Question 1
Osho,
Are you a Messiah?
No, Absolutely no. The whole idea is fundamentally wrong. It is not only that I am not a messiah, there has never been anyone who was and there will never be anybody who will be. You will have to go deep into the concept of it. The idea of a messiah is a secondary idea. First you have to believe in God as a person, then only can you start thinking of God sending special messengers, messiahs.
To me there is no personal God at all who can send a messiah. [....]
These people are megalomaniacs. It is a certain mind disease. You want to be superior, higher than everybody else. You would like to be a president of a country, a prime minister of a country, a king, a queen, but it is difficult -- there is so much competition. And only one man can become a president in the whole country and the whole country is burning, deep down, everybody desiring to be higher, above everybody else's head, to be somebody special, unique. Now, these kinds of people can find very easy ways. Now, to declare oneself a messiah... there is no election for it, you don't need anybody's sanction for it. You can write a book in which you can declare that you are the messiah. This is a circular argument. The book is true because it is written by a messiah, and you are the messiah because it is written in a true book.
What other evidence has Jesus for being a messiah, except his own statements? What do Christians have to prove that Jesus is a messiah? -- because it is written in the New Testament, and the New Testament is nothing but this man's statements. Do you see the circular argument? They are true because they are from the messiah, and he is a messiah because it is written in the true book.
Jesus was not such a bad man that he should be crucified -- his only crime was that he declared himself a messiah. That too is nothing to be bothered about. If somebody thinks he is a messiah, he's doing no harm to anybody; let him enjoy. But the Jews could not tolerate it. So I will have to go deep into the whole concept and its history.
Moses is responsible for Jesus' crucifixion. Nobody has said it before because the distance between Moses and Jesus is three thousand years. But I say to you, Moses is responsible for Jesus' crucifixion -- for two reasons. First, he declares that a messiah is going to come and he will solve all your problems, all your difficulties. This was pure politics. [....]
I am not a messiah. I don't give you any hope.
And I would like emphatically for you to remember that nobody else can redeem you -- the whole idea is wrong. You have created your bondage, how can I make you free?
You throw your bondage and be free.
You love your chains and you want me to redeem you. You are asking an absurdity. You are the cause of your miseries, sufferings, and you want me to redeem you from your sufferings and miseries. And you will go on sowing the same seeds, continuing, being the same old person, watering the same causes. Who can redeem you? And why should anybody redeem you? It is not my responsibility to redeem you. I have not made you what you are; you have made yourself what you are.
My function here is not that of a messiah who simply says, "Believe in me and you are redeemed"... a very simple strategy: "You have nothing to do with your personality change, transformation; you have nothing to do at all, you just believe in me. Don't let any doubt arise." Now, this is the whole strategy of belief.
You cannot avoid doubt; wherever belief exists, doubt is simply suppressed. If there is no doubt you don't need any belief. It is because of the doubt that you need belief, to suppress it, to cover it. And the condition is that there should be no doubt; you should believe in me without any doubt and I will redeem you. Neither can you fulfill the condition, nor can you ask me, "Why am I not redeemed?" The condition is such that it cannot be fulfilled. And I am free to say that you have not fulfilled the basic condition; the contract has not been fulfilled from your side, what can I do? You agreed to believe in me indubitably, which is absolutely impossible. Nobody can do it, it is not in the nature of things.
Belief always exists hand in hand with doubt. It exists for doubt.
I have no belief at all in anything because I don't have any doubt at all about anything. If there is no doubt, there is no need for belief. The disease is not there; medicine is not required.
You go on pouring belief, more belief; but you are simply suppressing doubt deeper and deeper into your unconscious. And the deeper it goes, the more dangerous it is because you will become unaware of it. One day you will think that you believe, that you are a believer, that you have attained to faith -- because your doubt has gone so deep in your dark unconscious that you cannot see it anymore. I would like you to see your doubt clearly. Rather than repressing it by any belief system, bring it out into the conscious mind, face it. And just by facing your doubt, it dissolves. No belief is needed, it simply evaporates.
Doubt is not to be substituted with a belief. If you substitute it with a belief, then you are in a very strange dilemma: just scratch your belief a little bit -- and there is doubt flowing, fully alive. The belief is skin deep and underneath your blood is flowing.
So basically my standpoint is: you are responsible for whatsoever you are. If you are miserable, you are responsible. Don't throw the responsibility on anybody else; otherwise you will never be free of it... because how can you be free if I am responsible for your misery? Then, unless I free you, you cannot be free; it is in my hands. And if it is in my hands, it can be in somebody else' hands.
Those who are with me have to understand, howsoever hard and painful it is, that you and you alone are responsible for everything that is happening to you, has happened to you, will happen to you. Once you accept all your responsibility in its totality, you become mature. You stop throwing tantrums, and you stop seeking for messiahs. Then there is no need for any Jesus to save you. Nor can any Jesus save you -- he was exploiting your situation.
Jews did not allow him to disturb their hope, their dream, their future. Jews have suffered the most in the world, hence they need hope more than anybody else. And they have been clinging to the idea: "The messiah will come, and these are only a few days of suffering, and nothing to be compared with when the messiah comes and redeems you. And you will be the chosen few of God and all others, who are enjoying now, and are not suffering now, will be thrown into hell." A good consolation! Jesus was disturbing their consolation, their hope; naturally they became angry. Otherwise he was not a dangerous man at all. But he certainly has the mind of a megalomaniac.
I am just an ordinary man.
In the same reference I would like to tell you a few things which are related and have been asked of me again and again. Hindus have asked me, "Are you an avatara of God, an incarnation of God?" Just as Jews believe in the messiah, Hindus believe that their sufferings will end -- their poverty, their misery -- when God descends in the form of an avatara, as Krishna, as Rama.
They have been asking me, and I have been telling them, "No, not at all. Because you are so idiotic... Rama has been here, your sufferings have not changed; Krishna has been here, your sufferings have not changed. Are you still asking? -- and I tell you neither was Krishna an avatara, nor was Rama an avatara. It is their megalomania and your hope mixed together that creates the whole thing." [....]
I am not to be included in any ego game -- messiah, avatara, paigambara, tirthankara; I have nothing to do with these people. I am just an ordinary man, just like everybody else. If there is any difference, it is not of quality; it is only of knowing. I know myself; you don't know.
As far as our beings are concerned, I belong to the same existence, I breathe the same air. You belong to the same existence, you breathe the same air. You just have not tried to know yourself The moment you know yourself, there is no difference at all.
It is just like I am standing and looking at the sunrise and you are standing by my side with closed eyes. The sun is rising for you too, just as it is rising for me. It is so beautiful and so colorful -- not only for me, for you too. But what can the sun do? You are standing with closed eyes. That is the only difference. Is it much of a difference?
You just have to be shaken and told, "Just open your eyes. It is morning, the night is over."
-Osho, "From Unconciousness to Consciousness, #4"