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OSHO

Never Born

Never Died

Only Visited this

Planet Earth between

Dec 11 1931 - Jan 19 1990

 I am a invitation 

Question :

Osho,
Can you say who you are?

 
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 answer to the question that everybody is, but cannot formulate -- a question that is more a quest than a question, more a thirst than a verbal, mental inquiry; a thirst that one feels in every cell and fiber of his being, but has no way to bring to words and ask.

I am an answer for that question which you cannot ask and you cannot expect that it could be answered.

When I say I am the answer, I don't mean that I can give you the answer... yes, if you are ready, you can take it. I am just like a well, ready for you to throw your bucket and draw the water for yourself. I have it but I cannot reach to you without your efforts.

Only you can reach to me.
It is a strange invitation.

It will take you on a long pilgrimage and it will end only where you already are. You will have to move many steps and on many paths just to come to yourself, because you have gone far away from yourself. You have completely forgotten the way back.

I am a reminder, a remembrance, of the lost home.
As a person I do not exist.
As a person I only appear.
I exist as a presence.

Since the day I came to know myself, the person disappeared. There is only a presence, a very living presence that can quench your thirst, that can fulfill your longing. Hence, in one word I can say I am an invitation, of course just for those who have a deep longing in their hearts that they are missing themselves -- a deep urge, that unless they find themselves, everything else is meaningless. Unless it is your a priori concern, your ultimate concern, such that if it is needed you are even ready to lose everything for it, but you cannot drop it....

There are thousands of desires, but as far as longing is concerned there is only one: to come back home, to find your reality. And in that very finding, you have found all that is of any value -- blissfulness, truth, ecstasy.

Jesus used to say, "If you have eyes to see, see. If you have ears to hear, hear." Of course, he was not talking to the blind and to the deaf. He was talking to people just like you. Perhaps he was talking just to you, because you are not new.

You are as ancient as the whole existence.
You have always been here.

You may have come across many masters; you may have come close to many buddhas, but you were too much engaged in trivia. You were not aware of your longing.

I am an effort to provoke the dormant in you, to wake up the asleep. The fire is there, but is burning very low because you have never taken any care of it.

My invitation is to make you aflame, and unless you know a life which is luminous and aflame all your knowledge is just a deception. You are gathering it to help you forget that the real knowledge is missing. But however great is your accumulation of the other, the objective, the world, it is not going to become a substitute for your self-knowing. With self-knowing suddenly all darkness disappears, and all separation from existence.

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"

 I am the Gate 

"I am the gate, but I am the gate only for those who are ready to pass through me. You have to pay the price? and sannyas is the price. And if you love me, then love is always ready to sacrifice. And I am not asking for your money, I am not asking for your house; I am not asking anything of this shore from you.

I am asking only for that which you don't have but you believe that you have. I am asking only for the false things: your beliefs, your ego, your hatred, your passion, your desires, your lust, your greed. I am asking for all your diseases!

Give all your diseases to me; that's what sannyas is all about. Then I am the gate and I am ready. Come through me and you will find that which you have been seeking for lives together.

But you can miss the gate if you are so miserly or so cowardly that you cannot take the jump into sannyas. Then what kind of love are you talking about? Love knows how to be committed, how to be involved. Love knows how to die and how to be reborn. Love is ready to pass through any fire because love knows, "Nothing can destroy me, not even fire can burn me." Love knows its eternity. Hence love is always courageous. Sannyas is courage, it is adventure.

Buddha says: WHAT YOU GIVE TO HIM WILL BE GIVEN BACK TO YOU, AND MORE.

Don't be worried and don't be miserly. Be open with me, be vulnerable, be receptive, so that I can pour myself totally in you. I am ready to be a guest in your heart, but you will have to be ready to be a host and you will have to cleanse your heart of all the weeds.

You will have to empty your heart of all the junk that you have collected: of all the past, of all the memories, of all the belief systems, of all the philosophies, ideologies - political, religious, social.

When you are absolutely empty you can come in me, I can come in you. The meeting can happen. And that meeting is the greatest orgasmic experience of life."

- Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 10, #7"

 I am a simple, ordinary human being just like you 

Question :

Osho, Who are you?

I am not a messiah, nor a prophet, nor a savior. I am simply a human being, with a little difference that you are not awake and I am awake. You can call me the awakened one. I emphatically deny the role of the messiah, the prophet, the savior, for specific reasons.

My understanding is that nobody can save anybody else — the very idea is insulting. And if somebody can save somebody, he can also drown him, because both the capacities come together. I am not a prophet, representing God, his message. As far as I am concerned existence is divine, but there is no God as a person. It is a quality of creativity, but not a creator. So the people who are creative are more religious than the people who go on praying in the churches, in the temples, in the synagogues to a God above in the heaven which does not exist. They are simply befooling themselves.

I am not a messiah especially sent by God. In the first place there is no God to send anyone. In the second place, for the argument’s sake, if there is a God who can create the whole creation, he need not have these mediocre messiahs to change people. He can do it himself. All these people who have been trying to be messengers of God, incarnations of God, the only begotten son of God… may not be bad people. They may be good people; their intention may not be bad. I never suspect their intention, but they are utterly wrong. And because of these people, humanity has suffered tremendously.

I want human beings to understand that they have the capacity to fall in their consciousness to the lowest level or they can rise to the highest pinnacle of consciousness. They can have friends. Gautam Buddha, Hazrat Mohammed, Jesus Christ should be understood as great friends. Their advice may be of immense value, but the moment they become leaders, the moment Jesus becomes the shepherd and his followers become sheep, it is ugly; it is absolutely inhuman.

When Mohammed becomes a prophet of God, he raises himself above humanity. That is just an egoistic trip. When Buddha allows himself to be worshipped, that his word has to be taken in deep faith, he is harming humanity. I don’t belong to their category at all.

I am a simple, ordinary human being just like you. But I am aware and you are not. This is not much of a difference — you can become aware. I am conscious and you are not. I can show you the path just like a friend, but you have to follow the path. I cannot take you to paradise because there is none. These are all fictions created to exploit humanity — the paradise, the hell — because it is a simple psychology that man can be controlled by two things, fear and greed. For fear there is hell; for greed there is heaven.

It is very easy to manipulate human beings between these two poles. Nobody wants to be in hell for eternity — everybody wants to be in heaven and have all the pleasures eternally. Naturally, if you want heaven and you do not want hell, you have to follow these people who are proclaiming themselves to be the only son of God, the only prophet of God.

Humanity has suffered for thousands of years. No prophet, no messiah, no savior has been of any help; on the contrary, they have created every kind of trouble for man. They have created different religions, and this has to be emphatically noted — that truth cannot be organized. It is not something that a crowd attains; it is something absolutely individual.

One goes to his own innermost being alone, absolutely alone, and finds it. Everybody is born to become a fully conscious being. That is my term for religiousness. To me, whatever wrong you do, you do because you are unconscious. And whatever good you do, you can do only when you are conscious. So I reduce your whole religion and your whole morality to two simple principles: behave unconsciously and you will be doing some harm; behave consciously and you will be doing some good, beautifying life.

These people try to put themselves high above human beings for the simple reason that people have lived in a spiritual slavery. They don’t want to have freedom; they want a savior to save them. They want a prophet to bring a message from God to them. They are not at all interested in taking the pilgrimage themselves, so they are happy that somebody else is doing it for them on their behalf. And the people who are pretending to be all these things are enjoying great ego numbers. They may have been good people, but deep down there is a subtle current of ego which cannot be denied. I don’t have any ego.

I just want to be in the crowd, in the people, just like them. And perhaps this is the only way to help them. When somebody is so high that you cannot reach even to his feet, you start thinking this is an experience for special people. You are not the only begotten son of God, you are not the last prophet, you are not an incarnation of God. But this distance gives them a chance. What can they do? You are crawling on the earth — the distance is too much, it will take lives for you to come close to them. It looks logical, and at the same time they can enjoy the speciality which even kings and emperors cannot enjoy.

The future of religiousness is the future of people like me who have no ego trip, who are not creating any distance; on the contrary, who are destroying all distances and becoming as simple and ordinary as everyone. Then I can take your hand in my hand. And if I know the way, we can walk on the way hand in hand.

And remember, finally, that you will not be obliged to me; on the contrary, I will be obliged to you that you allowed me to hold your hand, because I was so full of my experience, my ecstasy, my religiousness, my truth, that I wanted to share it. By sharing it grows.

The more you share your inner experiences, the more you find them. It is an inexhaustible source.

– Osho, “The Sword and the Lotus”

 I am not saviour 

Question 6

Osho,

Are you the saviour? and if you are, how to recognize you?

No, I am not a saviour. A thousand times no. Nobody can save anybody else. And you should not look for that, that is a deception. I have saved myself, I cannot save you, you will have to save yourself. I can indicate the way, I can tell you how I have saved myself. Buddhas only show the way, but all else you have to do. Nobody can save you, you should start being responsible for yourself. You have learnt a very ugly trick of throwing responsibility on somebody else. WHY should anybody else be a saviour to you?

I am not. I don't take anybody's responsibility on me. I throw you to yourself. That is the only way to help you, that is the only way to create a soul in you. That is the only way to make you feel that your life is your life. If you want it to be miserable that is your choice, if you don't want it to be miserable I make the way available to you. You can drop your misery this very moment. But don't start clinging to me and don't start throwing your responsibility on me, otherwise sooner or later you will be disappointed and you will be angry with me.

There are sometimes questions -- 'I have been here for three months and, Osho, you are not doing anything to me yet.' Who I am to do anything? I can only indicate. I am a finger pointing to the moon. Don't wait, go to the moon. Don't wait and don't cling to the finger. But there are people who start biting my finger rather than going tO the moon.

I am not a saviour. [....]

I am not going to give you any proof of any kind. And don't ask 'How to recognize you?' -- there is no need. Just listen to what I am saying to you, let it be transformed into your own insight. You need not recognize me -- as a saviour, as a Jesus, as a Buddha -- there is no need. And how can you recognize me? Unless you have become a Christ you will not be able to recognize a Christ -- you will not know what it means to be a Christ. No, I don't expect you to recognize me. And there is no need. I am what I am, your recognition will not make any difference. So don't bother about that. And I am not going to give you any proofs.

And remember again: Don't look towards me as a saviour. Because of this idea -- that a saviour has to come or a messiah has to come -- people go on living the way they are living. What can they do? they say. When the messiah comes then everything will happen. This is their way of postponing transformation, this is their way of deceiving themselves. Enough is enough, you have deceived enough. Now no more. No messiah is ever going to come. You have to do your own work, you have to be responsible for yourself. And when you are responsible, things start happening.

- Osho, "This Very Body the Buddha, #7, Q6"

 I am not a messiah. I don't give you any hope. 

Question 1

Osho,

Are you a Messiah?

No, Absolutely no. The whole idea is fundamentally wrong. It is not only that I am not a messiah, there has never been anyone who was and there will never be anybody who will be. You will have to go deep into the concept of it. The idea of a messiah is a secondary idea. First you have to believe in God as a person, then only can you start thinking of God sending special messengers, messiahs.

To me there is no personal God at all who can send a messiah. [....]

These people are megalomaniacs. It is a certain mind disease. You want to be superior, higher than everybody else. You would like to be a president of a country, a prime minister of a country, a king, a queen, but it is difficult -- there is so much competition. And only one man can become a president in the whole country and the whole country is burning, deep down, everybody desiring to be higher, above everybody else's head, to be somebody special, unique. Now, these kinds of people can find very easy ways. Now, to declare oneself a messiah... there is no election for it, you don't need anybody's sanction for it. You can write a book in which you can declare that you are the messiah. This is a circular argument. The book is true because it is written by a messiah, and you are the messiah because it is written in a true book.

What other evidence has Jesus for being a messiah, except his own statements? What do Christians have to prove that Jesus is a messiah? -- because it is written in the New Testament, and the New Testament is nothing but this man's statements. Do you see the circular argument? They are true because they are from the messiah, and he is a messiah because it is written in the true book.

Jesus was not such a bad man that he should be crucified -- his only crime was that he declared himself a messiah. That too is nothing to be bothered about. If somebody thinks he is a messiah, he's doing no harm to anybody; let him enjoy. But the Jews could not tolerate it. So I will have to go deep into the whole concept and its history.

Moses is responsible for Jesus' crucifixion. Nobody has said it before because the distance between Moses and Jesus is three thousand years. But I say to you, Moses is responsible for Jesus' crucifixion -- for two reasons. First, he declares that a messiah is going to come and he will solve all your problems, all your difficulties. This was pure politics. [....]

I am not a messiah. I don't give you any hope.

And I would like emphatically for you to remember that nobody else can redeem you -- the whole idea is wrong. You have created your bondage, how can I make you free?

You throw your bondage and be free.

You love your chains and you want me to redeem you. You are asking an absurdity. You are the cause of your miseries, sufferings, and you want me to redeem you from your sufferings and miseries. And you will go on sowing the same seeds, continuing, being the same old person, watering the same causes. Who can redeem you? And why should anybody redeem you? It is not my responsibility to redeem you. I have not made you what you are; you have made yourself what you are.

My function here is not that of a messiah who simply says, "Believe in me and you are redeemed"... a very simple strategy: "You have nothing to do with your personality change, transformation; you have nothing to do at all, you just believe in me. Don't let any doubt arise." Now, this is the whole strategy of belief.

You cannot avoid doubt; wherever belief exists, doubt is simply suppressed. If there is no doubt you don't need any belief. It is because of the doubt that you need belief, to suppress it, to cover it. And the condition is that there should be no doubt; you should believe in me without any doubt and I will redeem you. Neither can you fulfill the condition, nor can you ask me, "Why am I not redeemed?" The condition is such that it cannot be fulfilled. And I am free to say that you have not fulfilled the basic condition; the contract has not been fulfilled from your side, what can I do? You agreed to believe in me indubitably, which is absolutely impossible. Nobody can do it, it is not in the nature of things.

Belief always exists hand in hand with doubt. It exists for doubt.

I have no belief at all in anything because I don't have any doubt at all about anything. If there is no doubt, there is no need for belief. The disease is not there; medicine is not required.

You go on pouring belief, more belief; but you are simply suppressing doubt deeper and deeper into your unconscious. And the deeper it goes, the more dangerous it is because you will become unaware of it. One day you will think that you believe, that you are a believer, that you have attained to faith -- because your doubt has gone so deep in your dark unconscious that you cannot see it anymore. I would like you to see your doubt clearly. Rather than repressing it by any belief system, bring it out into the conscious mind, face it. And just by facing your doubt, it dissolves. No belief is needed, it simply evaporates.

Doubt is not to be substituted with a belief. If you substitute it with a belief, then you are in a very strange dilemma: just scratch your belief a little bit -- and there is doubt flowing, fully alive. The belief is skin deep and underneath your blood is flowing.

So basically my standpoint is: you are responsible for whatsoever you are. If you are miserable, you are responsible. Don't throw the responsibility on anybody else; otherwise you will never be free of it... because how can you be free if I am responsible for your misery? Then, unless I free you, you cannot be free; it is in my hands. And if it is in my hands, it can be in somebody else' hands.

Those who are with me have to understand, howsoever hard and painful it is, that you and you alone are responsible for everything that is happening to you, has happened to you, will happen to you. Once you accept all your responsibility in its totality, you become mature. You stop throwing tantrums, and you stop seeking for messiahs. Then there is no need for any Jesus to save you. Nor can any Jesus save you -- he was exploiting your situation.

Jews did not allow him to disturb their hope, their dream, their future. Jews have suffered the most in the world, hence they need hope more than anybody else. And they have been clinging to the idea: "The messiah will come, and these are only a few days of suffering, and nothing to be compared with when the messiah comes and redeems you. And you will be the chosen few of God and all others, who are enjoying now, and are not suffering now, will be thrown into hell." A good consolation! Jesus was disturbing their consolation, their hope; naturally they became angry. Otherwise he was not a dangerous man at all. But he certainly has the mind of a megalomaniac.

I am just an ordinary man.

In the same reference I would like to tell you a few things which are related and have been asked of me again and again. Hindus have asked me, "Are you an avatara of God, an incarnation of God?" Just as Jews believe in the messiah, Hindus believe that their sufferings will end -- their poverty, their misery -- when God descends in the form of an avatara, as Krishna, as Rama.

They have been asking me, and I have been telling them, "No, not at all. Because you are so idiotic... Rama has been here, your sufferings have not changed; Krishna has been here, your sufferings have not changed. Are you still asking? -- and I tell you neither was Krishna an avatara, nor was Rama an avatara. It is their megalomania and your hope mixed together that creates the whole thing." [....]

I am not to be included in any ego game -- messiah, avatara, paigambara, tirthankara; I have nothing to do with these people. I am just an ordinary man, just like everybody else. If there is any difference, it is not of quality; it is only of knowing. I know myself; you don't know.

As far as our beings are concerned, I belong to the same existence, I breathe the same air. You belong to the same existence, you breathe the same air. You just have not tried to know yourself The moment you know yourself, there is no difference at all.

It is just like I am standing and looking at the sunrise and you are standing by my side with closed eyes. The sun is rising for you too, just as it is rising for me. It is so beautiful and so colorful -- not only for me, for you too. But what can the sun do? You are standing with closed eyes. That is the only difference. Is it much of a difference?

You just have to be shaken and told, "Just open your eyes. It is morning, the night is over."

-Osho, "From Unconciousness to Consciousness, #4"

 Maitreya' means the friend 

- My relationship with them is that of a fellow traveler. -

Gautam the Buddha has taken shelter in me. I am the host, he is the guest. There is no question of any conversion. I am a buddha in my own right, and that is the reason he has felt to use my vehicle for his remaining work. He has been waiting, a wandering cloud for twenty-five centuries, for a right vehicle.

I am not a Buddhist. Neither is Gautam the Buddha's intention to create Buddhists, or to create an organized religion. Even twenty-five centuries before, he never created an organized religion. The moment truth is organized it becomes a lie. An organized religion is nothing but a hidden politics, a deep exploitation by the priesthood. They may be shankaracharyas, imams, rabbis, or popes, it makes no difference.

Gautam Buddha did not leave behind him any successor. His last words were, "Don't make my statues, don't collect my words. I don't want to become a symbol which has to be worshipped. My deepest longing is that you will not be imitators. You don't have to be Buddhists because your own potential is to be a buddha."

I would like to say: I don't teach Buddhism, or any `ism' for that matter. I teach the buddha himself. The people who are with me are not part of any organized religion. They are independent, individual seekers. My relationship with them is that of a fellow traveler.

By the way, I have to remind you of Gautam Buddha's prophecy twenty-five centuries ago: "When I come again I will not be able to be born through a woman's womb. I will have to take shelter in a man of similar consciousness and the same height and the same open sky. I will be called `The Friend.'"

A tremendous freedom is implied in the word. He does not want to be anybody's guru, he simply wants to be a friend. He has something to share, with no conditions attached to the sharing.

This also will help you, because a few sannyasins have been confused how they will make the difference between the ancient Gautam Buddha and me. Gautam Buddha's prophecy helps to clarify the confusion.

Although he has taken shelter in me, I will not be called Gautam the Buddha. I will love to be called according to his prophecy: Maitreya The Buddha. `Maitreya' means the friend. That will keep the distinction. There will not be any confusion.

As far as I am concerned, I have always been against any organized religion. My love, my longing is to create as many individuals in the world as possible, utterly independent, in absolute freedom of their soul, no fetters of Christianity or Hinduism or Mohammedanism. No scriptures, no teachings... no discipline except a self-awareness, a flame burning in your very soul, making you aware and alert and a witness. [....]

Truth brings freedom, meditation brings freedom -- freedom from scriptures and freedom from the words of the ancients. It brings a silence, a peace, and a sense of eternity, immortality, deathlessness. It brings a dance to your life, a new song, a new music, a new way of living in grace and love. But it has nothing to do with any organized religion.

All organized religions have proved criminals, murderers. They have done nothing but massacre. They have burned living human beings all over the world. If we want a new world, we have to get rid of all organized religions. Religiousness is just like love. Have you ever heard of organized love? [....]

My love is freedom, and those who have gathered around me -- and many more will be coming -- they have to remember it. You are not becoming a member of any church. You are just joining hands with friends who are traveling on the same path. At any moment you can leave the path. Everyone is welcome to join, and everyone is welcome in freedom, with blessings, if he wants to go to seek somewhere else.

I bless all kinds of seeking on all paths.

-Osho, “No Mind: The Flowers of Eternity, #3”

 So many people have deceived me. 

 But my trust is the same 

Question :

Osho,

Sometimes it seems as if you are more surrendered to us than we are to you. Please comment.

It is true. I am not surrendered to you, to my people particularly. But because I have got rid of the ego, I am simply surrendered to the whole of existence — and you are part of it. So it can be felt that I am more surrendered to you than you are to me. It is a truth. But it should be so. I should be more loving to you than you can be to me. I should be more understanding towards you than you can be towards me. In every sphere you are still growing, still finding the way, struggling with all the nonsense that has been forced upon you. And I am free of it. So my love will be purer than yours, my trust will be greater than yours.

It looks very absurd — that’s why the question has arisen — because the disciple should surrender to the master, not the master to the disciple. The disciple should trust the master, not the master trust the disciple. But these things must have been said by people who were not masters; otherwise the master is in a state of surrender — it does not matter to whom. The master is in a state of love — it does not matter to whom. The master is simply a pure understanding. You are searching for it — he has found it. But there is no need to feel any guilt that you are not more surrendered, that you are not more trusting. It is a natural thing; there is no question of guilt.

In my life I have trusted so many people, and so many people have deceived me. But my trust is the same. It is not that their deception has made me withdraw my trust in humanity. Even if the whole humanity deceives me, then too, I will be in a state of trust. It has nothing to do with the person who deceives; that is his problem. And I don’t have any condemnation either: he did what he could, and I am doing what I can. So do not even for a moment feel guilty that you are not up to standard.

You will be able to surrender to the master in the same way as the master has surrendered only when you become the master — not before that. And that is the only thing every authentic master wants — that every disciple of his becomes a master and brings all his uniqueness and all his flavor to the phenomenon.

- Osho, “Light on the Path, #22, Q2”

 The earth is waiting for the new man 

"Meditation can bring you to your nature. It can help you to drop all the perversions. It can make you intelligent, it can make you loving, it can make you spontaneous, it can make you responsible. It can make you a benediction to yourself and to existence. Except meditation there is no other method which can help. This is the key, the master key.

Let me repeat: intelligence is your nature. All that is needed is to discover it, because it has been hidden from you for certain reasons by people who are powerful and who want to remain in power. Of course they will not like it.

That's why they are against me. They CANNOT like it - I am creating trouble for them. The more people become meditators, the more people become sannyasins, the less is the possibility of oppressing them, of exploiting them. And the orange people are spreading all over the world. It is an atomic explosion! Within six years thousands of people around the world have been transformed to a new vision, to a new lifestyle. They have been given back their individuality, their authenticity, their intelligence. Now nobody can exploit them

Hence it is certainly a rare phenomenon that I am condemned by Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, Jainas, Sikhs, Parsis, Jews, everybody - I am condemned by the religious, the so-called religious - AND by the politicians, by the journalists, by the so-called intelligentsia, the writers, the critics, because they are all part of a conspiracy against man.

And I want to destroy that conspiracy totally. Only then can a new man be introduced on the earth. And the earth is waiting for the new man. The new man will be the salt of the earth. He will bring with him joy, dance, celebration."

- Osho, "Guida Spirituale, #12"

 All those paradises are invented 

 only for idiots to be exploited. 

Question :

You say you are a buddha, and his teaching was based on simplicity, a simple life. yours is based on comfort and luxury. will you please comment on that?

It is a significant question, with tremendous implications to be understood; one is that there is no difference. You will be surprised to hear it, because you don't understand the inner mechanism of transformation.

Buddha was born a king. He got fed up with his palaces, with his richness, with his luxury; he became a beggar. In the middle of one night, he renounced his kingdom and went into the forest as a beggar.

I was born as a poor man. I got fed up with up poverty. In the middle of one night I renounced poverty, and since then I have been living like an emperor. What is the difference? Just one difference is there: Buddha's renunciation was simple, my renunciation is very difficult. To renounce a kingdom luxury and is a very simple phenomenon; you just get out of the palace and into the mountains. But to renounce poverty is not so easy, otherwise you would have all renounced it. I have done the more difficult task.

But the inner mechanism is the same -- a drastic change in your lifestyle helps you to become enlightened. It doesn't matter whether from the palace you move to the hut, or from the hut you move to the palace. A drastic change in your lifestyle brings the revelation easily, because it uproots you from your ground, it brings you to a totally new territory. You cannot remain the same, you have to change.

Obviously it seems Buddha did a great thing, but it only seems so. I have done the greater thing. You try! -- and you will know immediately that to renounce empires is the easiest thing in the world. To renounce poverty is the most arduous phenomenon.

But there are other aspects of it too; I am not in favor of poverty, and neither are you. It is natural that nobody should be in favor of poverty, because to be in favor of poverty means to be in favor of hunger, to be in favor of being without clothes, to be in favor of being without shelter, to be in favor of sickness, old age, and no medicine. Nobody is in favor of poverty.

But Gautam Buddha and the twenty-four Tirthankaras of the Jainas, all these twenty-five people who have impressed this country immensely, have impressed the whole East, were born as kings. You have to understand it: Buddha was born as a king. The incarnations of Hindus, Rama and Krishna, were born as kings. You have not accepted a single poor man as a buddha, as a tirthankara, as an incarnation of God -- that shows your mind.

You respect luxury, you respect kings. In fact, you have respected Gautam Buddha not because he was a beggar, but because he renounced his empire. Just think, if Gautam Buddha was born a poor man, and one night he had renounced his poor man's house, with no clothes, no food, the father dying without medicine. I don't think you would have ever accepted him as a great master; you have never accepted anybody like that.

Why were the twenty-four tirthankaras all kings? Is not anybody else intelligent enough to be spiritual? Is the whole world empty, with nobody to give it challenge? Do only kings have a prerogative, a monopoly?

The reason is that these kings renounced their kingdom, and became beggars. In your eyes, the kingdom is so valuable that it is amazing that a man would renounce something for which you have been hankering your whole life. The man is not respected for himself or his spirituality, he is respected for the money that he has left behind. You are still counting money, you are still looking at the bank balance. [....]

I want to emphasize the fact that, although you think that you respect Buddha because he renounced, deep down you still respect the empire, the kingdom, the riches -- not Buddha himself.

With me the situation is totally different. I have renounced poverty. You have to look eye to eye with me. Either you respect me, or you don't respect me. But money does not come in between.

The people who have respected me are far more religious than you who have respected kings because they renounced their kingdoms. The people who have respected me, have respected me, not the kingdom that I had renounced. I had no kingdom; their respect is direct, immediate. It concerns me, it has nothing to do with anything else.

And moreover, I am against this whole idea of Gautam Buddha, Mahavira and other tirthankaras renouncing their kingdoms. Because they not only renounced their kingdoms, they raised the value of poverty, which you have never thought about -- they made poverty something spiritual, which it is not.

Poverty is the source of all crime, all sickness, all that is ugly in life. They made poverty something spiritual, and thousands of people became beggars with Buddha. But have you looked into the whole situation?

The people who followed Buddha left behind them crying and weeping wives, crying and weeping children, old parents. What happened to those people? The wives became prostitutes, the children became orphans, the old parents died without any care and without any medicine, because the man who was the earning member had become spiritual. And this happened to millions of people. Who is responsible for this?

I cannot forgive Buddha, or Mahavira, or other tirthankaras. They raised poverty to spirituality, convinced people, and destroyed thousands of families, millions of people. And the people who became beggars became a burden on the society. Because if you have renounced the world, then you don't have any right to ask for food from that same world; you don't have any right to ask for clothes, for shelter, from that same world. This is a strange thing: you condemn the world, and the world feeds you. You renounce the world, and the world supports you. You live on it. These are the people who have reduced the East to poverty, to slavery.

No, I am not in favor of poverty.

And finally, I have also renounced. Buddha renounced this world, because this world's pleasures are momentary. Try to understand the subtlety of the logic: he renounced the world, this world, because its pleasures are momentary. But he is renouncing it to gain another world beyond death, the pleasures of which are permanent and eternal.

Look around the world into different religions' idea of the other world. I will give you a few instances to understand their psychology.

In the heaven of Mohammedans there are rivers of wine. Here, on the earth wine has to be renounced. In paradise, where rivers of wine are available, you can drink as much as you want, swim in it, get drowned in it. But it's very strange: in this world wine is a sin, and in that world it is a reward. I can't see the connection.

In this world the woman has to be condemned. She is the source of sin, she is the door to hell. If you can manage to renounce the woman you become a saint, and the saints are rewarded with beautiful women in paradise. Not ordinary beauties, those women never grow to be more than sixteen years old. They are stuck for millions of years at the age of sixteen. They don't perspire, they are always young.

In Arabian countries homosexuality has been prevalent for centuries. It is a very shocking thing that in paradise, for saints, young boys are also made available.

Buddha, Mahavira, Mohammed, Jesus... they all renounced this world because its pleasures are momentary for a world where pleasures are eternal. I renounce the world of eternal pleasures for this world, where pleasures are momentary. Who is renouncing more? I would hate a girl who has remained for millions of years stuck at age sixteen. She is a prostitute and she has been used by millions of saints. [....]

I have renounced that world. To me each moment is paradise, and I don't have any desire for eternal pleasure. In fact the very idea is sick. Just think, if you have anything forever you are going to get bored -- if you have any intelligence. The woman may be very beautiful, but to have the woman eternally... just think of eternity, forever and forever, the same woman. In no religious scripture is there any mention of divorce in paradise. Once you are caught by the woman you are caught forever.

Whenever I think about the paradise that all the religions have created I simply freak out. I don't want to go to paradise. Absolutely no! It is only for idiots. I would rather go to hell, because the best and the most colorful people, the most creative people, all the great poets, all the great painters, all the great dancers, all the great sculptors, you will find there. In heaven you will find only dried up saints with no juice. It will be utter boredom; you cannot even have a good conversation.

You cannot find Byron in heaven, you cannot find Shelley, you cannot find Bertrand Russell, you cannot find Jawaharlal, you cannot find Rabindranath Tagore, you cannot find Maupassant, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Leonardo da Vinci, Dante, Socrates. You cannot find the cream of humanity there. You will find only dull, unintelligent, retarded people. Their qualities are that they can fast for twenty-one days, but that does not give intelligence.

Somebody can stand for twelve years and will not sit down, but that is not a quality. Somebody lives naked, but that is nothing creative; every child is born naked, every animal lives naked. If nakedness is spiritual, then all animals will be ahead of you.

I have also renounced, and my renunciation is far greater. I have renounced the world of eternal pleasures for this beautiful world of momentary pleasures. I have renounced eternity for the moment; to me it is enough. And I call this contentment.

All your saints are full of desire, whatever they say. They go on saying to you, "Be desireless." But why? -- so that in paradise all your desires can be fulfilled. But this is not desirelessness; it is motivated. I say to you, there is no need to be desireless. Live each desire with as much awareness as possible, and you will feel a tremendous contentment arising in you. Each moment it goes on growing -- you feel fulfilled, here and now. I do not promise you anything after death, because that is a very cunning device of your priests, your prophets, your messiahs. I want you to experience something here.

I am a realist, I am not a dreamer. And my experience is that if you can live each moment with contentment, awareness, silence, joyfulness, this very earth becomes paradise; there is no other paradise anywhere. All those paradises are invented only for idiots to be exploited.

I have renounced everything hocus pocus.

- Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 5, #26"

 Why have you been Misunderstood? 

Question :

Osho,

Why have you been Misunderstood?

It is absolutely natural. If you support people’s old mind you are never misunderstood because you are saying exactly what they believe, you are supporting them, they feel very happy with you, you gain respectability, you support their ego.

I have been doing just the opposite. I have been trying to show you that your old mind is out of date, that you need a new mind, that your old ways of thinking and living, social behavior are all rotten and they need to be changed. Naturally, there are only two possibilities: if you are very intelligent, open, clear, straightforward you will agree with me. If you are not that intelligent, not open, not straightforward you will disagree with me.

But to disagree also needs intelligence. You have to argue against me if you want to disagree. In that way agreement is easier but disagreement means you have to fight against me, argue against me and you don’t have that intelligence. So the only way is: you cannot fight against what I am saying but you can distort what I am saying and then you can fight with it, with the distortion which I have never said. First create a misunderstanding then fight with it which is easier. You have already put loopholes in it and you are fighting with a bogus thing. I have never said it.

So the people who don’t have enough intelligence and yet want to disagree naturally try to change the statements, make them according to their own ideas so that they can easily fight with them. For example, I have been speaking on sex that how it can be transformed into superconsciousness; and so much has been written about it. But everybody condemns about my statements on sex. Nobody talks about superconsciousness. And sex was not my purpose at all.

I was saying that the sex is a basic energy. Either it can reproduce children or it can create a new consciousness in you. It is a creative force. If it goes downwards it creates children, if it goes upwards it creates the highest consciousness for which we have been for centuries searching. We have called it buddhahood, enlightenment, awakening, illumination, samadhi, sambodhi… whatever the name, but it is the sexual energy that moves upwards. It is a creative force.

But strange that my basic point was not discussed at all. Those who have criticized me have criticized not me at all. They were criticizing their own imagined idea which has nothing to do with me. But this is how lower class of intellectuals will do. First they will make the argument in such a way that it can be uprooted, dissolved. They do both the things: they make the argument and then they destroy it, but it has nothing to do with me.

One of Hindu leaders, Karpatri Maharaj has written a book against me and he goes on making statements which I have never made. I wrote him a letter that `I simply want that wherever you make a statement as mine, at least give the source from where you got it; in which of my books, on what page that statement is because I have read your whole book. All your statements are just made up by yourself.’

Now ordinary people will never be able to find. They will not bother to go, and I have four hundred books, that they will look into those books and find whether this statement is true or not. They will simply think that Karpatri Maharaj has done great work. He has demolished every statement and all those statements are his own. He is demolishing himself. It has nothing to do with me, the whole book. And it propounds to be an argument against me. So it is very natural. I don’t feel any grudge or any complaint, I understand that whatever I have been doing is bound to be misunderstood, misquoted. But how long?

It takes just patience — go on fighting, somebody somewhere who is intelligent and who has a heart to understand will understand. And I don’t need crowds to understand me, I need only few people of guts because it is always few people of courage who bring revolutions in the world; it not the masses.

And I have not been misunderstood by people of intelligence, by people of heart. They have loved me. I have received more love than perhaps anybody else in the world has ever received.

- Osho, “The Last Testament, Vol 5”

 Osho on OSHO 

“I am here to give you freedom, so by surrender I don't mean that you are going to become a follower -- no! Even that word is not good. With me, anyone who falls in love becomes a companion -- he is not a follower. Because I don't say to imitate me and I don't say to be like me. I don't give you any ideal to follow and I don't give you any ideology. I simply make you free of all ideologies and free of all ideals... free of all conditionings. You surrender the ego, and I give you back your freedom.”

-Osho, “The Buddha Disease, #21”

“I don't have any teaching, any doctrine, any discipline to give to you. My whole effort is to wake you up. It is not a teaching - it is just cold water thrown into your eyes. And when you wake up you will not find that you are like me - a carbon copy of me. You will be just yourself - neither Christian, nor Hindu, nor Mohammedan... a unique flower. There are not two persons alike -- how can there be so many Christians? How can there be so many Buddhists? And the whole of history is a proof of what I am saying.”

-Osho, “The Rebellious Spirit, #11”

“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. Drop condemning doubt and praising faith, belief, convictions.”

-Osho, "Theologia Mystica"

“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.”

-Osho, “The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 2, #4”

“I am not here to help your prejudices, I am not here to help your traditions, your conditionings. My work consists in demolishing you completely, because only when you are utterly demolished the new is born. When the old ceases to exist, the new appears -- and that new has clarity.”

-Osho, “The Book of Wisdom, #19”

“My whole effort is to make a fresh beginning. It is bound to create condemnation of me from all over the world. But it doesn't matter - who cares!”

-Osho, "Beyond Psychology"

“Buddha is not to be worshipped, one has to become a buddha. Except for that, there is no worship, no prayer. You don't need any priest, you don't need any scriptures, you don't need to be in any religious organization, you have to be just yourself -- silently, peacefully settling within your home.”

-Osho, "Zen - The Diamond Thunderbolt"

“I would have loved not to be associated in any way with the word religion. The whole history of religion simply stinks. It is ugly, and it shows the degradation of man, his inhumanity, and all that is evil. And this is not about any one single religion, it is the same story repeated by all the religions of the world: man exploiting man in the name of god.”

-Osho, "From Personality to Individuality"

“I am saying something about the ineffable. I am saying something about the ultimate mystery. You can understand it, yet you can never understand it totally. It is elusive, it escapes. It is within reach, but it is not within grasp. You are always coming closer and closer to it, but you never arrive. And the day you arrive, then you are no more there; the distinction between the seeker and the sought disappears. Then you are it. That art thou -- then you are it! That is the moment of culmination.”

-Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder"

“Whatever the buddhas in the past did was good, but not enough. They created for themselves the highest peak of consciousness. I would like to create that highest peak for everyone -- at least for those who are in search of it.”

-Osho, "The Rebellious Spirit"

“People have been asking me, 'Why is the whole world against you?' The world is not against me. I am against the world, because I have chosen truth. And I will say only that which is absolutely my experience. I will not compromise in any way, for any reason whatsoever.”

-Osho, "Bodhidharma The Greatest Zen Master"

“It has been again and again asked of me, "Why is the whole world against you?" They are all power-addicted people, and I am trying to make man a pool of serenity -- peace and silence and love and ecstasy.“

-Osho, "The Razor's Edge"

“I am nobody. I don't belong to any nation, I don't belong to any religion, I don't belong to any political party. I am simply an individual, the way existence created me. I have kept myself absolutely uninfluenced by any idiotic ideology - religious, political, social, financial. And the miracle is that because I am not burdened with all these glasses on my eyes, and curtains before me, I can see clearly.”

-Osho, "From the False to the Truth"

“I am not interested in creating beliefs in you and I am not interested in giving you any kind of ideology. My whole effort here is - as it has always been of all the buddhas since the beginnings of time - to provoke truth in you. I know it is already there; it just needs a synchronicity. It just needs something to trigger the process of recognition in you.”

-Osho, "Ah, This!"

“I have never been a serious person. But I was surrounded by serious people for many years, and amongst those serious people it is very difficult not to be serious. It is almost like being in a hospital. You have at least to pretend that you are serious. For years I was surrounded by sick people and I had at least to pretend that I was serious. I am not serious at all because existence is not serious. It is so playful, so full of song and so full of music and so full of subtle laughter. It has no purpose; it is not business-like. It is pure joy, sheer dance, out of overflowing energy. Now I can talk to you as if I am talking to myself. There is no problem.”

-Osho, "Hari Om Tat Sat"

“With me, illusions are bound to be shattered. I am here to shatter all illusions. Yes, it will irritate you, it will annoy you - that's my way of functioning and working. I will sabotage you from your very roots! Unless you are totally destroyed as a mind, there is no hope for you.”

-Osho, "The Goose is Out"

“I am not a one-sided person. I am neither for the inner nor for the outer, I am for both together. One has to be rich inside and one has to be rich outside too. Richness is beautiful; outer richness is beautiful just as inner richness is beautiful. Nothing is wrong in creating money.”

-Osho, "Philosophia Ultima"

“Nobody can argue against me, because in the first place I have not given you any dogma which can be argued against. I have given you only methods. Methods you can try or you may not try, but you cannot argue against a method. If you try, I know it is going to succeed. I know by my own experience that it is going to succeed - there is no question. If you don't try it, you have no right to say anything about it. And because I have taken the whole personality of man into it, nothing has been left out. All the religions have been leaving things out, so there was the possibility of another religion taking something in. For example, Buddhism will not allow alcohol; Christianity allows it. I have not given you anything that is not rooted in reason, in logic, in experiment, in experience, so a person can be against me only if he does not know me. If he knows me, there is no way to be against me. I don't give you any point to be against me. And I can say it is the last religion because I have not claimed infallibility like the foolish popes of the Vatican go on doing. Only an idiot can say that he is infallible -- and for two thousand years these popes have been claiming they are infallible.”

-Osho, "From Unconciousness to Consciousness"

“One thing: you have to walk, and create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path. It is not so cheap, to reach to the ultimate realization of truth. You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you. It is just like the sky: the birds fly, but they don't leave any footprints. You cannot follow them; there are no footprints left behind.”

-Osho, "Zarathustra - The Laughing Prophet"

“The people I have spoken of in the past with great respect – I have to confess to you that I had to drop many aspects of their life, otherwise you would not have been able to understand me at all. Now I want to make the whole thing complete. I want you to know them in their utter nudity – good, bad, right, wrong. Many of my statements will look contradictory to my old statements. Don’t be worried. What I am saying now is the right thing, and whatever I say tomorrow will be more right. The last sentence that I will utter on my deathbed will be ultimately right – before that you cannot decide. I am alive and I am not in any bondage to the past.”

-Osho, "From Unconciousness to Consciousness"

“Enjoy! I am not for sadness and long faces. I am not here to make you more miserable - you are already too miserable. I am not here to give you more sadness. I am here to awaken you to the bliss that is your birthright, that is naturally available to you.”

-Osho, "Tao - The Three Treasures, Vol 1"

“My whole effort and approach is to give each individual opportunities to develop his potential, whatsoever it is. Nobody should try to divert his life - nobody has the right to do it. And then we can have a world which is truly a garden of human beings. Right now we are living in hell.”

-Osho, "Beyond Psychology"

“In fact between the master and the disciple, the relationship is one-way. The master has no relationship with you. Listen well: don't be shocked. The master has no relationship with you. It is only you who need a relationship; it is just in your mind that the master exists. Otherwise there is nobody there. One day when you know the truth, the master will have disappeared.”

-Osho, "Unio Mystica, Vol 1"

“I don't promise you any heaven, and I don't make you afraid of any hell; there is none. I don't say, "You have to follow me, then only can you be saved." That is absolutely egoistic. Jesus says, "Come, follow me." Even my book on Jesus is titled Come Follow Me. That is not my statement, it is Jesus' statement. If you ask me I will say, "Never! Don't follow me, because I am myself lost. Unless you choose to be lost forever like me... then it is okay." To me, anybody claiming any kind of superiority, and you have to follow him - it is a fascist attitude.”

-Osho, "From Unconciousness to Consciousness"

“I do not belong to the category of the learned. My whole life has been based on a fundamental truth which can only be called unlearning. Whatever the society has forced me to learn, through the schools and the colleges and the universities, my work has been how to unlearn it; how to clean myself from all this junk, rubbish and all kinds of crap. I am not a learned man. Perhaps I might be the most unlearned man in the world. And I would hate to be respected by the present humanity - it does not have that intelligence, nor has it that heart, nor has it that being.”

-Osho, "Zarathustra - A God That Can Dance"

“As far as I am concerned, I have never planned anything; I have simply lived, wondering what is going to happen next. I have kept my wondering eyes alive, just like a small child.”

-Osho, "Beyond Psychology"

“I am here to seduce you into a love of life; to help you to become a little more poetic; to help you die to the mundane and to the ordinary so that the extraordinary explodes in your life.”

-Osho, "The Art of Dying"

“I am not here to support you, I am here to dismantle your mind. You need hammering in many ways.”

-Osho, "Tao - The Golden Gate, Vol 2"

“I am not a logician. I am an existentialist. I believe in this meaningless, beautiful chaos of existence, and I am ready to go with it wherever it leads. I don't have a goal, because existence has no goal. It simply is, flowering, blossoming, dancing - but don't ask why. Just an overflow of energy, for no reason at all. I am with existence.”

-Osho, "Beyond Psychology"

“Laughter relaxes. And relaxation is spiritual. Laughter brings you to the earth, brings you down from your stupid ideas of being holier-than-thou. Laughter brings you to reality as it is. The world is a play of God, a cosmic joke. And unless you understand it as a cosmic joke you will never be able to understand the ultimate mystery. I am all for jokes, I am all for laughter.”

-Osho, "The Book of Wisdom"

“What I am doing here is very simple, very ordinary, nothing spiritual in it, nothing sacred. I am not trying to make you holy persons, I am simply trying to make you sane, intelligent, ordinary people who can live their lives joyously, dancingly, celebratingly. And that is Tao.”

-Osho, "Zen - The Special Transmission"

“After a hundred years people will be perfectly able to understand why I was misunderstood - because I am the beginning of the mystical, the irrational. I am a discontinuity with the past. The past cannot understand me; only the future will understand.”

-Osho, "The Osho Upanishad"

“Yes, 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 which knows no adjectives, no boundaries; which knows only freedom of the spirit, silence of your being, growth of your potential; and finally the experience of godliness within yourself - not of a God outside you, but a godliness overflowing from you.”

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 5"

“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.”

-Osho, "Yoga - The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 6"

“I am not much of a religious person, I am not a saint, I have nothing to do with spirituality. All those categories are irrelevant about me. You cannot categorize me, you cannot pigeonhole me. But one thing can be said, that my whole effort is to help you release the energy called love-intelligence. If love-intelligence is released, you are healed.”

-Osho, "The Book of Wisdom"

“My effort is to leave you alone with meditation, with no mediator between you and existence.”

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 5"

“Life has intrinsic value, there is no goal outside it. Hence my whole effort is to change everything into playfulness. To me that is real spirituality.”

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 3"

“I care only for those who are ready to change the very course of human consciousness. I will offend others, I will annoy others, I will irritate others, I will create jealousy in others. These are part of my devices. I am really exposing them. If they have any intelligence they will understand it.”

-Osho, "Beyond Psychology"

“Remember: whatsoever I am saying is not the thing that I want to say to you. Whatsoever I am saying has nothing to do with truth, because truth cannot be said. Whatsoever I am saying is nothing but a hammering. If you become awake, you will see the truth.”

-Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder"

“I am not here to convert you to become a Hindu, to become a Mohammedan, to become a Christian. All that nonsense is not for me. I am here to help you to become religious -- with no adjective attached to it. And once you start understanding this, the world takes on a totally new color.”

-Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder"

“I am not here to console you, to comfort you, to make you secure. I am here to destroy you utterly, because only then is the new born - the new man, the new consciousness. If I help, the old will continue. All help goes to help the old. All help keeps the old surviving; it nourishes it. No, I am not going to help in any way. I know you want help. You don't want resurrection. You want help. You don't want death, you don't want a new life. But if you are around me long enough, by and by I will withdraw all your supports. I will even take the earth beneath your feet away, so you fall into the bottomless abyss of existence. You disappear into that abyss... and in that very disappearance, God appears to you. When you are utterly helpless, God's help becomes available. I am not going to help you. I am going to make you utterly helpless so that in your helplessness a prayer arises, so that in your helplessness, surrender becomes possible, and then comes God's help. Only God can help. And all other help is a barrier to God's help.”

-Osho, "The First Principle"

“I am here not to make you understand me, I am here to help you to understand yourself. You have to watch your own actions, your relationships, your moods more closely: how you are when you are alone, how you are when you are with people, how you behave, how you react, whether your reactions are past-oriented, fixed patterns of thought or you are spontaneous, responsible. Watch all these things, go on watching your own mind, heart. That's what has to be understood, that is the book to be opened. You are the unopened book.”

-Osho, "The Guest"

“I am neither an eastern man nor a western man. I don't belong to any country, to any nation, to any religion. Because if you belong to any country, you cannot belong to all. And if you belong to any religion, all religions cannot be yours. I don't belong to any. I have no roots in any country, in any religion, in any partial humanity.”

-Osho, "Nirvana - The Last Nightmare"

“Therefore, any type of attachment is dangerous – and even more so the attachment to a guru, because this is a spiritual attachment. The very term spiritual attachment is contradictory. Spiritual freedom has a meaning, but spiritual slavery is meaningless. But in this world other types of slaves are considerably less enslaved than are the slaves of spirituality.”

-Osho, "In Search of the Miraculous Vol 2"

“Sometimes foolish people come to me and they ask: 'What is your teaching in short? Which of your books contains your total teaching?' I have no teaching! That's why so many books are possible. Otherwise how can so many books be possible? If you have a certain teaching, then one or two books will do. That's why I can go on talking for ever, because I have no teaching. Every teaching will sooner or later be exhausted; I cannot be exhausted. There is no beginning and no end... we are always in the middle. I am not a teacher.”

-Osho, "Ah, This!"

“I am not serious! What I am saying to you is said out of playfulness. It is more a gossiping than a gospel.”

-Osho, "Be Still and Know"

“I am not teaching a way, so you cannot claim that my way is the best way - it is not a way at all. You cannot say that this is the only way, because I am saying there is no way at all. I am simply trying to make you alert to that which is already there. It is beating in your heart, it is God beating in your heart. It is pulsating in your being; every fiber of your body, of your being, is alive. That aliveness is God.”

-Osho, "Be Still and Know"

“I am not a way. A way leads you somewhere, it connects you with the there, and my whole effort is to bring you here. A way is there-oriented, and I am here-oriented.”

-Osho, "Dang Dang Doko Dang"

“I am not a teacher. I am not a philospher. I am not interested in creating systems and hypotheses. My interest is in destroying you as you are, so that you can be reborn in your existential potential. I am here to destroy your personality, to give birth to your individuality."

-Osho, "Beyond Enlightenment"

"I am not a teacher, and this is not a place where knowledge is important. I am just a presence to inspire in you that which is dormant, to allow you to recognize yourself. I am not here to impose any religion on you. I am here to make you completely weightless - without religion, without ideology - just a profound silence, a serenity, a depth, a height that goes to the stars.“

-Osho, "Beyond Enlightenment"

“I have never been spiritual in the sense that you understand the word. I have never gone to the temples or the churches, or read scriptures, or followed certain practices to find truth, or worshipped God or prayed to God. That has not been my way at all. So certainly you can say that I was not doing anything spiritual. But to me spirituality has a totally different connotation. It needs an honest individuality. It does not allow any kind of dependence. It creates a freedom for itself, whatever the cost. It is never in the crowd but alone, because the crowd has never found any truth. The truth has been found only in people's aloneness.”

-Osho, "The Transmission of the Lamp"

“I am for love. I have been teaching my whole life in favor of love. The reason is strange. But I am an eccentric man. I have been teaching you to go for love because I know that unless you come to this crucial point, where the other is hell, you will never become religious. I am not for love. My whole effort is for religion.”

-Osho, "From Unconciousness to Consciousness"

“I want to see power and peace in their undivided form. I want a synthesis, a meeting of science and religion. That will give birth to a whole man and to a whole culture, which will be rich both in the inner and in the outer. Man is neither only the body nor only the soul, he is a meeting of the two. Hence if his life is based only on one of the two it becomes incomplete.”

-Osho, "The Perfect Way"

“I don't see any point of dividing the outer and the inner. I have been poor, I have lived in utter poverty, I have lived in richness. And believe me, richness is far better than poverty. I am a man of very simple interests: I am utterly satisfied with the best of anything, I don't ask for more.”

-Osho, "The Wild Geese and the Water"

“I cannot liberate you, nobody can liberate you; only truth can liberate you. And the truth has to be seen by you. I may be seeing it, I may be telling it to you. In a thousand and one ways I may be showering it upon you, but that is useless if you are not open, if your pot is upside down, if you are not listening.”

-Osho, "Come Follow To You, Vol 4"

“My approach is a discontinuity with the past. I teach you first to live as a Zorba, and only on that foundation will be raised the temple of your buddhahood. And in this way we are joining the outer and the inner in a single unity. The outer is also yours as much as the inner.”

-Osho, "The Rebellious Spirit"

“I am not here to buttress your egos; I am here to destroy them. I have to speak against them. My whole work consists in destroying. First a great destruction is needed, only then your energies are released for some creative work.”

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

“I don't think about the future at all, it is irrelevant. My whole effort is how to beautify this present moment, how to make people more celebrating, how to make people more joyous, how to give them a little glimpse of blissfulness, how to bring laughter to their life. And then the future takes care of itself. You need not think of the morrow, it comes. It comes out of this moment. Let this moment be of great celebration.”

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

“My way has been described as that of the heart, but it is not true. The heart will give you all kinds of imaginings, hallucinations, illusions, sweet dreams -- but it cannot give you the truth. The truth is behind both: it is in your consciousness, which is neither head nor heart.”

-Osho, "From the False to the Truth"

“I am not here to give you a dream, just the contrary. I am here to destroy all your dreams.”

-Osho, "From Personality to Individuality"

“That crucial moment in the history of humanity has come when religion has to become religionless, when God has to drop all old masks, when God has to be only godliness, not a person but a presence. And that's my whole work here: to make you aware that there is no God as a person, but the whole existence is divine. It is full of godliness, but you will not find God anywhere. You will find godliness, but you will not find God anywhere. You will find godliness everywhere and God nowhere. One has to be freed from all bondages of theology, philosophy, doctrine. Now religion has to take the ultimate jump. It has been coming to this point slowly slowly. Once it was confined by magic, then it transcended magic. Then it became confined by theology. In many countries it is still confined in theology, but in the East it took a jump off theology; then it became confined in philosophy. But in few rare souls it has taken a jump even from that point; it is no more philosophy. For a Buddha religion is not a philosophy. It is so existential, it can't be speculative. My work consists in helping you to be free from all magic, theology, philosophy, sectarianism, churches, so that you can be religious. But now the religion has to be religionless and the God has to be godless. That is the ultimate revolution. Man has been waiting for it for long. And we are living in one of the most fortunate times, because that impossible is possible now. Man has attained to such maturity that he can take that jump. He is no more a child; man has come of age.“

-Osho, "Snap Your Fingers"

“My message is too new. India is too old, ancient, traditional. I am rebellious. In fact, I am not an Indian. If I am an Indian, then I am already prejudiced in favor of India. Then my message cannot be universal. It will be deep down Indian, basically Indian - camouflaged, hidden behind beautiful words, abstractions, but it will remain essentially Indian. It can't be universal. I am not an Indian. I belong to no nation. My message is universal.”

-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 9"

“I can only indicate. I am a finger pointing to the moon.”

-Osho, "This Very Body the Buddha"

“So I am going to live the way I want to live. I am going to live in my own spontaneity and authenticity. I am not here to fulfill anybody's expectations. I am not interested in being called a spiritual person or a saint either. I don't need any compliments from anybody, I don't want the crowd to worship me. All those stupid games are finished.”

-Osho, "The Book of Wisdom"

“My whole effort is to take all the props away from you, all beliefs, Osho included. First I pretend to give you help...because that is the only language you understand! Then by and by I start withdrawing myself. First I take you away from your other desires and help you to become very passionate about nirvana, liberation, truth. And when I see that now all desires have disappeared, there is only one desire left, then I start hammering on that desire, and I say, 'Drop it because this is the only barrier.'

Nirvana is the last nightmare. You cannot go back because once you have dropped those futile desires, you cannot get back into them. Once you have dropped them, the very charm, the very mystery disappears from them. You cannot really believe how you were carrying them for so long. The whole thing looks so ridiculous that you cannot go back. And I start taking the last desire from you. Once the last desire disappears, you are enlightened. Then you are Osho. My whole effort here is to make you capable of declaring yourself to be a God also -- and not only declaring it, living it too.”

-Osho, "The Art of Dying"

“My effort is to bring man back to his natural self. I will be condemned, I will be criticized. Every religion, every tradition, every morality, every ethical code is going to condemn me. That does not surprise me! I expect it, because what I am saying and doing is changing the very course of human consciousness.”

-Osho, "Beyond Psychology"

“It is not just accidental that priests are against me, politicians are against me, parents are against me, the whole establishment is against me; it is not accidental. I can understand the absolutely clear logic of it. I am trying to undo what they have done. I am sabotaging the whole pattern of this slave society.”

-Osho, "The Book of Wisdom"

“I have been misunderstood perhaps more than anyone else ever, but it has not affected me, for the simple reason that there is no desire to be understood. It is their problem if they don't understand, it is not my problem. If they misunderstand, it is their problem and their misery. I am not going to waste my sleep because millions of people are misunderstanding me.”

-Osho, "Beyond Psychology"

"I am deliberately inconsistent, contradictory, so that you cannot make any body of knowledge out of me. So if one day you start gathering something, another day I take it away. I don't allow you to gather anything. Sooner or later, you are bound to be awakened to the fact that something totally different is transpiring here. It is not that I am giving you some dogma to be believed in, some philosophy to be lived by, no, not at all. I am utterly destructive, I am taking everything away from you."

-Osho, "The Book of Wisdom"

"Belief is the opium which all the religions have been giving you in good doses. I am trying to destroy your addiction to the opium. My whole effort is to leave you alone."

-Osho, "From Personality to Individuality"

"I am not doing any serious work. I am not doing work at all; it is my joy to share with you. Now, what you do with it is your problem, not mine."

-Osho, "Beyond Psychology"

"This is my attitude: you are here, every individual is here, the whole existence is available. All that you need is just to be silent and listen to existence. There is no need of any religion, there is no need of any God, there is no need of any priesthood, there is no need of any organization. I trust in the individual categorically. Nobody up to now has trusted in the individual in such a way. So all those things can be removed. Now all that is left to you is a state of meditation which simply means a state of utter silence. Even the word meditation makes it look heavier. It is better to just call it a simple, innocent silence."

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 5"

"My whole effort is to make your morality spontaneous. You should be conscious and alert, and respond to every situation with absolute consciousness. Then whatever you do is right. It is not a question of actions being right or wrong, it is a question of consciousness - whether you are doing it consciously or unconsciously like a robot. My whole philosophy is based on growing your consciousness higher, deeper, to the point when there is no unconsciousness inside you; you have become a pillar of light. In this light, in this clarity, to do anything wrong becomes impossible. It is not that you have to avoid doing it; even if you want to do it, you cannot. And in this consciousness, whatsoever you do becomes a blessing."

-Osho, "The Razors Edge"

"To be frank with you - which usually I am not - I don't know who I am. Knowledge is not possible here where I am. Only the knower is left, the known has disappeared; only the container is left, the content is no more."

-Osho, "The Art of Dying"

"I don't want anybody to cling to me, to be attached to me in any way. My whole effort is to give you total freedom, and methods so that whatever you want, you can create it within yourself. Not even God is needed, nothing is needed ― you are enough unto yourself."

-Osho, "Beyond Enlightenment"

"Up to now, nobody has said that there is anything beyond enlightenment. That's why I say, I am a milestone. With me, a new chapter in the history of consciousness begins. Enlightenment will be now the beginning, not the end. Beginning of a non-ending process in all dimensions of richness."

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 6"

"I am not here to make you a sheep. You have been a sheep for too long already. I am here to make a man out of you. It is going to be arduous, but you have to start becoming responsible for your own life. Once you start feeling responsible for your own life you start growing, because then there is no point in wasting time in postponing, in waiting. Nobody is coming to help you. All waiting is futile, all waiting is sheer wastage."

-Osho, "Dang Dang Doko Dang"

"I am a natural person. I have no charisma, and I don’t believe in charisma. I don’t believe in methods - even if I use them, I don’t believe in them. I am a natural person, very ordinary. I can be lost in a crowd and you will not be able to find me. I don’t lead you, I accompany you. I can hold your hand, I can be your friend."

-Osho, "The Path of Love"

"I am crazy, but you are crazier! And that is the only bond between us - I am crazy, you are crazier."

-Osho, "Beyond Enlightenment"

"My whole life has been devoted to only one single program: how to bring love and meditation together - because only through that meeting a new humanity is possible. And only in the meeting of love and meditation, the duality of man and woman - the inequality of man and woman - disappears."

-Osho, "The Rebellious Spirit"

"I am not a psychoanalyst. I am not here to treat your minds and cure them. I am here to bring you out of your minds - healthy, unhealthy, neurotic, non-neurotic, it doesn't matter. I don't take any note of your mind, what kind of mind you have. Any kind of mind...you have to be taken out of it! So I don't go into the details, I simply start hammering! Once you are out of your mind, once you have an awareness that you are a witness of your mind, the mind disappears with all its diseases."

-Osho, "Be Still and Know"

"My function is very different from the function of Gautam Buddha. His function is only a small part of my philosophy. I want individuals to become enlightened, but I want also the whole of humanity to rise with the enlightened people. They may not become enlightened, but at least become conscious enough so that nations disappear, religions disappear, races disappear, and we can live as one humanity, as one earth."

-Osho, "The Rebellious Spirit"

"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."

-Osho, "Om Mani Padme Hum"

"I have no wish to placate you with false, hollow and worthless words exhorting you to love mankind. The so-called religions have said these things to you for generations. I am here to urge you to love real men, to love your fellow beings - not mankind but the men who live and work around you. Humanity is just a word; mankind is just a label. You cannot find humanity or mankind anywhere. And so humanity is easy to love because the only thing you have to do is mouth a few platitudes."

-Osho, "The Long, the Short and the All"

"My whole effort is somehow to convince you - not with my words but with my silence and presence, with my love and with my joy - that you are at the very center of the universe, every one of you - because there is only one center. Only on the periphery are we separate; at the center we are one. And only at the center, the blossoming of your being happens."

-Osho, "Sermons in Stones"

"I'm not giving you another dream, remember. You hanker for it, you would like me to give you another dream, but I am not going to give you another dream. That's why to be with me is difficult and arduous - because I am insisting that you wake up. Enough is enough. You have dreamed a lot; since eternity you have been dreaming. You have just been changing dreams. When you get fed up with one dream, you start changing it; you dream another dream. My whole effort is to shake you, to shock you - to wake you."

-Osho, "Come Follow To You, Vol 1"

"I am trying in every possible way to drop all those things, which in the past have been barriers for the revolution to continue and grow. I don't want anybody to stand between the individual and existence. No prayer, no priest -- you alone are enough to face the sunrise. You don't need somebody to interpret for you what a beautiful sunrise it is."

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 5"

"I am here to answer all of your questions. You can find from any nook and corner of the world any question, and I am ready to answer, because I have no investment in you and I have no investment in any fold, any cult, any creed, any religion. My only love is to share the truth, the beauty, the godliness that I have found. It is overflowing."

-Osho, "Christianity The Deadliest Poison and Zen its antidote"

"I am not interested at all to convert anybody to my ideology - I don't have any. Secondly, I believe that the very effort to convert anybody is violence, it is interfering in his individuality, in his uniqueness, into his freedom."

-Osho, "Beyond Enlightenment"

"My whole effort is to create a no-mind state in you. I am not here to convince you about anything. I am not here to give you a dogma, a creed to live by. I am here to take all creeds away from you because only then will life happen to you. I am not giving you anything to live by, I am simply taking all props away from you, all crutches."

-Osho, "The Art of Dying"

"I have no views about caring, compassion and service to the community. My whole effort is to transform the individual; I am utterly focussed on the individual. And if the individual becomes luminous, then these things come naturally - compassion, caring, service."

-Osho, "Unio Mystica, Vol 2"

"I am not a philosopher who is trying to make a system of thought. I am a mystic who is trying to convey the mysteries that have become available to me. I will confuse you."

-Osho, "The Book of Wisdom"

"I am not a philosopher, I am not a systematizer; I am absolutely anarchistic, as anarchistic as life itself. I dont believe in systems. [....]

I am a nonsystematic, anarchistic flow; I am not even a person, just a process. I dont know what I said to you yesterday, and the person who said it is not here to answer; he is gone. I am here, and I am answerable only for this moment. So don't wait for tomorrow because I will not be here. And who is going to make consistency, who is going to find a thread that is not contradictory? There is nobody. And I would like you to be the same."

-Osho, "A Bird on the Wing"

"The old concept of a religious man is that he is anti-life. He condemns this life, this ordinary life - he calls it mundane, profane, illusion. He denounces it. I am so deeply in love with life that I cannot denounce it. I am here to enhance the feeling for it."

-Osho, "The Art of Dying"

My effort is to destroy the priesthood completely. It remained with God, it remained with godless religion, now the only way is that we should dispose of God and religion both so that there is no possibility of any priesthood.

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 5"

"my effort is: just as they dissolved God, dissolve religion also. Leave only meditation so it cannot be forgotten in any way. There is nothing else to replace it. There is no God and there is no religion. By religion I mean an organized doctrine, creed, ritual, priesthood. And for the first time I want religion to be absolutely individual, because all organized religions, whether with God or without God, have misled humanity. And the sole cause has been organization, because organization has its own ways which go against meditativeness. Organization is really a political phenomenon, it is not religious. It is another way of power and will to power."

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 5"

"Why do I contradict myself? I am not teaching a philosophy here. The philosopher has to be very consistent - flawless, logical, rational, always ready to argue and prove his statements. I am not a philosopher. I am not here giving you a consistent dogma to which you can cling. My whole effort is to give you a no-mind."

-Osho, "The Book of Wisdom"

"My contribution is that I want it to be clearly understood that outer richness does not destroy your inner spirituality, neither does outer poverty help it."

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 6"

"I am all in favor of the skeptical mind. Do not believe anything unless you have experienced it. Do not believe anything - go on questioning, however long it takes."

-Osho, "Beyond Enlightenment"

"I am not here to give answers, I am here to provoke in you the question mark, the ultimate question mark."

-Osho, "The Book of Wisdom"

"Don't look towards me as a saviour. Because of this idea – that a saviour has to come or a messiah has to come – people go on living the way they are living. What can they do? they say. When the messiah comes then everything will happen. This is their way of postponing transformation, this is their way of deceiving themselves. Enough is enough, you have deceived yourself enough. Now no more. No messiah is ever going to come. You have to do your own work, you have to be responsible for yourself. And when you are responsible, things start happening."

-Osho, "This Very Body the Buddha"