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The Rebellious Spirit
“To be a rebel, to me, is the only way to be religious.” -Osho, "The Rebellious Spirit, #11, Q 1"
“I teach you rebellion! Come out of the masses. Stand alone like a lion and Live your life according to your own light.” -Osho, "Yakusan -Straight to the Point of Enlightenment, #4"
There is still hope for humanity
"I am not a man of etiquette, I don’t know manners. I simply call a spade a fucking spade, because that’s what it is. I have made the spade actually what it is. The old proverb is, a spade is a spade. That doesn’t sound of any import. Of course a spade is a spade – so what! It does not say anything about the spade. So I simply say that these are all idiots.
But there is still hope for humanity. The hope is not that religious people will become politicians, or that religious people will start taking an interest in politics, no. But religious people can become, should become, rebellious against all political stupidity. There is the hope. The religious person should not remain just contented with his blissfulness and allow all these idiots to go on doing harm to innocent humanity.
To me this is the only compassion: To rebel against the whole history of humanity."
- Osho, "From Darkness to Light, #21"
"Revolution is concerned with outer things: the economic structure of the society, the political structure, the state. Rebellion is inner: it is concerned with the state of consciousness. Revolution is political, rebellion is spiritual. And a true rebellion transforms you into divinity; it reveals your godhood to you. It makes you aware that you are not the body, nor the mind; that you are nothing but pure consciousness, that you are only a witness. Once this is experienced, realized, life becomes a play."
-Osho, “Even Bein’ Gawd Ain’t A Bed of Roses”
"To be a buddha is your destiny. There is no other blessing that goes higher. There is no other ecstasy that goes wider. There is no other blissfulness that goes deeper. Meditation is the only revolution in the world. All other revolutions are fake."
-Osho, "Isan – No Footprints in the Blue Sky, #7"
I am not your shepherd, you are not my sheep.
Question 2: Osho, Can a true rebel be a disciple of a master, or must he be simply a friend of the master?
A rebel needs no master. If he needs a master, he is not a rebel. A rebel is a master unto himself. Rebellion is his religion, and there is no other religion for him. To follow a master, and at the same to think yourself a rebel, is a contradiction in terms.
A rebel can only be a friend. A rebel can learn from all the sources available, but a rebel cannot be a follower. He cannot be a believer. A rebel cannot afford a master. He has chosen his individuality, his freedom, and he is not going to be enslaved by any master. That's why I go on insisting to you that I am not your master, because I don't want anybody to be enslaved. It is a psychological slavery: whatever I say you believe, whatever I do you believe - and still you think you are a rebel? To be a rebel needs guts. Yes, you can be my friends - and I am available to you: whatever I know, whatever I have experienced, is always available to you. And I don't ask anything for it - your trust, your surrender, your faith, no! I cannot be inhuman to any human being.
In the past, your so-called masters have all been inhuman to you. What does it mean when Jesus says, "I am the savior"? What does it mean when he says, "I am the shepherd and you are the sheep"? What more humiliation do you want? And still there are millions of Christians who think that they are sheep, and their shepherd is hanging on the cross.
I am not your shepherd, you are not my sheep.
A rebel is a beautiful human being. A sheep? - you have fallen far below being human. Have you seen sheep? They always move in a crowd - so close to each other, rubbing their bodies against each other. They cannot move alone. No sheep is a rebel - they feel comfortable and cozy only in a mob. Only lions move alone. Lions don't move in a crowd - they are rebels. I would like you to be lions, not sheep.
I am not your master, you are not my disciples. You love me - that's enough. I love you and respect you, and respect your freedom. In this freedom and love, if something can transpire and transform you, that will be beautiful. But nobody was the master and nobody was the slave. This is not a religion, this is a love affair; and in love, nobody is a master. This is the highest that can be possible. And I would like you to live at the highest peak of human growth. [....]
Remember one thing: if there is a God, then you are all slaves, and freedom is impossible. The first principle of rebellion is that there is no God, no savior, no prophet, no messenger; you are alone, and you have to learn to depend only on yourself. That brings independence. And independence is such a joy, is such a beauty, is such a maturity, is such a flowering, that nothing more is needed. [....]
For the awakened one, this existence is paradise. Every moment it is paradise. And when I say this, I am not saying it according to any holy scripture. There are no holy scriptures, there are only books. I am saying it out of my own experience, out of my own authority. I am ready to share with you. And it is not something that can be sold or purchased. Only in deep friendship, in love, does the transfer, the transformation happen.
You are all rebels. Only rebels can have a contact with me. And I would like you to be a rebel always. I respect your rebellion. It would be so ugly for me to have five thousand sheep around me. Even if I become the shepherd, what would be the joy from it? I want five thousand rebellious spirits, five thousand burning torches, lights unto themselves - and then to be amongst you is a joy.
- Osho, “From Bondage to Freedom, Discourse #16, Q2”
I want you not to be sheep, but lions.
"The whole effort of a Jesus or a Buddha or a Bodhidharma is nothing but how to undo that which society has done to you. These are the most antisocial people in the world. They destroy whatsoever the society has created around you, all the fences around you, all the defenses around you, all the walls around you -- they destroy, they go on destroying. They are great nihilists. They simply destroy -- because that which is, need not be created. It is already there. It has not to be invented, it has only to be discovered."
- Osho, "Zen - The Path of Paradox, Vol 1, #3"
“I teach you rebellion! Come out of the masses. Stand alone like a lion and live your life according to your own light.”
- Osho, "Yakusan -Straight to the Point of Enlightenment, #4"
“The Greatest Fear in the World is of the opinions of others. and The moment you are unafraid of the crowd you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom.”
- Osho, "I Am Not As Thunk As You Drink I Am, #20"
“A really rebellious person is one who is neither for society nor against society, who simply lives his life according to his own understanding.”
- Osho, "The Art of Dying, #1"
“Spirituality is rebellion; religiousness is orthodoxy. Spirituality is individuality; religiousness is just remaining part of the crowd psychology. Religiousness keeps you a sheep, and spirituality is a lion’s roar.”
- Osho, "Come, Come, Yet Again Come, #2"
"To be my sannyasin means to be a rebel. I am not saying to hurt the feelings of your parents, I am saying to be yourself. Be lovingly yourself, be respectfully yourself. There is no need to go out of your way to hurt your parents, but if they don't allow you to be yourself then it is their responsibility. If they feel hurt, that is their responsibility, not yours. Don't harm them, but don't harm yourself either, because your first responsibility is towards your own self; everything else is secondary."
- Osho, "Come, Come, Yet Again Come, #2"
"One thing finally to be remembered; the days of revolution are past. We have tried them enough, many times - and every time the same story is repeated. Now something new is urgently needed. And except this idea that I am giving to you of an individual rebellion based on meditativeness, there is no other alternative proposed anywhere in the world"
- Osho, "Satyam Shivam Sundram, #26"
“But always remember: whenever you can find any book, any poetry of a man who was condemned by his contemporaries, look into the poetry, into the book, into the statement; because that statement must be carrying something of tremendous value which the contemporaries could not understand. The great man has to wait centuries to be understood. The people who can understand them come when they are long dead. They live a life disrespected, dishonored in their own lands by their own people. And they give tremendous treasures, but there is no appreciation in their contemporaries. These rebels are the very salt of the earth. It is because of these rebels that humanity has a little hope, that consciousness has grown a little bit higher.
Just take away these few rebels from the history of man, and mankind disappears and there are only barbarous, inhuman, ugly creatures left behind. But the people who have given you all the wisdom that you have, all the consciousness that you have, all the sensibility that you have… you have paid them with crucifixions.“
- Osho, "The Rebel, #26"
“Rebellion is individual action; it has nothing to do with the crowd. Rebellion has nothing to do with politics, power, violence. Rebellion has something to do with changing your consciousness, your silence, your being. It is a spiritual metamorphosis”
- Osho, "Satyam Shivam Sundram, #26"
“Up to now people have always been talking about the golden past. My people have to learn the language of the golden future. There is no need for you to change the whole world; just change yourself and you have started changing the whole world, because you are part of the world. If even a single human being changes, his change will radiate to thousands and thousands of others. He will become a triggering point for a revolution which can give birth to the superman.”
- Osho, "The Golden Future, #1"
“Who is a rebellious person? A rebellious person is one who has understood the whole nonsense of the society, and simply slips out of it. He does not fight with it; on the surface he even continues to pretend that he belongs with you. He is a clever person -- Gurdjieff used to call him "the sly person." He is clever enough -- he is neither orthodox nor revolutionary, he is just rebellious. But his rebellion is so intelligent that he knows there is no point -- if the society says "Walk on the left" he walks on the left, because there is no point in fighting in this -- it is meaningless.
On the surface he goes on following the society; deep down he has slipped out of it, deep down he starts living his own life. He does not go into the marketplace to exhibit, because if you exhibit your happiness in the marketplace they are going to kill you; they will crucify you. They did the same to Jesus, they did the same to Socrates, to Mansoor -- they are not going to leave you alone.
There is no need. When you are sitting with miserable people, keep a miserable face -- even more miserable than they have -- because it is just a game you are playing: you are not miserable, you can act it better then them -- they are REALLY miserable. Keep a longer face than them. When alone, have a good laugh. Don't start fighting with the society otherwise you will be in trouble, and happiness will again be far away -- as far away as before. First you were following the society and could not be happy. Now you fight the society, so the society throws you in a jail or in chains, or the society tries to crush you -- and again you are unhappy.
A rebellious person is a very very clever person. He slips out in such silent ways that he does not create any ripple on the surface... and he starts living his private life in his own way. That's what I teach you: I don't teach you to be revolutionaries, I teach you to be rebellious. A religious person is a rebellious person.
- Osho, "The Divine Melody, #10"
“A rebel is one who lives totally according to his own light, and risks everything else for his ultimate value of freedom.”
- Osho, "The Rebellious Spirit, #11"
"Real spirituality is going through fire. Real spirituality is rebellion against all that is rotten, against all that is past, against all that is being forced on you by others, against all conditionings. Real Spirituality is the greatest rebellion there is. It is risky, It is adventurous, It is dangerous.“
- Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 11, #3"
"Rebellion is certainly a necessary part. It cuts you from the ordinary social world and makes you an individual. Rebellion is the fire, passing through which one gains freedom, individuality, integrity and only after that can one relax and be oneself, be simple, be innocent. It is a new birth. And then enlightenment is not far away. Hindrances removed, enlightenment is always there. It is your birthright.“
- Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 3, #16"
“I don't teach revolution, I teach rebellion, and the difference is great. Revolution is political, rebellion is religious. Revolution needs you to organize yourself as a party, as an army, and fight against the enemies. Rebellion means you rebel as an individual; you simply get out of this whole rut. At least you should not destroy nature.”
- Osho, "The Guest, #12"
“The more strict a society, the more possibility of rebels. The more free a society, the less possibility for rebels. I will call a society revolutionary where rebels disappear because they are no longer needed. I will call a society free when nothing is rejected, so there is no morbid attraction in it. If the society is against the drugs, drugs will attract you, because they give you an opportunity to put the mind aside. You are burdened with it too much.”
- Osho, "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 8, #8"
“Intelligence is dangerous. intelligence means you will start thinking on your own; you will start looking around on your own. You will not believe in the scriptures; you will believe only in your own experience.”
- Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1, #6"
“Intelligence means the capability to respond to new situations. It comes from your being -- mind is only a vehicle -- a kind of awareness of what the mind is, without belonging to it.“
- Osho, "The Hidden Splendor, #26"
“Intelligence is a totally different phenomenon. Intelligence arises out of meditation, intelligence arises out of rebellion intelligence arises not out of memory. But your examinations only take care about your memory. Whosoever has better memory is thought to be more intelligent. But it happens many times that stupid people have beautiful memories, and intelligent people are not so good as far as memory is concerned.”
- Osho, "Tao - The Golden Gate, Vol 2, #1"
“Intelligence is your born quality. It cannot be learned, it cannot be nurtured. Everybody is born with intelligence, but the society is in favor of intellect, because the intellectual person is not a real individual, he is phony. He has nothing of his own; he is a beggar, and beggars are not supposed to be emperors, are not supposed to be masters. They are destined to remain slaves.”
- Osho, "From Darkness to Light, #5"
“Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence. If you want to create you have to get rid of all conditionings, otherwise your creativity will be nothing but copying, it will be just a carbon copy. You can be creative only if you are an individual, you cannot create as a part of the mob psychology. The mob psychology is uncreative; it lives a life of drag, it knows no dance, no song, no joy; it is mechanical.”
- Osho, "The Goose is Out, #9"
"Love is the greatest rebellion because it is rebellion against the head, rebellion against logic, rebellion against all that is mundane. Love means entering into the temple of the heart. One has to renounce the head. Love means entering into the world of paradox. One has to drop the whole logical structure of the mind. It is not a political rebellion, it is a spiritual rebellion. You are not fighting against somebody outside you, you are fighting with something inside you, something that has been implanted by the society. It comes from the outside but now it is no more outside, it is inside you. It has become your head, your mind, your ego. Rebel against all that has come from the outside."
- Osho, "Don't Let Yourself Be Upset by the Sutra, rather Upset the Sutra Yourself, #25"
"Freedom is simply an opportunity to find a definition for yourself, a true, authentic individuality, and a joy in making the world around you a little better, a little more beautiful -- a few more roses, a little more greenery, a few more oases.“
- Osho, "Sat Chit Anand, #14"
Rebellion in the Age of Rage
How did the revolutionaries fail?
“The revolutionary tries to change the old; the rebel simply comes out of the old, just as the snake slips out of the old skin and never looks back. Unless we create such rebellious people around the earth, man has no future. The old man has brought man to his ultimate death. It is the old mind, the old ideologies, the old religions – they have all combined to bring about this situation of global suicide. Only a new man can save humanity and this planet, and the beautiful life of this planet.
“I teach rebellion, not revolution. To me, rebelliousness is the essential quality of a religious man. It is spirituality in its absolute purity.”
- Osho, "The Rebel, Talk #1"
So are you against revolution?
“I don’t preach revolution. I am utterly against revolution. I say unto you that my word for the future, and for those who are intelligent enough in the present, is rebellion. What is the difference?
“Rebellion is individual action; it has nothing to do with the crowd. Rebellion has nothing to do with politics, power, violence. Rebellion has something to do with changing your consciousness, your silence, your being. It is a spiritual metamorphosis.
“And each individual passing through a rebellion is not fighting with anybody else, but is only fighting with his own darkness. Swords are not needed, bombs are not needed. What is needed is more alertness, more meditativeness, more love, more prayerfulness, more gratitude.”
- Osho, "Satyam Shivam Sundaram – Truth Godliness Beauty, Talk #26"
What is the difference between the rebel you talk about and traditional revolutionaries?
“There is not only a quantitative difference between a rebel and a revolutionary, there is also a qualitative difference. The revolutionary is part of the political world. His approach is through politics. His understanding is that to change the social structure is enough to change the man.
“The rebel is a spiritual phenomenon. His approach is absolutely individual. His vision is that if we want to change the society, we have to change the individual. Society in itself does not exist, it is only a word like crowd; if you go to find it, you will not find it anywhere. Whenever you encounter someone, you encounter the individual. Society is only a collective name, just a name, not a reality – with no substance. The individual has a soul, and a possibility of evolution, of change, of transformation. Hence, the difference is tremendous.
“The rebel is the very essence of religion. He brings into the world a change of consciousness, and if the consciousness changes, then the structure of the society is bound to follow it. But vice versa is not right – and it has been proved by all the revolutions because they have all failed.
“No revolution has yet succeeded in changing man; yet it seems man is not aware of the fact and he still goes on thinking in terms of revolution, of changing the society, of changing the government, of changing the bureaucracy, of changing laws, political systems. Feudalism, capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism – they are all in their own way revolutionary. They all have failed, and failed utterly because man has remained the same.”
- Osho, "The Rebel, Talk #1"
How does this rebel contribute to the changes that are needed to save this planet?
“The world has known only very few rebels, but now is the time. If humanity proves incapable of producing a large number of rebels – a rebellious spirit – then our days on the earth are numbered. Then this century may become our graveyard. We are coming very close to that point.
“We have to change our consciousness, create more meditative energy in the world, create more lovingness. We have to destroy the old man and his ugliness, his rotten ideologies, his stupid discriminations, idiotic superstitions – and create a new man, with fresh eyes, with new values. A discontinuity with the past: that’s the meaning of rebelliousness.”
- Osho, "The Rebel, Talk #1 "
“My notion about the rebel and rebellion is very simple: a man who does not live like a robot conditioned by the past. Religion, society, culture – anything that is of yesterday does not in any way interfere in his way of life, in his style of life.
“He lives individually, not as a cog in the wheel, but as an organic unity. His life is not decided by anybody else, but by his own intelligence. The very fragrance of his life is that of freedom, not only that he lives in freedom, he allows everybody else also to live in freedom. He does not allow anybody to interfere in his life, neither does he interfere in anybody else’s life. To him life is so sacred, and freedom is the ultimate value, that he can sacrifice everything for it: respectability, status, even life itself….
“A rebel is one who throws away the whole past because he wants to live his own life according to his own longings, according to his own nature, not according to some Gautam Buddha, or according to some Jesus Christ, or Moses. The rebel is the only hope for the future of humanity. The rebel will destroy all religions, all nations, all races because they are all rotten, past, hindering the progress of human evolution.”
- Osho, "The Rebellious Spirit, Talk #11"
What is the solution to the current crisis of humanity?
“The world needs only one thing – not great scriptures, just a simple method of becoming silent, of becoming yourself, of coming to your innermost center. That center is the temple, the synagogue, the church. There is no other church, no other synagogue.
“Don't go anywhere. Go inside, inward. And there is your paradise, your wisdom, your eternal life.
“A man who knows his wisdom and his eternal life cannot behave the way people are behaving all around the world.
“Every politician should be forced to participate in some school of meditation, and unless he graduates from there he cannot stand for any political post. All politicians, unless they are meditative, are disqualified. If they have any sense of dignity they should renounce, they should immediately resign from their posts. They don't know themselves, what are they doing there? They don't know themselves and they are controlling millions of people and their lives.
“My religion consists only of one word: meditativeness. It has no prayer, because there is nobody to whom you can pray. You are here, a reality. Why not go in and find out from where your life comes, the source of your life? the source of your intelligence? the source of your love?
“Go deep inside, and you will be surprised that hate, anger, jealousy all exist only on the periphery. In the innermost center of your being there is only love and love and love. And it blossoms the moment you reach there, and spreads all over your periphery.
“And just as when you bring light in a dark room, darkness disappears, the moment you bring your silence, your peace, your love to your periphery, all the darkness that consisted of jealousy, violence, hatred, anger, competitiveness, disappears. You have not to do anything about it, you have not to control it: it is not there at all.
“You cannot control darkness. Either it is there, or you bring a candle in, or light a candle which is already there. And after the light you never ask, “What to do about the darkness now?” It simply is not found.
“Humanity has only one saving device available, and that is meditation. Everything else has failed: Give a try to meditation.”
- Osho, "From Death to Deathlessness, Talk #31"
Wherever we look people are angry. What is the root of this rage?
“Now people know that what has been told to them was not right – it was not according to nature, it was against nature. They are full of rage against the whole past….
“Secondly, man is tremendously frustrated because the leaders of mankind in the past have been giving him hope, hope of a paradise beyond death…. That creates a great hopelessness, frustration, meaninglessness….
“Now, because people become literate, educated, they can see the great deceit. They have been cheated, and a great anger is there. Not only their life but millions of lives for centuries have been exploited by these cheaters….
“All the vested interests were together: the politician, the priest, the pedagogue, all were together, because if man becomes awake then there is no need for politicians; he will see them as criminals. There is no need for priests; he will see them as the greatest cheats that have existed ever….
“There is a limit to everything. Now they are burning. They know they have been cheated, badly cheated. So there are going to be riots, there are going to be killings. And the responsibility goes to your prophets, your messiahs, your messengers of God – and finally, to God. If God exists anywhere, he is the greatest criminal. To create a world with so much hatred, anger, rage, violence….
“Man can see how he has been deceived, and he has to destroy everything that has deceived him….
“You are so full of rage that you have lost all reason, you simply want to destroy. And the priests are using this situation. If they don’t use it, you will destroy them!”
- Osho, "From Death to Deathlessness, Talk #31"
The Continuous Rebellion
Question 1: Osho, What is your notion of rebellion and of a rebel?
My notion about the rebel and rebellion is very simple: a man who does not live like a robot conditioned by the past.
Religion, society, culture... anything that is of yesterday does not in any way interfere in his way of life, in his style of life.
He lives individually – not as a cog in the wheel, but as an organic unity. His life is not decided by anybody else, but by his own intelligence. The very fragrance of his life is that of freedom – not only that he lives in freedom, he allows everybody else also to live in freedom. He does not allow anybody to interfere in his life; neither does he interfere in anybody else's life. To him, life is so sacred – and freedom is the ultimate value – that he can sacrifice everything for it: respectability, status, even life itself.
Freedom, to him, is what God used to be to the so-called religious people in the past.
Freedom is his God.
Men have lived down the ages like sheep, as part of a crowd, following its traditions, conventions – following the old scriptures and old disciplines. But that way of life was anti-individual; if you are a Christian you cannot be an individual; if you are a Hindu you cannot be an individual.
A rebel is one who lives totally according to his own light, and risks everything else for his ultimate value of freedom.
The rebel is the contemporary person. The mobs are not contemporary.
Hindus believe in scriptures which are five or ten thousand years old. Such is also the case with other religions too the dead are dominating the living.
The rebel rebels against the dead, takes his life in his own hands. He is not afraid of being alone; on the contrary, he enjoys his aloneness as one of the most precious treasures. The crowd gives you security, safety – at the cost of your soul. It enslaves you. It gives you guidelines on how to live: what to do, what not to do.
All over the world, every religion has given something like the ten commandments – and these were given by people who had no idea how the future is going to be, how man's consciousness in the future is going to be. It is as if a small child were to write your whole life's story, not knowing at all what youth means, not knowing at all what old age means, not knowing at all what death is.
All the religions are primitive, crude – and they have been shaping your life. Naturally the whole world is full of misery: you are not allowed to be yourself.
Every culture wants you to be just a carbon copy, never your original face.
The rebel is one who lives according to his own light, moves according to his own intelligence. He creates his path by walking on it, he does not follow the crowd on the superhighway.
His life is dangerous – but a life that is not dangerous is not life at all. He accepts the challenge of the unknown. He does not meet the unknown that is coming in the future, prepared by the past. That creates the whole anguish of humanity; the past prepares you, and the future is never going to be the past. Your yesterday is never going to be your tomorrow.
But up to now this is how man has lived: your yesterdays prepare you for your tomorrows. The very preparation becomes a hindrance. You cannot breathe freely, you cannot love freely, you cannot dance freely – the past has crippled you in every possible way.
The burden of the past is so heavy that everybody is crushed under it.
The rebel simply says good-bye to the past.
It is a constant process; hence, to be a rebel means to be continuously in rebellion – because each moment is going to become past; every day is going to become past. It is not that the past is already in the graveyard – you are moving through it every moment. Hence, the rebel has to learn a new art: the art of dying to each moment that has passed, so that he can live freely in the new moment that has come.
A rebel is a continuous process of rebellion; he is not static. And that is where I make a distinction between the revolutionary and the rebel.
The revolutionary is also conditioned by the past. He may not be conditioned by Jesus Christ or Gautam Buddha, but he is conditioned by Karl Marx or Mao Zedong or Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini... it does not matter who conditions him. The revolutionary has his own holy bible – Das Kapital; his holy land – the Soviet Union; his own mecca – in the Kremlin... and just like any other religious person, he is not living according to his own consciousness. He is living according to a conscience created by others.
Hence, the revolutionary is nothing but a reactionary. He may be against a certain society, but he is always for another society. He may be against one culture, but he is immediately ready for another culture. He only goes on moving from one prison into another prison – from Christianity to communism; from one religion to another religion – from Hinduism to Christianity. He changes his prisons.
The rebel simply moves out of the past and never allows the past to dominate him. It is a constant, continuous process. The whole life of the rebel is a fire that burns. To the very last breath he is fresh, he is young. He will not respond to any situation according to his past experience; he will respond to every situation according to his present consciousness.
To be a rebel, to me, is the only way to be religious, and the so-called religions are not religions at all.
They have destroyed humanity completely, enslaved human beings, chained their souls; so on the surface it seems that you are free, but deep inside you, religions have created a certain conscience which goes on dominating you.
It is almost like one great scientist, Delgado.... He has found that in the human brain there are seven hundred centers. Those centers are connected with your whole body, the whole system. There is a center for your sex, there is a center for your intelligence, and for everything in your life. If at a particular center an electrode is implanted in the brain, a very strange phenomenon happens. He displayed it for the first time in Spain.
He put an electrode in the brain of the strongest bull – a remote control was in his pocket – and he stood in a field, waved a red flag, and the bull rushed madly towards him.
That was the most dangerous bull in the whole of Spain, and thousands of people had gathered to see. They were looking at the phenomenon... their breathing stopped – their eyes were not blinking.... The bull was approaching closer and closer, and they were afraid that Delgado was going to be dead within a second. But he had in his pocket this small remote controller.... Just when the bull was one foot away, he pushed a button in his pocket – nobody saw it – and the bull stopped as if suddenly frozen, like a statue.
Since then, Delgado has experimented on many animals, and on man too; and his conclusion is that what he is doing with electrodes, religions have been doing by conditioning. From its very childhood you condition a child; you go on repeating, repeating a certain idea which becomes settled near his center of intelligence, and it goes on goading the center to do something or not to do something.
Delgado's experiment can prove dangerous to humanity. It can be used by the politicians. Just when the child is born, in the hospitals, a small electrode needs to be pushed into his skull near the intelligence center, and a central controlling system will take care that nobody becomes a revolutionary, nobody becomes a rebel.
You will be surprised to know that inside your skull there is no sensitivity, so you will never be aware whether you have something implanted in your head or not. And a remote controller can manage... from Moscow even the whole Soviet Union can be managed. Religions have been doing the same in a crude manner.
A rebel is one who throws away the whole past because he wants to live his own life according to his own longings, according to his own nature – not according to some Gautam Buddha, or according to some Jesus Christ, or Moses.
The rebel is the only hope for the future of humanity.
The rebel will destroy all religions, all nations, all races – because they are all rotten, past, hindering the progress of human evolution. They are not allowing anybody to come to his full flowering: they don't want human beings on the earth – they want sheep.
Jesus continuously says, "I am your shepherd, and you are my sheep...." And I have always wondered that not even a single man stood up and said, "What kind of nonsense are you talking? If we are sheep, then you are also a sheep; and if you are a shepherd, then we are also shepherds."
Not only his contemporaries... but for two thousand years NO Christian has raised the question that it is such an insult to humanity, such a great humiliation to call human beings sheep and to call himself the shepherd, the savior.
"I have come to save you"... and he could not save himself. And still almost half of humanity is hoping that he will be coming back to save them. You cannot save yourself; the only begotten son of God, Jesus Christ, is needed. And he had promised to his people, "I will be coming soon, in your own lifetime"... and two thousand years have passed – many lifetimes have passed – and there seems to be no sign, no indication....
But all the religions have done the same in different ways. Krishna says in the Gita that whenever there will be misery, whenever there will be anguish, whenever there will be need, "I will be coming again and again." Five thousand years have passed, and he has not been seen even once – never mind "again and again."
These people, howsoever beautiful their statements may be, were not respectful to humanity. A rebel respects you, respects life, has a deep reverence for everything that grows, thrives, breathes. He does not put himself above you, holier than you, higher than you; he is just one amongst you. Only one thing he can claim: that he is more courageous than you are. He cannot save you – only your courage can save you. He cannot lead you – only your own guts can lead you to the fulfillment of your life.
Rebellion is a style of life. To me, it is the only religion which is authentic. Because if you live according to your own light you may go astray many times, and you may fall many times; but each fall, each going astray will make you wiser, more intelligent, more understanding, more human. There is no other way of learning than by making mistakes. Just don't make the same mistake again.
There is no God, except your own consciousness.
There is no need for any pope, or for Ayatollah Khomeini, or for any shankaracharya, to be mediators between you and God. These are the greatest criminals in the world, because they are exploiting your helplessness.
Just a few days ago, the pope declared a new sin: that one should not confess directly to God; you have to confess through the priest. Confessing directly to God, communicating directly with God, is a new sin. Strange... you can see clearly that this is not religion, this is business – because if people start confessing directly to God, then who is going to confess to the priest and pay the fine? The priest becomes useless, the pope becomes useless.
All the priests are pretending that they are mediators between you and the ultimate source of life. They know nothing of the ultimate source of life. Only you are capable of knowing your source of life. But your source of life is also the ultimate source of life – because we are not separate. No man is an island; we are a vast continent underneath. Perhaps on the surface you look like an island – and there are many islands – but deep down in the ocean, you meet. You are part of one earth, one continent. The same is true about consciousness.
But one has to be free from churches, from temples, from mosques, from synagogues. One has to be just oneself, and take the challenge of life wherever it leads. You are the only guide.
You are your own master.
- Osho, “The Rebellious Spirit, #11”
I don't believe that walking on water is a miracle
Question 2:
Osho, Do you think your teaching is a radical one?
Giulia, I do not have any teaching. My life is that of a rebel. I do not have a doctrine, a philosophy, a theology to teach you. I have only my own experience of rebellion to share, to infect you with rebelliousness. And when you are a rebel you will not be a copy of me; you will be an unique phenomenon in yourself.
All Buddhists are trying to be carbon copies of Gautam Buddha. He has a teaching: If you follow this certain discipline, you will become just like me. All Christians are carbon copies – the original is Jesus Christ.
I don't have any teaching, any doctrine, any discipline to give to you. My whole effort is to wake you up. It is not a teaching – it is just cold water thrown into your eyes. And when you wake up you will not find that you are like me – a carbon copy of me. You will be just yourself – neither Christian, nor Hindu, nor Mohammedan... an unique flower. There are not two persons alike – how can there be so many Christians? How can there be so many Buddhists? And the whole of history is a proof of what I am saying.
For twenty-five centuries, millions of people in the East have tried the discipline and the teaching of Gautam Buddha – but not a single one has been able to become a Gautam Buddha. Nature does not allow two persons to be the same. Nature is not an assembly line where cars are produced... so you can see hundreds and thousands of Fords coming off the assembly line – the same, exactly the same. Nature is very creative, very innovative. It always creates a new man. It has created millions and millions of people, but never two people the same. You cannot find even two leaves on a tree just exactly the same, or two pebbles on the seashore just exactly the same. Each has his own individuality.
I don't have a teaching.
But whatever I have experienced, it is a living phenomenon I share with you – not words, not theories, not hypotheses. I can give you as much closeness as you need; just as when you bring an unlit candle close to a candle which is burning there is a point where suddenly the fire jumps from the lit candle to the unlit candle. The lit candle loses nothing, and there has not been a transfer of any teaching, but a transfer of fire.
I would like to say that I don't have any teaching, but I have great fire in my heart, and whoever comes close to me becomes aflame.
These people here are not my followers. They are just friends who are sharing in an experience which can burn all that is false in them, and can purify that which is their essential individuality, their authentic potential. This is an alchemical school, a school of mystery. I am not a teacher; I don't have any ideas, concepts... but I have a life to share, I have a love to share, and to those who are ready, I am ready to give all that I have – and in no way will they be enslaved.
The closer they come to me, the more they understand me, the more they will be themselves: that is the miracle.
I don't believe that walking on water is a miracle – it is sheer stupidity. The real miracle is to wake you up, to bring the message of freedom to you – freedom from all fetters. And I do not replace your imprisonment with new fetters and new chains; I simply leave you in the open sky. I fly with you a little while so that you can gather courage: there is no need to be afraid – you also have wings, just like I have wings. You have not used them; you have never been told that you have wings.
So this is a place where I make every effort that you become aware of your wings, encourage you, push you into the infinite sky which belongs to you. This is a totally different place – it is not a church, it is not a temple, not a synagogue. I am not your savior, and I am not the messenger of any God. A messenger is just a postman and nothing else.
I don't have a message to give to you, but I have a fire to impart to you. And if this fire is not radical, then nothing else can be radical in the whole world.
- Osho, "The Rebellious Spirit, #11, Q1"
My rebellion is life-affirmative.
Certainly, my rebellion is based on "yes" -- yes to existence, yes to nature, yes to yourself. Whatever the religions may be saying and whatever the ancient traditions may be saying, they are all saying no to yourself, no to nature, no to existence; they are all life-negative.
My rebellion is life-affirmative. I want you to dance and sing and love and live as intensely as possible and as totally as possible. In this total affirmation of life, in this absolute yes to nature we can bring a totally new earth and a totally new humanity into being.
The past was "no." The future has to be "yes."
We have lived enough with the no, we have suffered enough and there has been nothing but misery. I want people to be as joyful as birds singing in the morning, as colorful as flowers, as free as the bird on the wing with no bondages, with no conditioning, with no past -- just an open future, an open sky and you can fly to the stars.
Because I am saying yes to life, all the no-sayers are against me, all over the world. My yes-saying goes against all the religions and against all the ideologies that have been forced upon man. My yes is my rebellion. The day you will be able also to say yes it will be your rebellion.
We can have rebellious people functioning together, but each will be an independent individual, not belonging to a political party or to a religious organization. Just out of freedom and out of love and out of the same beautiful yes we will meet. Our meeting will not be a contract, our meeting will not be in any way a surrender; our meeting will make every individual more individual. Supported by everybody else, our meeting will not take away freedom, will not enslave you; our meeting will give you more freedom, more support so that you can be stronger in your freedom. Long has been the slavery, and long has been our burden. We have become weak because of the thousands of years of darkness that have been poured on us.
The people who love to say yes, who understand the meaning of rebellion, will not be alone; they will be individuals. But the people who are on the same path, fellow-travelers, friends, will be supporting each other in their meditativeness, in their joy, in their dance, in their music. They will become a spiritual orchestra, where so many people are playing instruments but creating one music. So many people can be together and yet they may be creating the same consciousness, the same light, the same joy, the same fragrance.
It is a long way -- "no" seems to be a shortcut -- that's why it has not been tried up to now. Whenever I have discussed it with people, they said, "Perhaps you are right, but when will it be possible that the whole earth will say yes?"
I said, "Anyway we have been on this earth for millions of years and you have been saying no -- and what is your achievement? It is time. Give a chance to yes too."
My feeling is that no is a quality of death; yes is the very center of life. No had to fail because death cannot succeed, cannot be victorious over life. If we give a chance to yes based in rebelliousness it is bound to become a wildfire, because everybody deep down wants it to happen. I have not found a single person in my life who does not want to live a natural, relaxed, peaceful, silent life.
-Osho, “Satyam Shivam Sundram, #26, Q1“
I Teach you disobedience
We have not to leave any nook and corner of existence and of our being unknown, in darkness. We have to bring light everywhere. And unless that happens you will be in misery, you will be in anguish. Your beliefs are not going to help; your faith is not going to help. And that garden of Eden is just a fiction. It exists nowhere except in the neurotic minds, psychotic minds, where things like that exist. And this story is based on -- and only on -- a single point, and that is obedience or disobedience.
I teach you disobedience. Obedience needs nothing -- no intelligence, no guts. Obedience needs nothing. Disobedience needs everything, because you are going to be on your own. And unless you are on your own, you will never be able to know who you are.
-Osho, "From Unconciousness to Consciousness, #16"
Knowledge is not a sin. And to feel life and to live life in its totality, and to live it with such passion and intensity that each moment becomes a moment of eternity -- that should be the goal of a religion. And that is what I have been teaching to you: eat from the tree of knowledge. Become a knower. All ignorance and darkness should disappear from you. You should become more conscious, more knowing, more aware; that's what I have been teaching. And live life so passionately, so lovingly, so totally, that you can taste something of eternity in it. And whenever you live any moment, forgetting the past, forgetting the future, that moment gives you the taste of eternity.
Exactly what God has told to Adam and Eve, I am telling you just the opposite: those are the two trees you have to search for and eat their fruit.
If I have to write The Bible, then I cannot make God say, "Don't eat the fruit of knowledge, the fruit of life." Then what is left? Just to vegetate like animals? Then what is the difference between animals and man? But God was very angry. It says he drove out Adam and Eve. I don't know what model of car he was using -- must have been a Ford, Model T. He drove them out! What was their crime? Disobedience. But it was worth it.
I teach you that disobedience.
If Adam and Eve had not disobeyed, there would have been no humanity. You would have been still in the jungles, naked animals. You would not have been able to create the world that you have created.
Reverend Jim Jones is a Christian priest. He is against knowledge, he is against life -- as all Christians are, whether they know it or not. You can look at the whole tradition of the popes. They have been fighting, at each step, any progress of science. They have been trying to cripple science, to destroy science. This is the same story: the fruit of knowledge should not be eaten.
-Osho, "From Unconciousness to Consciousness, #7"
Obedience means, in other words, slavery. We are very clever to use good words for ugly realities. I do not teach you disobedience; this has to be understood clearly. Obedience is ugly, and the human mind moves like a pendulum of a clock -- it immediately goes to the opposite. Then it starts making disobedience the law of life.
Disobedience is only reaction. If there is no obedience imposed on you, disobedience will disappear automatically because there is nothing to disobey.
So I have to make it clear to you that I hate obedience, but in that obedience disobedience is included, because they are part of one reality.
I teach intelligence.
Obedience keeps you retarded. You have just to follow; you are not to doubt, you are not to question, you have just to be a robot. Naturally, sooner or later, particularly younger people start feeling that all this obedience is nothing but a strategy to impose slavery. They react, and move to the other extreme. Whatever is said, don't do it -- that becomes their religion. In both the ways they remain retarded.
My struggle is against the retardedness of human mind. I want you to be intelligent, to decide for yourself.
-Osho, "Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries, #12, Q1"
It is a very strange atmosphere, created by the whole world. It has a certain background behind it. It wanted to destroy the individual, take away his dignity. It wanted to destroy the joyfulness and give him misery, because only miserable people are controllable, only miserable people are able to be exploited. Miserable people are always ready to play into the hands of others, the vested interests.
The vested interests don't want individuals, because an individual, just by the very definition, is a rebel. He does not belong to any crowd, any religion, any nation, any race; he simply is himself. It is very difficult to exploit a world which consists of individuals. It is very difficult to create unnecessary wars, destruction, if the world consists of individuals. Because the world consists of miserable people, you can force them to do anything. They are always looking upwards, for somebody to order them.
In the army it comes to the extreme point. All the trainings in all the armies of the world are basically the same. The structure is how to destroy the individual, but in such a way that you will never think that it is destroying the individual. They call it discipline, they call it obedience, they call it courage. They call it many beautiful names. And what is the training? [....]
Once you become obedient and you start doing things as you are told, and you don't ask why, then when one day you are marching with guns, the moment you are ordered to shoot you don't think even for a moment, "Why?" That man is absolutely innocent. He has not done any wrong to you. He also has a wife, he also has children, he also has old parents waiting for him, just as your parents are waiting and praying that you will come back home soon. If the soldiers start thinking, both soldiers will throw away their guns and will hug each other and say, "It is time to go home. What is the point?" [....]
The man who dropped the bombs, atom bombs, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not think for a single moment about what he was doing. His mind was completely brainwashed, completely mechanical.
He had been ordered; he was obeying. Obedience is the greatest religion, not only in the army, but also in the church; not only in the politician's world, but also in the priest's conception of existence - obedience, just obey. And he obeyed.
A man of small intelligence and individuality would have thought at least twice, "What am I going to do? One hundred thousand people will be destroyed within three minutes." But he dropped atom bombs on two cities... two hundred thousand people. He came back to his camp, and in the morning when asked, "Did you have any rest?" he said, "Why not? I followed the order, I rested well. I am an obedient person."
Obedience is the greatest value in a world of slaves. And this is not only the case with the ordinary politician and the priest; it begins with your God himself. He was against Adam and Eve because they disobeyed. What kind of God have people been worshipping? And a God who prevents his own children from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge and the tree of eternal life does not seem to be a very loving father. He seems most dangerous, a despot. And that's what the devil managed to convince Eve of. And the devil was absolutely right.
You will be surprised to know, there are thousands of devil worshippers in the world. And I can see the point, why they worship the devil. He was the first revolutionary, and he suggested the right thing. He said "These are the two most important trees in the whole garden of Eden. If you know and if you experience eternal life, what else is needed? Wisdom is enlightenment and eternal life is deathlessness - you have attained everything. God has prohibited the two most important things in life. And the reason why he has prevented you is that he is afraid that if you eat these two fruits, you will also become like God. He is jealous! He is afraid that he will lose his power. Everybody will be as powerful as he is."
Now, this fascist has been worshipped as God, and the poor fellow, the devil, has been condemned, who has been the greatest benefactor of humanity. He has not harmed anybody, he has simply suggested that these are the two things worth achieving: the wisdom of the truth, and the life which knows no death. Then it takes a totally new aroma, a beauty and a blessing.
God has prevented you so that you can remain slaves, afraid of death, afraid of disease, and always a worshipper. He has destroyed your dignity by preventing you. I have always loved the fact... for some reason, which is lost far back in the historical records, the word 'devil' comes from the Sanskrit word 'divine'. It exactly means God. In its origin, God means nothing; in no language does it have any meaning. It is just Godot.
- Osho, Hari Om Tat Sat, #22
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