Question :

Osho,

Do you take a special pleasure in being misunderstood by the unthinking crowd of journalists, politicians, and the like?

Do you mind you are the most misunderstood person in the history of a spiritual revolution? For the last fifteen years that you are an infinite source of intellectual depth. You have been using logic, to demaster logic, using intellect to go beyond intellect, is not it an unacceptable parrot?

Your friends are less attracted by your books than your enemies; your enemies oppose you in public but they become learned people by stealing you, and make a decent a business out of their outfit.

That is, the radio in nepal depends sixty percents on you on its religious programs, and yet the people don’t hesitate to say that rajneesh is a danger to sanathan.

Number three, why bhagwan, why is it that people know you only as a sex guru to the exclusion of other things you have expressed in about four hundred books?

 

 

I certainly enjoy to disturb people, because there is no other way to help them. When somebody is asleep, the only way to wake him up is to disturb him, shake him, throw cold water into his eyes. Of course, he will be angry, he may be seeing a beautiful dream, and you are disturbing him. I enjoy disturbing people for the simple reason if they are disturbed, then there is a possibility of changing their minds. They have started thinking. It does not matter, they may start thinking against me. But if they start thinking, sooner or later, they will have to come closer to me. The danger is the non-thinking person. To think against me is not a problem. I am reminded of a beautiful anecdote.

 

In Judaism there is a revolutionary tradition called Hassidism. The founder of Hassidism, Baal Shemtov, wrote a beautiful book and sent the first copy of the book to the chief priest of the Jews, as a present. One of his disciples carried the book. He told the disciple that “You have to give the book in the hands of the rabbi himself. Don’t give it to anyone else. And remember whatever is the response of the rabbi, what he says, what he does, what shows in his eyes, on his face, everything you have to note it. And you have to report me immediately, so that you don’t forget.”

 

The disciple went to the chief rabbi. He was sitting in the garden with his wife, taking his morning breakfast. The disciple presented the book. He took the book in his hands and he said, “What it is? Who has written it?”

And he said, “It is my master, Baal Shemtov, it is his first book, and he wanted it to be presented to you.”

 

And the rabbi became mad. He threw the book out of the garden into the street. And he said, “Never dare again to bring that man’s books in my house.” He was just furious.

 

The wife said to him, “This is not right. You could have thrown the book when the person had gone. Or you could have put it in your library where there are thousands of books. You need not read it. You have not read many of those books. This also can be put there. But there was no need to become so furious, so angry; this is below you. You are the chief rabbi of the Jews. This does not suit you.”

 

The disciple went to his master, Baal Shem, and told him that “The rabbi is a dangerous fellow. He threw the book out in the street. He was furious with anger. He hates you. But his wife is very nice. She told that it was not right of him. He could have kept the book in the library, or even if he wanted to throw it he should have thrown it when I had left.”

 

You will be surprised to know what was the response of Baal Shem, and Baal Shem is one of the buddhas of a very unique quality. Baal Shem said to the disciple, “You don’t understand. That rabbi will read the book, that rabbi will become one day my disciple. But that woman which you think is nice will never read the book, will never be interested in me.” And that’s what happened finally. The chief rabbi turned a disciple to Baal Shem, but his wife remained an orthodox Jew.

 

The disciple said, “But how you figured it out? The situation was just the opposite.”

Baal Shem said, “You don’t understand human psychology. I had touched the emotions of the rabbi, and when you touch the emotions of somebody, you have disturbed his heart. He will cool down, he cannot remain disturbed forever. He will start thinking that he has done wrong. He will go out and take the book back, and would like to see what this man has written, but the woman will never look in the book. She was suggesting a nicer, mannerly way to dispose it of. She was not touched. The rabbi was disturbed, she was not disturbed.

 

And this is my experience. If I can disturb you, there is a chance to find a friend in you. I have touched your emotions. If I cannot disturb you, there is no chance. You have remained a stone statue. I have not been able to reach to your heart. The enemy and the friend are not very different people.

 

One of the great political thinkers of the West, Machiavelli, has written in his masterpiece book “Prince”, that you should not say anything to your friend which you would not like to say to your enemy. Because who is your friend today may become your enemy tomorrow. And you should not say anything against your enemy, because today he is your enemy; tomorrow he may be your friend. Then it will be very embarrassing. Keep balanced. And he is right, deeply right about human psychology.

 

I have seen people disturbed, I have seen people angry, and I have seen those same people changing. They have become my friends, because they started thinking about it. They could not sleep unless they had found some solution. Certainly they could not go back, they could not settle back into their old mind. It has been disturbed. They have to find something new.

 

So I certainly enjoy. You have said that perhaps I am the most misunderstood man in the whole history of consciousness. That is true, for the simple reason because Gautam Buddha never left Bihar. The name Bihar comes from Gautam Buddha, because he was travelling in this province; Bihar means travel. Because he travelled continuously in the same province, it became Buddha’s bihar, his travelling space. Naturally, he could not reach the vast humanity when he was alive.

 

Jesus lived in Judea, an unknown country, a small country; nobody has heard about it; not a single reference about Jesus is found in any contemporary book of any other country. Naturally he could not disturb anybody else than Jews. The same is true about all the old spiritual masters.

 

Now, the world has shrunken very small. Even sitting in one place, I can disturb the whole world. Science and technology has made it possible. Jesus has no idea that there are other people than Jews. He was born a Jew, he lived as a Jew. He died as a Jew. He had never heard even the name Christian. The Christian came three hundred years afterwards; when his statements were translated into Greek, then the Jewish word Messiah became Christ, and the followers of Christ became Christians. Poor Jesus never knew that his followers will be called Christians. The world was big, approach was impossible.

 

Now it is different; the world is small, approach is very simple. I can disturb the whole world without any difficulty. And I am going to do it, because I am a very fair person. I cannot disturb only you. I will disturb everybody equally. And I don’t feel worried about being misunderstood. That is the beginning of understanding. First you have to misunderstand. The misunderstanding comes because you have a certain prejudice, you have a certain mind, a certain ideology. And when I say something, it conflicts with it.

 

Naturally, you favor with your own conditioning. Whether it is right or wrong is not the question. It is your conditioning, it is your religion. It is your holy book. In America the first day when I was in jail, the sheriff of the jail was a very gentle man; and seeing me that I have nothing to do there, he brought a BIBLE and he said, “This is my present to you.”

 

I said, “Have you read it yourself, from the first page to the last?” And I said, “Be honest, you are keeping holy BIBLE in your hands. Don’t lie!”

 

He became a little nervous, then he said, “You are right. I have not read it from the first page to the last.”

 

I said, “That’s why you have brought it to me. Because in this BIBLE there are five hundred pages which are nothing but rotten pornography. I have read it from the first page to the last. This book should be banned. This book should not be in any church, in any library, in any university. Because it is sheer pornography, and not one or two pages, five hundred pages.”

 

He said, “My God, I had never thought about it.”

 

And I showed him few pages, and I told him, “Read it. Can you read this page before your daughter?”

 

And he had to confess, “I cannot. This is ugly.”

 

But this is holy BIBLE. He said no more. “You have disturbed me. Now I cannot sleep. My whole life’s idea was that this is God’s word. But how can God write such pornographic passages?”

 

Naturally, first one gets a shock, first one tries to defend, tries in every way to find that “I am not right, he is right.” That is what creates misunderstanding. But truth has always been misunderstood, because the whole majority of humanity lives in lies. So whenever a truth is said, it hurts.

 

And there is a misunderstanding. But truth has a quality. You cannot deny it. You can try denying, but sooner or later you will have to accept it. So every confusion, every misunderstanding, is just temporary. It cannot remain forever. If I am saying something which is true, then your misunderstanding will be dispelled. So I am not worried about misunderstanding. Please misunderstand me as much as you can, because that is the only way that you will come to some understanding.

 

You have also asked that there are people who go on stealing from my statements, my books. This is happening all over the world, not only in Nepal. It is happening in the films, it is happening in televisions, it is happening on radio, it is happening in newspapers, magazines, all kinds of people are trying to steal. But, I am not worried about it. Truth is truth. It need not be necessarily concerned with my name. Let them steal. They are stealing truth. Let them present it in their own name. No harm. Because I am not interested in my name; I am interested in my truth.

 

If the truth reaches to the people, just as you said in your question that sixty percent of the radio in Nepal is stealing from my books, help them to steal hundred percent. My name is irrelevant. What is relevant is truth. And truth is nobody’s property — neither mine nor yours. So why think in terms of stealing? Perhaps they are not stealing; they are impressed but they are cowards, they cannot say my name. But still they are doing my work. So far so good. Help them. Find out more passages for them to steal. Anyway, the message has to reach to the people. In whose name it reaches is not my concern at all. Just it should reach. Truth is universal. It is not mine, it is not yours. So the question of stealing does not arise.

 

You have also asked, that I have four hundred books in my name. Still people only read one book, which is about sex. That too they don’t read the way I have written it. The name of the book will make it clear. The name of the book is “From Sex to Superconsciousness.” It is a book of a scientific methodology, how you can transform your sex energy into consciousness, superconsciousness. How your sex energy can become your samadhi. But nobody talks about samadhi or superconsciousness. They think the book is about sex. The book is not about sex. The book is against sex. It is anti sex. Because it is an effort to show you the technique, how sexual energy can be purified. How it can start not going downwards, and taking you downwards, but can start moving upwards, uplifting you higher.

 

When sex moves down, it creates children, it becomes a biological force. When it moves upwards, it does not create children; it is no more biological. It moves into a different realm. It becomes a spiritual force. It recreates you. It gives you a rebirth. It creates a new man in you. It makes a child of you, so innocent, so utterly pure; it is a spiritual rebirth.

 

But people are sexually repressed, so much so that anything, just the word sex, immediately triggers their repressions. I have heard about a psychoanalyst. A man was brought to him by his family, and they said, “Something has to be done. This man is going mad.”

 

The psychoanalyst said, “Wait, let me examine him.”

 

He drew a line on a paper and asked the man, “Do you see what this line reminds you?”

 

He said, “What? It reminds me of sex.”

 

The psychoanalyst was a little shocked. Just a line, reminds him of sex? So he made a triangle. Seeing the triangle, the man simply closed his eyes. He said, “Don’t make that. You are so filthy. Just stop! Sex, sex. Are you a psychologist, or what?”

 

The psychologist tried one more effort. He drew a circle. And the man hit the psychologist and he said, “You idiot. You are not a psychologist. You are a sex maniac. This is all pornography.”

 

The psychoanalyst said, “Cool down, sit down. Just I have one question to ask you. Does anything remind you of anything else?”

 

He said, “No. Everything reminds me of sex.”

 

Repression is one of the greatest problems for man to face. All the religions have repressed sex. They have told you, it is sin. They have told you it is against religion. It is against God. Celibacy is spiritual. Now all these things are absurd. Sex is a natural phenomenon. It is not against nature, not against life, not against God. Because if it is against God, then why he goes on creating people with sexual energy? On the one hand you say God creates everything. Then who has created sex? It must have been God. And if God is not against sex, then how it can be sin. And if it is sin, then God is the greatest sinner in the world because he has given sex to millions of people, millions of animals, millions of insects, millions of birds, millions of trees. This whole existence has sexual energy, because that is the only reproductive energy. This whole creation is full of sexuality. God cannot be against it.

 

The priest is against it, and why the priest is against it? He is against it because he wants to create guilt in you. That is the secret of torturing you, of enslaving you. If you feel guilty, you are bound to go to the priest, to confess, to ask for a prayer, to ask for some repentance, to ask how to get rid of this guilt — fasting, austerities. And the priest goes on telling you how you can get rid of it. You are in the grip of the priest because he has made sex a sin.

 

But this is not true religion. In the VEDAS the seers were all married people; they were not celibate. The Rishis, the poetry of the VEDAS is written not be celibate people. It is written by people who were married, they had children, they lived a normal life. The UPANISHADS were written by married people, not by celibates.

 

Up to the time of Buddha and Mahavira, there was a very life affirmative religion in this country. There was no denial of any life energy. There was total acceptance, and how to transform it. It was those days when Vatsyayana wrote his KAMASUTRAS; and have you forgotten that we have called Vatsyayana one of the greatest rishis of this country? A man who writes a book on sex, the first book in the whole history of man, has been called by us one of our greatest seers.

 

Now those were the days of life affirmation. With Buddha and Mahavira, things changed. They were both from the warrior race. And their rebellion was against the brahmins. So whatever brahmins have been doing up to that time, they reversed the whole thing; because brahmins were allowing marriage, sex, children, even to the seers, Jainas and Buddhists denied it to their monks. It is a very strange thing that because Jainas denied sex to their monks, people started feeling that Jaina and Buddhist monks are higher, more spiritual, than Hindu seers. Shankaracharya had to follow Buddha and Mahavir, and made celibacy the central point of all people who renounce life, who want to grow spiritually.

 

I am simply trying to bring you the original religion back. I want you to understand that the true religion cannot be against life, it can be only against death. The true religion is for more life, for eternal life; it is an alchemical process — how to transcend death. And that’s what I have written in that book.

 

But just the title has attracted people. And you will be surprised, the people who have been reading it are the monks, and the nuns; it has gone into many editions in almost all the languages of the world. You will find it in every monastery. Strange! Three hundred and ninety nine books, nobody bothers, which are purely spiritual. This book attracts them because of their own repression. It shows something about them. It is not a healthy thing. It is very sick.

 

– Osho, “The Last Testament, Vol 5, #23″