is how to help a person to be authentic, to be himself, naked. My sannyasins are neither Hindus nor Mohammedans nor Christians nor communists; they are simply human beings. It really takes guts to drop all the rubbish of the ages. Okay? Good.
- Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 3, #25"
On Succession, Successors
Question : Do you have any kind of personal strategy for the future, any message to leave? Do you have any idea of Rajneeshism and Rajneeshpuram after you? Do you have any successor?
No, because all the religions who have followed those lines have turned poisonous, have turned into curses on humanity. I don’t want to be a curse to humanity. I am a blessing and I want to remain a blessing.
So nobody is going to succeed me.
And my message for my people is that the moment I am gone, your religion is gone. Then whatever remains is just a corpse. Don’t start worshipping the corpse. I am a free man and I want every sannyasin to be a free man. My love is the only binding force between them; otherwise, there is no theology, no belief system, no agreement on anything.
Only one thing is keeping them together around the world, and that is their love for me. When I am not there, nothing can keep them together. There is no bridge. Each sannyasin is individually connected to me. You don’t ask the sun, “If one day you stop rising, what is going to happen to the rays?” You know that the rays will not be there the moment I am dead and gone.
They have lived with me, they have danced with me, they have enjoyed with me — now they know the secret of how to enjoy life, how to live life. And there is no need to go on making a church, popes, successors… because they have done so much harm. I will not allow my people to do that.
When I am gone, then you disperse. What is the point? my love was keeping you together, and I am no more there. It is good that I am no more, because now your last attachment is also dropped. I was the last attachment to be broken, now you are totally free. You were free from your family, from your nation, from your religion, but a small thin thread of love was binding you with me. Now I am no more there; I give you the last, the final taste of freedom.
And then whatever happens, happens. I am not responsible for it. The people who will be coming after me will have the responsibility. And I never think about the future. I am so totally involved with the present… I am talking to you, and at this moment only you exist for me. The whole space has disappeared and the whole time has stopped. Just you and me… only then can there be some communication.
And I don’t think about what is going to happen tomorrow. I am not thinking what you are going to write about me, and I am not going to read it, whatever you write! It doesn’t matter at all. What matters is that we enjoyed this moment together, loved this moment, laughed together, felt each other’s humanity.
I cannot see anybody as a journalist, as a doctor, as an engineer. Those are not your realities, they are just your jobs. When I look at you, I put aside your journalist, I am talking directly to you. Journalism is just your way of earning bread and butter. What importance does it have? I cannot love bread and butter, but I love you as a person, as an individual, and whatsoever I am saying is totally different from what you would have found in the past with the many other people you have interviewed. Even in the future you may not come across a man like me.
My whole interest in this moment is how to help you enjoy the time you have been with me. Your magazine, your writing, does not come between me and you, so when you started introducing the magazine, I was going to stop you, but just out of politeness I listened. What concern do I have with magazines, newspapers?
My concern is purely with the individual, and then it is up to him. Whatsoever he wants to make out of it, he will make out of it. I trust in my love, and I trust in the dignity of the individual that is sitting before me, and the trust will take care of everything. I never think of tomorrow.
- Osho, “The Last Testament, Vol 1”
“I am not going to leave any successor because we have seen what happens to successors. Two thousand years of popes coming and going…. If you want to find idiots in history, it is so easy — take the names of all the popes, because other names have disappeared. These popes are representing Jesus Christ, and because they are representing Jesus Christ they are infallible. I am not going to leave any successor behind me, because in the first place I, myself, am fallible. How can my representative be infallible?”
-Osho, "From Death to Deathlesssnes"
“But nobody is my follower. Nobody is going to be my successor. Each sannyasin is my representative. When I am dead, you all — individually — will have to represent me to the world. There is not going to be any pope. There is not going to be any shankaracharya. Each sannyasin, in his own capacity, has to represent me. This has never happened — but it is going to happen! You are all my successors. When I am dead, that simply means I have left this body and entered all the bodies of my people. I will be within you. I will be part of you.”
-Osho, "From Death to Deathlesssnes"
“But as far as I am concerned, it is not needed at all for any buddhas to have preceded me or to precede you. I don’t accept any followers and I don’t accept any predecessors. Successors or predecessors are not needed, you are enough unto yourself. It is just a question of awakening. So everybody will wake up — how long can you sleep? We will go on harassing you.”
-Osho, "The Miracle"
“I want my sannyasins to inherit my freedom, my awareness, my consciousness. And each sannyasin has to be my successor, has to be me. There is no need for anybody to dominate. There is nobody for anybody to dictate to. They are on their own. If they want to be together they can be together. Out of their own freedom, it is their choice and their decision. If they want to move free they have all the rights to move free.” It is quite clear then that he was neither interested nor intended that his discourses and meditations be copyrighted or trademarked.”
-Osho, "The Last Testament"
“The very idea of succession is not the right idea in the world of consciousness. That’s why I have said, I will not have successors. But you are right in saying that you will carry in your bones and in your blood my love, my insight. But don’t use the word `successor’, rather use the words `you will be me’. Why be so far away, a successor, when you can be me? Be so empty that I can make a home in you, that your emptiness can absorb my emptiness, that your heart can have the same dance as my heart. It is not succession; it is transmission.
The very idea of succession is political. Only one person can be a successor, so there is bound to be competition, ambition. There is bound to be a subtle struggle to be closer to the master, to force others away. It may not be on the surface but, underneath, the problem will remain in the disciples: “Who is going to be the successor?”
I destroy the whole conception. Every disciple who has loved has become one with the master. There is no need of any competition, nor one successor. It is for everybody who has offered himself in deep gratitude, who has become one in a certain sense with the master’s presence. There is no need of any competition. Thousands can have the same experience, millions can have the same experience.
To avoid politics in religion, I have said that I will not have successors. I want religion to be absolutely devoid of ambition, competition, being higher than another, putting everybody lower than oneself. With me you are all equal. And I trust and love you, that you will prove this equality. In equals there is no competition; there is a combined effort. You will all carry my message, but nobody will be higher or lower, nobody will be a successor. All will be my lovers and they will carry me.”
-Osho, "Nansen: The Point of Departure"
“Once I am gone, the serious people are dangerous. They can take possession, because they are always in search of taking possession of things. They can become my successors, and then they will destroy. So remember this: even an ignorant person can become my successor, but he must be able to laugh and celebrate. Even if somebody claims that he is enlightened, just see his face: if he is serious, he is not going to be successor to me! Let this be the criterion: even a fool will do, but he should be able to laugh and enjoy and celebrate life. But serious people are always in search of power. People who can laugh are not worried about power — that is the problem. Life is so good, who bothers to become a pope? Simple people, happy in their simple ways, don’t bother about politics.”
-Osho, "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega"
So when I say, “Spread the word,” I mean whatever I have been telling you, go on spreading in as many ways as possible. Use all the news media, use everything that technology has provided, so that the word reaches to every nook and corner of the earth. And remember, it is far more powerful than any nuclear weapons because nuclear weapons can only bring death — that is not power. But the word which has come from an enlightened consciousness can bring new life to you; it can give you rebirth, resurrection — that is power.
-Osho, "The Path of the Mystic"
I will simply die and leave the sannyasinswithout any instructions, without any moral code
Question : You have said that you don't care if there is any successor when you are gone. what do you see happening to your sannyasins, to rajneeshism, the moment you die?
I don't at all think about it. Never does the thought occur to me, for the simple reason that the very idea goes against my approach. The people who are living with me are enjoying the moment. Do you want me alone not to enjoy the moment?
I am teaching everybody to enjoy the moment, and don't be bothered by tomorrow. Living in the moment intelligently, consciously, meditatively, will take care of the future. There is no need for me to give you directives, guidelines for what you have to do when I am gone. That's what all the old religions have done.
Manu gave all the guidelines for Hindus five thousand years ago, and they are still following them. Everything has changed, nothing of Manu is applicable any more. In fact it is a hindrance to the evolution of Hindus to become contemporaries. Now, Manu has committed a crime against humanity by giving these directives. He did not prove a blessing, he proved himself a curse.
But the same is done by Moses, Mohammed, Mahavira, Jesus, Buddha. On one thing they are all agreed: that when they are gone they have still to control the people who had come into contact with them, who had trusted them. But they don't trust their people.
I trust my people. I know that they are living fully, joyously. They know how to live joyously, how to live fully, and that's enough. I have given them the experience; now the experience will be decisive. And they will have a freedom, because things will change, situations will change. I could give directives that will become hindrances to their growth, but I cannot do that. That is criminal, very criminal.
For example, Mahavira gave the directive to his disciples not to wear shoes. In his time it was perfectly right, because to use leather means you are in some way or other indirectly supporting the killing of animals. And the best leather comes out in a very torturous way. Young calves have to be boiled, and their skin has to be taken off. Then it is soft, very soft. The moment an animal dies his skin becomes hard, then you cannot make beautiful shoes out of it. You can make shoes, but they will not be so soft, so velvety. And the younger the kid the better leather you get, softer leather you get.
Mahavira, seeing this whole scene happening in every town, every city -- young animals being boiled alive -- stopped his people. They were not eating meat, but they were using shoes at least, and that leather comes from torture. But Mahavira becomes decisive for the future too; he makes it a rule that his sannyasins should never wear shoes.
This is going too far. Now, I'm wearing shoes which are not made of leather. Mahavira had no idea of rubber; he had no idea of synthetic leather. He had no idea that shoes can be made of canvas, of cloth -- of so many things. But we cannot condemn him for not having the idea; there was no possibility of that. All he knew was that he had forbidden his people to use leather, but he should have left them open for the future.
For example, Mohammed said to his disciples that they can marry four wives. But that became a guideline for the future, and now Mohammedans everywhere are insisting that this is a question of their religion. They have to marry four wives. In Mohammed's time there was so much war, murder, arson, that the population of men and women had come to that proportion -- one man, four women -- because men were being killed in war. It was simply compassionate of Mohammed to say that one man should marry four wives; nothing was wrong in it. But to make it a guideline for the future, forever, is dangerous.
Now the situation is different. If one man marries four wives, then three men will remain bachelors. The situation has completely reversed, but the stupid mind of followers is such that they will not see the point. Why had Mohammed insisted on marrying four women? So that three are not left spinsters, because they will suffer unnecessary psychological repressions, they will become prostitutes, they will destroy the whole moral structure. But now the situation is just the opposite: if a Mohammedan marries four wives then he is driving three men to remain celibate. Those three people are not going to sit silently, they will have to do something.
Then all kinds of perversions -- the same perversions that Mohammed was trying to avoid -- are all over Mohammedan countries. Because you are richer you can get as many wives as you want -- and four is not the limit, it is the minimum. Mohammed himself married nine wives; that is example enough for rich emirs and sheiks and oil kings. They can marry hundreds of women -- all the beautiful women of their country are brought to them -- but what about all those hundreds of young people who are deprived of their wives and their rights? You are driving them to homosexuality. You are driving them into other perversions, sodomy.
It is a very common phenomenon in Mohammedan countries -- men making love to animals. It is worse than rape, because the innocent animal is in your hands. Whatever you want to do you can do. When you rape a woman, in some way or other she cooperates. Otherwise it is not easy. Perhaps deep down she desires it, because whenever a woman is raped -- the man is certainly criminal, I am not saving him from his crime -- the woman is not absolutely innocent. In the unconscious somewhere there is a desire that somebody should find her so beautiful, so irresistible, that he will even be ready to commit a crime. That is a kind of tremendous satisfaction, a confirmation of her beauty, of her charm.
I know women who have been raped, and I have asked both parties. The man who was raping her was also puzzled that the woman was cooperating, she was not screaming, shouting or doing something. Otherwise, if a woman is really against it, even her husband cannot make love to her -- what to say about rape. She can bite, she can hit, she can throw stones, she can shout. She can do everything, but the poor animal cannot do anything. The poor animal cannot even understand what is happening. This is sheer abuse. Children are being sexually abused.... And for all this, Mohammed is responsible. And the amazing part of the story is that in all Mohammedan countries there are more bachelor men than anywhere else, because so many women are taken away by the richer people.
For homosexuality, death is the only penalty. On the one hand you are driving people towards homosexuality and on the other hand you make it the greatest crime, to be punished by death. You are putting such a pressure on people that they cannot even be homosexuals, so they are bound to move towards animals. At least there is no law in Mohammedan countries against animals.
Nobody should try to make any guidelines for the future. The future is always open. I am not willing to be a participant in a crime which has been committed for thousands of years. I absolutely decline to stand with Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Mohammed, Jesus, Moses. No, that is not my company.
I want to make a complete breakthrough about everything, and this is one of the most fundamental things. There is hidden in it a deep desire to dominate people, even when you are gone -- to put it in other words, that the dead should be dominating the living. That's what has been happening all around the world. The living are not given freedom even to choose their own course, to choose their own moralities, to choose, according to the time, what is right and what is wrong.
Those people were very much concerned, because they were writing, they were dictating rules and regulations in detail. In Buddhist scriptures there are 33,000 rules for a monk. People have come to seek freedom, they have come to seek truth. What they are getting is a strange psychological slavery in its place, and that too even for coming generations.
So when I am asked whether I am going to make somebody my successor, I say absolutely no. I am giving my people clarity, understanding, awareness. That is going to be my successor.
Every one of my sannyasins has to decide for himself. I have given him that much understanding, and I am making every effort to make him more and more conscious, so there is no need for him to be dictated to about things which are absolutely new by people who are dead, and who had no idea about those things.
For example, none of these prophets had any idea about AIDS. We don't know what else is going to be in the future, but none of these people could have given any guidelines about AIDS. In fact, they have given guidelines which are very dangerous. Mohammed says that when there are a few Mohammedans eating together, they should eat from one plate. Now that is risking AIDS.
Eating out of one plate is dangerous if any single one of them is carrying AIDS, if in some way his saliva gets into the food by his hands. In the East people eat with their hands; the fingers can carry the saliva to the food, and the food is being eaten by everybody. When Mohammed gave that idea it was to give them companionship, friendship -- and even if a stranger passes by he should be invited. Now, this is absolutely dangerous. Jesus practiced this every day. He would drink from a cup, then he would pass the same cup to somebody else. He would drink from it and then it would go on being passed. It was thought to be a great blessing; wine touched by Jesus' mouth has become somehow divine. And that practice is still being continued.
What are they going to do now that all the information about AIDS is becoming more and more clear every day? This religious practice is no more religious, it is illegal. It is immoral. It is sickening, nauseating. It should be stopped immediately. But Christians cannot stop it; their master did it, and their master told his disciples to do it. It will be going against the master. But AIDS is far more powerful than your dead master. And he had no idea about it, so I don't condemn him; but I do condemn these idiots who will insist that this is their practice and they will have to continue it.
I am not going to give a single instruction about anything. In fact there is no need. These people had to give instructions because they left people blind. They gave only beliefs to them; they never gave them consciousness, awareness. They never gave them the capacity to decide on their own. They never made them responsible for their own life.
Yes, they gave them a blind man's stick, and directions on how to move so you can get to the door. But the house is being continuously renovated, continuously remade. Doors are being changed, windows are being changed, and the old blind man goes on finding the way with the old instructions.
No, I don't want to give my people sticks. I want to give them eyes. And the people who ask me who is going to be my successor are asking because that's how it has always been: somebody should succeed, and I should give clear-cut instructions about what you have to do and what you have not to do when I am gone. The people who ask me the question think that I am very irresponsible, that I will simply die and leave the sannyasins without any instructions, without any moral code, without any ten commandments. They do not understand me.
I love my people so much that I cannot create any hindrance in their life in the future. I cannot give them any instructions. I am giving them eyes so they can see where the door is for themselves. Why should I give them a map of the house when the house is continuously changing? And it has been proved by these five thousand years that all codes, all religions, all ethical systems have failed for the simple reason that they were trying to decide the future, which was not in their hands. Their intention was good, but their understanding was not enough.
I want my sannyasins to inherit my freedom, my awareness, my consciousness. And each sannyasin has to be my successor, has to be me. There is no need for anybody to dominate. There is nobody for anybody to dictate to. They are on their own. If they want to be together they can be together. Out of their own freedom, it is their choice and their decision. If they want to move free they have all the rights to move free.
So the thought never occurs to me. All that occurs to me is that the sooner I can make my people more clear about life and its complexities the better, because nobody knows when I may be gone. Before that my people have to be capable of blissfully and joyously giving me a send-off.
And I will not be leaving any ethical code, any structure to be followed. They will have to make it. And they will have to remember that they make it only for themselves, not for the future. They will have to do the same as I am doing for them. They will have to keep alert, because it is very easy to be tempted so that the new generation does not get lost. It is better to get lost than to be imprisoned.
So I am not giving you any structure, any instructions, but only clarity, understanding, consciousness. Remember, the same thing has to be done for the future generation. One day the same question will be before you. What are you going to decide for the younger generation of sannyasins for when you are gone? Nobody has the right to decide for anybody else. Help the person to grow, to mature. Help the person to stand on his own feet, this is real compassion.
And my compassion does not allow me to say a single word about the future. I am absolutely concerned with the present. And if the present is golden, the future born out of it will be even more golden.
-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 2, #14"
I cannot make a categorical statement about what you are to do when I am gone. For those who have contacted me I will never be gone and for those who have not contacted me I am already gone. They should leave right now. They should not wait for my death. Yes, after death they have to leave - but I am saying they should leave right now. Don't waste your time.
It depends on you whether my religion will remain alive or not when I am gone. It depends on you. To a few it will be dead... to them it is dead now. To a few it will remain alive... to them it is alive now and it will be alive forever. So each one has to decide for himself. If when I am gone you feel that I am there to help you, I will be there to help you. If you feel I am no longer there to help you, naturally you have to choose another Master.
-Osho, “Sufis The People of the Path Vol 1, Q6”
After I leave my body
Osho left his body on January 19, 1990. Osho’s reply to a question from Italian TV, just a few months before he left his body.
"My trust in existence is absolute. If there is any truth in what I am saying, it will survive. The people who remain interested in my work will be simply carrying the torch but not imposing anything on anyone.
I will remain a source of inspiration to my people. And that’s what most sannyasins will feel. I want them to grow on their own – qualities like love, around which no church can be created, like awareness, which is nobody’s monopoly; like celebration, rejoicing, and maintaining fresh, childlike eyes…
I want my people to know themselves, not to be according to someone else. And the way is in."
- Dictated response by Osho to a question submitted by an Italian journalist in November 1989, published in Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic
Before he left his body, Osho dictated the inscription for his Samadhi, the marble and mirrored-glass crypt containing his ashes. It says:
OSHO Never Born Never Died Only Visited this Planet Earth between Dec 11, 1931 - Jan 19, 1990
Osho also talked about how wanted the expansion of the work to continue. He said that now that he was leaving his body, many more people would come, many more people's interest would show, and his work would expand incredibly beyond our ideals. And that is what is happening.
The Meaning of OSHO
After announcing the removal of his name from everything, he agrees to accept ‘Osho’
Osho is a very beautiful word. It should be added to every language. Just the sound is beautiful in the first place: Osho. It shows respect, it shows love, it shows gratitude. It is not just a dry word like "Reverend." It is a very loving and friendly word, almost having the sense of "The Beloved."
-Osho, “Communism and Zen Fire, Zen Wind, #1, Q4”
He changed his name from Bhagwan Rajneesh to Osho and explained that the word ‘Osho’ is derived from William James’ expression ‘oceanic experience’ which means dissolving into the ocean. “Oceanic describes the experience,” says Osho, “but what about the experiencer? For that we use the word ‘Osho’.”
"Being simply means you have dropped the ego that was part of your head. You have even dropped the separation, very subtle and delicate, that was part of your heart; you have dropped all barriers between you and the whole. Suddenly the dewdrop has slipped from the lotus leaf into the ocean. It has become one with it.
In a sense you are no more and in a sense you are for the first time. As a dewdrop you are no more but as the ocean you are for the first time, and this is your nature.
One of the great psychologists, William James, has contributed tremendously by coining a new word for spiritual experience, the "oceanic" experience. He is perfectly right. It is the experience of expansion, all boundaries disappearing farther and farther and farther away. A moment comes when you don't see any boundaries to you; you become the ocean itself. You are, but you are no more in a prison. You are, but you are no more in a cage. You have come out of the cage, you have come out of the prison, and you are flying into the sky in total freedom."
-Osho, "Om Mani Padmi Hum, # 2
on a word 'OSHO'
Tokusan, holding up his kneeling cloth, said, “OSHO!”
‘Osho’ is a word signifying great respect, love and gratitude. It also sounds beautiful.
-Osho, “Zen: The Diamond Thuderbolt, #2”
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To the person of realization, there is nothing pure and nothing impure; there is only the real and the shadow of the real to which he has been clinging up to now.
ONE DAY A MONK CAME ALONG, AND, NOT KNOWING HE WAS SPEAKING TO THE MASTER, ASKED BOKUSHU THE WAY TO THE MASTER'S ROOM. BOKUSHU TOOK OFF HIS SANDAL AND HIT THE MONK ON THE HEAD WITH IT - THE MONK RAN OFF.
THEN BOKUSHU CALLED TO HIM, "OSHO!" AND THE MONK TURNED HIS HEAD. "THAT'S THE WAY TO IT," BOKUSHU SAID, POINTING WITH HIS FINGER.
What has happened in this incident? Unless you lose your head, you cannot find your heart. Hitting the head of the monk with his sandal is simply a way of saying, "Please stop thinking." Except for
thought, nothing is a barrier to truth. But the monk became afraid, "This seems to be a madman. I am asking the way to the master's room and he hits me. It is better to run away from here. He may do something even more nasty." So he ran away.
Bokushu called him back, "OSHO!"
'Osho' is a very respectful word. It is a way of calling someone almost divine. It is in essence so respectful that only a disciple calls a master 'Osho'.
Bokushu called after him,"OSHO!" indicating: "Don't be afraid and don't escape. It is against your dignity. You are to me as worthy of respect as Buddha himself." And saying,"OSHO!" he said, pointing to his own room, "THAT'S THE WAY TO IT."
This kind of incident is impossible in this world today unless you are humble enough. If the master hits with his sandal on your head, you will start fighting with him. You will not think that he is a man worthy of respect. He will seem to be insane - you are simply asking the way and he hits you.
But once a different world existed. Bokushu did both things: first he hit him on the head with his sandal, and then he called him, "OSHO!" - You are also a master; who you are looking for? If you are looking for the master, this is the way. Drop your head outside; be humble, innocent. In your silence, without thought, you may find the master. [....]
Another question she has asked: Osho, Do you call us "buddhas" - as bokushu called the monk in this story "osho" - to remind us of the way?
Not of the way, Maneesha, but to remind you of yourself. The way is always a long journey. There is no need of any way. You can just here, now, be awake without traveling on any way. I don't talk about the way, I talk about awakening this very moment, like lightning, like a thunderbolt. And I don't think that if you decide to sleep a little longer, there is any harm in it.
Yes, Maneesha, I call you all buddhas in the same sense as Bokushu called the monk 'Osho'. I love you and I respect you; whether you are awake or asleep, that is a very small matter. [....]
Be silent.
Close your eyes.
No movement of the body.
Just become frozen so that you can enter into yourself.
This silence, Osho, this silence, the buddha.
Deeper, deeper, deeper.
The deeper you go, the more oceanic becomes the experience.
The dewdrop slips from the lotus leaf and disappears in the ocean.
This is our eternal reality.
This is our divineness.
There is no other God than this experience.
There is no other prayer than this tremendous silence, this peace, this ecstasy.
To make it deeper, Osho, Nivedano ...
(Drumbeat) Relax, just as if you have died.
The body may go on breathing, but you remain in.
Pull yourself as much as possible inwards.
The more you are in, the more the buddha is awake.
At the very center of your being,
you are the ultimate experience of being a buddha.
Drink it, let it sink into every fiber and cell of your body, your mind.
Carry it twenty-four hours within you - just like a silent flame, showing you the path, reminding you that you are the goal, not the way; the God, not the devotee; the sought, not the seeker.
Nivedano ...
(Drumbeat) You can all come back, and for a few seconds, just sit like buddhas in your grandeur, in your grace.
Blissful is the night with so many buddhas, breathing together to the same song, listening together to the same music, feeling together the very heartbeat of the universe.
Except this, there is no religiousness.
And this religiousness
is neither Christian, nor Hindu, nor Mohammedan.
It is freedom from all boundaries, it knows no limits.
Be unlimited, be the ocean.
Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.
Can we celebrate the gathering of so many buddhas?
Yes, Osho.
-Osho, “Zen: The Diamond Thuderbolt, #3”
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