OSHO on Rolls Royces

 

 

 

 

Just the other day Anando was showing me one book published against me in Australia by a couple who have been sannyasins for three years and have been in the commune. But just looking at their ideas, it seems they have never seen me. They are saying that they were working, working hard, and with their work I was purchasing Rolls Royces.

 

You can see the absurdity: their work was not bringing any money. Their work was making their own houses to live in, the roads - which were needing money, not producing money. But in their mind - and for all those three years also - they must have been resentful.

 

Those Rolls Royces were not produced by the commune. They were presents from outside, from all over the world. And I was not their owner - I had given them to the commune. They were commune property, and I have not brought any of them with me; I have left them with the commune.

 

Everything that I had has been left with the commune. I never owned anything. But there must have been the idea that they are earning money, and I am wasting money. That is their resentment.

 

What money were you earning? In fact you needed money to make houses, to make roads, to make a dam - a dam needed two and a half million dollars to make. You were contributing your labor, but we were not creating money out of it so that I could purchase Rolls Royces, so that I could purchase anything. I have not purchased anything from the money produced by the commune because the commune never produced any money. The commune was absorbing money. In fact all my royalties, all my books, all their profits were going to the commune. The situation is just the opposite - that I had given everything to the commune. Now, four hundred books in different languages were bringing millions of dollars in royalties, and those royalties were going to the commune.

 

If I had wanted to purchase Rolls Royces, I could have purchased my own Rolls Royces, as many as I wanted, just out of my royalties.

 

-Osho, "Beyond Psychology #24"

 

 

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Just the other day, a French couple wrote a letter to me. They must be new arrivals here, they don't understand me. They must have come with certain prejudices. They were worried, very much worried. They wrote in the letter that, "We don't understand a few things. Why does this ashram look luxurious? This is against spirituality. Why do you drive in a beautiful car? This is against spirituality."

 

Now, for these three or four days I have been driving in an Impala. It is not a very beautiful car; in America it is the car of the plumbers! But in a sense I am also a plumber - the plumber of the mind. I fix nuts and bolts. It is a poor man's car. In America, the people who use Chevrolet Impalas, etcetera, their neighborhood is called the Chevrolet neighborhood - that means poor people's neighborhood.

 

But this French couple must have the old idea that poverty has something spiritual about it. Man has lived so long in poverty that he had to console himself, otherwise it would have been intolerable. He had to convince himself that poverty is spiritual.

 

Poverty is not spiritual - poverty is the source of all crimes.

 

And I would like to tell the couple that, "If you want to cling to your beliefs and prejudices, this is not the place for you. Please get lost! - the sooner the better, because you may be corrupted here. Listening to me is dangerous for you."

 

-Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 4, #8"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Question:

Beloved Osho,

What is so funny about your driving to discourse in a Rolls-Royce?

 

 

There is a long story behind it! I was driving... I was coming in an Impala, and people like you started writing letters to me saying that, "This is a plumber's car!"

 

I told Laxmi, "Change it!" So she bought a Buick - and people started writing to me that "This is a pimp's car!"

 

So I told Laxmi, "Change it!" So she was bargaining for a Lincoln Continental. And people wrote to me, "This is good - this is a president's car!"

 

I said, "That is worse - worse than being driven in a plumber's or a pimp's car!" So I told Laxmi, "Now, for a poor man like me, only a Rolls Royce will do!"

 

Now, please don't make any objection to it... because coming from Lao Tzu to Buddha Hall, a helicopter won't do. Don't create troubles for me!

 

-Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 7 #2"

 

 

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Q: WHY IS THE WORLD SO CONCERNED WITH THE ROLLS ROYCES AND THE WATCHES THAT YOU USE?

 

Because the world is so poor, because this is what they all want and cannot get. They are not concerned about my enlightenment, they are not concerned about my peace, about my silence, about my blissfulness. Those are not their needs. They need a Rolls Royce, they need a diamond watch, and in their need, they become so confused that they cannot see that I don’t have a Rolls Royce. Those ninety-three Rolls Royces belong to the commune. I have not taken one with me. I had never gone even to see those ninety-three Rolls Royces. Just, whenever I needed, the commune gave me for one hour or two hours, the car was brought to me. I never owned them.

 

And the diamond watches they are so much concerned is simply foolish. They don't know the distinction between diamond and stone. This is a stone watch, not a diamond watch. And this is made by my own people.

 

Q: YOU DON'T HAVE DIAMOND WATCHES?

 

A: I don't use. So many have been presented to me, or have been given to the commune. I use only watches that my people have made. If this is made with diamonds as Piaget makes it, it is quarter million dollars. It is made with simple stones, just cut in such a beautiful way that they can defeat any diamond. It has no value at all.

 

I use only my people's things. Everything from my shoe up to my head. Everything is made by my people. Hundreds of watches have been presented to me. They have all been given to the commune. I don't possess them. I have not brought a single one. Just only one watch that I have brought with me is this, which has no value in money.

 

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 4, #25"

 

 

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Q: WHEN PEOPLE SPEAK ABOUT YOU, THERE IS THIS RICHNESS COMING OUT ABOUT THE ROLLS ROYCE AND WHATSOEVER IS CONNECTED WITH IT. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO PROVE WITH THIS, SO MANY CARS AND SO MANY RICHNESS AROUND YOU?

 

A: Why people are concerned? Then certainly they need. Then more Rolls Royces will be here. Until they stop asking me, the Rolls Royces are going to be here more and more. Now it has to be seen. It is a challenge. The day nobody asks me about Rolls Royces, they will not be coming.

 

People's interest in Rolls Royces shows their mind. They are not interested what is happening here. They don't ask about meditation. They don't ask about sannyas. They don't ask about people's life, love, the laughter that happens in this desert. They only ask about Rolls Royce.

 

That means I have touched some painful nerve. And I will go on pressing it till they stop asking.

 

I am not a worshiper of poverty. That's what those Rolls Royces prove. I respect wealth. Nobody before me has the guts to say it. The pope cannot say that he respects wealth, although he is the wealthiest man on the earth.

 

I am not a hypocrite. I am the poorest man on the earth. I don't have a single cent with me. But I want to prove to these people that what attracts their mind.

 

If there were no Rolls Royces here, perhaps there was nothing for the whole world to be asked about me, about you, about meditation, about initiation into sannyas, about love, about anything.

 

It is for those idiots that I am keeping all those Rolls Royces, because they cannot move their eyes away from those Rolls Royces. And meanwhile I will go on pouring other things in their minds.

 

Without those Rolls Royces they would not have asked a single question.

 

Those Rolls Royces are doing their work. Every idiot around the world is interested in them. And I want them to be somehow interested -- in anything in Rajneeshpuram. Then we will manage about other things.

 

So tell those people - anybody asks, tell that, "These Rolls Royces are for you idiots. Otherwise you are not interested in anything. Once you stop asking about Rolls Royces, then I will have to think for something else: whether to have rockets which are going to the moon. Something else I will have to think about."

 

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 4, #3"

 

 

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Question :

Beloved Bhagwan, thank you very much for visiting Nepal.

You are the most successful spiritual businessman. What is the secret of your success?

 

 

It is a very pertinent question; in the meeting of the top businessmen of Nepal. First I would like to remind you, I am not a businessman. For the simple reason, I don't have even a bank account anywhere in the world. I don't have even pockets in my robe. I have not touched money for fifteen years. I remained in America for five years, but I have not seen a dollar bill.

 

How can you call me a businessman? Perhaps you may have heard that I have ninety-three Rolls Royces. In fact, I don't have even a Honda. Those ninety-three Rolls Royces belonged to the commune of the sannyasins in America. Not only they had those, they had three hundred other cars. They had one hundred buses, they had five aeroplanes. It was one of the richest communes that has ever existed in the world. And that's what pushed the American politicians to insanity. They could not tolerate that even their president cannot afford to have ninety-three Rolls Royces. But those Rolls Royces don't belong to me. I am not the owner of those Rolls Royces. I don't own anything; not a single rupee.

 

Just the other day, few American idiots must be staying in the hotel. When I passed by their side one ugly and fat and retarded woman said to the others, "This is the man who has ninety-three Rolls Royces." Strange, that people are not interested in my teaching, in me, in my way of life. They are interested in the Rolls Royces. It shows their mind.

 

I have been receiving thousands of letters from people around the world. Everybody condemning me for having ninety-three Rolls Royces; yet thousands of letters reaching to me that Bhagwan, if you can give one Rolls Royce to me it won't make any difference to you. Ninety-three or ninety-two, what difference it will make to you? But to me it will be my lifelong dream fulfilled. And you will be surprised to know that I received a letter from a Bishop, who was continuously talking against me, and against the Rolls Royces. That's why I had come to know his name. And finally I received his letter, asking me that if I can donate one of the Rolls Royces to his church, it is a tax exempt charitable religious body, and he will be very glad.

 

I told to one of my secretaries to write to the Bishop, that I am absolutely willing. Do you want a regular Rolls Royce, or would you prefer a long-stretch big Rolls Royce, a limousine. And immediately came the reply, if you are so compassionate, then a limousine will do. But unfortunately I had to inform him that I can give you anything, but they don't belong to me. You will be caught by the police.

 

My situation is like this: two beggars sitting under a tree, under the influence of opium, looking of the moon, full moon night, were talking business. One beggar said, "Tell me exactly how much you will take for the moon?"

 

The other beggar said, "Who told you that I am thinking to sell it?"

 

And you call me the most successful spiritual businessman? Spirituality and being a businessman is a contradiction in terms. Either you can be spiritual, or you can be a businessman. Because the whole art of business is, to give you less and take you more from you. That is the profit. In spirituality, there is only giving and no taking. I have not taken anything from anybody. I have given my love, I have given my understanding, I have given my experience, without any condition, to anybody who was thirsty, and ready, and open and receptive. But I have not put any condition on him, that he will have to pay for it.

 

Spirituality is just sharing something that you have got. And there is no need to take anything from the person you share, because the very nature of spiritual experience is such, the more you give it, the more it grows within you. There is no need to take it from anybody else. Just go on sharing, and you will be surprised that it functions against the ordinary laws of economics. In economics, if you go on giving things, soon you will be a beggar. But, in the spiritual economics, if you don't give, then whatever you have got, that will also die. To keep it living you have to keep it flowing. Don't make a pond of your spiritual experience. Let it be a river. Soon the river will reach to the ocean, and the whole ocean will be yours. And you need not ask for anything.

 

One thing I have to remind you in this reference; in Russia my sannyasins are being persecuted, just as they are persecuted in America, or in other countries. In Russia they think that my sannyasins are working for America, that I am representing capitalism; and in America they think that I am the greatest communist on the earth. It is a very strange situation. All kinds of labels have been given to me which are contradictory. They all cannot be true together.

 

Hindus think I am converting people perhaps to Christianity. Christians are against me because they think I am taking away their cream, their youth, out of the Christian fold. Naturally I am converting them into Hinduism. Looking at all these labels and condemnations, I thought I should have a look actually who am I? An agent of FBI, or an agent of KGB?

 

And then I remembered a small story.

 

An old man, very simple, found by the side of the road a small mirror. He had never seen such a thing in his whole life. He looked into the mirror. He said, "My God, this seems to be the picture of my father. I had never thought that that old man was so romantic; that he will have his picture to be taken. But it is good that I have found it. I will keep it as a memory. But I will have to hide it from my wife, because if she comes to know that this is my father's picture, she is going to destroy it immediately."

 

So he went in the house, very silently. The wife was surprised. He never comes so silently. There must be something going on. He went upstairs. The wife went on watching him. She also went upstairs slowly, without making any noise. She saw him hiding the mirror in a suitcase. She could not figure it out -- what can it be? But she said, how long he will be here. Soon he will have to go to work again. And he had to go to work.

 

The moment he had to go to work the wife went up, opened the suitcase, found the mirror, looked into the mirror and said, "My God. Fifty years I have lived with this man, and this sonofabitch is running after this rotten woman. I will kill her."

 

Looking into myself I found that I am a mirror. Whoever looks into me finds his own face reflected.

 

You are a businessman, what can I do? When a monkey looks into the mirror, he finds another monkey there.

 

I am not a businessman at all. This is not the way of a businessman. I am certainly trying to persuade you to grow, to bring your potential to its ultimate height. I am not going to give you anything. I don't have any commodity to sell. I am simply trying to provoke in you a challenge.

 

You have the real thing, but you are not looking at it. You have ignored it. You have the seed, which can become a beautiful flower and fill your life with fragrance. I will take away things from you which in fact you don't have. And I will give you only those things to you which you already have.

 

Now what kind of business is this?

 

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 5, #24"

 

 

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Question :

We've always been curious about these rolls royces of yours. i mean so much has been written including by myself about them. so i would like to know the point behind it, so many rolls royces?

 

 

In fact I don't have even a Honda! I am hoping some friend will present me a Honda. Those ninety-three Rolls Royces were presented by different friends from different parts of the world. But because I don't possess anything, they were given to the commune. I have not taken a single Rolls Royce from there. I have never seen all those ninety-three Rolls Royces together. Only for half an hour when I was going to the meetings, coming back to my home, they provided me a Rolls Royce. Now sitting inside it does not matter what color the car has -- it may matter to other people -- they may be giving me every day the same Rolls Royce, I don't know. But the question arises in many peoples' mind and it has a great implication. You are not interested in my realization, you are not interested in the eternity of the soul, you are not interested in the art of love, you are interested in Rolls Royces. That shows the poverty of the people and their minds. And that also shows their ambition.

 

Just before I left America, one bishop was continuously preaching to his congregation against my Rolls Royces. And before I was leaving, I received a letter from the same bishop, that now Bhagwan, you are going back, at least you can donate one Rolls Royce to my church. Poverty of the mind, ambition of the mind, jealousy of the mind is hiding behind that question. It is not your question, it is the question of all poor people, ambitious people, who are carrying that in their mind. They would have loved to see me naked, standing in the snow and then they would have worshiped me.

 

The whole world is against me because they are jealous of me -- because I live comfortably and I want the whole world to live comfortably -- that is part of my mission to make it clear that poverty is not religion, that if we can make the whole world luxurious there will be thousands of Gautam Buddhas blossoming, because when you have everything, then the only search left is for your own self.

 

Just my mother has come yesterday and she told me about a Digamber Jaina monk in Sagar in Madhya Pradesh. Jainism is the only religion that allows a certain kind of suicide, as spirituality. It calls it `santara.' One Jaina monk in Sagar is giving `santara' to people. This is something new. In the past people have taken `santara' but it is a long journey. You have to stop eating -- it takes almost ninety days for a person to die. And this Jaina monk is Sagar has found a more contemporary method -- `santara' can be accomplished in eight days, and many idiots are reaching to him, asking for `santara.' The government is worried with me. Their spies are all around the house. The parliaments are discussing about me and nobody is worried about this man who is really helping people to commit suicide. What he is doing, he puts the man in a small room, naked, reduces his food, within two days fast -- he cuts half the food first day, by the second day the whole food is gone; then he starts cutting water -- within two days water is gone. After the fourth day, he had to put four wrestlers around the man because he wants to escape. He realizes what is happening. He is thirsty, he is hungry -- each part of his body is crying for food, his mind is going mad. He starts shouting that I don't want `santara' but it is too late. The Jainas have made around the temple where the great monk is staying -- they sing loudly, they make musical instruments, play loudly, so nobody can hear what that man is saying inside. And his clothes have been taken so he cannot come out. And those four wrestlers are there, putting him down in his bed, not allowing him to escape. Within eight days the man is dead. Those four days, the last days, are sheer agony. This is butchery. This is not `santara.' But because of this, that Jaina monk is becoming famous and more and more idiots are coming, because after `santara' you go directly to `moksha.' To the ultimate goal of existence. Whether you want to go or not, is not the question. Once you have expressed the desire, he manages to send to send you to moksha. Those four wrestlers are continuously holding him inside so he does not run out naked and shout that "I don't want to die, I don't want any moksha. Just let me go my home." They allow the doors to be opened only when he is dead. Then a great procession -- and his body is not burned on ordinary wood. It is burned on sandalwood, because he has achieved the ultimate.

 

Now this man is a murderer. And he has murdered few people, and he is going to murder; and the whole government is silent, because it doesn't matter to them. In fact, perhaps the president and the prime ministers will go and pay their respects to the murderer because he has discovered a short-cut to `santara.' I am not in favor of committing suicide, slowly or fast. And I am not in favor of poverty. I want humanity to be rich, outwardly, and also inwardly. And I don't see there is any contradiction. The inward and the outward are just like two wings. They both can help each other.

 

But I have never possessed any Rolls Royce. They were possessed by the commune. Now it was their love, their gratitude, that they never wanted those cars to be used by others. And there was no need, because the commune had five hundred other cars, one hundred buses, five airplanes. I had asked the commune that there is no need for ninety-three Rolls Royces, the same model, just the colors are different. You can keep one or two cars for me, and you can use. But no sannyasin was ready to use. They said, "We have enough cars, enough busses, enough airplanes, and nowhere to go." Nobody liked to go out of commune. And the commune was in a desert of one hundred twenty-six square miles. The closest American town was twenty miles away, and nobody wanted to go anywhere, because we were living in an oasis -- starting in meditation in the morning, then listening to me, then going to work as a joy. Five thousand people eating together was something to be seen. And when there was world festival there were twenty thousand people eating together, under one roof. And somebody was playing on the guitar. And somebody was dancing. And after the sunset when the work time was over, people have taken their supper, they will dance in the streets till the middle of the night, sing songs of beauty and love. It was such a rejoicing, that nobody wanted to go out. Finally we had to sell those five hundred cars, because nobody was using them. We had to sell four aeroplanes, because nobody was using them. We had created a dream into a reality, and it was so sweet, so unbelievable that nobody wanted to miss a single moment. But I had given those cars to the commune. Thousands of other presents had come to me. They were all given to the commune. I don't possess anything, except the commune. I don't possess anything, except myself.

 

That is my only possession and my only paradise.

 

Any other question?

 

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 6, #11“

 

 

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Question 17

Do you miss the rolls royces?

 

 

I never miss anything. But it seems the whole world is missing my Rolls Royces. It is a very insane world. When the Rolls Royces were there, they were jealous; now that they are gone, they are missing them. I am simply left out! They may be again there, and people will start feeling jealous....

 

Just the other day a few beautiful photographers were here. All my people tried to prevent me from being photographed by the side of a Honda, but I insisted that this picture should be taken. The Honda does not belong to me; neither did those Rolls Royces. But let people at least enjoy; they will feel good. It is very strange that people's minds should be concerned about things with which they have no concern at all.

 

I am reminded of two alcoholics on a full-moon night, completely drunk. They were lying down under a beautiful tree, and the full moon came up.

 

One man said, "I would give any price for this moon. I am ready to purchase it."

 

The other man said, "Forget all about it, because I am not going to sell it at any price."

 

The question of selling the moon does not arise. They were drunk... but it seems everybody is a little unconscious. I have never asked what happened to those Rolls Royces; even when they were there I never went to see all of them together. Every day when I went for the morning talk or the evening interview, one car was brought to me. It does not matter whether there are ninety-three, or nine hundred, or nine -- or none. But the whole world was concerned about the Rolls Royces.

 

One bishop in America was continually condemning my Rolls Royces in his sermons. When I was ordered to leave America, he immediately telegrammed me, "Now that you are going it will be a great act of charity if you can give one Rolls Royce to my church" -- and this was the man who was continually condemning. All the condemnation was nothing but deep jealousy.

 

Now, seeing the picture with the Honda, millions of people will feel relaxed. They don't know that neither the Rolls Royces belonged to me, nor the Honda. I don't even know to whom the Honda belongs; it was just standing there on the road.

 

I do not miss anything. You miss things only when you don't live them. And why should I miss? -- wherever I am there is paradise, you can see, and wherever I will be there will be paradise. And if the world is too worried about ninety-three Rolls Royces, I can make it one hundred; I can tell my people to start collecting again.

 

It is not only that I am crazy; I have one million crazy people around the world. One hundred Rolls Royces is not a big problem... And immediately you will see that people are sad, jealous, and thinking that Rolls Royces don't fit with spirituality. I don't see that there is any contradiction. Sitting in a Rolls Royce I have been as meditative... In fact, sitting in a bullock cart it is very difficult to be meditative; a Rolls Royce is the best for spiritual growth.

 

-Osho, “Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries, #16, Q17”

 

 

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Perhaps I am the first man in the history of mankind who does not care a bit about respectability. What respectability? -- from ignorant people? I don't have to make considerations for anyone. I just depend on my spontaneity and my consciousness. Other than that, I don't care about anybody.

 

In the commune in America, my friends from all over the world had given me ninety-three Rolls Royces. The whole of America was jealous. Perhaps for the first time they had come across such a man, who owns nothing and yet makes the richest people of the world jealous.

 

Even Rockefeller was against me, wanted me to be somehow destroyed. Because even the richest could not afford ninety-three Rolls Royces, and I was allowing my friends, if they wanted, to bring Rolls Royces. I had no use for them, I had never gone to look in the garage. Even the Rolls Royce company's president had come to see the garage, because I was a historic customer: never before or after is anybody going to have ninety-three Rolls Royces. And seven more were on the way before they arrested me.

 

I created so much jealousy. They could not understand, they could not see, they were absolutely blind. They could not see that no man can use even two Rolls Royces together, so there must be something else behind this whole scene.

 

There was. I was attacking the very egoistic idea of America that they are the richest people in the world -- and I proved it. And I still challenge them: if anybody has the guts, just produce ninety-three Rolls Royces.

 

One bishop was continuously, every Sunday, talking against my Rolls Royces. Such is the blindness! Perhaps he was dreaming only about Rolls Royces; seven days per week he was thinking about it; otherwise how could this become his only sermon? He forgot all about Jesus and the Bible.

 

And you will be surprised -- before I was arrested, there was a rumor for two months continuously that any day I would be arrested. But even the government agencies refused to arrest me, for the simple reason that "You don't have any evidence against that man. If he has ninety-three Rolls Royces, you are free to have more. It is a free country."

 

The FBI refused; the National Guard refused. The chief of the National Guard simply laughed. He said, "You are just being stupid. Your real reason is jealousy because the commune is living in such beauty and comfort and love and joy. You want to destroy the commune, but I don't see any reason to order his arrest."

 

They approached the Army -- to arrest a single human being who has not even a paper knife. And the chief of the Army said, "You are asking an absolutely nonsense question. Never in the history of man has the Army been ordered to arrest a single human being who has no weapons."

 

This bishop, seeing that soon I will be arrested because the government and the fundamentalist Christians were determined to destroy the commune, wrote me a letter, saying, "Now that you will be going -- it is almost certain -- can you give one Rolls Royce to my church in charity?" And this same man, for years, had been condemning them!

 

I informed him, "I can give you all the Rolls Royces. Do you have space in your church?"

 

He wrote back to say, "No, I don't want ninety-three, because that will destroy me! Just one..."

 

I said, "I am not that miserly. Either ninety-three or none." He became silent.

 

That shows the psychology of man. What he says may not be what is in his mind; his intention may be totally different. What he acts is not necessarily what he wants to do. The unconscious mind looks all around and follows the crowd.

 

-Osho, “No Mind: The Flowers of Eternity, #11”

 

 

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Q: BUT THE GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO SURROUND YOU OR WHO ARE YOUR FRIENDS, AND YOU YOURSELF, ARE CONCERNED WITH THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH. BUT ISN'T IT VERY SAD AND VERY IRONIC THE REASON THAT YOU'RE SO FAMOUS NOW IN THE WORLD HAS GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH. IT'S GOT TO DO WITH COURT CASES, SECRETARIES WHO TRIED TO POISON, THE NUMBER OF ROLLS ROYCES YOU HAVE -- HASN'T SOMETHING GONE TERRIBLY WRONG....

 

No, nothing has gone wrong. It simply shows the mind of the world. The world is not interested in truth, the world is interested in something sensational. Truth is not sensational. The world is not interested in enlightenment, the world is more interested in Rolls Royces.

 

It simply shows the mind and the psychology of the world, and I don't own a single Rolls Royce.

 

Q: BUT YOUR COMMUNE IN OREGON CERTAINLY (INAUDIBLE)

 

A: My commune owned ninety-three Rolls Royces. And I want to know the world that if five thousand people together can manage ninety-three Rolls Royces, five hundred other cars, one hundred airconditioned buses, five airplanes, and they can live in perfect luxury, there is no need for anybody to be poor....

 

Q: WITH YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD'S INTERESTED IN TITILLATION AND SENSATION, SPECIALLY THE WORLD'S NEWSPAPERS AND WORLD'S TELEVISION STATIONS, ISN'T IT IN WAY PERVERSE TO HAVE NINETY-THREE ROLLS ROYCES KNOWING THAT THAT WHAT'S THE WORLD WILL BE INTERESTED IN?

 

A: No. In fact I wanted the world to know that we have ninety-three Rolls Royces because that is the only way to make any bridge to the world. And then I can talk about truth and enlightenment too, by the side.

 

Without Rolls Royces there is no communication at all.

 

I know my business perfectly well.

 

Q: SO YOU WOULD ARGUE THAT THE ROLLS ROYCES WERE A KIND OF GIMIC WHICH WOULD INTEREST PEOPLE.

 

A: Yes. Certainly everything I did and I do is concerned with the people's psychology, in what they are interested. And then I can turn them in what I am interested, but first let me have their hand in my hand.

 

You just see they are interested in diamond watches but this is not a diamond watch, these are just stones, ordinary stones. But it is enough to befool them.

 

It has no value at all, it has been made by my own sannyasins and they have done it, such a beautiful job, that it is almost half a million worth watch if it is made in real diamonds.... But it can defeat real diamonds. And my purpose is served.

 

Q: BECAUSE THE WORLD'S INTERESTED IN YOU BECAUSE YOU HAVE A WATCH....

 

A: Yes, my purpose is served. Once they get interested into anything with me, they are caught in my net.

 

Q: THIS SEEMS TO BE THE OPPOSITE OF THE TRADITIONAL INDIAN SWAMI....

 

A: It is, it is.

 

Q: .... RENOUNCE THIS WATCH.

 

A: It is because I am absolutely opposite the Indian ancient tradition, I am against it and I want it to be completely dead. It has destroyed the country.

 

Those people who renounce the world are the people who have kept the country poor because in their renunciation the country could not develop science, technology. It is such a vast country, small countries have been invading it and defeating it.

 

For two thousand years it has remained a slave to anybody.

 

Who is responsible for this slavery, this poverty? If you make people's mind against the world you are making their mind against all progress.

 

Q: SO YOU WOULD HAVE NO TIME FOR PEOPLE LIKE GANDHI, OR....

 

A: No place.

 

Q: HOW ABOUT SWAMI VIVEKANAND?

 

A: No.

 

Q: RABINDRANATH TAGORE?

 

A: Rabindranath Tagore is a different person. I love him. And he was never in agreement with Mahatma Gandhi.

 

Q: SO WHAT WOULD YOU BLAME, HINDUISM, FEUDALISM?

 

A: All the religions, all the religions in India, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Mohammedism, Christianity... they all have done simply destructive acts against this land and its people and they are still doing it.

 

Q: BECAUSE THEY TEACH PASSIVITY AND RENUNCIATION, THAT YOU ARE PLACID AND RENOUNCE THE MATERIAL WORLD?

 

A: First they are all against materialism, that creates an schizophrenic mind because you are not just spirit. You are as much matter as you are spirit. To me matter and spirit are not two things. Matter is visible, spirit is, spirit is invisible matter.

 

We have to drop that dichotomy between matter and spirit. All dualities are dangerous because then either you become a spiritualist against materialism or you become a materialist against spiritualism -- in both the ways you remain half.

 

So the East remains poor as far as materialism is concerned and the West remains poor as far as spiritualism is concerned. But both are poor. While both could have been rich. Just the division has to be dropped.

 

So the first thing: renunciation of the world is simply nonsense.

 

I teach the art of living.

 

Not of renouncing, but of rejoicing.

 

Q: WOULD YOU SAY THAT ANY OF THIS YOU OWE TO HINDUISM?

 

A: No.

 

Q: WOULD YOU SAY THAT ANY OF YOUR PROVINCE(*) YOU OWE TO HINDUISM?

 

A: No.

 

Q: WOULD YOU SAY THAT THIS ASSEMBLY THAT NOW SURROUNDS YOU WITH BARE FEET, SITTING CROSSLEGGED, OWES SOMETHING TO HINDUISM?

 

A: No, nothing, nothing.

 

Q: HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF THEY ALL SAT ON CHAIRS?

 

A: They can. Nobody is preventing.

 

Q: BUT NONETHELESS, YOU ARE THE GURU AND THEY ARE DISCIPLES.

 

A: No. I am not the guru and they are not the disciples. I am just a friend and they are my fellow travellers. And it is not expected from my side that they should be grateful to me.

 

But if being with me they feel love, they feel gratitude, that's a totally different story. It is not expected, it is simply a happening.

 

Q: HAS ALL THIS SURPRISED YOU, THE FACT THAT YOU'VE BECOME VERY FAMOUS, INTERNATIONAL FAME, AS A BOY FROM MADHYA PRADESH?

 

A: It just appears to me a misfortune. It was far more beautiful not to be known at all. It had more freedom, more silence.

 

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 5, #2“

 

 

 

Image by © JP Laffont/Sygma/Corbis

 

 

 

Q: THERE IS A PERCEPTION THAT YOU AND YOUR RELIGIOUS FOLLOWING ARE EXTREMELY WEALTHY. IF IT'S TRUE, WHERE DID THE MONEY COME FROM?

 

A: My people are rich. In fact, only the very rich, educated, intelligent, cultured can understand what I am saying. Beggars cannot come to me. Poor people cannot come to me. The gap is too big. They can hear me but they cannot understand me. So it is natural: I am the rich man's guru.

 

Q: ISN'T THAT A CONTRADICTION WITH THE TRADITIONAL PERCEPTION OF A LIFE OF AUSTERITY LED BY RELIGIOUS LEADERS AND ASCETICS?

 

A: I simply think those traditions just rubbish. There is no question of contradiction; I am simply against them. I don't want to be consistent with them. I want to drop all connections with the past. They have done enough harm.

 

My conception of a beautiful, flowering being is not that of austerity, it is of luxury. He will enjoy all that is beautiful in the world -- great paintings, great music, poetry. I don't conceive of him standing on his head in the hot sun of Oregon, fasting, slowly destroying himself. To me, all religions of the world up to now have been sado-masochistic. My religion is for the first time life-affirming.

 

Q: ONE THING I THINK PEOPLE ON THE OUTSIDE REMEMBER ABOUT YOU WHEN THEY READ STORIES OR SEE YOU ON TELEVISION IS THE FACT THAT YOU OWN SO MANY, OR HAVE SO MANY ROLLS ROYCES. WHY IS THAT?

 

A: How many?

 

Q: EIGHTY?

 

A: No.

 

Q: FORTY?

 

A: Ninety. And they are not so many.

 

Q: WHY DO YOU NEED NINETY?

 

A: I don't need even a single one. And they don't belong to me, either. But my people want 365, one for every day. And I go for a drive only for one hour. But if my people want it, if they are happy and rejoice doing it, I don't want to destroy their joy. It is perfectly okay.

 

Q: COULDN'T YOU TELL THEM TO GIVE THEIR MONEY FOR SOMETHING ELSE, OTHER THAN FOR ROLLS ROYCES?

 

A: All other religions are doing that. Let them do that as their work. Let me do my work. All other religions are looking after the poor. At least leave me alone to look after the rich.

 

-Osho, “The Last Testament, Vol 1, #1”

 

 

♦

 

 

Q: MY QUESTION, WHICH I HAD WRITTEN DOWN FOR THIS, IS WHY, IN YOUR VISION, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO WORK ON YOUR OWN PERSONAL GROWTH AND AT THE SAME TIME HELP YOUR NEIGHBOR? WHY IS IT IMPOSSIBLE TO BE A SANNYASIN AND AT THE SAME TIME HELP ETHIOPIA?

 

A: Nobody is preventing anybody. I am not saying to my sannyasins, "Don't help the neighbor." I am telling them, "Help them!" And the only way to help them is to hit them. They are asleep, they have to be awakened first. Any other help will be coming later on. Set their houses on fire so they have to wake up and escape out, then we will catch hold of them.

 

I'm not preventing my people from helping, but again the same problem. Because you love me, you cannot say it directly -- I have to phrase it for you.

 

Q: PLEASE DO.

 

A: You want that the poor should be given bread, butter, clothes, shelter, that there are sick people who need hospitals, that there are beggars in the world... something has to be done for them, and this should be my sannyasins' responsibility.

 

I don't consider it my sannyasins' responsibility. If there are poor people in the world, the priests and the politicians, and the scientists and the educationalists all are guilty of it. They have created a world which has to be poor and they exploit the poverty in many ways. For example, this beautiful woman, Mother Teresa. I don't think her face looks beautiful, but tastes differ. Your taste is a little strange. Would you like to get married to her? -- then you will know how beautiful she is.

 

These people who have been serving the poor, catering to the poor, are helping the poor to remain poor. Otherwise, the poor either would have died out of poverty or would have gone through a great revolution and changed the whole society. Only two things are possible if no help is given to them. I want no help to be given to these people; they should take their own responsibility. If they are poor and they don't want to go through a revolution, change the whole structure of the society, destroy the whole status quo, throw these governments away... and if you cannot do that, then at least you can die. Don't unnecessarily be a nuisance around.

 

For example, in Ethiopia where thousands of people are dying every day, the priests and the bishops and the popes and politicians are all just sympathy for Ethiopia. And they are trying to send food, medicine, but their whole effort is very hypocritical. On the one hand they want to save the poor in Ethiopia, on the other hand they are piling up nuclear weapons. For whom? They are not lifeloving people, they are showing sympathy to Ethiopia just as part of diplomacy. It has nothing to do with service to humanity, because their small support that they are sending is not going to help, it has not helped. It is almost like dropping a teaspoon full of sugar in the ocean to make it sweet. Great responsibility you are fulfilling: you destroyed one cup of tea!

 

I am not in favor of sending any help to Ethiopia. Only one thing is possible: if these big dodos around the world, presidents and prime ministers and kings and queens, if they are really concerned with Ethiopia, then there are two alternatives for them. Stop piling up weapons and divert the whole money and energy towards Ethiopia, and Ethiopia will be saved today.

 

Or, if you cannot do that, then at least do one thing: send your medical people to inject these people with something that takes them into eternal sleep. It is better to die than to starve for ninety days and then die. It is compassionate. And there is no harm if there is no Ethiopia... what harm?

 

Q: SO, IF I UNDERSTAND YOU WELL, BHAGWAN, YOU SAY THAT THE MISERY IN ETHIOPIA IS VERY REAL.

 

A: Mm hmm.

 

Q:... AND THIS REMINDS ME OF ONE OF YOUR DISCOURSES IN WHICH YOU SAID, "YOUR MISERY IS BOGUS." AND THIS AT THE TIME MADE RATHER AN IMPRESSION ON ME, AND I BEGAN TO SUSPECT THAT MY PERSONAL MISERY IS BOGUS INDEED.

 

A: Mm hmm.

 

Q: BUT THEN I WONDERED, IS THE MISERY OF THIS ETHIOPIAN MOTHER, SEEING HER CHILD DYING OF STARVATION, BOGUS ALSO?

 

A: It is a totally different context. When I said your misery is your responsibility, I meant your anxieties, your anguishes, your expectations, your frustrations, your aspirations, your ambitions which are not going to be fulfilled. I meant your mental anguish. That statement was in a totally different context.

 

But in Ethiopia, it is not that the mother is imagining that her child is dying. He is really dying. The child is not imagining that the mother is dying; the mother is really dying and soon she will be dead.

 

And fortunately in Ethiopia there are not Christian Scientists. There has been a movement in America of Christian Science. Christian Science has as one of its fundamentals that whatsoever you think becomes sooner or later a reality. Thoughts are the beginning of a certain reality.

 

I have heard the story that a young boy met an old Christian Scientist lady. The lady asked the boy, "I have not seen your father for many days. Is he not coming to the meetings of our group?" The boy said,"He's sick. He's in his bed." The old woman said, "Nonsense. This is just mind. You just tell your father that he is only thinking he is sick:'Just think you are healthy. Think positively that you are healthy. Get out of your bed, be positive.' Don't fall into negativity -- this is our whole philosophy: positive thinking."

 

After three or four days, the boy meets the old woman again in the market and the old woman says, "What happened? Did you manage to convey the message to your father?" He said, "Now my father thinks he's dead. And not only my father -- everybody thinks he is no more in the house, he is in his grave!"

 

The misery in Ethiopia is real, objectively real, and these sympathies are not going to help. They are simply keeping people starving, dying. And it is better to die instantly rather than to wait and suffer all kinds of torture that this hungry man is bound to suffer.

 

And this is a thing to be understood, that a normally healthy man can live without food for ninety days, then he will die. Now, making these people suffer for ninety days does not seem to be compassionate. To me it is more compassionate that they are given injections so they go into eternal sleep. And anyway the soul does not die, so what is the problem? All these religions believe that the soul does not die, so what is the problem?

 

Communists believe that when you die, everything dies. Then, too, there is no problem. I don't see a problem from any side. And if Ethiopia is not there, who bothers? What has Ethiopia contributed to the world?

 

Q: DO I UNDERSTAND YOU CORRECTLY, THAT YOU SAY NOBODY SHOULD DO ANYTHING ABOUT ETHIOPIA?

 

A: I am saying either do -- that means stop piling nuclear weapons, that is my first alternative. If you are really sympathetic towards dying people, then why are you creating weapons for death? That is simple hypocrisy. Stop! If you are really concerned with dying people, then whatsoever is happening in Ethiopia is nothing to what has happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

Those few moments, the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have suffered as much as one can suffer in the Christian hell. And you have now seven hundred times more nuclear weapons than there were available at the time of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And they go on piling up.

 

On the one hand, seventy-five percent of the income of every country goes to war; and on the other hand, these politicians really have beautiful masks. And they must be having many because they have to change again and again. When Ethiopia is there and people are dying, you are so sympathetic and you want to save Ethiopia.... These two things don't go together, they are inconsistent.

 

So my first alternative is that the nations should stop creating more war, and the poverty not only from Ethiopia but from the whole world will disappear today. The poverty is there because our whole energy is involved with war, with the preparation for war.

 

And if you cannot do it, then at least don't be a hypocrite. Be direct and say, "Let Ethiopia die. We don't care. We are going to make more nuclear weapons and we are going to have a third world war, and what does it matter?" The whole world is going to end in the third world war. Ethiopia will be saved from nuclear weapons, they will die before that. That's perfectly good. Let them die, but don't be a hypocrite.

 

-Osho, “The Last Testament, Vol 1, #17”

 

 

♦

 

 

It would have been beautiful if Jesus had also had some intelligent people around him. Only Judas was a little intelligent, and he betrayed. Perhaps he did well, because he must have seen this suicidal instinct in Jesus. He must have seen that Jesus wanted to be a martyr, he was not going to listen to anybody. He wanted to be on the cross, because by his teachings he had not been able to convert the Jews to Christianity. He was hoping, perhaps, that what he had not been able to do, his martyrdom, his crucifixion may do. And he was right -- it happened.

 

There is no Christianity in the world; it is only "crossianity." The cross made a great impact, aroused sympathy towards him, just as my Roll Royces and my watches arouse in you jealousy, my clothes create jealousy. But if I was hanging on a cross, then this clergyman would have been at my feet praying to God.

 

It is strange but true, that you are sympathetic to misery, to poverty, to sickness, to death. Have you ever thought what it means? You are never sympathetic with somebody who is blissful, happy, joyous, dancing, singing, has no worry at all, no tension. Have you felt any sympathy with that man? Have you gone to that man and said, "I have great sympathy for you"? You would look foolish. He does not need your sympathy in the first place. In the second place, his being in a blissful state creates jealousy in you, not sympathy.

 

The crucifixion of Jesus created great sympathy, and out of that sympathy was born this whole cancer of Christianity.

 

I am not asking for your sympathy; otherwise I would be carrying my cross on my shoulders. I do not care, because to ask for your sympathy simply means that I am empty within, that I want to fill that empty hollowness through your sympathy, your love, your compassion. No.

 

Why do people get angry with me? Why do they become arrogant, aggressive towards me? The reason is simple. I am so blissful that only great jealousy starts burning in their hearts. You have never loved anybody who is going higher and higher in his happiness.

 

If your house is on fire, even your enemies will come to sympathize with you, even those who were not on talking terms with you. But if you make a beautiful marble palace, even your friends will disappear. The jealousy.... That jealousy is all over the letter of the clergyman.

 

FINALLY HE SAYS, "BLESSINGS." 8 8

 

Please forgive me, I cannot accept it. I have so much blessedness in me, I am just blissed-out. What am I going to do with a poor man's blessings? And what blessings can you give to me? You don't have them in the first place to give. This is simply egoistic stupidity.

 

You should have asked for my blessings. I have them and I can give them to you, or to anybody. In fact, I am simply throwing them to everybody!

 

Please forgive me, this clergyman destroyed your whole morning.

 

-Osho, “From the False to the Truth, #10”

 

 

♦

 

 

Q: How is your health?

 

A: My health is really great.

 

Q: You complained less than a year ago that you were ailing from a variety of causes.

 

A: No. I have been suffering because my sickness is not something that I can say I am cured of. It is allergy, so it can erupt any moment.

 

Q: What symptoms does it take when it does?

 

A: Dust can create it, perfume – most dangerous. And there are a few things which I should not eat – any things which have acids.

 

So if I just avoid them… And in the commune everybody is aware of my trouble, so nobody will use perfume, nobody will come close to me if he has been smoking. Nobody will come to me if he has been perspiring, because any smell is enough to provoke it. And what it does is it starts breathing trouble; my breathing becomes abnormal, difficult.

 

And then coughing starts. Then the coughing will continue at least for two hours to six hours, and it almost is a problem in the night, then I cannot sleep. So this disease is such that I can never say I am cured. And I can never say that I am sick, only once in a while when something happens I am sick for few hours. Otherwise I am perfectly okay.

 

Second problem I had was my back. So my people have arranged for that too, because no medical treatment helped me. In India we had called experts from England who had worked their whole life only on back, but they also said that, "This is strange."

 

And I knew that they will not help and I told them that, "The problem is, it is not a sudden... somebody slips and falls down and the back comes out. Then you can fix it. My problem is that I have been sitting this kind of chair for almost thirty years. The chair changes but the shape remains the same exactly. So the back has got a certain curve. So if that curve is disturbed, then I am in trouble."

 

I cannot sit on your chair. It is more comfortable but my back will not fit with it. So I can use only one car. I have used all the cars, the best in the world; just one car, one of the models of Rolls Royce, the Silver Spur, its seat fits with me perfectly. It is not their costliest car. Their costliest is Corniche*. Then Carmargue*. And then the third is Silver Spur. So I tried from Corniche* -- they didn't work, my trouble started. But with Silver Spur it has settled completely.

 

So up to '89 I can use it at least, because '89 they are going to change the model. I have persuaded the president that, "Don't change the seat," and he has to listen to me because I am the only person in the whole world who has ninety Rolls Royces.

 

Q:* Why do you have such an abundance? Surely you can only ride in one at a time.

 

A:* I believe in abundance.

 

Q:* Isn't that a bit of overkill, though?

 

A:* These ninety are not yet enough. My people are trying to arrange for three hundred sixty-five, so every day they can give me a new car.

 

Q:* PEOPLE IN LOS ANGELES WILL TRULY APPRECIATE THAT. YOU KNOW, THEY SAY THAT THERE'S MORE ROLLS ROYCES IN LOS ANGELES THAN THERE ARE....

 

A:* Yes, there are not in Los Angeles or anywhere.

 

So ordinarily I am perfectly okay if I take care, and I take care. Just the problem was that I was moving in the masses, going outside. That was creating trouble so I had to stop. Now I live in the commune and everybody is aware of my problem, so everybody keeps clean, non-smelly.

 

Q:* SOME OF MY FRIENDS WHO ARE NOT SANNYASIN, PARTICULARLY BECAUSE CALIFORNIA IS SUCH A HEALTH-CONSCIOUS PLACE, SUCH A ROBUST, ACTIVE SPORTS-MINDED PLACE -- POSSIBLY BECAUSE OF THE CLIMATE, THEY FIND IT HARD TO RESOLVE THE FACT THAT YOU HAVE POOR PHYSICAL HEALTH AND YET ARE ENLIGHTENED.

 

A:* In fact, they don't understand enlightenment. Anybody who has been enlightened had poor health, for the simple reason because enlightenment is something which goes beyond ordinary biology, physiology, chemistry. It is a great disturbance in your whole natural system.

 

The ordinary man, his consciousness is completely in tune with his biology. But once you become enlightened, you have a distinction between your biology and your consciousness.

 

Ordinary man follows biology, which is part of nature. It is healthier. The enlightened man follows consciousness, which is not part of nature, so many times he has to go against biology, against physiology. But he cannot go against his consciousness. That creates the rift.

 

So no enlightened people has ever been healthy.

 

-Osho, “The Last Testament, Vol 2, #24”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Question 1

Beloved Osho,

Because of your genius in combining and then going beyond the material and the spiritual, and because you seem to have an abundance of both worlds, i think that many non-sannyasins and sannyasins feel jealous of you. people resent and don't want to feed abundance. if they feed anything, they feed poverty. if you were sitting in a cave, naked, cold, and meditating, it would be one thing, but you are not. sannyasins who never dreamed of having a rolls royce seem to yearn for one more than for the state of meditation even after spending years with you. you seem to be sparking greed for the material, rather than a yearning for the beyond -- or at least that's the message that's being received by some. could you comment.

 

 

It is part of my whole device to change the very structure of human consciousness.

 

The past has revered poverty, asceticism, masochistic attitudes. A man was respected if he was renouncing all that is pleasant, all that is comfortable. He was respected for torturing himself; the greater the torture, the greater the respect. The whole human past is masochistic, and all the religions have contributed to this insanity.

 

My effort is to change such a vast past and its influence. So it has been only a device. I have not been creating desires for materialistic things in people; they are there without anybody's creating them. Yes, they have been repressed so deeply that people have even forgotten that they had them. I am not creating them; I simply want to remove the cover-up, the repression, and to make the person realize that he wants a Rolls Royce more than enlightenment.

 

This realization will be a basic step towards enlightenment, because it will make him aware of his own reality, his greed.

 

There was no need for ninety-three Rolls Royces. I could not use ninety-three Rolls Royces simultaneously -- the same model, the same car. But I wanted to make it clear to you that you would be ready to drop all your desires for truth, for love, for spiritual growth to have a Rolls Royce. I was knowingly creating a situation in which you would feel jealous.

 

The function of a master is very strange. He has to help you come to an understanding of your inner structure of consciousness: it is full of jealousy.

 

All the traditions and the whole past have done just the opposite. The so-called saint, in all the traditions, lives in such a way that you will never feel jealous of him. Note that point.

 

You will feel sympathetic towards him, respectful towards him; but respectfulness is not your reality, sympathy is not your nature. The saint is torturing himself, that is not his nature either. He is being unnatural to gain respect, to fulfill his ego. He is not interested in spiritual growth; he is interested in respectability, in being worshipped like a god. And he is ready to do anything for it.

 

He is living in an illusion, and he is creating a great illusion in people who come to him. He helps them to feel that they are religious, that they are spiritual, because they respect a saint, they worship a saint. They are not yet ready to do such ascetic disciplines for themselves, but they hope some day... this is their ideal. They are completely forgetting that they are jealous human beings. And the saint is helping them to forget their jealousy; he is helping them to repress it.

 

My work is bound to be totally different. I want to provoke your jealousy, because that is the only way to get rid of it. First you have to know that you have it; then you can drop it, because it is misery and hell. But you can repress it so deeply that the question of dropping it does not arise.

 

I have lived in abundance because to me there is no division between the material and the spiritual.

 

The teaching to live in poverty is dangerous: you will be materially poor, and you will be spiritually poor too, because there is no division. I teach you to live richly, in abundance, materially and spiritually -- both. It is not a question of whether you should live materially in abundance, or spiritually. The basic question is whether you should live in abundance, in richness -- which is natural and existential. It is your very basic urge to blossom in abundance, to know all the colors, to know all the songs, to know all the beauties of life.

 

But certainly I am bound to come in conflict with the old, because the whole human past has been praising poverty and making it equal to spirituality, which is absolute nonsense.

 

Spirituality is the greatest richness that can happen to a man, and it contains all other richnesses. It is not against any other richness; it is simply against all kinds of poverty. So what I have been trying is something so radical that it is bound to create antagonism all around the world from every corner. People have lived with certain values for so long that although those values have given them only misery, they don't see the connection. Those values have not made them fulfilled, contented -- but they don't see the connection.

 

I want my people to become symbolic... to make the whole world aware that their misery is caused by their wrong values, that they are poor because they have respected poverty -- and their behavior is so insane. On the one hand they will respect poverty, and on the other hand they will say, "Serve the poor." Strange! If poverty is so spiritual then the most spiritual thing will be to make every rich man poor, to help the rich man to be poor, so he can become spiritual. Why help the poor? Do you want to destroy their spirituality?

 

But a deep unconsciousness, a great blindness exists, and I am fighting against a mountainous unconsciousness, darkness. Naturally they will be very much annoyed. They would have loved me, they would have worshipped me. And it was so easy for me to do what they wanted, but then I would have been continuing the old misery, the old disease, the old stupidity. I decided to be unrespectable, but not to help any nonsensical value system.

 

It is a very simple thing to see why ascetics -- self-destructive people engaged in a kind of slow suicide -- have been respected; it is because it is unnatural, because you cannot do it. They are doing something which you cannot do. If somebody is standing on their head on the road, there will be a crowd immediately, but you are walking on your legs -- no crowd will be there!

 

What is that man doing that attracts the crowd? He is doing something that the crowd cannot do. He is proving mind over body, he is proving spirit over nature. Torturing his body he is proving that he is not the body, it does not affect him. By fasting, not sleeping, or standing for days he is proving that what you cannot do he can do; he is superior to you. You also can do what he is doing, you just have to be a little stupid, you just have to be a little suicidal, destructive.

 

All that you need is a certain pleasure in pain and you can become a great spiritual saint.

 

I have looked at the whole history and found not one single man revolting against this suicidal attitude towards life, this anti-life attitude. Perhaps they were afraid that nobody was going to listen to them, afraid that they would lose their respectability.

 

I decided in the very beginning days of my life that there is one thing I have to be aware of, and that is not to be bothered about respectability. Then things are very simple. Then I can do what is natural and what is healthy. And then I can manage a bridge between matter and spirit, between this world and that world.

 

And to me, to live in abundance is the only spiritual thing in the world.

 

Just look at existence and its abundance. What is the need of so many flowers in the world? Just roses would have been enough, but existence is abundant: millions and millions of flowers, millions of birds, millions of animals -- everything in abundance. Nature is not ascetic; it is everywhere dancing -- in the ocean, in the trees. It is everywhere singing -- in the wind passing through the pine trees, in the birds...

 

What is the need of millions of solar systems, each solar system having millions of stars? There seems to be no need, except that abundance is the very nature of existence, that richness is the very core, that existence does not believe in poverty. Look at nature, look at existence, and you will see that what man has done is against it.

 

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.

 

I don't think that by torturing yourself you can meditate more easily; on the contrary, if your body is pleasantly at ease you can meditate more easily. I don't think that when you are fasting you can meditate. You can only think of food and nothing else; you will dream of food and nothing else. But if you are well fed, well nourished, you don't think of food -- there is no need. The body is completely satisfied, it does not create any disturbance.

 

To live pleasurably, to live joyously is not against meditation. It is really the basic need of meditation. I know many kinds of ascetics but I have never seen any intelligence in them, I have never seen any creativity in them. I have never seen in their eyes a light of the beyond, or in their gestures some message that cannot be said through words. They don't have anything. They are simply starving -- and starving because it fulfills the ego, because the more they starve, the more they torture themselves, more and more people come to worship them.

 

Now this is to me just an insane chapter in the history of man; it has to be closed. It is time that we start a new chapter -- natural, existential, life-affirmative -- and create a bridge between the body and the soul... not a wall but a bridge.

 

There is no need for any conflict and war. Fighting with yourself, you are not going to get anything; you will be simply destroying yourself slowly. All your so-called saints are mostly mentally sick, and they have made the whole of humanity sick.

 

Your question is significant. I have been asked again and again, "Spiritual people are respected everywhere, why are you opposed everywhere?"

 

I said, "Only one thing is certain: either they are not spiritual, or I am not spiritual. We both cannot be spiritual, that is certain. And as far as I am concerned, I say that they are sick, not spiritual, and they are worshipped by a sick society."

 

It is a vicious circle: the society creates the sick saint, the sick saint creates the sick society -- and it goes on and on. I have no part in this sickness, the so-called spirituality. I am just a contented, fulfilled human being. What more do you want? And what more can spirituality be?

 

We want people to be fulfilled and contented, and this journey towards contentment, fulfillment, enlightenment should start with the body. You cannot begin from anywhere else. You can begin only from the beginning. You cannot ignore the roots and just go on praising the flowers. Your flowers will die, and you will have to replace them with plastic flowers if the roots are not taken care of. Is there any conflict between the roots and the blossoms? It is the same juice -- and you have to begin with the roots, because flowers will come only in the end.

 

But with humanity we have been almost mad. We have never bothered about the roots, and we have talked only about flowers. We talk about people being nonviolent, being compassionate, being loving -- so much that you can love your enemy, so much that you can even love your neighbor. We talk about flowers, but nobody is interested in the roots.

 

The question is: "Why are we not loving beings?"

 

It is not a question of being loving to this person, to that person, to the friend, to the enemy. The question is whether you are loving or not. Do you love your own body? Have you ever cared to touch your own body with a loving caress? Do you love yourself? No, all your religions teach you to hate yourself: you are the wrong person and you have to put yourself right; you are a sinner and you have to become a saint. How can you love yourself? -- you cannot even accept yourself. And these are the roots!

 

I will teach you to love yourself. And if you can love yourself, if you can rejoice in being yourself, naturally your love will go on spreading. It will become an aura around you; you will love your friends, and in a certain way you will love your enemies too -- because just the way the friend defines you, your enemy also defines you.

 

I am reminded of a recent incident. In India, before freedom came to that country, there was great struggle between Hindus and Mohammedans because Hindus wanted the country to remain one, undivided. It was favorable to them because they were the majority religion. If India was undivided, then Mohammedans had no possibility of ever being in power; they were the second majority religion.

 

The Mohammedans wanted a separate country and they had their reasons: "We have a different language, we have a different religion, we are a different race, we cannot live together." But the basic reason was not language, not culture, not race, because they had lived together for two thousand years, so there was no problem about that. The real thing was, if they had a separate country of their own they would have power.

 

The leader for an undivided India was Mahatma Gandhi, and the leader for the division of India and for a new land, Pakistan, for Mohammedans was Mohammed Ali Jinnah. They were archenemies their whole life.

 

In 1948 Gandhi was shot dead. Mohammed Ali Jinnah was now governor general of Pakistan. He was sitting on the lawn as the news reached him that Gandhi had been shot. The person who had brought this news thought that he would be happy to hear it -- that his long, long enemy is dead. But he was surprised: Jinnah became sad, and he went into the house and told his secretary that he should not be disturbed. "If Gandhi is dead, much of me is dead too, because we defined each other."

 

A great insight -- the enemy also defines you, in the same way as the friend defines you. Jinnah lived only one year longer, and he was never again seen so happy as he used to be; this last year was just sadness. Without Gandhi a gap, a great gap... A life-long enmity is a relationship, a deep relationship. So the man of understanding will love the enemy too -- not for any spiritual reason, but for the simple reason that he is defining him, he is part of his existence. Without him there will be a gap which nobody else can fill.

 

The question is not "love your enemies" the way Jesus says it. That is simply egoistic: love your enemies because you are a superior spiritual being, and he is just an ordinary human being; so love him, show him the true path of spirituality. But it is just fulfilling your own ego.

 

I will also say, "Love him," but not for the same reasons. I will say, "Love him," because he defines you; he is part of you, just as you are part of him -- not only the friend, but the enemy too. It does not make you "holier than thou." It is a simple understanding of how psychology functions.

 

Love yourself. But you can love yourself only if you drop the idea of being a sinner. You can drop the idea of being a sinner if you drop the idea that there is a god.

 

If there is a god, you are a sinner; you cannot be anything else. If there is a god, then you are a sinner. You have been expelled from the kingdom of god, and you will be accepted back only if you become obedient -- so obedient that you lose your individuality to a hypothetical god whom you have never ever seen and whom you will never see.

 

Your religions don't allow you to love yourself, but then they talk all this bullshit of loving your enemies and loving your neighbors. But you can see the point. If you cannot love yourself, you cannot love anybody else in the world. That loving energy has to come from your heart, and there, there is sitting a sinner, condemned, waiting to be thrown into hellfire.

 

I have heard... In the middle ages when people, particularly women, were more naive, more simple, there were Christian preachers who would go on threatening them with hellfire, describing in minute details how they will be tortured. And it used to happen that many women would faint in the churches listening to the sermons, because the hellfire and the minute details would drive them nuts. Now these women, can they accept themselves as they are? -- No!

 

All the religions stand upon one single word, and that is how you should be. That word is `should' -- that word is not `is'. The `is' is condemned, and the `should' is praised; and the `should' is opposed to your `is'.

 

You cannot love yourself, your wife cannot love herself -- and you both are supposed to love each other. I don't understand how it is possible. You can pretend, but basically you will hate, because the wife knows you are dragging her farther into hell, you know that she is dragging you farther into hell -- how can you love? Jesus is clever. He talks about loving your enemies but he does not say anything about loving your wives. Strange, that should have been the first thing to be reminded of -- "Love your husbands." But no, these things are not mentioned.

 

The religions have been talking about flowers; I am working with the roots. And I am against plastic flowers. Real flowers have many differences; plastic flowers are permanent -- plastic love will be permanent. The real flower is not permanent, it is changing moment to moment. Today it is there dancing in the wind and in the sun and in the rain. Tomorrow you will not be able to find it -- it has disappeared just as mysteriously as it had appeared.

 

Real love is like a real flower.

 

But all religions teach you plastic love. And then they destroy the very possibility of ever coming to know a real flower. The real flower will have fragrance; the plastic flower has nothing to contribute to your life. It only looks like a flower, it is not a flower. The plastic flower is easy. You do not need to water it, you do not need to take care of the roots. Real flowers need some creativity on your part. Every real value needs creativity.

 

And just look at your saints: none of them are creative. All their qualities are just hilarious -- somebody can lie down in a grave for seven days, and then you dig him up and he is still alive; and he becomes a great saint. But I don't see that there is any contribution, any creativity in it. He may lie for seven hundred years in a grave; that does not matter. How can he become a saint by lying in a grave for seven days, by learning a certain technique of holding the breath in?

 

Paul Brunton, a great seeker going from one country to another country all over the East, came across many people who were worshipped as saints in the beginning of this century. In Ajmer in India he came across a Mohammedan saint who used to put both his eyes down, hanging out of their sockets -- that was his only quality. And he was worshipped far and wide, because he was doing really the impossible!

 

He came across a Hindu yogi who was able to drink any kind of poison. He had exhibited his great achievement at many universities -- in Oxford, in Cambridge, in Varanasi, in Calcutta. But in Calcutta an accident happened. He was capable of keeping the poison in his body, without getting it into his bloodstream, only for half an hour: more than that he was incapable of. He had learned his whole life how to do it, but in Calcutta the traffic defeated him.

 

In India, you know the traffic is great; all the centuries are moving on the road -- a bullock cart, a horse-driven vehicle, a donkey, a camel-driven cart, cars, buses, trams. Particularly in Calcutta you will find all the centuries together on the street. From the very beginning when man first invented a vehicle to the latest car -- everything is available. You just stand by the side of the road and watch.

 

So he was stuck somewhere in a traffic jam and could not reach the place where he was going to vomit; that was the whole art. For half an hour he could keep it; and then he would vomit -- not to let it go into his bloodstream. But he was late; it reached to his bloodstream and he died. But he was a world famous saint. What is his contribution?

 

I cannot conceive why these people should be called saints. Perhaps they should be called certain kinds of experts; they have a certain expertise, but it has nothing to do with spirituality. In the name of spirituality you have been worshipping utter nonsense. And behind this nonsense is the real man -- suffering, uncared for, unlooked at. Nobody bothers about him and his problems; nobody answers his real need.

 

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!

 

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.

 

Ninety-three Rolls Royces... but I have not looked back at them, at what happened. They were not mine, and I am as happy without them as I was with them. I never went to see those Rolls Royces in the garage. The director of my garage, Avesh, is here. I went on saying to him, "One day I am coming," but that day never came. I have never seen those cars together. It was he who would bring a car for a one-hour drive, it was his choice. And I have not looked back.

 

Those cars fulfilled their purpose. They created jealousy in the whole of America, in all the super-rich people. If they were intelligent enough, then rather than being my enemies they would have come to me to find a way to get rid of their jealousy, because it is their problem. Jealousy is a fire that burns you, and burns you badly. You are in the hands of somebody else.

 

I was just a tourist there, and I made the whole of America disturbed. They had enough money; they could have purchased more Rolls Royces if they wanted. But they had no guts for that either. They were condemning me, saying that I am a materialist. And you will be surprised; one bishop who was continuously condemning me as a materialist, wrote me a letter, privately, saying, "It would be very compassionate of you if you could donate a Rolls Royce to my church. It won't make any difference to you -- ninety-three or ninety-two -- but it will make much difference to us." And every Sunday he was condemning me. His condemnation was not about my materialism; his condemnation was to hide his jealousy.

 

The politicians, the rich, could have managed it for themselves -- why were they worried? But the worry was that a tourist, who has not even a valid visa, has defeated all the super-rich; it hurts! If they were intelligent enough, they could have understood that there must be a purpose behind these Rolls Royces. It cannot be just the one-hour ride. For that, one Rolls Royce would have been enough.

 

Everything that I have done in my life has a purpose. It is a device to bring out something in you of which you are not aware.

 

If you are intelligent you would like to get rid of it because it is a poison which is killing you. A jealous mind is incapable of love; a jealous mind is incapable of rejoicing... and not only incapable of rejoicing, he is incapable of seeing anybody else rejoice. This kind of people fill the whole earth. And your so-called saints have not been a help to them. Your so-called saints have exploited them.

 

It is hilarious! Your saints are exploiting you by being poor, torturing themselves; they are helping you not to feel jealous, not to feel hurt. They are protecting your ego. And it is not one-sided. That's why I say it is hilarious. The game is strange: they are helping you to remain in your misery, in your insanity, and you are helping them to remain in their suicidal, torturous life -- a mutual conspiracy of the whole of humanity to remain in hell.

 

The commune in America was also a device. It did its work. It made people aware that to be joyous, to be loving is possible on this earth; you do not have to wait for heaven. And I can't see, I can't understand... a person who has never been dancing and singing here, when he enters heaven and a harp is provided for him -- what is he going to do with the harp? He will be at a loss! He will ask, what is it, and what am I supposed to do with it?

 

Only my people will be immediately able to do something, whichever instrument is provided. It is not only a question of rejoicing... all other things too. If here for your whole life you learn only torture, what are you going to do in heaven? That self-torture has become a second nature to you.

 

I am reminded of a story... There was a very beautiful man, Eknath, who was going on a pilgrimage with his disciples. One well-known thief approached him, and asked the master, "Although I am a sinner -- you know me, everybody knows, I am a thief -- a great desire has arisen in me to go on a pilgrimage with you, if you allow me in your company. Thirty people are going; it won't make much difference, one person more..."

 

Eknath said, "There is no harm, but one condition: while you are with me, and it is going to take nine months" -- because they were going to be traveling by foot all around the country, covering all the holy places, singing and dancing -- "you will not steal anything from the group or from somebody else where we are staying in a village. You will have to stop your art for nine months. If you promise me you are allowed."

 

The man said, "I promise absolutely that I will not steal anything for the coming nine months." But just within two, three days there was trouble. A strange kind of thing started happening, and that was that your money bag was found in somebody else's luggage, somebody else's coat was found in somebody else's bag! Strange... things were missing from here, but they were found there.

 

Finally Eknath one night had to remain awake to see what was going on, because it was very disturbing. Every morning you would have to find out where your things were; they were always found, but it was an unnecessary nuisance. Eknath had a suspicion that that man may be the cause of it -- and he was. In the middle of the night he started changing things around, and Eknath caught him redhanded. He said, "You had promised me that you would not steal."

 

He said, "I am completely following my promise; I am not stealing. But I never promised you that I would not change things from one bag to another -- that is not stealing. I am not putting anybody's things into my bag. But just to practice... otherwise in nine months I may forget my whole art. And moreover, I cannot sleep unless I do something. It is a lifelong habit."

 

Eknath said, "I understand your problem, but you must understand my problem too: every morning everybody is disturbed and upset -- money has gone, somebody's shirt is missing, somebody's blanket is missing. And unnecessarily every morning, for one hour, we have to sort it out."

 

But he said, "This much you will have to tolerate. This I have never promised. And I am not doing too much -- just one hour in the night then I can sleep at ease."

 

A man who has tortured himself for his whole life -- do you think he will be able to rejoice in heaven? He will have forgotten how to smile, he will have forgotten what joy means. No, I say to you the whole human past has been ugly, insane; it has created a kind of spirituality which is another name for schizophrenia. I have to fight against it, whatsoever the cost.

 

Somebody has to raise his hand and say to the people, "You have been misled. Your misery is a proof; no other proof is needed."

 

-Osho, "Beyond Psychology, #9, Q1“

 

 

♦

 

 

My interest was something else: to provoke the jealousy of the American so-called rich. And I succeeded absolutely. Even the president was jealous, the vice president was jealous. The super-rich, Rockefeller and others, were feeling defeated. For the first time somebody had made them appear poor. That was the purpose; otherwise, what is the use? I cannot ride in two Rolls Royces simultaneously. They were all of the same model, they all looked the same from the inside -- and I was not sitting on the bonnet!

 

-Osho, "Yakusan: Straight to the Point of Enlightenment, #3“

 

 

♦

 

 

The American has his own pride, the Indian has his own pride. The Indian does not think that anybody else in the world is spiritual; only they have the monopoly on being spiritual. And as far as I know, I have rarely come across an Indian who can be said to be spiritual. They are the most materialistic people in the world. But the personality not only deceives others, it finally deceives you too.

 

The Americans think they are the richest people in the world. But I created a simple joke with ninety-three Rolls Royces and all their pride was gone. Even the president became jealous, the governors became jealous, the bishops became jealous. The bishop of Wasco County, every Sunday, may have forgotten Jesus Christ completely but he could not forget ninety-three Rolls Royces. He would bring up some way to condemn them. And you will be surprised that when I was bailed out of jail, he wrote a letter to me. He asked, "Now you will be going back to your own land -- what about donating at least one Rolls Royce to my church? It will be a great act of charity."

 

Now you can see the mind.... I was teaching meditation to thousands of people; America was not interested in it. Thousands of people were coming to the commune; America was not interested in it. Each festival, there were twenty thousand people coming from all over the world; America was not interested in it. The whole of the news media were continuously talking about ninety-three Rolls Royces.

 

I used to think, perhaps in a poor country this could be expected... but I destroyed the pride of America! I don't need ninety-three Rolls Royces. It was a practical joke, and not even a single so-called intellectual of America could realize the fact that I cannot use ninety-three Rolls Royces simultaneously. And all were of the same model, the latest model; there was no difference between one car and another. Even the president of the Rolls Royce company came to visit, because this was the first time that in a single individual's garage, there were ninety-three Rolls Royces. But I never went to that garage.

 

The director of the garage, Avesh, is here. I was telling him, "Soon I will be coming." He wanted me to see -- he had made such a beautiful garage, and even the president of Rolls Royce appreciated it and said, "Your cars look in far better condition than our newest cars in our garages." Naturally, Avesh wanted me to come some day. And the garage was not far away, it was in the campus of my own house. I used to pass by the garage every day, but I never went in.

 

People have been cultivating all kinds of discriminations: the white man thinks he has something more special than the black man, that he carries the burden of the whole earth. But the black man does not agree about it. He has his own ideas.

 

-Osho, "Om Mani Padme Hum, #18“

 

 

♦

 

 

I have found freedom in dropping being respectable. Respectability is a social strategy to keep you imprisoned. Around the world there are so many rumors.... I don't care a bit. Sometimes I have been told by my friends and lovers, "Why don't you contradict them? These are absolutely absurd, they destroy your respectability with people."

 

I said, "I don't want to be respected by anyone, because if he respects me he will expect me to remain respectable" -- and that I cannot promise. It is better to be notorious, because it gives you immense freedom. I am a notorious man. Jesus, Mohammed, Mahavira, Buddha, Lao Tzu -- none of them was courageous enough to drop the desire for respectability.

 

People go on condemning me. The moment I come to know that they are condemning me for a certain thing, then I go on doing the same thing on a bigger scale. I had only one Rolls Royce. They started condemning me, so I told my secretary, "Arrange for two."

 

In India it was very difficult, because the Rolls Royce after 1965 became a banned item, it could not enter the country. I was the only man who managed to have two Rolls Royces enter the country.

 

When I came to America, I said to my secretary, "Now there is no limit." I had seven, and they were condemning me -- a spiritual man, an enlightened person, having seven Rolls Royces when people are dying of starvation? Now I have ninety. Now they don't condemn me. They know that if they continue condemning me, I will go on having more and more Rolls Royces until they are satisfied.

 

I have my own individuality. I don't need anybody's respect, because I am so full there is no space for anything else. And it has been a tremendous experience to be so notorious and yet to be loved by millions of people. That gives a great hope, that even an ordinary man can be loved; you need not to be extraordinary to be loved.

 

How much love I have received! I don't think anybody before me has received so much love. And certainly I have received more hostility, anger, condemnation than anybody else. I am richest man in the world -- I receive everything!

 

Love I have received -- nobody can come even close to me. Hatred I have received -- nobody can come close to me. And just for a single, simple thing: that I dropped the idea of respectability.

 

If you ask me, my enlightenment made me transcend only one thing, and that is the opinion of others. That is their business. They cannot disturb my sleep by their opinions. And I don't have to be concerned about what they are thinking. I am living absolutely alone, but utterly fulfilled.

 

-Osho, “From the False to the Truth, #24, Q1”