Pragmatic and Esoteric - Osho

- OSHO, AS YOU HAVE ANNOUNCED EACH NEW PHASE OF YOUR WORK, I HAVE BEEN IMMENSELY EXCITED AND SAID TO MYSELF, "GREAT! NOW WE ARE REALLY GOING TO BEGIN THE WORK." AND EACH PHASE IN ITS TURN HAS BEEN MORE AMAZING THAN THE ONE BEFORE
IT. NOW YOU SPEAK OF A MYSTERY SCHOOL. MY MIND SHOUTS OUT, "HEY, THAT SOUNDS ESOTERIC, AND OSHO ALWAYS INSISTS THAT TRUTH IS NOT ESOTERIC, BUT ABSOLUTELY PRAGMATIC, AN OPEN SECRET." THAT'S WHAT MY MIND SAYS. IF THINGS ARE OTHERWISE THOUGH, THEN COUNT ME IN. I AM COMING WITH YOU ALL THE WAY. ALSO, THE MYSTERY SCHOOL HAS BEGUN ALREADY, HAS IT NOT?"

- It has begun. And truth is both: it is pragmatic and it is esoteric.

I was emphasizing that it was pragmatic, because in those phases
I did not want my people to be involved in any esoteric work.
The pragmatic work is the right foundation.
Without that foundation, esoteric work is just dreaming.
So I was continuously against esoteric work.
I am a very mathematical person, in the sense that when the foundation is being laid, you should not talk about the temple that is going to be built
upon it, and how it is going to be, what kind of architecture -- because all
that will disturb the work on the foundation.
I wanted you to be totally concerned only with the foundation, so that later on we can forget the foundation and we can start building the temple.

Truth is a mystery, and it can be discovered only in a mystery school.
And this phase is going to be the most valuable.
All that we have done before was a preparation.
The mystery school will create the purification, and the outcome will be
perfection.

That's why people who look at me only intellectually will find
contradictions.
But those who have a more comprehensive view of life will not find any
contradiction.
I have denied esoteric work, knowing perfectly well that one day I will have to introduce you to the esoteric work.
But everything in its time, not before; otherwise it can simply create
confusion.

And if esoteric work is introduced to you without any foundation, you are
not going to work for the foundation, because that is not interesting.
The esoteric work is really very interesting, but I don't want you to make a temple without a foundation.
It has happened many times; then the temple falls and destroys those who were building it.

The word `esoteric' simply means: you cannot put it objectively,
scientifically.
It is something inner, something subjective, something so mysterious, so
miraculous that you can experience it but you cannot explain it.
You can have it, but still you cannot explain it.
It remains beyond explanation.
And it is good that there is something in life which you cannot bring down
to language, which you cannot bring down to the objective world... something
which remains always beyond.
You can become one with it -- and that is going to be the work of the
school.

I have been spontaneous in my work, but these are the mysteries of life,
that existence itself has taken care.
I have left it to existence, "Whatever you want me to do, I will do." I am
not the doer; I am just a passage for existence to reach people. So I have never planned, but existence functions in a very planned way. So all the phases that have passed were necessary, and now we are ready to enter into the last phase -- the ultimate ecstasy.

Ecstasy cannot be pragmatic.
Love cannot be pragmatic.
Trust cannot be pragmatic.
All that is valuable is esoteric.

(Osho, Beyond Psychology Ch. 44, 1986)