Osho on Successors (Succession)
It is also very, very important that the second part of the question should be understood: I FIND THIS STATE VERY PAINFUL. AND IN ALL THIS SUFFERING I FEEL THAT I AM GROWING APART FROM, RATHER THAN CLOSER TO YOU.
Yes, that happens. When you come near to me for the first time it is through the ego that you are close because you don't know anything else. You come as an ego. The closeness is false. How can the ego be close? It can only pretend that it is close, it can never be close. How can the ego be intimate? It is always in conflict, it can only deceive, it cannot truly be intimate and close. Closeness means that the ego should disappear, only then can you come close. If you are surrounded by the ego, armored by it, how can you come close to me? Impossible. The ego gives you a feeling that you are coming close because that too becomes food for the ego. Now you are close to Osho. Now you are close to your master. There is always comparison in it - closer than others. It is not really closeness, it is the old game of the ego. It continues around me - people go on thinking: Who is closer?
People are even worried about who is going to be my successor. What foolishness! I am here. You cannot be intimate with me and you are worried about who is going to be my successor. People who are worried about it must unconsciously be angry deep down - they should be my successor. They are trying to pose that they are closest. But closeness needs no certificates, and a closeness needs no justification. It is simply there in its total naked beauty. There is no need for it to be claimed.
When you come near me for the first time, it is the ego that comes nearer and gives you the sense of nearness; and when the ego starts dropping, disappearing, dissolving, suddenly you see, for the first time the reality of how far you are from me.
But don't be worried. Closeness through the ego is no closeness and even a great distance with no ego is closeness. Let the ego die. Then you will understand the real closeness. A real closeness is not a comparison. You simply feel exactly with me, as if you are not even near. But let the ego die completely. It is still alive - it may be on the deathbed, but it is not dead yet. Don't give it an oxygen cylinder, and don't feel pity for it. Let it die. Help it to die, because that is your disease. Even if it is painful, let it be, because no rebirth is possible without pain. If it is suffering, rejoice that the moment of suffering has come for you, because only through suffering does one reach to the blessing, to the benediction.
-Osho, "Tao The Three Treasures Vol 2, #8, Q3"
“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?
I am not special, not holier-than-thou. I am not a messiah, not a prophet, just a simple, ordinary human being like you. You cannot manage with such a man to have anything like the whole history of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism. They fall into the same pit, into the same darkness. And the basic reason is that their prophets and messiahs and their founders were trying hard to be consistent, because consistency has been thought to be of immense value. It is of immense value, but only for the head. No scientist can afford self-contradictions, he has to be consistent. I am not a scientist. I am a mystic.”
-Osho, "From Death to Deathlesssnes, #3, Q1"
“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, #25, Q2"
“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, #4"
“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.”
-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 2, #14"
“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, #2, Q1"
“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.
Immediately, when an enlightened person disappears from the body, the people who are serious are fighting to become the successors. And they have always destroyed, because they are the wrong people, but the wrong people are always ambitious. Only right people are not ambitious, because life is giving so much, there is no need for ambition to become a successor, or to become a pope, or to become this and that. Life is so beautiful that more is not asked. But people who have no enjoyment, they enjoy power; people who have missed love, they enjoy prestige; people who have somehow missed the celebration of life and the dance, they would ike to be popes -- high powered, controlling people. Beware of them; they have been always the destroyers, the poisoners. They destroyed Buddha, they destroyed Christ, they destroyed Mohammed. And they are always around, and it is difficult to get rid of them, very, very difficult, because they are so seriously there... you cannot get rid of them.”
-Osho, "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 3, #10, Q3"
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.
Destroying something, any idiot can do. Creating needs intelligence.
I will be leaving words of immense potentiality for you. If you can simply go on whispering them, you will be surprised that they can change the whole human heart.
-Osho, "The Path of the Mystic, #38, Q1"