Osho Speaks!

ON HIS TEACHING

My effort here is to de-automatize you. I am doing something absolutely antisocial. The society makes you a machine and my effort is to undo it. I would like this fire to spread and reach to all the nooks and corners of the earth, to help as many people as possible to be conscious. If in a great quantity consciousness grows on the earth, there is a possibility, a hope, we can save humanity yet. All is not lost, but time is running short. Everything is being controlled by politicians and by computers, and both are dangerous. Politicians are mad. It is impossible to be a politician if you are not mad enough. You have to be absolutely insane, because only insane people are power-obsessed.

OSHO, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha

Here we are doing just a totally different thing. We are trying to undo what the society, the college, the university has done to you. They have made you obsessed with language and logic. Language certainly divides things; that's why truth cannot be said, it can only be showed. I am only indicating the way; I am not really leading you, I am just pointing the way.

Henry Miller has these beautiful lines: "The real leader has no need to lead -- he is content to point the way. Unless we become our own leaders, content to be what we are in the process of becoming, we shall always be servitors and idolaters." I am here just to point the way. Don't start clinging to my fingers, look at the moon the fingers are pointing at. The fingers are irrelevant!

OSHO, The Wild Geese and the Water

I'm here to help you to be yourself. When you become a disciple, when I initiate you, I am not initiating you to be imitators. I am just trying to help you to find your own being, your own authentic being -- because you are so confused, you have so many faces that you have forgotten which is the original one. You don't know what your real urge is. The society has confused you completely, misguided you. Now you are not certain of who you are. When I initiate you, the only thing that I want to do is to help you come to your own home. Once you are centered in your own being, my work is finished. Then you can start. In fact, a Master has to undo what the society has done. A Master has to undo what the culture has done. He has to make you a clean sheet again.

OSHO, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega

I teach you a new man, a new humanity, which will not think of the future and which will not live with shoulds and oughts, which will not deny any natural instinct, which will accept its body, which will accept all that is given by God with deep gratitude.

OSHO, The Book of Wisdom

I teach you fearlessness.
Live as totally and passionately as possible, because it is through intense living that you will find God. God is nothing but life lived at the optimum, with total abandon, a dance danced so totally that the dancer disappears; only the dance remains. Then you have found and you have come home.

OSHO, Come, Come, Yet Again Come

I teach you the way of fearlessness. It is simply fear and nothing else that is preventing you, although you will not feel very happy with my answer. You must have been expecting that I would say something very gratifying to your ego. Excuse me, I cannot speak any untruth. I can only speak the true, and if it hurts, it hurts. It is only through truth that light starts entering into your being. So if you feel wounded...because your name seems unfamiliar to me, you must be new. And with new people I am never so rude, but I see a possibility in you, hence I am so hard.

OSHO, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha

I don't teach any philosophy. I teach you existence, truth, beauty, and grandeur. It all happens at the third step without any effort -- the metamorphosis from a man into a new man.

OSHO, God is Dead, Now Zen is the Only Living Truth

I am for transformation, hence I teach my sannyasins to be creative. Create music, create poetry, create painting, create pottery, sculpture -- create something! Whatsoever you do, do it with great creativeness, bring something new into existence, and your sex will be fulfilled on a higher plane and there will be no repression. Let your sex become more and more love and less and less lust. And then finally let your love also become a little higher -- that is prayer. Lust is the lowest form of sex, love higher than sex, and prayer is the ultimate transformation.

OSHO, I Am That

I teach you freedom of your individuality. Destroy all kinds of prisons, destroy all kinds of lies -- and you can destroy them only by meditation. Rise beyond time and mind, and you will find not only that you are divine, but the whole existence is divine, life is divine. And you enter into a totally new dimension that has been completely blocked by scriptures, by priests, by God, by heaven and hell, by all kinds of fear, by all kinds of greed.

OSHO, I Celebrate Myself

Relationship and meditation: meditation and relationship. Let it be the music, the harmony between these two. This is what will make you a sage, a real sannyasin. The old sannyas was of renunciation; the new sannyas I teach you is of rejoicing Rejoice in love, rejoice in meditation! Rejoice in all kinds of things in life! God has given you a great opportunity -- don't miss it. Missing it will be the only sin.

OSHO, Philosophia Perennis

I am not going to teach you some new knowledge. I am going to teach you only a pure type of ignorance. When I say pure ignorance, I mean innocence. I mean a mind which is totally vacant, open. A mind that knows is never open: it is closed. The very feeling that "I know" closes you. And when you feel that "I don't know" you are open: you are ready to move, ready to learn, ready to travel.

OSHO, The Supreme Doctrine

I don't teach renunciation of your wealth or of anything. Let everything be as it is. Just add one thing more to your life. Up to now you have been adding only things to your life. Now add something to your being -- and that will do the music, that will do the miracle, that will do the magic, that will create a new thrill, a new youth, a new freshness.

OSHO, The Transmission of the Lamp

I teach you a new religion! Not Christianity, not Hinduism, not Jainism, not Buddhism. I teach you a new kind of religiousness -- guilt-free, tabooless, non-repressive. I teach you a religion of joy, acceptance, naturalness, spontaneity.

OSHO, Walk Without Feet, Fly Without Wings and Think Without Mind

I don't teach positivism; I don't teach negativism either. I simply teach an understanding of this polarity, and through that understanding slowly, slowly going beyond both, going into exactly the middle. From the middle the door opens. Once you have seen the beauty of the middle, the unexcited beauty of the middle, the ecstasy without excitement -- once you have tasted of it then both lose their meaning. Then neither hot nor cold is significant. Then you remain in a new space which can be called cool if you think in comparison with cold, or can be called warm if you think in comparison with hot. It is a cool-warm space: from one side it is cool, from another side it is warm. It is very cosy and very refreshing. Try it!

OSHO, Zorba the Buddha

ON HIS EDUCATION

My idea of education is very clear. All institutions should be free from politics, from religion. And religion should be allowed to have educational institutions, because they are destroying people's minds. Educational systems should be free from any pressure -- either from politics or from religion. They should have an autonomous, independent existence. They should decide themselves what has to be done so that every child who enters the world of education blossoms to his full potential. He is not to be molded, he is not to be ordered. He has to be awakened.

OSHO, From Death to Deathlessness

The new education, the true education, has not only to teach you mathematics, history, geography, science; it also has to teach you the real morality: aesthetics. I call aesthetics the real morality: sensitivity to feel the beautiful, because God comes as beauty. In a roseflower or in a lotus, in the sunrise or in the sunset, in the stars, the birds singing in the early morning, or the dewdrops, a bird on the wing.... True education has to bring you closer and closer to nature because only by coming closer and closer to nature will you be coming closer and closer to God.

OSHO, Philosophia Perennis

ON HIS RELGION

The fool lives around the idea of "my" and "mine": my nation, my religion, my race, my family, my wealth, my children, my parents...he lives around "my" and "mine." And he has come alone and he will go alone; nobody brings anything into the world and nobody takes anything from the world. Alone, empty-handed we come; alone, empty-handed we go. The wise knows it; hence the wise claims nothing as "mine." He uses things, but he does not possess them. Using is perfectly good -- use all the things of the world, they ARE for you. The world is a gift from God -- use it, but don't possess it. The moment you become a possessor, you cannot use things -- the things start using you. The moment you become a possessor, in fact you are possessed by your things, you become a slave. And the very idea of possessing is stupid. How can you possess anything? You don't even possess your own being. What else can you possess? You are not even a master of yourself.

OSHO, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha

I don't think that the world needs one religion. The world needs religious consciousness, and then that consciousness can flow into as many streams as possible. In fact, my own idea of religion is that there should be as many religions as there are people -- each person having his own religion.

It is difficult to have your own language; each person cannot have his own language, otherwise nobody will understand it.

OSHO, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha

I have not stopped the sannyas movement; I have stopped it becoming a religion. A movement is a flux; that's the meaning of movement -- it is moving, it is growing. But a religion is dead -- it has stopped moving, it has stopped growing. It is dead. The only place for it is in the crematorium. That's where we had to take it. And we have celebrated the death of the religion -- a religion which was not my idea.

I trust in sannyasins remaining individuals, I trust in their growth and movement; but I don't like the idea of them becoming like Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists. That's what was done while I was in isolation. In my absence, Sheela gathered around herself a fascist group and managed to cripple the sannyas movement, to make it dead, to make it a religion.

We have burned the religion -- that does not mean we have burned our religiousness. That is a totally different thing.

Religiousness is like love -- invisible, yet so tangible. You cannot explain it, but you can experience it.

Religiousness has been freed from a dead structure, a bondage that Sheela and her criminal group have put around it. Now you are not Rajneeshees. And I would like the press, the media to be kind enough not to refer to my people as Rajneeshees. They need some kind of reference -- they can call them friends of Rajneesh, and that will be absolutely right and appropriate.

Sheela wanted a dead religion. Every priest or priestess wants a dead religion, because it is predictable. Everything is just a catechism. There is no opinion, no evolution, no growth. Just look at Christianity: two thousand years have passed -- have they gone even an inch farther than Jesus Christ? Twenty-five centuries have passed since Buddha -- have Buddhists gone a single step ahead? This is destroying growth, destroying evolution.

Now I want my people to remain open, alive, growing, always fresh and new. It remains a new kind of phenomenon, religiousness: no label attached to it, because every label is a full stop. And I don't like full stops, I don't like even semi-colons: Life is always ongoing....

One journalist was very much worried; he said, "You have destroyed Rajneeshism, the religion. Now you will be in great trouble on two counts: first, Rajneesh Foundation International will lose its tax-exempt status."

I told the man, "Don't you worry about it. We have burned religion but not religiousness; and we will fight so that a man can have a growing experience of religiousness without being part of a mob psychology, without being a member of a collectivity. That is perfectly good for the sheep, but not for lions. And I want my sannyasins to be lions, not sheep.

"Nobody can take away the tax-exempt status. We are more religious than any Christian, any Hindu, any Mohammedan. We have just buried the dead structure and freed the soul of religion. That freedom is religiousness."

He was also worried that it would be difficult now for me in reference to my immigration, on the same grounds. It is not going to be difficult for me at all. If you don't have a category for religiousness, that is your fault. Make a category for religiousness.

Even in my interview with the INS I had made it clear that this is no ordinary religion; it is simply a way of life, a quality of religiousness.

The INS officer said, "But it is difficult, because we don't have any category for that. We have a category for religion."

"Then," I said, "you can write that it is a religionless religion." And that is on record.

What does "religionless religion" mean?
It simply means a religiousness.

OSHO, From Bondage to Freedom

That's why I say my religion is the first authentic religion; it has no idea of guilt at all.

I don't want you to feel guilty about anything, because nature has given to you out of its bounty. It is a gift to be received with joy, whatever it is. And a gift has not to be thrown out, repressed. Enjoy it.

So the first thing is accepting yourself -- which is not very great; but seeing the situation in which humanity is, still it is a great revolution: accepting yourself.

But I don't like the word "accept," because that means somehow "What to do? This is the way I am; I accept it." No, with my religion just accepting yourself is not enough.

Loving yourself, that is totally different.

Then you are feeling blessed.

Whatever nature has given -- and we are nature, extensions, parts of it -- we have to live it with a song, with a dance, with no question of guilt. That idea of accepting yourself has arisen because of guilt. Guilt says, "Don't accept yourself; reject, go on rejecting. The more you reject yourself, the greater a saint you are."

OSHO, From Misery to Enlightenment

People ask me what, in my religion, will be the place of worship, of devotion, because they think worship and devotion are impossible without a God.I want to say to you that they are impossible with a God. The whole idea of God is so ugly that I cannot be devoted to such an idiotic hypothesis. I cannot worship God, I don't see any reason to worship Him.

To me devotion is the refined quality of love

It has nothing to do with to whom. It is not a question of to whom it is addressed: Jehovah, God, Jesus, Buddha. It is not a question of it being addressed.

Devotion is a quality in your heart

You feel full of reverence for everything that is.

You feel a great love for all that is.

OSHO, From Personality to Individuality

But here something totally new is happening. I am not trying to create a religion, I cannot do it, because the very idea of creating a religion is ugly. But I am releasing a sense of humor in you, a deep laughter in you. To me laughter is more sacred than prayer, dancing more spiritual than chanting mantras, loving existence far more cosmic than going to a church or to a temple. Becoming utterly nobody, a pure nothingness, is far more significant than becoming a saint. Innocence, a sense of humor, a joyous participation in life... you cannot create a dead institution around such tremendously alive experiences. A dead institution needs something dead to be made out of. It is made out of the corpses of your saints. My whole approach is nonserious -- sincere, but non-serious.

OSHO, The Goose is Out

My own idea about religion is that nobody should be given a religion by birth. Birth should not be involved in it. A child should be given a chance to watch all kinds of religions possible. He should be allowed to go to the synagogue, to the church, to the temple, to the GURUDWARA. He should be helped in every way; he should be introduced to all kinds of religious varieties going around so that he can choose on his own. The parents should help him to become alert about all the varieties of religion -- they should not try to impose any religion on him. Then if he finds that he would like to become a Sikh, perfectly good. With all blessings he should become a Sikh; he should start going to the GURUDWARA . If he thinks he would like to become a Buddhist, that's perfectly good.

OSHO, Sufis: The People of the Path

Rami, what theory you are talking about? From where you got the idea that there is a theory here? I am a destroyer of all theories, and I don't give you any substitute. I only decondition you and I never recondition you. There is no doctrine, no dogma, no creed, no religion. My whole approach is that of being innocent, loving, dancing, singing, enjoying the small things of life, because the small things, if enjoyed totally, become great things. The mundane loved without any conditions becomes the sacred.

OSHO, The Wild Geese and the Water

What I am doing here is bringing creativity back to religion. I would like painters and poets and musicians and all kinds of people who have some idea to do something. I would like my whole commune to be in a passionate, creative love affair with existence. Then whether they pray or not, whether they believe in God or not, doesn't matter at all; they are religious, they are holy people.

OSHO, Don’t Let Yourself Be Upset by the Sutra, rather Upset the Sutra Itself

This is my vision and this I call true religion. The true religion has no idea of sin at all; the true religion is so innocent that it knows nothing of sin. And the idea of sin has condemned people so much that they have forgotten all their glory, they have forgotten all their splendour. The priests have condemned man so much that he feels ugly, unworthy, worthless. This is just a strategy of the priests to exploit man. You can exploit man only if you can make him feel guilty.

My work is to undo what the priests have done, to destroy all guilt and instead to create self-love. And whenever one loves oneself, one becomes capable of loving the whole existence.

OSHO, Darshan Diaries , Hallelujah!

In the old spiritual dimension, laughter does not exist at all; Christians say Jesus never laughed. Now this is utter nonsense! Only Jesus is capable of laughter; who else can laugh as beautifully as Jesus? But the Christian saints are depicting Jesus according to their idea of religion: a non-laughing God, utterly serious. That is not my vision of God. My God is a dancing God. He laughs, he loves, he sings, he plays... And I say to you, my God is closer to the truth; bliss to me is the most fundamental thing in religious life. To be cheerful is to be prayerful, to remain constantly blissful, rejoicing in ordinary life, in small things... because it is not a question of what you are rejoicing about, the question is that you are rejoicing. Then anything you can rejoice about becomes spiritual. Anything that makes you cheerful is spiritual. Then we can transform the whole of life into something extraordinarily beautiful and that's what a man of enlightenment does: his walking, his sitting, his talking, each of his gestures, is full of bliss, full of great joy. His every breath is a breath of joy itself.

OSHO, Darshan Diaries , The Rainbow Bridge

In my vision, each person should have his own religion. There should be as many religions as there are people. Only then this conflict, this continuous conflict, will stop, this fight between religions will stop: when everybody has a religion and it is something unique like your signature, like the print of your thumb -- unique. Then there will be no problem, no conflict; nobody will try to convert anybody. You don't try to convert people saying, "Make your signature just as I do." In fact, if somebody does it you will inform the police: "This man is trying to imitate me."

OSHO, Ah This!

I am giving you an insight, not a religion. And you are not my followers, remember, Zareen. Nobody here is my follower -- -friends, of course, but nobody is a follower. The orange color creates the illusion that people are following me. Just to avoid that, I cannot wear orange myself. I love the color, but if I start wearing orange then it will become a logical proof that you are following me. Certainly, you are not following me; I am a white person, you are orange people -- what connection can there be?

You are not my followers but friends. And because I love orange, out of your love you have accepted it. It is not a uniform; it is not that by wearing orange you become part of a certain sect or church. There is no church, no sect. Because I love orange, just out of love for me you are wearing orange. That is just a gesture of love, nothing else.

Zareen, you are not my follower, nobody is. But certainly you have chosen to be with me. That is your choice. You have fallen in love with a madman, and when you fall in love with a madman a little bit of madness is bound to enter in your heart. That's what is happening here. I am drunk, I am making you drunk. What else can I do? But this is not a religion. Hence you can love me and you can love Jesus, and there is no conflict. In fact by loving me you are bound to love Jesus. By loving me you will find for the first time the real taste of Jesus. By being with me you can love Buddha. In fact for the first time you will have an insight of what Buddha is. By being with me, in communion with me, you will be in communion with Zarathustra, with Lao Tzu, with Mahavira, with Mohammed. But this is a totally different approach I become the door, and when you enter in me you find all the Buddhas -- because it is like the ocean: you can taste it from anywhere, it is salty. If you taste me, you have tasted all the Buddhas; it is the SAME taste.

OSHO, Be Still and Know

But I have never said it before, and people have always wondered: if I don't have a religion, don't have a doctrine, don't have a teaching, then why do I go on talking to people? I could not tell them; they would not understand. Only those who will experience the relaxation of superconsciousness will be able to see the point. And then certainly, as Kaveesha says, they will understand how long I have been waiting, and how long I have been patient, and how I have been condemned for things which have nothing to do with me. But I have remained silent -- because it does not bother me; the only thing that I am interested in is that my people should attain to the state from where they cannot fall before I leave the body.

I cannot give you anything more precious.

OSHO, Beyond Psychology

This is my understanding: that if religion has disappeared in the world today, it is not because of science -- no. It is not because of atheists -- no. It is not because of rationalists -- no. It is because of pseudo-religion. There is too much pseudoreligion and it is so bogus, phoney, that only people who are phoney can be interested in religion. People who have even an iota of reality will go against it, they will rebel. Real people have always been rebellious, because reality wants to assert its being, to express its freedom. Real people are not slaves. Remember this, then we will enter into the sutras.

OSHO, Come Follow to You

Don't be too interested in ideas; they don't exist. Remain more concrete, more realistic. Each individual has uniqueness, and I respect that uniqueness, and it is his freedom, whatsoever he chooses. And it is nobody else's business to give you a religion. It is not even your parents' business, or the priests', or the society's, or the state's. It is nobody's business to give you your religion. Everybody should be allowed to find his own religion. That will be the real state of fraternity. We have to respect the other with all his uniqueness. And we have to say to the other, "If it is good for you, you follow it; it is not good for me so I am going on another route. And if by chance we meet somewhere, it will be beautiful. I will share my journey with you, and you will share your journey with me, and we both will be enriched in that way."

OSHO, Come, Come, Yet Again Come

My effort here is to give you a total religion, which contains all the three M's in it. It is a very ambitious adventure. It has never been tried before; hence I am going to be opposed as nobody has ever been opposed before. You are moving with a dangerous person, but the journey is going to be of tremendous beauty. Dangers, hazards don't make a journey ugly; on the contrary, they make it tremendously beautiful. All the dangers that you will have to face with me are going to give you a thrill. The journey is not going to be dull, it is going to be very alive. We are going to move towards God in such a multidimensional way that each moment of the journey is going to be precious.

OSHO, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha

I am giving you a total religion, a religion which allows both. When you are feeling tired with the other, move into meditation, swing into meditation. When you are feeling tired of aloneness, swing into love. Both are good. Both are contradictory, but through contradiction great joy arises. If you have only one you will not have that kind of richness. The one can give you silence or can give you great joy, but both can give you something infinitely precious, incomparable. Both together, they can give you a silent ecstasy, a peaceful joy. At the innermost core you remain utterly silent, and on the periphery, the dance. And when silence dances or silence sings, that is the richest, the peakest of peaks. Hence my insistence for both.

OSHO, The Diamond Sutra

Religion is the art of dropping questions. So, good that now you don't have any questions. I am happy, my blessings are with you. My hand is on your head. And be careful -- sooner or later you will find only my hand is there, your head has disappeared! That is the whole effort. If you don't believe me, you can ask Yatri, our cartoonist. A few days ago he made a beautiful cartoon for me. He has understood the point -- that this is the whole magic.

OSHO, The Discipline of Transcendence

ON DISCIPLE AND DISCIPLESHIP

One of the most beautiful phenomena in the world is that of being a disciple, because now you know what rapport is. Now you breathe, inhale, exhale with the master; now you lose your boundaries and become one with him. Now something of his heart starts flowing towards you; now something of him comes into you.

OSHO, And the Flowers Showered

That is what sannyas is: an authentic discipleship. It means putting your mind aside. You have lived according to your mind up to now. If that is fulfilling, then there is no need for anybody to become a sannyasin.

If you feel you are blissful with your mind, then why bother about a master? Why carry an unnecessary load? Why become tethered? It is certain that as your mind is, it is nothing but anguish; it is suffering, misery, despair. But you are not ready to become a sannyasin. That means you are not ready to put your mind aside.

OSHO, From the False to the Truth

Discipleship is of the heart. The mind goes on rambling and talking and doubting and being suspicious. In spite of that, in spite of the chattering mind, one takes the jump. I say "in spite of that". That is the only way -- you simply don't listen to the mind. You simply move beneath the mind, reach the heart, and ask the heart. Discipleship is like love, it is not like a business partnership. It is not a bargain. You simply give, without knowing whether something is going to happen or not. Whether you will receive anything back, you don't know. You simply give. That's why it is courage.

OSHO, The Grass Grows by Itself

I deny being a guru, but I do not deny your being a disciple. One should never be a guru, but discipleship is something without which nothing is possible. And when there is no guru, then discipleship is something inner -- an inner discipline. Both these words come from the same root. 'Discipleship' means a mind which is ready to seek, search, learn -- a mind which is open and vulnerable. So I deny being a guru, but I do not deny your being a disciple.

OSHO, I Am The Gate

There is no God, there is godliness. There is no religion, there is religiousness. There is no Master, there is only mastery, masterliness. And as the Master becomes a quality, immediately the disciple becomes a quality. Then there is no disciple, only discipleship.

Discipleship is a totally different thing. Disciplehood, or to come to the exact right word, discipline. The word discipline means learning, the process of learning. There is no disciple, no learner, but there is a process of learning.

There is no Master who teaches you, but there is a Master -- being who shares that which he has found. And his treasure is infinite, inexhaustible.

OSHO, The Last Testament

Discipleship is a training, a learning to become a tilled, right earth. The seed is there but the right earth has to be found. You have the tree within you; the master can only give you the right earth. He can till you, he can throw the weeds out, he can make the soil worthy to receive. He can make the soil rich with fertilizers -- he is a gardener.

OSHO, The Mustard Seed: My Most Loved Gospel on Jesus

And remember, if you are a student you can become a teacher but never a master. Only a disciple can become a master. If you are a student, a scholar, you can become a teacher -- never a master. Only a disciple can become a master. Discipleship means egoless surrender. And once you surrender, your innermost self is revealed to you. That is the master who is waiting for you. He has been waiting for you for lives and lives.

In any moment of surrender, the master will be revealed to you. And that master is no one. It is your own innermost self, it is your own atman. So really, this can be said: when you are a perfect disciple you have become a master. You are no longer a disciple at all. Discipleship achieved, you are now transformed into a master.

OSHO, The New Alchemy: To Turn You On

Devotion is the ultimate flowering of discipleship.

When love is so deep, the respect is so immense that everything is forgiven, the disciple can slap the master and yet the master simply laughs -- because he knows his devotion. He knows that this slap has not come from a logical mind, it has come from a loving heart. It is as if with his own hand he has slapped himself -- no distinctions are there anymore. Even to say that the devotee is close to the master is not right, because closeness is still a distance.

The devotee is one with the master.

OSHO, The OSHO Upanishad

Discipleship is no ordinary experience. So remember neither can I make you a sannyasin nor can you make yourself a sannyasin. I can give you the direction, the incentive, and you have to work hard to exhaust yourself completely, not holding anything back, knowing perfectly well that this is not going to give you disciplehood. But in a way it is going to give... because when you have done everything that you can do, a silence descends on you, the effort drops. You are in a state of non-action, and in that state, in that moment, the blossoming of discipleship -- suddenly so many flowers surround you, so much fragrance, so much light.

OSHO, The Path of The Mystic

Discipleship simply means an attitude to learn -- moment to moment remaining aware that "I don't know." This knowing that "I don't know," this awareness that "I am ignorant," gives you opening; then you are not closed. The moment you say, "I know," you are a closed circle; the door is no more open. But when you say, "I don't know," it means you are ready to learn. It means the door is open.

OSHO, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega

ON INITIATION INTO SANNYAS

It is only the blind who miss, it is only the deaf who miss, but the greater part of humanity consists of blind and deaf people. Initiation into sannyas means that now you will search for the eyes and the ears. They are there, we just have not used them. Because they have not been functioning for a long long time, they are not working. If you start using them a little bit, slowly slowly blood circulates in them, slowly slowly life is revived, slowly slowly you start seeing, hearing, feeling -- and these are the beginnings. The ultimate is when all these have happened to the maximum: you come to know being.

OSHO, Don’t Let Yourself Be Upset by the Sutra, rather Upset the Sutra Itself

Anand means bliss, abhishek means initiation into. Sannyas is an initiation into bliss. My religion is that of celebration. My worship is to be in a festive mood, to be constantly cheerful, to always be in that mood of rejoicing in the existence.

The old sannyas used to be an initiation into something serious, heavy, because it was renouncing the world. My sannyas is totally opposite, diametrically opposite. This is neo-sannyas, a totally new vision of sannyas not of renunciation but of rejoicing, and not of the spirit of seriousness but of the spirit of festivity, of light-heartedness, of taking life as fun, play.

OSHO, Turn On, Tune In and Drop the Lot

Udbhava means real birth. Sannyas is the science of real birth. The first birth is physical; it only makes your body but not you. Your body arises in the mother's womb but you have still to be born. The temple is empty, the master is not there yet, or in other words the master is asleep. And only when the master awakens is one really born; that is the second birth. That is the meaning of all methods of initiation. Initiation means that you are entering into a school which will function like a womb to create your soul.

Sannyas is a great commitment -- a commitment to yourself to be reborn.

OSHO, Zorba the Buddha

Freedom is the taste of sannyas, the fragrance of sannyas. My sannyasins are not trying to cultivate any character, they are trying a totally different phenomenon: they are raising their consciousness. And then I leave everybody free to live according to his own light.

OSHO, Come, Come, Yet Again Come

Sannyas is empathy -- to be totally with me, utterly with me, to drop all defences, to come so close that my nothingness starts overflowing in you, to come so close that there are no more boundaries, that we start overlapping. For that experience, sannyas is needed And a Buddha can be known only that way, there is no other way.

OSHO, The Diamond Sutra

"I am a totally different kind of man. My approach is utterly different. I say become a sannyasin without any conditions and sannyas will transform you slowly, slowly, and will bring into existence all those qualities that other religions were asking before sannyas. Before sannyas, those qualities are not possible.

"If I say to this man, `First you stop drinking alcohol completely, only then can I give you sannyas,' he will not be able to . He has tried his whole life -- and the more you fail again and again, the more you know that it is completely useless to try. You know you are going to fail. I don't make any conditions.

"I have given sannyas to your husband. Don't be worried, because my sannyas is not renouncing the wife or the children or the house or the business of the world. I am bringing a totally new conception of sannyas into the world.

OSHO, From the False to the Truth

But my sannyas is totally different: it has nothing to do with age.It has something to do with youth rather than old age. The younger you are, the more possibility there is of entering into my sannyas. Even those who are old physically but young spiritually will feel attracted.towards it -- ONLY those will feel attracted towards it.

I am not teaching you escape from life. I am not teaching you the other world. I am teaching you how to live this life with great gratitude, with immense joy, with ecstasy. I am not anti-life. I am all for life, because to me life is God. There is no other God.

OSHO, The Guest

And my sannyas does not involve any obligation either -- the moment you are a sannyasin, you are totally at freedom. It means now you have taken a decision, and this is the last decision. Now you have not to take any decision anymore. You have taken the last decision now -- to live in indecision, to live in freedom.

OSHO, I Am The Gate

My sannyas is life-affirmative. Nothing like this has ever flowered on the earth. It is a totally new phenomenon. All the old ideas about sannyas were based on escapism, on renunciation. My sannyas has nothing to do with escape, it is AGAINST escape, because to me God and life are synonymous. It has never been said that God and life are synonymous. God has always been put AGAINST life: you have to drop life to attain God. And I say to you, you have to live as totally as possible, as intensely as possible, as passionately as possible if you want to know God at all, because there is no other God than life.

OSHO, Tao: The Golden Gate

ON HIS MOVEMENT

I have not stopped the sannyas movement; I have stopped it becoming a religion. A movement is a flux; that's the meaning of movement -- it is moving, it is growing. But a religion is dead -- it has stopped moving, it has stopped growing. It is dead. The only place for it is in the crematorium. That's where we had to take it. And we have celebrated the death of the religion -- a religion which was not my idea.

I trust in sannyasins remaining individuals, I trust in their growth and movement; but I don't like the idea of them becoming like Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists. That's what was done while I was in isolation. In my absence, Sheela gathered around herself a fascist group and managed to cripple the sannyas movement, to make it dead, to make it a religion.

OSHO, From Bondage to Freedom

I am going to revive Neo-Sannyas International. That is a movement; anybody can join it, and I have made it wider, I have given it a wide base. There are millions of people who love me, who love my insights, but cannot become sannyasins because they have to change their clothes -- that creates trouble in their family, in their job, with their friends, in the society. I have withdrawn it.

OSHO, From Bondage to Freedom

And you are going to a society which is continuously preparing to commit suicide, where AIDS is spreading like wildfire. My communes will be the only refuge where we can prevent AIDS, where we can promote a great world movement of meditation, silence and peace -- and destroy the mad dreams of politicians to kill all life on this earth.

OSHO, From Death to Deathlessness

My movement is not egoistic. I am not here to make your ego more and more strong -- it is already too strong. My movement is towards egolessness. That's where I depart from the growth movement. And no one can grow by strengthening the ego. He will remain just an imaginary being; he will not come to know his authentic reality.

OSHO, From the False to the Truth

You have to become the savior of yourself. I teach selfishness, because to me to be selfish is not wrong, it is natural. Everybody should be selfish, self-centered, not waiting for anybody's help. Declare your freedom individually. And that's my movement. You are here, not as a society, not as a community, you are here as an individual. There is nothing higher than an individual and his freedom.

OSHO, From the False to the Truth

He says: the moment OSHO dies, his whole movement will disappear like a soap bubble.

I loved it! That's how it should be! Why should it continue? For what? There is no reason. I live now, I am not interested in the future at all. How does it matter whether my movement disappears like a soap bubble or not? I love soap bubbles! They look beautiful in the sun. And they should disappear so that a few other people can make other soap bubbles. I have no monopoly over them. In fact, the world would have been better if the soap bubble that was created by Jesus had disappeared with him. Then these Polack Popes would not be here. Now they are making much fuss about a bubble which is not there. The soap bubble that Buddha created, had it disappeared, would have been a great blessing to humanity, because all these Buddhist monks and theologians, and all kinds of stupid people.... We would have been saved from them!

OSHO, The Goose is Out

Before I leave the world, one thing I am certainly going to do -- it is private, so please don't tell anybody else -- before I leave the world, I am going to declare all of my sannyasins blessed ones. Thousands of Bhagwans all over the world! There will be no need to make any special nook and corner for me, I will be dissolved in my people. Just as you can taste the sea from any place and it is salty, you will be able to taste any of my sannyasins and you will find the same taste: the taste of Bhagwan, the taste of the Blessed One.

I am waiting for the right moment.

Once the new commune is established, all my sannyasins will be called Bhagwans. Then it really will be a Bhagwan movement.

OSHO, The Goose is Out

All missionaries are against freedom.

But as far as I am concerned, I am happy that a lot of the load has been taken off my shoulders because I feel responsible for you, I want you to grow. I don't want your life to be wasted. If you cannot grow, even while I am here, then when are you going to grow up?

So whatsoever is happening is perfectly good. Only those will remain who are worthy to remain. Those who leave were unnecessarily wasting their time and my time; they should have left long before. Now sannyas will be a totally different movement: it will be for more authentic seekers. It will not be just for anybody who wants to change the society because he is fed up with the society. He wants an alternative society so he joins a sannyas commune as an alternative society -- but he has no desire and no longing for truth.

OSHO, The Path of the Mystic

My movement around the world will give you a feeling of a world commune. Up to now you were small communes here and there, and because I was staying in one place you felt that you missed me, that a certain commune was fortunate to have me. Now that will not be the case. I belong to you all and I will be moving everywhere, wherever there is need.

I want sannyas to become a worldwide phenomenon. It is already ready to explode, and it has the greatest potential right now. There is no other alternative, so you are in a great position of power. We can make this whole world thrilled with a new vision, with a new dream, with a new hope. The old man has lost all hope, has lost all dreams, has lost all possibilities of growth, evolution.

Sannyas can bring the hope back. You are the hope of the world.

OSHO, Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries

This is not a movement like other movements. Nobody is planning it, nobody has ever planned it. I started living out of my silence and peace, and people started coming to me and joining me. In the beginning I was alone, a wanderer; slowly, slowly more and more people came. I had not called them; something in them fell in love with me, and what had begun only with one man has become now a vast caravan covering the whole earth -- even countries where I have never been, like the Soviet Union, China, other communist countries.

My feeling is that when you have something truthful it has its own fragrance. It spreads by itself. And whoever is receptive to it, whoever is in search of it immediately gets hold of it. Just like subtle threads... people start moving towards the source of it.

OSHO, Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries

I never think in terms of a movement, in terms of making a church, a religion; I simply go on sharing my heart with whosoever knocks on my door. And the grass goes on growing....

There are one million sannyasins around the world, and at least three million people who have tremendous sympathy towards me and towards my people. If you want to know something about miracles, this is the miracle -- not walking on water, that is simply stupid; not turning water into wine, that is criminal.

The only miracle I know of is the miracle that starts happening like a wildfire spreading from heart to heart, changing and transforming people's consciousness and bringing them to a higher level of being -- creating a new man in them.

OSHO, Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries

ON HIS WORDS

Lao Tzu is innocent, Buddha is innocent, Krishna is innocent, Jesus is innocent. These are not knowledgeable people. Of course what they have said out of their knowing we have changed it into knowledge; what they have said out of their wonder, we have reduced it into philosophy, theology. That is our work; we have destroyed all that was beautiful in it. We have given it a certain shape, a certain pattern and structure. We have interpreted it, commented upon it, dropped many things out of it. And this happens always.

Just the other day I received a note from Arup, that Sarjano is translating your book into Italian; but he changes many things. He drops few things, he adds few things from his own knowledge."

Of course he is trying to do some good work, his intention is good! He wants to make it more logical, more intellectual, more sophisticated. And I am a little wild type of man! He wants to trim me here and there. You look at my beard! If Sarjano is allowed he will trim it like Nikolai Lenin, but then it will not be MY beard. He is trying to make it more appealing. There is no doubt about his intentions, but these are the intentions which have always destroyed.
When he was told my message that he has to do exactly as it is: "Don't try to improve upon it. Leave it as it is. Raw, wild, illogical, paradoxical, contradictory, repetitive, whatsoever it is, leave it as it is!" It is so difficult for him. He said, "Then I will not translate. I would rather like cleaning work."

You see how the mind works? He is not ready to listen to me, he would rather like to do cleaning work. Otherwise he has to be allowed to interpolate, to change, to color things according to HIS idea. Now, whatsoever you will do you will do wrong, because what I am saying is from a totally different plane and what you will be doing will be a totally different effort -- it won't belong to MY plane, it won't belong to MY dimension. It may be scholarly, but I am not a scholar. It may be knowledgeable, but I am not a knowledgeable person.

Knowledgeable people have their own ways. Just small things they will do...

For example, I had said that Saraha is the founder of Tibetan Buddhism. Now, no scholar will say so decisively. Only a madman can say so decisively because you have to give proofs, you have to give footnotes and you have to make a big appendix in which you have to give proofs. I never give any proofs, I never give any footnotes, I never give you any sources from where... I know only one source -- the Akashic records!

So just to make it more appealing, more digestible, he had changed it just a little, not much: that "Saraha can be said to be the founder of Tibetan Tantra, Tibetan Buddhism, CAN BE SAID. Now this is a scholarly way, a legal way, but it destroys the whole beauty of it. It destroys its whole certainty, its decisiveness, its hammer-like quality. And hammers are not supposed to be digestible!
Sarjano, it is not a spaghetti! He is a good cook and makes beautiful spaghetti. I don't know anything about spaghetti, but I know Saraha is the founder of Tibetan Buddhism. And I will not give any proof about it -- I don't believe in proofs, I simply KNOW. I know Saraha; it is a personal friendship with Saraha. Even if the historians prove something else, I won't listen. I won't pay any attention to them, because I know Saraha.

OSHO, Tao: The Golden Gate Vol. 2 , Chapter Title: Just Joking Around



Source: Osho Friends International