Question - A single session of your dynamic meditation has left
within me a greater bliss and sense of being than twenty years of
having had to listen to the stories of the New Testament and to
pray to an almighty and distant god who stayed an
unexperienceable godot to me. Is it possible that the teachings of
Jesus just might not be helpful to all seekers -- yes, might even be
poisonous to them, or to some?
Osho - CHRISTIANITY AND CHRIST should never be
confused. Christ is totally different from Christianity so
whenever you want to understand Christ, go directly and
immediately -- not via Rome; then you will never understand
Christ. Christ or Krishna or Buddha cannot be organized: they are
so vast that no organization can do justice to them. Only small
things can be organized. Politics can be organized, not religion,
Nazism can be organized, communism can be organized -- not
Christ, not Krishna. The sheer vastness is such that the moment
you try to force them into a pattern they are already dead.
It is as if you are trying to grasp the sky in your small hands -with closed fists. With an open hand the sky may be touching,
may be a little bit on your hand, but with a closed fist it has
already escaped out of it.
Whatsoever you have been hearing about Jesus is not about Jesus,
the real man; it is about the Jesus that Christians have invented,
decorated to be sold in the market. The Christian Jesus is a
commodity to be sold; Christ himself is a revolution. You will
have to be transformed through him; he is the baptism of fire.
You can be a Christian conveniently... but you can never be a
REAL Christian conveniently. If you are REALLY following
Jesus, there is bound to be trouble.
He himself ended on the cross; you cannot end on the throne, But
if you follow Christianity there is no trouble. It is a very
convenient way to adjust Christ to yourself rather than adjusting
yourself to Christ. If you adjust YOURSELF TO CHRIST, there
will be a transformation; if you adjust Christ TO YOURSELF,
there can be none. Then Christ himself becomes part of the
decoration of your imprisonment, part of your furniture -- your
car, your house; a convenience at the most -- but you are not
related to him. That's why twenty years look like they have been
wasted.
The same will happen with me. You are fortunate that you are
doing meditation with me. Once I am gone the meditation is
going to be organized -- it is impossible to prevent it; it is the way
things move. Then you will do it for twenty years -- or two
hundred years -- and nothing will happen. It does not happen
through the technique; technique is just dead. It happens through
the love that you feel for me, that I have for you. The technique is
just an excuse. It is not the most important thing; the most
important thing is your love, your trust. In that trust, the technique
works and functions, becomes alive, gets roots into your heart.
Sooner or later everything becomes organized: prayer, meditation,
everything. Then the glory is lost. Then you can go on doing it -you may become absolutely perfect, skilled; it may also give
some sort of consolation -- but the mutation will be missing. You
will remain the same, a continuity. It will not be a baptism: you
will not die in it, and you will not be reborn.
That's why my insistence is on searching for an alive Master.
Scriptures are there, once those rivers were flowing, but now they
are frozen. They are lost in the desert land of churches, temples
and organizations. The poetry no longer throbs in them: they are
dead dogmas, arguments; the love has disappeared.
Remember this always: if you can find a living Master, forget all
about scriptures. The living Master is the only scripture which is
alive. Read his heart and allow your heart to be read by him. Be in
a communion -- that is the only way. Jesus worked the same way
as you feel I am working, but twenty centuries have passed. The
first disciples who came around him staked their lives: they left
all that they had, they moved with this man, they risked
everything. It was worth it. This man was a treasure of the
unknown world. Nothing was too much. Whatsoever was asked
they did. And they had the opportunity to walk with a god on this
earth, to be in close affinity with divinity.
Others were saying, "This man is wrong," but those who were
close to him knew that only this man is right -- and if this man is
not right, then NOTHING can be right, then 'right' cannot exist.
They crucified this man, but those who were close knew that you
cannot crucify him. This man had already entered immortality,
this man had already become part of their immortal souls. You
can kill the body, but not the spirit.
They had lived, walked, breathed, into the being of this man.
They were transformed. It is not a question of technique. They
prayed with this man but the real thing was not prayer, the real
thing was just to be in the presence of this man. This man had a
presence.
Have you observed? -- very few people have what you call
'presence'. Rarely do you come across a person who has a
presence -- something indefinable about him, something that you
suddenly feel but cannot indicate, something that fills you but is
ineffable, something very mysterious and unknown. You cannot
deny it, you cannot prove it. It is not the body because anybody
can have the body; it is not the mind because anybody can have
the mind. Sometimes a very beautiful body may be there,
tremendously beautiful, but the presence is not there; sometimes a
genius mind is there, but the presence is not there; and sometimes
you pass a beggar and you are filled, touched, stirred -- a
presence.
Those who were in the presence of Jesus, those who were in his
SATSANG -- those who lived close, those who lived in his milieu
-- breathed HIM. If you allow me to say it, those who drank him
and ate him, who allowed him to enter into their innermost
shrine.... THAT transformed, not the prayer; prayer was just an
excuse to be with him. Even without prayer it would have
happened, but without prayer they might not have found an
excuse to be with him.
You are here with me. I go on inventing meditations for you.
They are just excuses so that you can be here a little longer, a
little while more, so that you can linger around me -- because
nobody knows when my presence will touch you. Nothing can be
said about it; it cannot be manipulated. It happens when it
happens; nothing can be done directly for it. Just be here. Even
without meditations the thing will happen, but without
meditations you won't have any excuse to be here.
I go on talking to you. Even without talk it can happen, it WILL
happen, but if I don't talk, by and by you will disappear because
you won't have an excuse. What are you doing here? I have to
give you something to do so that you can be. I have to engage you
and occupy you so that you don't feel restless. The thing is going
to happen from some other dimension, but when you are occupied
that dimension remains open. If you are not occupied, you
become too restless.
All meditations and all prayers and all methods are toys invented
for children to play with, but that is useful, very significant. Once
you are occupied, your innermost shrine is open to me. You are
not restless -- you are doing meditation -- and then I can do my
work. It is not good to say that I do my work. Then it starts
happening.
You are right, twenty years of Christian teaching, listening to The
New Testament stories, may have been futile -- but not because
those stories are futile. They are superb as far as stories go. The
poetry of The New Testament, the poetry of the whole Bible, is
something not of this world. There are great poets -- Shakespeare
and Milton and Dante -- but nobody can surpass the Bible. The
poetry is tremendously simple, but it has some quality which
ordinary poetry cannot have. It has awe; that is, the religious
quality.
Have you watched sometimes? You see a beautiful flower. You
may appreciate it, it has an aesthetic quality. You appreciate it and
you move ahead. You may see a beautiful face -- even the face of
a Cleopatra: the lines, the proportion, the marble-like body -- but
that too is aesthetic. And sometimes you come across a few things
or a few beings that inspire not only aesthetic appreciation, but
awe. What is awe?
Facing some thing or some being, thinking stops. Your mind
cannot cope with it. You can cope with a Cleopatra, you can even
cope with an Einstein -- howsoever abstruse, abstract, difficult,
you can cope with it. Just a little more training of the mind may
be needed. But when you come across a Jesus or a Buddha the
mind falls flat, it bogs down. SOMETHING is too much for it.
You cannot think about anything, you are as if in a deep shock -and yet the shock is blissful. That is awe.
The Bible has awe in it -- the quality of putting your mind
completely at a stop -- but that you will have to reach directly.
The missionary, the priest, the bishop, they destroy because they
start interpreting. They put their minds in it and their minds are
mediocre. It is as if you are looking at a tremendously beautiful
thing from the mind of a very stupid man. Or you are looking into
a mirror that is broken, completely broken -- it has gathered rust,
nothing can be mirrored perfectly -- and you look in the mirror
and see the moon. Distorted. That is how it has been happening.
The Bible is one of the greatest events in the world -- very pure,
purer than the Bhagavad Gita because the Bhagavad Gita is very
refined. The people who created it were very cultured and
educated, and of course whenever a thing becomes very refined it
becomes ethereal, unearthly. The Bible is rooted in the earth.
All the prophets of the Bible are people of the earth. Even Jesus
moves on the earth; he is the son of a carpenter, uneducated, not
knowing anything about aesthetics, poetics -- nothing. If he
speaks poetry, it is because he IS, not knowing it at all, a poet. His
poetry is raw and wild.
Jesus has something of the peasant in him: the wisdom without
knowledge. He is not a man of knowledge; no university would
be willing to confer an honorary degree on him, no. He wouldn't
fit in at Oxford or Cambridge; he would look very foolish in the
gowns and clown-like caps. He would look very foolish; he
wouldn't fit. He belongs to the earth, to the village, to ordinary,
plain people.
Just the other night I was reading a small story, an Arabian story.
A man died. He had seventeen camels and three sons and he left a
will in which, when it was opened and read, it was said that one
half of the camels should go to the first son, one third to the
second and one ninth to the third.
The sons were nonplussed -- what to do? Seventeen camels: one
half is to go to the first son -- is one to cut one camel in two? And
that too won't solve much because then one third has to go to the
second. That too won't solve much: one ninth has to go to the
third. Almost all the camels would be killed.
Of course, they went to the man of the town who was most
knowledgeable: the Mulla -- the pundit, the scholar, the
mathematician. He thought hard, he tried hard, but he couldn't
find any solution because mathematics is mathematics. He said, "I
have never divided camels in my life, this whole thing seems to
be foolish. But you will have to cut them. If the will is to be
followed exactly then the camels have to be cut, they have to be
divided."
The sons were not ready to cut the camels. So what to do? Then
somebody suggested, "It is better that you go to someone who
knows something about camels, not about mathematics." So they
went to the sheikh of the town who was an old man, uneducated
but wise through experience. They told him their problem.
The old man laughed. He said, "Don't be worried. It is simple."
He loaned one of his own camels to them -- now there were
eighteen camels -- and then he divided. Nine camels were given
to the first and he was satisfied, perfectly satisfied. Six camels
were given to the second, one third; he was also perfectly
satisfied. And two camels were given to the third, one ninth; he
was also satisfied. One camel was left. That was loaned. He took
his camel back and said, "You can go."
Wisdom is practical, knowledge impractical. Knowledge is
abstract, wisdom is earthly; knowledge is just words, wisdom is
experience. The Bible is very simple. Don't be deceived by its
simplicity. In its simplicity it has the wisdom of the ages. It is
very poetic; I have never come across anything more poetic than
the Bible. One can simply go on relishing it, one can go on
repeating the words of Jesus. They come from the heart and they
go to the heart.
But don't go through a mediator. Those mediators are mediocres,
they destroy the whole thing. I have looked through many
commentaries on the Bible, but I have never come across a single
intelligent commentary. They all destroy. I have never seen any
single commentary from any theologian who has added anything
to the Bible, who has in any way made its glory more manifest.
They DIM it.
And that is bound to be so. Only a man of the quality of Jesus can
reveal the truth of it, only a man of the quality of Jesus can
enhance its beauty. People who live in the dark valleys and people
who live on the sunny peaks of the Himalayas don't understand
each other's language. When the man from the peak speaks and
the man from the valley interprets, everything goes wrong.
Yes, you are right -- your twenty years may have been wasted.
But it will be a total misunderstanding if you think that Jesus is
not for you. Jesus is for all, that is not the question. But go direct:
become more meditative, become more prayerful, and go direct.
And forget all that has been told to you about the Bible; the Bible
is enough.
If you want to understand the Upanishads, it may be difficult to
understand them directly because they are very refined. The
people who have been talking in the Upanishads were great
philosophers; they need commentaries. But Jesus is I plain, his
truth is plain. He is a very ordinary villager; no commentary is
needed. He is his own light. And if you cannot understand Jesus,
then who will you be able to understand? Throw all the foolish
commentaries away. Go direct. Jesus is so simple, you can have a
direct contact,
I am not commenting on Jesus, I am simply responding. I am not
a commentator. To be a commentator is to do a very ugly job.
Why should I comment on Jesus? He is plain, he is absolutely
simple. Just like two plus two make four -- he is that simple. Just
like in the morning the sun rises and everybody knows it is
morning. He is so simple.
I am not commenting on him, I am responding. I read his words:
something echoes in me. That is not a commentary. i My heart
throbs with him, something parallel echoes in me, and I tell you
what it is. So don't take my words as commentaries. I am not
trying to explain Jesus to you, there is no need. I am simply
mirroring. I am telling you MY heart. What happens to me when I
am listening to Jesus: I am telling you that.
Source - Osho Book "Come Follow To You, Vol1"
Osho on Jesus Lived in India
Osho - Jesus never died on the cross. It takes at least fortyeight hours for a person to die on the Jewish cross; and there
have been known cases where people have existed almost six
days on the cross without dying. Because Jesus was taken
down from the cross after only six hours, there is no
possibility of his dying on the cross.
It was a conspiracy between a rich sympathizer of Jesus and
Pontius Pilate to crucify Jesus as late as possible on Friday -because on Saturday, Jews stop everything; their Sabbath
does not allow any act. By the evening of Friday everything
stops.
The arrangement was that Jesus would be crucified late in the
afternoon, so before sunset he would be brought down. He
might have been unconscious because so much blood had
flowed out of the body, but he was not dead. Then he would
be kept in a cave, and before the Sabbath ended and the Jews
hung him again, his body would be stolen by his followers.
The tomb was found empty, and Jesus was removed from
Judea as quickly as possible. As he again became healthy and
healed, he moved to India and he lived a long life -- one
hundred and twelve years -- in Kashmir.
It is a coincidence, but a beautiful coincidence, that Moses
died in Kashmir and Jesus also died in Kashmir. I have been
to the graves of both. The graves are ample proof, because
those are the only two graves that are not pointing towards
Mecca. Mohammedans make their graves with the head
pointing towards Mecca, so in the whole world all the graves
of Mohammedans point towards Mecca, and Kashmir is
Mohammedan.
These two graves don't point towards Mecca, and the writing
on the graves is in Hebrew, which is impossible on a
Mohammedan grave -- Hebrew is not their language. The
name of Jesus is written exactly as it was pronounced by the
Jews, "Joshua." "Jesus" is a Christian conversion of the
Jewish name. The grave is certainly of Jesus.
A family has been taking care of both the graves -- they are
very close together in one place, Pahalgam -- and only one
family has been taking care of them down the centuries. They
are Jews -- they are still Jews -- and I had to take their help to
read to me what is written on the graves.
Moses had come to Kashmir to find a tribe of Jews who were
lost on the way from Egypt to Jerusalem. When he reached
Jerusalem his deep concern was the whole tribe that had got
lost somewhere in the desert. When his people were
established in Jerusalem, he went in search of the lost tribe,
and he found the lost tribe established in Kashmir. Kashmiris
are basically Jewish -- later on Mohammedans forcibly
converted them -- and Moses lived with them and died there.
Jesus also went to Kashmir, because then it was known that
Moses had found the lost tribe there. The doors of Judea were
closed -- he would be hanged again -- and the only place
where he would find the people who speak the same language,
the people who have a same kind of mind, where he would not
be a foreigner, was Kashmir. So it was natural for him to go
to Kashmir.
But he had learned his lesson. He had dropped the idea of
being the only begotten son of God; otherwise these Jews
would crucify him too. He dropped the idea of being a
messiah. He lived with his few intimate friends and followers
in Pahalgam.
Pahalgam is named after Jesus, because he used to call
himself "the shepherd" -- Pahalgam means "the town of the
shepherd." So it was a small colony of Jesus and his friends,
surrounding the grave of their forefather and the founder of
Judaic tradition. Jesus remained a Jew to the very end; he
never heard about Christianity.
But the followers who were left in Judea managed to create
the story of resurrection. And there was no way to prove it
this way or that. Neither could they produce Jesus -- if he was
resurrected then where was he? Nor could the other party
prove what had happened. They had put such a big rock on
the mouth of the cave that it was impossible for Jesus to have
removed it, and there was a Roman soldier on duty twentyfour hours, so there was no possibility of anybody else
removing the rock and taking the body.
But because Pontius Pilate was from the very beginning
against crucifying Jesus.... He could see the man was
absolutely innocent. He has some crazy ideas, but they are not
criminal. And what harm does it do to somebody? If someone
thinks he is the only begotten son of God, let him enjoy it.
Why disturb him, and why get disturbed? If somebody thinks
he is the messiah and he has brought the message of God... if
you want to listen, listen; if you don't want to listen, don't
listen. But there is no need to crucify the man.
But Jesus learned his lesson -- learned the hard way. In
Kashmir he lived very silently with his group, praying, living
peacefully, no longer trying to change the world. And
Kashmir was so far away from Judea that in Judea the story
of resurrection, amongst the followers of Jesus, became
significant.
So I say a kind of resurrection certainly happened -- it was a
conspiracy more than a resurrection. But certainly Jesus did
not die on the cross, he did not die in the cave where he was
put; he lived long enough.
Source: from Osho Book “beyond psychology”
Related Jesus Christ Links:
Christ is totally different from Christianity
When and where did enlightenment happen to Jesus Christ?
Jesus is not a Meditator -- How can he become Enlightened?
Jesus Christ Sacrifice on Cross for Salvation of World from Sins
of Man
In comparing Jesus to Buddha, Jesus seems very active and
revolutionary. Why is this?
Osho - When and where did enlightenment happen to Jesus
Christ?
Question - This question has been hovering in me for years. A
few times you have talked around it, but this has mystified me
more, So please enlighten. When and where did enlightenment
happen to Jesus? Was he born enlightened? -- as it is said some
three wise men from the east travelled to have darshan of the baby
Jesus. Or did enlightenment happen to Jesus when he was secretly
and anonymously travelling in Tibet and India, visiting buddhist
monasteries? Or did enlightenment happen to Jesus when he was
initiated by John The Baptist in the River Jordan? Or did
Enlightenment happen to Jesus when he was on the cross saying
'lord, thy kingdom come, thy will be done'?
Osho - There are three stages of enlightenment. The first is when
the first glimpse happens. I call it mini-satori. When, for the first
time, for a single moment mind is not functioning, there is a gap - no thought between you and existence. You and existence, you
and existence... for a moment... and the meeting, and the merging,
and the communion, and the orgasm... but for a moment. And
from that moment the seed will be in your heart and growing.
The second I call satori: that is when you have become capable of
retaining this gap as long as you want. For hours together, for
days together you can remain in this interval, in this utter
aloneness, in God, with God, as God. But a little effort is still
needed on your part. If you drop the effort the SATORI
disappears. the first SATORI, the mini-SATORI, happened
almost an accident -- you were not even expecting it. How can
you expect? You had not known it before, you had never tasted it.
How can you expect it? It came just out of the blue. Yes, you
were doing many things -- praying, meditating, dancing, singing - but they were all like groping in the dark. You were groping.
It will not happen if you are not groping at all. It happens only to
'gropers', real gropers -- they go on groping, they never feel tired
and exhausted, and they never feel hopeless. Millions of times
they are defeated in their effort, and nothing happens, but they go
on and on. Their passion for God is so tremendous. They can
accept all kinds of defeats and frustrations, but their search
continues. Unwavering, they go on groping. The darkness is
great, it seems to be almost endless, but their hope is greater than
the darkness. That is the meaning of faith; they grope through
faith.
Faith means hoping for that which seems almost impossible. Faith
means hoping against all hope. Faith means trying to see that
which you have not seen, and you cannot even be certain whether
it exists or not. A great passion is needed to have that much faith.
So to a groper who lives in faith and goes on and on, nothing ever
prevents him. No failure ever settles in him; his journey
continues. He is the pilgrim. Then one day it comes just out of the
blue. You were not expecting. Unawares, it comes close to you
and surrounds you. For a moment you cannot even believe... How
can you believe? -- for millions of lives a person has been
groping, and it has not happened. The first time it looks almost
like imagination, dream. But it is there, and it is so real that all
that you have known before as real pales before it, becomes very
faint. It is so real that it carries its certainty intrinsically. It is selfevident. You cannot suspect it. That is the criterion of whether the
mini-satori has happened or not: you cannot doubt it. You can try,
but you cannot doubt it. It is so certain that no doubt arises in that
moment. It is simply there.
It is like the sun has risen... how can you doubt?
Then the second becomes a more conscious groping. Now you
know it is, now you know it has happened. Now you know it has
even happened to you! Now there is a great certainty. Now faith is
not needed, now experience is enough. Now belief is not needed.
Now its certainty permeates your whole being, you are full of it.
Now you grope more consciously, you make efforts in the right
direction. Now you know how it happened, when it happened, in
what space it became possible. You were dancing? -- then what
was happening when it happened? In what way did the contact
become possible? By and by, it happens again and again, and you
can make out, figure out, reckon out how it happens, in what
mood. In what mood do you fall in tune with it and it happens?
Now things become more clear, now it is not just waiting in the
darkness. You can start moving, you can have a direction.
Still you falter, still sometimes you fall, still sometimes it
disappears for months. But never again can doubt arise in you.
The doubt has been killed by the first satori. Then, more and
more, it will come. And sooner or later you will become capable
of bringing it on order. Whenever you want you can create that
milieu in you which brings it. You can relax, if it comes in
relaxation; you can dance, if it comes, in dance. You can go under
the sky if it comes there. You can watch a rose flower if it
happens there. You can go and float in a river if it happens there.
That's how all the methods have been discovered. They have been
discovered by people when they found out that in a certain
situation -- make certain arrangements -- it happens. Those
became methods. By and by you become very very certain that if
you desire it, any moment you will be able, because you can
move your focus towards it. You can move your whole
consciousness, you can direct your being.
Now you become able to see that it is always there; just your
contact is needed. It is almost like your radio or like your TV: it is
always there, sounds are always passing; you just have to tune the
radio to a certain station -- and the song, and the news. This is the
second stage. But still, effort is needed to tune. You are not
continuously tuned on your own, you have to work it out. Some
days it is easy, some days it is hard. If you are in a negative mood
it is hard, if you are angry, it is hard. If you are loving it is easier.
In the early morning it is easier, in the evening it is more difficult.
Alone on a mountain it is easier, in the market-place it is more
difficult. So you start coming closer and closer, but still effort is
needed.
Then the third thing happens. When you become so capable of
finding it that any moment, whenever you want it -- not a single
moment is lost -- you immediately can pinpoint it, then the third
thing happens. It becomes a natural quality. That I call samadhi.
SATORI one, SATORI two, SATORI three... The first SATORI
must have happened somewhere in the East -- in Tibet or in India.
Jesus was with Buddhist Masters. The first SATORI must have
happened somewhere here, because to the Jews SAMADHI had
never been a concern.
Jesus brings something very foreign to the Jewish world: he
introduces Buddha into the Jewish world. It must have happened
somewhere in Nalanda, where he stayed for many years. But he
was travelling -- he was in Egypt, he was in India, in Tibet. So
nobody can be certain of where it happened. But more possibility
is India: it remains, for centuries, the country where satori has
been more available than anywhere else -- for a certain reason -because so many people have been meditating here. Their
meditation has created very potential spots, very available spots.
It must have happened somewhere here, but no record is there, so
I'm not saying anything historical.
But about the second: it is certain it happened in the River Jordan
with John the Baptist when he initiated Jesus into his path -- the
path of the Essenes. He was a great Master, John the Baptist, a
very revolutionary prophet. The second SATORI must have
happened there. It is depicted as a white dove descending on
Jesus. The white dove has always been the symbol of peace,
silence. That is the symbol for SATORI -- the unknown
descending. The second satori must have happened there. And
John the Baptist said 'My work is finished. The man has come
who will take it over from me. Now I can renounce and go into
the mountains. I was waiting for this man.'
And the third happened just on the cross -- the last effort of the
ego -- very tiny, but still... Jesus must have desired how things
should be in some way. Deep down, in some unconscious nook or
comer of his being, he must have been hoping that God would
save him. And God never moves according to you. Man proposes
and God disposes -- that's how he teaches you to disappear, that's
how he teaches you not to will on your own, not to have a private
will. And the last lesson happened on the cross, at the last
moment. Jesus shouted, almost in agony 'Why have you forsaken
me? Why have you deserted me? What wrong have I done?' But
he was a man of great insight -- the man of second SATORI.
Immediately he must have become aware that this was wrong:
'That means I still have a desire of my own, a will of my own.
That means I still am not totally in God. My surrender is still only
ninety-nine per cent.' And a surrender that is ninety-nine per cent
is a no-surrender, because surrender is one hundred per cent. A
circle is a circle only when it is complete. You can't call a halfcircle a half-circle, because 'circle' means complete. There are no
half-circles. There is no approximate truth. The approximate truth
is still a lie; either it is true or it is not true. There is nothing like
approximate truth, and there is nothing like approximate
surrender.
In that moment he realised. He relaxed, he surrendered. He said
'Let Thy kingdom come. Who am I to interfere? Let THY will be
done'... and the third SATORI, SAMADHI. That moment, Jesus
disappeared. And I call THAT moment his resurrection. That is
the moment Buddha says: GATE, GATE, PARAGATE,
PARASAMGATE, BODHI SVAHA: Gone, gone, gone beyond,
gone altogether beyond. What ecstasy! Alleluia! That is the
moment of absolute benediction. Jesus became God. The Son
became Father in that moment; all distinction disappeared. The
last barrier dissolved, Jesus had come home.
Source - Osho Book "I Say UnTo You, Vol 1"
Question - If Jesus was still in a rebellious and active stage at
the time of the crucifixion, Does that mean that he had not
achieved the total spiritual growth and inner silence of
Buddha?
Osho - At the time of the crucifixion he had just entered the moon
center. But only on that very day! That has to be understood. The
Jesus of The Bible is not like Buddha, Mahavira, or Lao Tzu. You
cannot conceive of Buddha's going into a temple and beating
moneylenders. But Jesus did it.
There were many different activities connected with the great
temple of Jerusalem. There was a great moneylending business
which exploited the whole country. People would come for an
annual gathering and for other gatherings during the year, and
obtain money at the temple at a high rate of interest. Then it
would be impossible to repay and they would lose everything.
The temple was becoming richer and richer: it was religious
imperialism. The whole country was poor and suffering, but so
much money would be automatically coming into the temple.
Then Jesus entered one day with a whip in his hand. He
overturned the moneylenders' boards and began to beat the
moneylenders. He created chaos in the temple.
You cannot conceive of Buddha doing this. Impossible! Jesus was
the first communist: he was fiery, rebellious. That is why
Christianity could give birth to communism. Hinduism could not
give birth to it, no other religion could give birth to it; it is
impossible. Only Christianity could do it, because with Jesus it
has a relevance. The very language he used was totally different.
He got so angry at some things that we cannot even believe it. He
cursed a fig tree which was not yielding any fruit because he and
his disciples were hungry. He destroyed it!
He threatened in a type of language that Buddha could not even
utter. For example, he said that those who would not believe in
him and the kingdom of God would be thrown into the fires of
hell, the eternal fires of hell, and they would not be able to come
back. Only the Christian hell is eternal. Every other hell is just a
temporary punishment: you go there, you suffer, you come back.
But Jesus' hell is eternal.
This looks unjust, absolutely unjust. Whatsoever the sin, eternal
punishment cannot be justified. It cannot be! And what are the
sins? Bertrand Russell has written a book, WHY I AM NOT A
CHRISTIAN, and one of the reasons he gives is that Jesus seems
absurd. Russell says, "If I confess all the sins that I have
committed, and all those sins which I have just thought about but
never committed, you cannot give me more than five years'
imprisonment. But eternal hell?"
Jesus speaks the language of a revolutionary when he talks about
eternal, nonending punishment -- revolutionaries always look to
the opposite end, to the extreme. You cannot conceive of
Buddha's saying it or Mahavira's saying it, but Jesus says that a
camel can pass through the eye of a needle sooner than a rich man
can enter the kingdom of God. He cannot pass! This is the seed of
communism, the basic seed. Jesus was a revolutionary. He was
not only concerned with spirituality but with economics, politics - everything. Had he been only a spiritual man he would not have
been crucified, but because he became a danger to the whole
social structure, to the status quo, he was crucified.
He was not a revolutionary like Lenin or Mao but still, Mao and
Lenin and Marx are inconceivable without there having been a
Jesus in history. They belong to the same path as Jesus: the early
Jesus, the fiery man -- rebellious, ready to destroy everything -the Jesus who was crucified.
But Jesus was not simply revolutionary, he was also a spiritual
man. He was, somehow, a mixture of Mahavira and Mao. The
Mao was crucified and only the Mahavira remained in the end.
The day Jesus was crucified was not only the day of his
crucifixion, it was the day of his inner transformation also.
When Jesus remained silent after Pilate asked him, "What is
truth?" he was behaving like a Zen master. If you look at the
previous life of Jesus, if you look at his whole previous life, this
silence was not like Jesus at all. What happened? Why did he not
speak? Why was he at a loss? He was one of the greatest orators
the world has ever produced; we may even say, without
hesitation, the greatest. His words were so penetrating. He was a
man of words, not a man of silence. Why did he suddenly remain
silent?
He was moving toward the cross. Pilate asked him, "What is
truth?" Jesus had spent his whole life talking about truth; he was
defining only that, that is why Pilate asked him. But he remained
silent.
What happened in Jesus' inner world has never been reported
because it is difficult to report. Christianity has allowed it to
remain submerged because what happened in the inner world of
Jesus can only be interpreted in India, nowhere else. Only India
knows about the inner changes, the inner transformation that
happens.
What happened was this: Jesus is suddenly on the verge of
crucifixion. He is about to be crucified and now his whole
revolution is meaningless. Everything that he has been saying is
futile, everything that he has been living for is coming to an end.
Everything is finished. And because death is so near, he must now
move within. No time can be lost, not a single moment can be
lost. He must come to the end of his journey now, and before he is
crucified he must complete the inner journey.
All along he had been on an inner journey. But because he was
also entangled with outer problems he could not move to that cool
point, the moon point; he remained fiery, hot. But it may be that
he did this consciously. Jesus was a disciple of John the Baptist
who was a great revolutionary and spiritual leader. John the
Baptist had waited for Jesus for many years. Then, on the day he
initiated Jesus in the River Jordan, he said to Jesus, "Now take
over my work and I will disappear. It is enough." And from that
day on, he was rarely seen again; he disappeared. In the words of
the inner language, he disappeared from the sun point and moved
to the moon point; he became silent. He had done his work and
had now given the work to someone who would complete it.
On the day of the crucifixion Jesus must have become aware that
now his work was finished: "There is no longer any possibility of
doing anything more now. I must move within. The opportunity
must not be lost." That is why, when Pilate asked him what truth
is, he remained silent. Because of this, the miracle happened
which has remained an enigma for Christianity. Because of this.
As he was moving to his cooler side, to the moon center, he was
crucified. When someone comes to the moon center for the first
time, his breathing stops because breathing, too, is an activity of
the sun point. Now everything becomes silent; everything is as if
dead. They thought he was dead, but he was not. He had simply
come to the moon center where breathing stops: no outgoing
breath, no ingoing breath -- the gap.
When one remains in the gap, there is such a deep balance that it
is a virtual death. But it is not death. The crucifiers, the murderers
of Jesus, thought that he was dead so they allowed his disciples to
bring the body down. But he was not dead, and when the cave
was opened after three days he was not there. The "dead" body
had disappeared. After three days, Jesus was seen again by four or
five people. But no one would believe them when they went to
the villages to say that Jesus was resurrected. No one would
believe it.
When he escaped from Jerusalem, Jesus went to Kashmir, where
he remained. But then his life was not the life of Jesus but the life
of Christ. Jesus was the sun point and Christ the moon point.
From then on, he remained totally silent. That is why there is no
record of him. He would not talk, he would not deliver any
message, he would not preach. He remained in Kashmir, not as a
revolutionary but as a master, living in his own silence. A few
people traveled to be with him. Those who became aware of his
presence in Kashmir, without having had any outward
information about it, would travel to him. And really, there were
not so few -- maybe only a few in comparison to the world, but
there were many.
Christianity is incomplete because it knows only the early,
revolutionary Jesus. And because of that, Christianity could give
birth to communism. But Jesus himself died as a fully enlightened
man -- a full moon.
Source - Osho Book "The Great Challenge"
Osho - Jesus is not a Meditator -- How can he become
Enlightened?
Question - Beloved Master, Once you said Jesus was fully
Enlightened. Recently, I heard you say Jesus was not enlightened.
You tell us that you always say the truth. How can truth change so
fast?
Osho - Truth never changes, but statements about truth can
change. When we start teaching a child, his book is full of big
pictures and very little written matter. If he is learning the
alphabet, then every letter stands for something. "M" stands for
mango. The child can understand the mango, not the "M," and he
can see the mango -- a colorful, beautiful picture. But slowly
slowly the mango will be dropped. Now when you read, have you
to repeat every time, "M stands for mango"? You have completely
forgotten what stands for what. Now you can read the alphabet
directly.
Yes, I had said to you, "Jesus is enlightened." It was "M stands
for mango," because you were not in a state to understand that
Jesus is not enlightened. To say to you something which you
cannot comprehend is meaningless. For centuries you have
become accustomed to believe that Jesus is the only begotten son
of God: he is light, he is love, he is life, he is the savior -- twenty
centuries of conditioning.
Now you can understand my problem. I have to start with
conditioned people, programmed people. Their conditioning is
thick; I have to go with them so that they can go with me!
So I had been going with all kinds of people: Hindus -- and I have
spoken twelve volumes on Krishna; Jainas -- and I have spoken
many volumes on Mahavira; Buddhists -- and I have spoken more
on Buddha than anybody else; Christians.... And even bishops and
cardinals have written letters to me, "It is surprising -- you are not
a Christian, and in two thousand years nobody has shown such
insight into the meanings of the statements of Jesus Christ."
And I had a belly laugh. Those statements are third-rate -- not
only third rate, but wrong too; the meaning that I had given to
them was mine. But that was the only way that a Christian could
become available to me, a Buddhist could become available to
me.
Now I have found my people, I need not say, "M stands for
mango." Now I can say to you exactly what is in my heart, and I
know you will be able to understand. I have walked so long with
you, can't you walk a few steps with me? I have suffered so much,
managing your conditionings, giving them meaning. Now I want
you to listen to the naked truth.
Jesus was not enlightened.
Truth never changes, but statements have to change because the
statement depends on the audience. I am not talking to the walls;
if I were there would be no need to change the statement. I am
talking to people who are conditioned and programmed. It is a
very skillful work to uncondition them, to deprogram them, to
create a trust, a friendship, a love stronger than your conditioning
-- so that if a moment comes that you have to choose between
your conditioning and the love, you will choose love.
Now I have people who are ready to listen to the truth without
any Jesus, any Krishna, any Buddha. I can now talk directly to
you. These three and a half years of silence were simply a device
to give a gap so that you could forget all that I have said before,
and I could start afresh.
Jesus is not enlightened. In fact, in the Western world
enlightenment has been very rare. People have not worked for
enlightenment, people have remained part of organized religion.
And enlightenment needs a rebellious spirit so that you come out
of all organized religions; you drop everything that has been
taught to you, and you start looking within yourself for the truth
of your being.
Jesus is not a meditator -- how can he become enlightened? He
has not even taken the first step. He prays -- and there is a
tremendous difference between prayer and meditation.
Prayer is directed towards a mythological God, a fiction. Prayer is
always directed outward. Meditation is an inward journey, not to
some fiction but to your own reality. Enlightenment happens to
those who come to realize their being.
Jesus is still praying to a God, thinking still that he is the only
begotten son of God -- that proves him just to be a crackpot -thinking that after crucifixion God will raise him again, more
luminous, glorious. But on the cross nothing happens. He is
thirsty and he asks for water, and God cannot even give him a
bottle of Coke. Frustrated, he shouts towards the sky, "Father,
have you forsaken me?" The very word "father" shows that he is
still a helpless child, he is not a mature person. He still needs a
father figure, and is afraid perhaps the father has forsaken him.
But now it is too late -- he is crucified.
Jesus thinks that he is the savior. No enlightened person has ever
said that he can save anybody; he can only share his experience.
Then to save yourself or not is your business. See the subtlety of
the point: if somebody can save you, then even your being saved
is not your freedom, it is dependent. What kind of saving is it?
Not a single enlightened man -- Bodhidharma, Chuang Tzu,
Basho, Nagarjuna -- has ever said that he is a savior. All that he
can say is, "I am saved, and I have an experience which you don't
have. If you are ready to share it with me, I can open my whole
heart to you." And then it is your decision to be saved or not
saved.
I was sitting in Allahabad on the bank of the Ganges, alone. A
man jumped into the river -- and the Ganges at Allahabad is very
deep, vast. I thought that he was just taking a bath, but after
jumping he started shouting, "Save me!" He was going down and
up, and whenever he came up, he would shout, "Save me!"
Seeing no other way -- and there was nobody else -- I jumped into
the water and pulled the man out. He was a heavier man, it was
difficult to get him out. And he was very angry when he got out.
He said to me, "Why did you save me?"
I said, "My God! You were calling, and I am alone here. I have
unnecessarily destroyed my clothes; now with wet clothes I have
to go three miles to the place where I am staying. And if you
didn't want to be saved, why were you calling?"
He said, "I want to commit suicide."
I said, "That's perfectly okay. If you want to commit suicide, who
am I to prevent you?
Then why were you calling 'Save me'?"
He said, "Just natural instinct -- when I started drowning, I forgot
all about suicide."
I pushed the man back into the river.
He said, "What are you doing!"
I said, "I am simply undoing what I have done. Now I will not be
deceived by what you say." And he was drowning and again
shouting, "Save me!"
I said, "Nothing doing."
Nobody can save someone who does not want to be saved. And if
somebody wants to be
saved, he has to find the way himself. The enlightened person is
just like a bird: he flies into the sky but leaves no footprints. You
cannot follow him; you can simply see the joy, the freedom -- that
the whole sky is available to him.
Perhaps that may awaken in you a desire also. Perhaps for the
first time you will find that you also have wings. And if that bird
can fly, why can't you fly? The function of the enlightened person
is just to create the milieu in which you become aware of your
wings, you become aware of your potentialities.
Jesus is not doing that. He is the shepherd and you are the sheep.
No man has insulted humanity in such a way as Jesus has done.
Enlightened people don't humiliate; in fact, they respect you
because they can see your potential -- if not today, then tomorrow
you will be flying. If not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow.
Time does not matter, because we are part of eternity. On both
ends it is eternity. Time does not matter. When you start flying
has no significance; flying has significance. But to tell you, "I am
the shepherd and you are the sheep," is to destroy your
individuality, is to destroy your freedom, is to destroy your
integrity; is to destroy everything that is valuable, is to reduce you
from human beings to animals. An enlightened person raises you,
helps you to rise to super-human beings. He does not make you
sheep.
No, Jesus was not enlightened. In fact, in the Judaic and Christian
tradition the orthodox have never been enlightened. Amongst
Jews, there have been a few enlightened people, but they are not
accepted by the orthodox Jews. Those are the Hassids -- rare and
really genuine people. But the orthodox will not accept them...
and they are the only beauty that Judaism has created. The very
flowering of Judaism is Hassidism, but it is rejected.
The enlightened person is bound to be rejected by every tradition.
In Greek tradition you will hear about Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus,
and so many other philosophers; but you will rarely see Heraclitus
mentioned as an enlightened man, or Pythagoras, or even
Socrates. But these are the people.... But the very word
"enlightenment" does not exist in the Greek traditions.
The same is true in Mohammedanism. Mohammed is not
enlightened, and the orthodox tradition of Mohammedans rejects
Sufi mystics who are enlightened: Jalaluddin Rumi, al-Hillaj
Mansoor, Sarmad, Rabiya al-Adabiya. These people are not part
of the traditional religion. They are rejected, condemned. The
same has been true all over the world.
But now it is time -- I can tell you things directly. Rejoice that
you are accepted as capable of hearing the truth.
Source - Osho book "From Bondage to Freedom"
Note - The above Osho talk was given during the period Sep-Oct 1985.
Question - Are fear and guilt the same thing? And surely as
light shows up darkness, So Jesus must have made people
aware of their guilt.
Osho - Fear and guilt are not the same thing. Fear accepted
becomes freedom; fear denied, rejected, condemned, becomes
guilt. If you accept fear as part of the situation.... It is part of the
situation. Man is a part, a very small, tiny part, and the whole is
vast: a drop, a very small drop, and the whole is the whole ocean.
A trembling arises: "I may be lost in the whole; my identity may
be lost." That is the fear of death. All fear is the fear of death. And
the fear of death is the fear of annihilation.
It is natural that man is afraid, trembling. If you accept it, if you
say that this is how life is, if you accept it totally, trembling stops
immediately and fear -- the same energy that was becoming fear - uncoils and becomes freedom. Then you know that even if the
drop disappears in the ocean, it will be there. In fact, it will
become the whole ocean. Then death becomes nirvana, then you
are not afraid to lose yourself. Then you understand the saying of
Jesus: "If you save your life you will lose it and if you lose it you
will save it."
The only way to go beyond death is to accept death. Then it
disappears. The only way to be fearless is to accept fear. Then the
energy is released and becomes freedom. But if you condemn it, if
you suppress it, if you hide the fact that you are afraid -- if you
armor yourself and protect yourself and are defensive -- then a
guilt arises.
Anything repressed creates guilt; anything not allowed creates
guilt; anything against nature creates guilt. Then you feel guilty
that you have been Lying to others and Lying to yourself. That
inauthenticity is guilt.
You ask: "Are fear and guilt the same thing? " No. Fear can be
guilt, but it may not be. It depends what you do with fear. If you
do something wrong with it, it becomes guilt. If you simply
accept it and don't do anything about it -- there is nothing to do! -then it becomes freedom, it becomes fearlessness.
"And surely as light shows up darkness, Jesus must have made
people aware of their guilt." No, not at all. Jesus tried to help
people not to feel guilty. That was his whole effort. The whole
effort was to tell people to accept themselves and not feel guilty,
not feel condemned. Don't say to yourself that you are ugly,
wrong, a sinner. Don't condemn. Whatsoever you are, you are.,
Accept the fact, and the very acceptance becomes a
transformation.
Jesus never created guilt in people. That was one of his crimes.
He tried to cheer up guilty people -- that was his crime. He tried
to tell them, "Don't be guilty, don't feel guilty. Even if there is
something wrong, you are not wrong. Maybe you have acted
wrongly, but your being is not wrong because of that." Some
action may be wrong, but the being is always right.
He accepted people; sinners were at ease with him, at home with
him. That became the trouble. The rabbis, the bishops, the priests,
started saying: "Why? Why do you allow sinners to be with you?
Why do you eat with them, why do you sleep with them? Why are
so many outcasts following you?"
Jesus said, "It is bound to be so. I come for those who are sick.
The sick seek the physician; those who are already healthy, they
need not. Go and think about it." Jesus said: "I have come for the
sick, for the ill. I have to support them and I have to make them
strong. I have to bring light to them, I have to bring life to them
again, so that their energy becomes dynamic and flowing."
No, Jesus is a light that does not show darkness. In fact, when the
light is there, darkness disappears. Darkness is not shown by
light; it disappears by light.
This is the difference. If a priest is there, he will show darkness.
He is not a light; he cannot destroy darkness. He will make you
feel guilty. He will create sinners -- he will condemn and he will
make you afraid of hell. He will create a greed and a desire for
heaven and its awards. At the most he can create more fear and
more greed in you. That's what heaven and hell are: projections of
fear and greed.
But when a Jesus, a sage, appears, darkness is simply destroyed.
When the light is there, darkness is not shown. Darkness simply is
not, because darkness is nothing but the absence of light.
If there is darkness in the room and I give you a lamp and tell
you, "Go. And take the lamp with you, because with the lamp it
will be easy to see the darkness..." If you go in darkness, how will
you be able to see the darkness? -- it looks logical. But absurd!
Darkness can be seen only when there is no light. If you take the
light with you, you will never be able to see darkness, because
once the light is there, darkness is no longer there.
Jesus simply destroys darkness, he destroys guilt. He creates
hope, he creates confidence and trust. People who have been
condemned for long, have lost all hope. They have accepted their
sin, they have accepted their ugly life, and they know that nothing
can be done now. They can only wait for hell. They have accepted
that they are going to be thrown in hell and they have to suffer.
Jesus comes and helps people to come out of their closed
darkness. He says, "There is no hell." He says, "Come out. Except
for your ignorance, there is no hell; except for your own
closedness, there is no hell. Come out of it, flow again. Unfreeze
and melt, and live life again. Come in the sunlight. God is
available."
That's why he says, "Return, the kingdom of God is at hand." He
does not say that if you are a sinner then returning will take much
time, and if you are a respectable religious man then returning
will take less time, no.
Just think of the whole thing as if you have dreamed a long dream
that you are a sinner. Somebody else in the same room is
dreaming that he is a saint. Will it take a longer time for you to
get out of your sleep than it will take for one who is dreaming that
he is a saint? The saint and the sinner both have been dreaming.
They will take the same time to awaken from their sleep.
Paradoxically, sometimes it may take a little longer time for the
saint, because he is having such a beautiful dream. He does not
want to come out of it. The sinner is already in a nightmare. He
would like to come out; he is crying, shrieking, that somehow he
should come out of it. He is making every effort to come out. The
dream is not beautiful, the dream is ugly. He is in hell. But the
saint may not want to be disturbed. He would like to turn over to
the other side and sleep a little more.
Remember, when you feel happy, returning is difficult; when you
feel unhappy, returning is easy. That's the meaning of the saying:
"There are blessings hidden in misfortunes, hidden in curses."
When somebody is happy and everything is running smoothly,
who bothers to transform oneself? When one is sad, in deep
sorrow, in misery, in tears, then one would like to come out of it.
Suffering is also good because it gives you an opportunity to
awaken, to come out of your sleep. Nothing is wrong if you can
use it rightly. Even poisons can be used as medicines and they can
become life-enhancing.
If you feel guilty, try to see why you are feeling guilty. Yes, man
is helpless. Right! And man is ignorant -- that is right, too. In his
ignorance he has done many things which were not as they should
be -- that, too, is right. Accept this helplessness, this ignorance,
and pray. Let your tears come down, confess, repent, say to God,
"I was helpless, I was ignorant, and I could not do better. And I
still cannot do better, unless you help. As I am, I will again go
wrong. As I am, I will again betray you. I cannot rely on myself.
Help me. Only your grace can save me."
That's what Jesus' whole teaching is: ask for God's grace, don't
believe in yourself -- because that very belief has been your whole
undoing. No, he never created guilt in anybody. He tried to free
people from guilt.
Source - Osho Book "Come Follow To You, Vol 2"
Osho
Gospel Sutra - But now they are drunk. When they have
shaken off their wine, then they will repent.
Osho on Above Sutra - This is about you. Don't think 'they' -they means you: when you are shaken out of your drunkenness,
you will repent. This word repent became very meaningful. The
whole of Christianity depends on repentance; no other religion
has depended so much on repentance. Repentance is beautiful if it
comes through the heart, if you realize that, "Yes, Jesus is right,
we have wasted our lives."
This wasting is the sin -- not that Adam committed the sin -- this
wasting of your life, of the possibility, the potentiality, the
opportunity to grow and become God-like or become gods;
wasting this time, wasting it with futile things, collecting useless
junk. And when you become aware you will repent. And if this
repentance comes through the heart it will cleanse you. Nothing
cleanses like repentance. And this is one of the most beautiful
things in Christianity.
In Hinduism there is no secret about repentance. They have not
worked out that key at all. This is unique to Christianity. If you
repent totally, if it comes from the heart, if you cry and weep, if
your whole being feels and repents that you have been wasting
God's given opportunity -- you have not been grateful, you have
misbehaved, you have mistreated your own being... you feel the
sin. This is the sin! -- not that you have murdered somebody or
that you have stolen; that is nothing. Those are minor sins which
are born out of this original sin: that you have been drunk. You
open your eyes, your heart is filled with repentance, and then a
scream, a cry, comes out of your being. There is no need for
words, you need not say to God, "I repent, forgive me." No need.
Your whole being becomes a repentance. Suddenly, you are
cleansed of all the past. This is one of the most secret keys Jesus
delivered to the world.
Jainas say that you have to work it out, it is a long process:
whatsoever you have done in the past has to be undone. If you
have done a wrong in the past, it has to be undone. It is
mathematical: if you have committed a sin, you have to do
something to balance it. And Hindus say that you have committed
such sin, that you are in such ignorance -- so many actions out of
ignorance, and the past is so vast that it is not easy to get out of it.
Many more works will be needed, only then can you clean the
past.
But Jesus has given a beautiful key. He says: "Just repent and
the whole past is washed clean!" It seems to be a very
unbelievable thing, because how can it happen? And that is the
difference between Hindus, Buddhists, Jainas and Christianity.
Hindus, Buddhists and Jainas can never believe that can happen
just by repentance, because they don't know what repentance is.
Jesus worked it out. It is one of the oldest keys.
But understand what repentance is. Just saying the words won't
do, and saying them halfheartedly won't do. When your whole
being repents, your whole being throbs and you feel it in every
pore, every fiber, that you have done wrong, and you have done
wrong because you have been drunk and now you repent -suddenly there is a transformation. The past disappears and the
projection of the future from the past disappears; you are thrown
to here and now, you are thrown to your own being. And for the
first time you feel the inner nothingness. It is not empty
negatively, it is just that the temple is so vast, like space.... You
are forgiven, Jesus says, you are forgiven if you repent.
Jesus' master was John the Baptist. His whole teaching was,
"Repent, because the day of judgment is near!" This was his
whole teaching. He was a very wild man, a great revolutionary,
and he went from one corner of his country to another, just with
one message: "Repent, because the last judgment is very near!"
That is why Christians completely dropped the theory of rebirth.
Not that Jesus was not aware of rebirth -- he knew, he knew well
that there is a cycle of continuous rebirths. But he completely
dropped the idea just to give repentance totality.
If there are many lives your repentance cannot be total. You can
wait, you can postpone. You can think, "If in this life I have
missed, nothing is wrong. The next life...." That's what Hindus
have been doing. They are the laziest people in the world, because
of this theory. And the theory is right, this is the problem; they
can always postpone, there is no hurry. Why be in such a hurry?
That's why Hindus have never bothered about time. They never
invented watches, and, left to themselves, they would not invent
them. So a watch, for a Hindu mind, is really a foreign element: a
clock in a Hindu house doesn't suit. The clock is a Christian
invention, because time is short, running fast; it is not a clock, it is
life running fast out of your hands. This death is going to be the
final one, you cannot postpone.
Just to avoid postponement Jesus and John the Baptist -- who was
his master, who initiated Jesus into the mysteries -- their whole
teaching depends on: Repent! For there is no more time left, don't
postpone any further, because you will then be lost. They bring
the whole thing to an intensity.
If I suddenly say that this is going to be the last day, and
tomorrow the world is going to disappear, the H-bomb is to be
dropped, and then I say: Repent! -- then your total being will be
focused, centered, you will be here and now. And then there will
come a scream, a cry, a wild scream from your being. It will not
be in words -- it will be more existential than that -- it will be
from the heart. Not only will your eyes weep, but your heart will
be filled with tears, your whole being will be filled with tears: you
have missed.
If this repentance happens -- this is an intensity of becoming alert
-- all the past is cleaned. No need to undo it -- no, because it has
never been a reality. It was a dream, no need to undo it -- just
become alert. And with the sleep, all the dreams and nightmares
disappear. They have never been there in reality in the first place,
they have been your thoughts. And don't be lazy about it -because you have been postponing for many lives. You can
postpone for many more: postponement is such an attraction for
the mind. The mind always says, "Tomorrow" -- always.
Tomorrow is the shelter. Tomorrow is the shelter of all sin, and
virtue arises at this moment.
I have heard: In a school, a Christian missionary school, but with
a few non-Christian boys as well, who were also taught the Bible,
the parables and the stories -- and they had to learn.... One day,
the inspector of schools came and he asked a small kid, "Who was
the first man, and who was the first woman?"
The kid replied, "Adam and Eve."
The inspector was pleased and he said, "To what nationality did
they belong?"
And the kid said, "Indian!"
The inspector was a little bit disturbed, but he still asked, "Why
do you think they belonged to the Indian nationality? Why do you
think they were Indians?"
And the kid said, "Easy! They had no shelter over their heads, no
clothes to wear, nothing to eat except one apple between the two
of them -- and still they believed this was paradise! They were
Indians!"
The Indians are at ease with whatsoever is. They are not worried
about doing anything, because they think, "Life is such a long
affair, why worry? Why get in a hurry? There is no need to run."
Christianity created an intensity by the idea that there is only one
life. And remember well: Hindus are right, as far as the theory is
concerned, and Christians are wrong, as far as the theory is
concerned. But theory is never a question for a Jesus. The
problem is the human mind and its transformation -- and
sometimes truth can be poisonous, sometimes truth can make you
lazy.
I will give you another example which will be helpful: Gurdjieff
used to say that you don't have any eternal soul, remember. You
can attain it, but you don't have it -- you can miss. And if you
don't attain it you will simply die, nothing is going to survive.
And Gurdjieff said that only one in millions attains to the soul,
and then the soul goes on moving. The body is left and the soul
moves on. But this does not happen for everybody. The soul is not
given to you, it has to be worked out, it is a crystallization. When
they work it out, then a Mahavira, a Buddha, a Jesus -- they
become eternal. Not you! -- Gurdjieff used to say you are just
vegetables! You will be eaten, you will dissolve; you don't have
any center, so who can survive?
He was again using the Jesus tactics. He was not right because
you do have a soul, an eternal soul. But the theory is dangerous,
because when you hear that you have an eternal soul, that you are
the Brahman, you go to sleep. This becomes a hypnotic thing: if
you are already that, why worry? What need is there of sadhana?
What need is there to meditate? "Aham brahmasmi -- I am God
already." So you go to sleep because nothing is left to be done.
Theories can kill, even true theories can kill. Gurdjieff is not
right, but he is more compassionate. And you are such liars that
only lies can help you. Only lies can bring you out of your lies,
just as when a thorn is in your flesh, another thorn is needed to
bring it out.
Jesus knew well, he knew about reincarnation -- nobody else
knew so well. But he simply dropped the idea because he had
been to India! He looked at the Indian mind, saw that the whole
mind had become a postponement because of the theory of
reincarnation, and he dropped that theory. Gurdjieff also went to
India and Tibet, and he looked at the whole nonsense that has
happened because of the belief that you already have within you
all that is needed. You are divine already, there is no need to do
anything. So beggars think they are emperors -- then why bother?
Gurdjieff started teaching on the same lines, the essential note is
the same: he said nobody has a soul already; you can create it,
you may miss it, so don't take it for granted -- work it out! If you
make much effort, only then will a center be born, and that center
will live; but not you as you are, because you are just vegetables.
And to say that you are just vegetables, he created a new myth.
He said, "You are vegetables for the moon, food for the moon."
He joked, but it is a very beautiful joke, and very meaningful. He
said everything in the world is food for something else: this
animal eats that, that animal eats something else.
Everything is food for something else, so how can man be an
exception? Man must be a food for something and Gurdjieff said,
"Man is the food for the moon, and when the moon is very hungry
there are wars. When the moon is very hungry, there are wars
because many people are needed. But he was joking about the
moon, he was not serious. And followers are always blind, so they
have taken even this joke as a truth. Gurdjieff's followers go on
saying that this is one of the greatest truths he discovered -- if he
were to come back he would laugh.
He was joking, but when Gurdjieff jokes he jokes meaningfully.
And the insistence was, the emphasis was, that you are vegetables
-- as you are. Only this much can be done with you: the moon can
eat you. Can you find anything more stupid than the moon?
Difficult to find! When the astronauts reached it, they thought that
they were going to fulfill all the dreams and all the poetry of the
world, because man has always been thinking about reaching the
moon. But when they reached it, there was nothing. The moon is
nothing -- you are food for nothing. The moon is just a dead
planet. And you are food for a dead planet, because you are dead!
Remember this: Christianity, particularly Jesus, knows well that
there is incarnation, reincarnation, rebirth. Life is a long
continuity, this death is not going to be the ultimate death. But
once this is said, you relax. And the whole method of Jesus
depends on friction: you are not allowed to relax, you have to
fight, create friction, so that you can become crystallized.
Source - Osho Book "The Mustard Seed: My Most Loved Gospel
on Jesus"
Osho - Gospels provide no techniques for developing a loving
heart
Question - The Gospels provide no techniques for developing a
loving heart. The gospels are also too difficult for ordinary
people. Perhaps this is why the Christian message has always
seemed less practical than, say, buddha's.
Osho - The question is from Prem Nirvan. First, love is not based
on any techniques. The path of love knows no techniques, that's
why in the Gospels no techniques are given for developing your
love. The path of intelligence, gyana yoga, the path of knowing,
of course has many techniques. Meditation is a technique.
Intelligence moves though techniques. Intelligence always creates
technology. If intelligence goes into science, then it creates
technology. If it goes into spirituality, it creates Yoga, Tantra -they are also technologies for the inner being. Intelligence is
technological. It always finds out ways, shortcuts and how to do
things more efficiently. Wherever you apply intelligence you will
find better ways to reach the goal -- faster, speedier, with less
inconvenience, with less cost -- that's what intelligence is.
But the path of love, bhakti yoga -- and Jesus is a BHAKTA, a
devotee -- knows no techniques. Love is not a technique. Please
remember it: Love is not a technique and cannot be a technique,
and if you bring technique into it, you will destroy love. That's
what is happening in the West. There are many love techniques
available in the West. Everybody is learning from books how to
make love, and how to make love more efficiently, more
skillfully, and how to have greater orgasms, and all that. Now, all
these things available -- many books are available -- are making
people incapable of being in love.
There is a problem to be understood. If you are too interested in
technique, you will not achieve orgasm. Impossible, because your
whole concern will be the technique -- how to do it. If you
become too interested in Vatsayana and his love postures, then
you will be doing a kind of gymnastics, exercises. But love will
disappear.
Love needs no technique. Can't you see? Animals love, birds
love, trees love, and if you have eyes to see, the whole existence
is love energy. But there is no technique. It is natural, it is
spontaneous. Technique is against spontaneity. Love is not a
technique but spontaneity. It needs only that you drop your being
into the heart. Through the head there is no way towards love, it is
through the heart. And remember that the heart is capable of
moving into love from the very beginning.
It is just like a rose flower opening. You need not open it, it has
the capacity to open. That capacity is built-in, it is intrinsic. Of its
own accord the rose flower opens -- so opens the heart. The heart
needs no training. If you give training to it you will destroy it,
because through training you will destroy the spontaneity.
That's why in the Gospels, Nirvan, no techniques are given.
Techniques cannot exist on that path. Buddha appeals to you.
Every day Buddha is gaining more and more followers in the
West, because the West has become very very mind-oriented.
Intelligence has become predominant in the West. The West has
become technological about everything. So when you read about
Buddha or Patanjali or Vatsayana, it has immense appeal; it
simply fits with you. Your whole being says 'Yes! It must be so!'
You are ready to accept Buddha, Patanjali, Mahavir.
The grip of Christ is lessening on the West. The reason is that the
West no longer goes through the heart; it bypasses the heart.
People are Christian because they are born Christians, but the
appeal of Christ is every day becoming less and less and less.
Buddha will fit better. Patanjali even more. Immediate appeal will
be there because there is logic, there is intelligence, and there is a
clearcut path -- what has to be done. Love is not a doing. It is a
happening, it is a trust, not a technique.
Jesus says: Love God. If you can love, then there is no
problem. If you cannot love, then Jesus is not the way for you.
Then you will have to search for Buddha. On the path of Buddha,
love is non-existent; emotion, sentiment, love -- these are nonexistent. Buddha says: Those who are very very emotional and
loving have to find other ways. My way is not their way.
Do you know that for many years Buddha was very resistant to
initiating women? He rejected it again and again. Many times
appeals were made to him, 'Why don't you initiate women?' And
he would say 'No. My path is the path of intelligence, not of love,
and if women are allowed to enter it, they will destroy my whole
thing.' When too much pressure was put on him -- he was a very
very democratic man and he understood that it was not right to
deprive women -- he finally, but very reluctantly, agreed. The day
he initiated women he declared 'My path was going to remain
pure for at least five thousand years. But now I can only hope for
five hundred years, not more than that.' And that's exactly how it
happened.
Through the entry of the woman, Buddhism started changing its
character, because the woman brings love. Once Buddha was
gone, the whole quality of Buddhism changed; it became
absolutely the opposite. If Buddha comes back he will not be able
to recognise the Buddhism that is prevalent in China, Burma,
Thailand. He will not be able to recognise it, because its whole
quality has changed. Now Buddha is thought to be the God, and
people are praying to him -- and his whole life he was saying that
prayer is nonsense, only meditation will do. He was utterly on the
path of intelligence; prayer was meaningless. And he was saying
'There is no God, so to whom are you praying? It is crazy.' And
he was saying that 'Nobody can help you except yourself.'
The last message on his deathbed was... Ananda, his chief disciple
asked 'Bhagwan, give us your last message.' And he said 'Ananda,
APPA DIPO BHAVA: become a light unto yourself. There is no
other light, so don't look into the sky, don't look at me. There is
no other light. Be a light unto yourself. Your own intelligence has
to become your light, depend utterly upon yourself -- no other
dependence, no shelter anywhere, no refuge.'
He was one of the most intelligent persons born on the earth, but
soon, once he was gone, the quality started changing. And it is a
surprise of history that Buddhism became the source of Tantra,
the source of love techniques. Buddhism became the source of
love techniques. It is utterly against Buddha. There is no
relationship between them, but it had to be so. Once women
entered -- they came in great crowds, and they have a very loving
heart so they can fall into anything very easily -- soon the
proportion between men and women was one to four. One man to
four women -- they predominated. And with them came love,
tenderness, softness, femininity, receptivity. With them came
everything that Buddha was holding out against. The quality
changed: Buddha became a God, was worshipped and prayed to.
Temples were erected, images were built, and all that which
Buddha was saying was not possible on his path entered and
bloomed.
I am not saying that something went wrong. Nothing went wrong,
because so many people attain through love. But Buddha's purity
was lost. His absolute grip on intelligence was lost. The path
became more and more the meeting of the opposites.
To me, it is very good. Nothing like this has happened on Jesus'
path. Nobody has come on Jesus' path who would bring
intelligence and the path of intelligence into it, no. Nothing has
happened like that. Jesus' path has remained more pure in that
way. It is the path of prayer, of love -- love of the whole
existence, love of God -- God simply means the whole. You will
not find any techniques there. If you are looking for techniques in
the Gospels, you are looking in the wrong place. Look for
techniques in Patanjali's YOGA SUTRAS, look for techniques in
VIGYAN BHAIRAV TANTRA: look for techniques somewhere
else. Jesus is a lover.
If you can love, nothing else is needed. If you cannot love, you
cannot be helped on that path. Then forE~et about it, then it is not
for you.
The problem is arising... Nirvan wants to love and cannot love, so
he wants to find some techniques. But love never happens
through techniques so you are asking for the impossible. Nirvan,
follow the path of intelligence. If Buddha appeals to you, there is
no problem . Forget about Jesus! Buddha will do.
THE GOSPELS PROVIDE NO TECHNIQUES FOR
DEVELOPING A LOVING HEART -- because there are none.
THE GOSPELS ARE ALSO TOO DIFFICULT FOR
ORDINARY PEOPLE.
There, Nirvan, you are absolutely wrong. The Gospels are
difficult only for intellectuals, not for ordinary people. Jesus
moved with ordinary people; he was very against intellectuals. He
was all for the ordinary people. His whole disciplehood came
from the very ordinary people, because the ordinary people have
more pure a heart, naturally. The intellectuals lose their heart,
they become hung-up in the head. They THINK about love, but
they cannot love. Even sometimes when they say that they are in
love, they only THINK that they are in love.
Love is not possible through the head. It is as impossible as
somebody trying to see through the ears, or to listen through the
eyes. You cannot listen through the eyes, and you cannot see
through the ears, because they are not meant for it. Intelligence is
not meant for love. For that a different faculty exists in you -- the
heart. The intellectual is trained for the head; the school, the
college, the university -- they all train for the head. The more and
more clever, intelligent, calculating you become, the more and
more difficult it becomes to love. That's why Jesus moved with
ordinary people, because ordinary people are extraordinarily
loving people. The so-called extraordinary intellectuals are very
ordinary lovers.
So how can it be that you say THE GOSPELS ARE ALSO TOO
DIFFICULT FOR ORDINARY PEOPLE...?
No, sir, they are not. If they are difficult for you, that simply
shows that you are difficult for them, that you are too much in the
head. From the head the Gospels cannot be approached. Through
tears, yes. Through logic, no. Through dancing, yes. Through
singing, yes. Through chanting, yes. But through argumentation,
no. You must be approaching in a wrong way. You must be
bringing your head into the Gospels.
They are very simple phenomena -- like flowers, like rivers. Jesus
lived with ordinary peoPle. He is the past Master of how to relate
to ordinary people. Buddha lived with extraordinary people -great scholars, great intelligent people, poets, philoso-phers; his
atmosphere was that of intelligence. Jesus walked with the
fisherman, with the woodcutter, with the shoemaker. These
Gospels are those dialogues. They were between Jesus and very
ordinary people. In fact, he himself was very ordinary. He was not
the son of a king... a carpenter's son. He cannot speak anything
that cannot be understood by ordinary people.
But I understand your problem. It is difficult for you. Then it is
not for you. Don't be unnecessarily worried about it. Then look
for something that is for you. There are a thousand and one doors;
the door is irrelevant. The real question is to get into God; by
what door you enter will not make any difference. Enter -- that is
significant. So let Buddha be your door.
PERHAPS THIS IS WHY THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE HAS
ALWAYS SEEMED LESS PRACTICAL THAN, SAY,
BUDDHA'S.
It depends. If you are a very very intellectual person, Buddha's
approach will look very practical and Jesus' approach will look
impractical. If you are a loving person, Buddha's will look
impractical and Jesus' will look very practical. It depends. It
depends more on you how it looks. If something suits you, it is
practical for you. If something does not suit you, it is impractical.
And there is no need to remain hooked with the impractical.
Related Osho Talks on Jesus Christ:
Osho on Jesus Christ and John the Baptist teachings on Repentance
Osho - What is the difference between your Philosophy and that of Christianity?
Osho- There is no difference between the Catholic's basic doctrine and the Protestant's
Osho - Repentance means retrospective awareness, repentance means looking backwards
Osho - Christ's message is rejoice and be merry. Christianity's message is: be sad, look miserable
^Top
Back to Jesus Christ Teachings
Martin Luther
Osho on Martin Luther
Question - Beloved Osho, Many germans think Martin Luther to
be a great rebel. He toppled the absolute power of the pope, made
the latin bible available to all by translating it, and married a nun.
Yet he immediately joined other vested interests. And the whole
event is called "The Reformation." Can you please speak on the
difference between rebellion and reformation, and whether real
rebellion can turn into reformation.
Osho - Prem Nirvano, I have never spoken on Martin Luther for a
particular reason. He was neither rebellious, nor religious; he was
a pure politician. He toppled the power of the pope, not because
he was against power -- he wanted to have it himself, he was
jealous of it. Because he could not get it, he created a split in
Christianity between those who followed the pope and those who
followed him.
His desire for power was so great that as soon as he had created
the split in Christianity, he immediately joined hands with the
vested interests. This is not possible for a rebel. A rebel is always
a rebel. It does not matter who has the power, he is always against
people having power; his whole philosophy is decentralization of
power. Power should not be centralized in a few hands, either
political or economic or religious. It should be decentralized. It
should be given to everybody -- to every individual, his own
power. Nobody should be in possession of somebody else's
power.
Martin Luther was a cunning politician. It was because of his
cunningness and political acumen that he managed to create a rift
in Christianity, pretending to be a great rebel. Jealousy finds a
thousand and one ways to hide its face. His whole mind was bent
upon becoming the pope, but if it was not possible, then he would
not allow anybody else to remain in absolute power. The people
who followed him are not accidentally called Protestants.
Basically, he was protesting against the power of the pope, not so
that the power should be distributed, but so that he should be
given the power. And just to show that he does not care about the
pope, he married a nun and he translated the BIBLE into the
living languages.
The pope was against both: a monk should be a celibate, and the
pope was not willing to have the BIBLE translated into the
ordinary languages which people use. The reasons are clear -- it is
not only the pope, all the religions in the world have resisted
having their holy scriptures translated into the living languages
which people speak. The fear is that if they can understand what
is written in the holy scripture, they will pass through a great
shock -- because there is nothing much holy in it.
And there is so much unholy in it ...
these so-called holy scriptures cannot even be considered great
literature. Their standard is so mundane, so mediocre that all the
religions of the world have thought it is better that they should
remain in languages which nobody understands anymore.
When you hear somebody chanting sutras in Sanskrit, it seems
they must have meaning of tremendous significance -particularly all old languages are very musical. They had to be,
because writing came into existence very late, and people had to
remember. And it is easier to remember poetry than to remember
prose. So all holy scriptures are poetic, and all old languages -Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Chinese -- are all very
musical. If you don't understand them, they sound great. It feels
like there must be a secret hidden meaning in these musical,
beautiful words.
Translated, they fall flat on the ground; there is nothing much in
them. They are so ordinary that sometimes one feels ashamed -this is my holy scripture? Many of the holy scriptures are full of
obscenity, full of pornography. The HOLY BIBLE has five
hundred pages of sheer pornography. The pope was afraid
because to bring the BIBLE into ordinary living languages, which
people know and use, was dangerous. And celibacy was the
fundamental attitude of all religions, not only of Christianity.
Martin Luther was so angry because he could not become the
pope -- and it was not in his hands to become the pope; a pope is
elected by the cardinals. They have a special way of electing a
pope: there are perhaps two hundred topmost cardinals who
gather in the Vatican whenever a pope dies. There is a special
place in the Vatican where there are two hundred small cells.
Those cardinals move into those cells for twenty-four hours,
fasting, praying, finding the message of God within their hearts:
who should be the pope? After twenty-four hours, they write the
name of one of the cardinals from amongst those two hundred
cardinals, and then all those pieces of paper are collected.
Whoever gets more votes, whoever gets his name written by more
cardinals than anybody else, is chosen as the pope.
It is a very strange election: you cannot campaign, you cannot ask
somebody, "Please give your vote to me" -- it is prohibited. And
you cannot meet anybody else while you are deciding; you are
closed in your small cell. It is hoped that, fasting and praying, you
will do something which will be right, which will not come out of
political considerations but which will come out of deeper
feelings: who is really capable of being the head of the whole
religion? -- because he is going to be the representative of Jesus
Christ.
Martin Luther had no hope ... but he could create a protest, and he
chose two particular points on which people would support him -this is simple politics -- because many priests, bishops, and
cardinals wanted to get married, but had not the courage to fight
against the tradition. When Martin Luther married a nun,
immediately so many other priests and bishops followed -- not
that they were convinced that Martin Luther's ideology was right,
but because he was giving them an opportunity to get married and
yet remain a Christian. They were tired of suppressing.
And the masses supported him because he was bringing the
BIBLE into the language of the people. People wanted to know
what was in the BIBLE; it was a mystery to them. Martin Luther
could not become the pope of the whole of Christianity, but he
became the head of the Protestant Church. He became a second
pope of a sect which had broken away from the mainstream. I
have never spoken on him consideredly, because I don't count
him, in any way, amongst the religious people -- he was not
rebellious at all. He was simply jealous, and that is the reason
why, as he separated from the church and created a new sect, he
immediately joined hands with the establishments of other vested
interests. He needed power, he needed money, he needed new
churches; he needed everything to create a whole religion -- and
he created it.
It is called in the books of history, Nirvano, "The Reformation."
In a very ordinary way, it can be called a reformation -- nothing
much to brag about. What is great in marrying a nun? Is there
some great revolution happening? Millions of people are married.
What is great in translating the BIBLE from Latin? It was
translated from Hebrew into Greek, from Greek into Latin, so
what was the problem? It had already been translated into
different languages; now it could be translated into English, into
German. Yes, there was some kind of reformation, but I don't give
any value to it.
One man came to me a few years ago with a letter of introduction
from one of my old professors: "This man is very revolutionary,
you will like him. I am sending him to you, he always wanted to
meet you."
I asked the man, "What kind of revolution have you made? Or
what kind of revolutionary thoughts do you have?" He said, "I
have married a widow."
I said, "What revolution is this? Every widow should be allowed
to be married. What? Is this all the revolution that you have done,
or is there any other revolution?"
He said, "Up to now I have done only this revolution."
I said, "This is not much of a revolution."
In another place I met a man who was known in that area as very
revolutionary -- and what was he doing? He was doing collective
marriages. Ordinarily, one man goes to marry a woman, but he
would collect a dozen women and a dozen men to cut expenses -just one priest can do the whole process for one dozen couples,
there is no need to do it one dozen times. And he was thought to
be a great social revolutionary.
I said, "What kind of revolution are you doing?"
But these are the things that are thought to be revolutionary. What
Martin Luther has done is just ordinary; it does not make any
change in human consciousness. It has not raised the Protestant
Christians, in any way, higher in consciousness than the
Catholics. It does not in any way contribute to the betterment of
humanity. It has just fulfilled the egoistic desire of Martin Luther
to be a pope himself, the head of the Protestant religion; he
claimed to be the real successor of Jesus Christ. I am not
interested at all in these kinds of reformations; basically, they are
stupid. But people will start proclaiming such things to be
revolution, social reformation. Revolution is a big word. It should
change some foundations of life. Reformation is not that big, but
still it should formulate better life systems.
What has Martin Luther done? He translated the BIBLE into
German, and became himself a head and proclaimed, "I am the
real representative of Jesus Christ" -- because he did not have any
hope or any possibility to be chosen as pope. He was so stubborn
and so egoistic that nobody wanted him. He was not even a
cardinal -- the question of being chosen as pope does not arise.
So it was just ambition, and to fulfill his ambition he had to
persuade the public mind that he was doing something good for
their welfare. Of course nuns liked it, because many nuns were
dying to get married; many monks liked it -- they were dying to
get married and they could not tell anyone. The people who
followed him were the people who were cowards and could not
take a stand on their own.
And the masses loved the idea that the BIBLE should be available
in their own language, but it changes nothing. Instead of one
pope, now there are two popes. Instead of one Christianity, now
there are two Christianities. And what is the difference between
them? -- just these are the differences, not even worth calling
differences.
Paddy was dawdling on the way to work, looking half asleep.
Mick caught up with him. "What is wrong with you this fine
morning?" asked Mick. "You look half asleep."
"I am half asleep," said Paddy. "I was up half the night."
"What was the trouble?" pursued Mick.
"It was the cat," replied Paddy. "I had to sit up till midnight
waiting for her to come in so I could put her out for the night."
Reformation, revolution, rebellion -- we have to take these words
out of the hands of those people who have destroyed their beauty
and their meaning.
Source - Osho Book "The New Dawn"
Question - Beloved Master, Why do I feel Sadness about
Christmas When the whole message is rejoice and be merry?
Osho - Vachana, Christ's message IS rejoice and be merry. But
that is not the message of Christianity. Christianity's message is:
be sad, long faces, look miserable; the more miserable you look,
the more saintly you are. Sometimes I really feel for poor Jesus.
He has fallen in such wrong company, and I wonder how he is
managing in paradise with all these Christian saints, so sad, so
dull.
He was not a dull man, he was not a sad man -- he could not be.
The word 'christ' is exactly synonymous with buddha. He was an
enlightened person. He rejoiced in life, in the small things of life.
He rejoiced in eating, drinking, friendship. He loved
companionship, he loved the whole life.
But Christians down the ages have painted him as very sad. They
have painted him always on the cross, as if for thirty-three years
he was always on the cross. And my own understanding is that a
man like Jesus will not die sad, even on the cross. He must have
laughed before he died.
That's what al-Hillaj Mansoor did before he was killed by the
fanatic Mohammedans, because he had declared: ANA'L HAQ -I am God. Mohammedans could not tolerate it, just as Jews could
not tolerate Jesus. They killed him -- but before they killed him,
he looked at the sky and laughed loudly.
One hundred thousand people had gathered to see this ugly
phenomenon, the murder of one of the greatest human beings who
has ever walked on the earth. Somebody asked from the crowd,
"al-Hillaj, why are you laughing? You are being killed!" And he
was killed in the most cruel way, piece by piece. Jesus'
crucifixion is nothing compared to Mansoor's: first his legs were
cu off, then his hands were cut off, then his eyes were taken out,
then his nose was cut off, then his tongue was cut off, then his
head was cut off. They tortured him as much as was possible, but
he laughed. Somebody asked, "Why are you laughing?"
Mansoor said, "I am laughing because the man you are killing is
somebody else, I am not he. I am laughing at God too. What is
happening? -- have these people gone mad? They are killing
somebody else! Me you cannot kill; it is ridiculous, your whole
effort is ridiculous. So let it be remembered, let it be on record
that I laughed at your foolishness!"
And that's exactly what Jesus must have done, laughed. But
Christians have tried their best to depict Jesus as sad. They have
made a saint out of a real authentic human being; they have cut
everything. The gospels are not true stories; much has been
changed, much has been reduced, much has been added. They
have become mere fictions.
Down the ages, Christians have been trying to paint Christ as
more and more sad. Why? -- because all over the world religion
has been dominated by a neurotic kind of people. It has been
dominated by the people who are masochists, sadists. In the East
too, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism -- they have all been
dominated by the masochistic people, the people who enjoy
torturing themselves, the people who are incapable of living life
in its totality. The people who are too cowardly to live, escapists,
have dominated religion up to now. These escapists have depicted
Buddha as not laughing, Mahavira as not laughing.
And Christians actually say that Jesus never laughed in his life.
Can you believe that? Jesus never laughed in life? -- and he
enjoyed drinking and eating, he enjoyed gamblers and prostitutes,
and he enjoyed all kinds of people, and he never laughed? Can
you imagine that a man like Jesus, who was always feasting for
hours with his friends, never laughed? It is inconceivable! How
can you go on wining and dining without laughing? He must have
joked, he must have told funny stories. They have been edited out.
He was a very true man, and very courageous. He accepted Mary
Magdalene, the famous prostitute of those days as his disciple. It
needs courage, it needs guts. I cannot believe that he never
laughed.
I can rather believe a very fictitious story about Zarathustra -- that
the first thing he did when he was born was to laugh loudly. That
I can believe, but I can't believe this story about Jesus, that he
never laughed. It looks impossible. A child... just the first thing he
did was a belly laughter. But I can believe it. It has a certain
beauty about it, a certain significance. It simply says that
Zarathustra was born wise, he was born enlightened, that's all.
Whether he laughed or not, that is not the question.
And it doesn't seem too difficult: if children can cry, why can't
they laugh? Doctors say that children cry just to clear their throat,
so that they can breathe easily. But that can be done in a far better
way by a belly laughter. And now there are doctors who say that
if we take enough care children don't cry; on the contrary, they
smile. That's a good beginning. Soon Zarathustras will be coming.
But up to now doctors have been very Christian. The first thing
they do is they hang the child upside down and hit him on the
buttocks. Do you expect a child to laugh? This is a great welcome
to the world, putting the child upside down, giving him a hit -- a
good beginning, because his whole life he is going to get hit in the
pants, again and again. And hanging upside down, how can he
laugh? No wonder he cries!
Now there are a few doctors working in a different direction.
They bring the child in a more natural way out of the mother's
womb; they don't cut the umbilical cord immediately because that
creates crying, that is violence. They leave the child on the
mother's belly with the umbilical cord intact. They give a good
bath to the child, a hot bath, they put the child into a hot tub of
exactly the same temperature as it was in the mother's womb.
In the mother's womb the child is floating in water. The water has
the same contents as sea water, salty. In the same salty chemical
solution, of the same temperature, the child is put in the tub. He
starts smiling. It is a real beautiful reception. And not with glaring
tube lights... that hurts the eyes of the child. In fact, so many
people are wearing glasses only because of the foolishness of the
doctors. The child has lived for nine months in the mother's womb
in darkness, utter darkness. Then suddenly so much light... it hurts
his delicate eyes. You have destroyed something delicate in his
eyes. The child should be received in a very dim light, and the
light should be increased slowly slowly, so his eyes become
accustomed to the light. Naturally the child smiles at the beautiful
welcome.
I can believe Zarathustra loudly laughing, but I can't believe Jesus
not laughing at all. He lived thirty-three years and did not laugh? - that can only be possible if he was absolutely perverted,
absolutely pathological, ill. Something must have been wrong if
he didn't laugh. But nothing is wrong with him; something is
wrong with the followers. They depict their saints, their messiahs,
their prophets, as very serious, somber, sad, just to show that they
are above the world, that they are beyond, that they are not
worldly people. Laughter seems shallow, seems unspiritual.
That's why, Vachana -- because you have been brought up as a
Christian. Although the message of Christmas is rejoice and be
merry, still there is a sadness, because the whole of Christianity
teaches you to be sad. It is not a life-affirming religion, it is lifenegative. It is much more life-negative than Hinduism, much
more life-negative than Judaism. It has no sense of humor at all.
And a religion without a sense of humor is ill, pathological. It
needs psychological treatment.
Peter, standing in the crowd, looked up at Jesus on the cross. As
he watched, he distinctly saw Jesus motioning him forward.
"Pssst, hey Peter, come here," said the Lord.
As Peter moved forward, two Roman guards blocked his way and
beat him till he fell to the ground.
A few moments later, Peter, bruised and bleeding, looked up and
saw Jesus again motioning him forward.
"Pssst, hey Peter, come here!"
Looking around, Peter noticed that the crowd was gone and so
were the Roman soldiers. He moved closer to Jesus, "Yes, Lord,
what is it? What is it you want?"
"Hey Peter," said Jesus. "Guess what? I can see your house from here!"
Source - Osho Book "Dhammapada, Vol8"
Question - Why is Jesus thought to be born out of a Virgin
Mother?
Osho - There are a few points to be understood. One: Jesus can be
born only out of a virgin woman. But remember, virginity has
nothing to do with celibacy -- not, at least, for me. Virginity is
something immensely different. Don't reduce it to sex.
Sex can be virgin, and celibacy may not be virgin. Things are
very complicated. If a man is celibate and thinks constantly of
sex, he is not virgin. On the other hand, if a man makes love to a
woman, or the woman makes love to a man, and there is no
thought of sex -- no sexuality in the head, no cerebral sex -- it is
virgin. Virgin means pure. Virgin means uncontaminated. Virgin
means spontaneous. Virgin means simple, innocent.
Now, sex is not the problem. Sexuality is the problem. There are
people who are continuously thinking of sex. And the more you
try to enforce some celibacy on yourself -- you become a nun or a
monk -- the more you think of sex. In fact, then you don't think
about anything else, you only think of sex because that is your
starved part. It takes revenge, it becomes very aggressive. It
comes again and again, bubbles up, surfaces in the head. And you
go on doing prayer to keep it repressed, and you go on doing this
and that -- a thousand and one things. But whenever there is rest,
it is there. You go to sleep and it is there. It becomes your dream,
it becomes your fantasy. If you repress it too much, then it starts
coming in different symbols. They may not be sexual on the
surface but deep down they are sexual.
Sexuality means that sex has entered into the head, but why has
sex entered into the head in the first place? It enters into the head
if you repress it. Anything repressed enters into the head. Try for
three days: go on a fast, and food will enter into the head. For
seven days don't take a bath... I am not talking about hippies. If
you are a hippy, then this won't do. For seven days don't take a
bath, and that will enter in your head. For three, four days don't
sleep, and that will enter in your head. And then you will be
continuously thinking of sleep, sleep will be continuously coming
and you will be yawning. Whatsoever is starved enters into the
head. And when something enters into the head your whole being
becomes polluted with it.
By 'virginity', I mean that Mary must have been in a very very
non-sexual state. She must have been a very innocent woman. She
must not have been thinking about sex; she must have made love,
but that love was innocent. There was no idea in it: mind was not
interfering. It was completely uncontaminated by the mind,
uninterfered with by the mind. That's what we in Tantra say real
love is.
Ordinarily what do you do? You see a woman, a beautiful
woman, and you start fantasising. 'A beautiful woman... how to
take her to bed?' Now you start planning. Now there is great
turmoil and calculation inside -- how to introduce yourself to her,
and how to 'make it'. On the surface you don't show that. Inside
that continues -- calculation, thinking, planning, designing. And
when you talk to her you don't show any indication that you are
sexually interested in her, because she may feel offended. Things
may go wrong from the very beginning. You talk about other
things -- poetry, literature -- and you are not concerned with
poetry and literature at all. You are concerned somehow with how
to jump into the bed. You are planning inside. But on the surface
you are showing interest in art, in music, you are praising the
music that is on. But deep down, you are waiting for something
else. This is non-virginity.
You meet a woman, you don't think about sex at all. Only
pathological people think about sex, healthy people don't think
about sex. There is no need. You enjoy the beauty of the woman - her face, her eyes, her proportion -- you are simply thrilled by
her being. There is no idea to do anything to her, there is no idea
to exploit, there is no idea to possess. You are immensely
interested, but very innocently. There is no planning in your
mind, there is no future, then it is a virgin relationship. One day
love can happen. One day listening to music, dancing together,
love can possess you both: you can make love to each together.
But even while making love, there is no idea -- there is no mind in
it. It is innocent of mind, then it is a virgin relationship.
If you ask me, then this is what I mean by 'virgin'. Jesus cannot be
born in the way Christians say -- that is absurd, stupid. But why
do they say that he was born out of a virgin mother? They are too
obsessed with sex, and to them it seems degrading that Jesus
should come out of sex, out of an ordinary love relationship. That
looks very very disturbing to them. THEIR God, THEIR Master,
THEIR saviour... and coming through the ordinary passage of
sex? No, that is not possible. If Jesus can come through sex, then
how will they condemn sex? Then how will they tell their nuns
and their monks 'Don't ever go into sex. It is ugly, it is the greatest
sin there is!'? If Jesus himself enters into the world through
natural love, it will be difficult to condemn. Then a nun can say
'Who knows, maybe Jesus wants to come through me?' Or a monk
can say 'Who knows? Joseph never knew. Who knows maybe
Jesus wants to come through me?'
If Jesus can come through love, then love is enhanced, enthroned.
Then love becomes a great value. If Jesus comes through love,
then love will have a splendour to it, and that is difficult for the
pathological people. They condemn sex, because through
condemning sex they can hold people, they can make them feel
guilty -- that is their strategy. Make people feel guilty, and they
become slaves and serfs. Make them feel guilty and they are
always crawling. Make them feel guilty and you can exploit them.
Make them feel guilty and they will come crawling to the
churches and to the mosques and to the temples, and they will
never be rebellious. They will be so afraid -- they are sinners, they
have to be saved. Create the idea in them that they are sinners,
then certainly they will start searching and seeking how to be
saved. And then you can trap them into the church 'This is the
only way to be saved -- only those who go through Jesus will be
saved' you can say to them.
The more they are trembling, the more they are afraid, the closer
death is coming, the more they will start coming into the church,
and the more they will believe in any nonsense that you say. This
has been used by the priest and the politician to exploit people, to
repress people, to oppress people, to dominate people. They
cannot say that Jesus comes through ordinary love; they want to
make it special. And this tendency exists in all the religions.
Somehow they want to make their Master special. Jains say that
Mahavir's perspiration does not smell -- in fact, he does not
perspire. He does not defecate -- he's not an ordinary human
being. Defecation, urinating are very ordinary things -- Mahavir
does not do that.
Now that seems to be the longest case in the history of
constipation: forty-two years. I have heard about the record: the
record is one hundred and twelve days. The greatest record known
to medical science is one hundred and twelve days. One man kept
that long. But Mahavir? Forty-two years. Now you cannot
compete with Mahavir. Now this is absurd, this is foolish. But
that's how things go.
Every religion tries to make something special of the Master, and
the Masters are the MOST ordinary people, because they are nonegos. They are very simple people. But the disciple's ego is in
trouble, the disciple's ego wants to find something which is
special -- so special that nobody else can claim it. Christians have
found it through this idea of virginity. They say that Jesus was
born out of the virgin Mary through the Holy Ghost. But why
can't the Holy Ghost come in the usual way through Joseph -- as
he always comes? Why did he get lost? Why did he go astray?
I have heard...
The problems of the world were weighing heavily on God's
shoulders and he confessed the need for a rest.
'Why don't you take a short vacation, Boss?' suggested the
archangel Gabriel.
'Yes, but where?'
'How about the little place, Earth? You haven't been there for a
good while.'
'No, no. It's a world of busybodies' shuddered God. 'I was there
two thousand years ago and that's enough. I had an affair with a
little Jewish girl, and they're still talking about it.'
Christians are obsessed. This is a very ill state of affairs. To me,
virginity means innocence. And naturally, Jesus can only come
out of innocence. Such a flower can only bloom in innocence.
Mary must have been a virgin -- virgin in my sense. She must
have been pure love. She must have been as innocent as the
animals. She must have been a perfect animal -- that is the
meaning -- 'like a cow'. Look into the eyes of a cow. Those eyes
must have been the eyes of Mary. Jesus can only come through
such simplicity, such innocence.
Question - In comparing
Jesus to Buddha, Jesus seems
very active and revolutionary. Why is this?
Osho - There is a reason. But first, some explanation is needed.
Yoga divides man into two parts: the sun part and the moon part.
The sun is symbolic of inner positivity and the moon is symbolic
of inner negativity. Sun does not mean the outer sun nor does
moon mean the outer moon. These words are used for the inner
universe.
There is even one breath that is known as the sun breath and
another breath that is known as the moon breath. Every forty to
sixty minutes, your breath changes from one nostril to the other.
If you need more heat in the body, or if you suddenly grow angry,
your sun breath starts functioning. Yoga says that if you use your
moon breath when you are angry, then you cannot be angry at all,
because the moon breath creates a deep coolness inside.
The negative is cool, silent, still. The positive is hot, vibrant with
energy, active. The sun is the active part in you and the moon is
the inactive part in you. When one first becomes acquainted with
the sun, the light is burning hot, like a flame.
If you analyze the inner life of Buddha or of Jesus with this
distinction in mind, many things which are ordinarily hidden will
become apparent. For example, whenever an enlightened one like
Buddha is born, his early life will be very revolutionary. The
moment one enters the inner dimension, the first experience is of
a fiery flame. But the older Buddha grows, the more an inner
coolness is felt. The more perfect the moon stage becomes, the
more the revolutionary fervor is lost. That is why Buddha's words
are not revolutionary.
Jesus did not have this opportunity. He was crucified while he
was still a revolutionary and he died, as far as Christianity is
concerned, at the age of thirty-three. If you compare Buddha's
sayings with those of Jesus there is a clearcut difference. Jesus'
sayings look like those of a young man -- hot. Buddha's early
sayings were also like this, but he was not crucified for them; he
lived to be eighty.
The reason he was not crucified is that India has always known
that this happens. Whenever a person moves within, whenever a
buddha enters into himself, his first expression is fiery,
revolutionary, rebellious. He bursts open and explodes into fire.
But then that phase disappears and ultimately there is only the
moon: silent, without any fire, with only light. That is why India
has never killed anyone; that is why India has never behaved the
way the Greeks behaved with Socrates or the Jews with Jesus.
Jesus was crucified early. Christianity still remains incomplete
because Christianity is based on the early Jesus, on Jesus when he
was just a flame. Buddhism is complete. It has known Buddha in
all his stages. It has known Buddha's moon in all the stages of the
moon -- from the first day to the full moon light.
It has been a misfortune for the West, it has proven itself to be
one of the greatest misfortunes in history, that Jesus was crucified
when he was just a flame, when he was only thirty-three. The
flame would have turned into moonlight, but the opportunity was
not given. The reason is that the Jews were not aware of the inner
phenomenon.
India has known many buddhas, and it is always true that
whenever someone enters the inner dimension, he has to feel the
fire of the revolutionary side coming up. If one continues going
inward, this dissolves, and then there is only silence, a moonlit
silence. To change heat into light is the secret science of inner
alchemy. To change coal into diamonds, to change baser metals
into gold -- these are just symbols.
Alchemists were never really concerned with changing baser
metals into higher metals, but they had to hide what they were
doing. They had to create an esoteric, secret symbology, because
it was very difficult in early times to talk about an inner science
and not be murdered. Jesus was killed: he was an alchemist. And
the Christianity that developed after Jesus went against him. The
Christian Church began to kill and murder those who were
practicing the alchemy of inner transformation.
Christianity could not really flower into a religion; it remained a
clerical thing. It could not create sannyasins, it could only create
preachers -- trained, dead, disciplined.
Source - Osho Book "The Great Challenge'
Question - Well, I was brought up as a catholic, So how come
Jesus is a stranger to me?
Osho - Jesus is always a stranger. It does not matter whether you
were brought up as a Catholic or a Protestant or a Hindu or a
Mohammedan. The very being of Jesus is that of a stranger,
because he is an outsider. He lives on a different plane, he lives in
a different dimension: he lives in God, you live in the world. He
talks a different language; he talks about things you have not even
dreamt about. You cannot trust him. You cannot even understand
him; he is incomprehensible.
You may have been brought up as a Catholic; that means you
have been taught from your childhood things about Jesus. Those
are simply words; you have not been introduced to Jesus, because
that introduction is possible only through meditation -- not
through any kind of teaching, not through the Catholic catechism.
It is all rubbish. In fact, rather than helping you to become
acquainted with Jesus it becomes a barrier; you become
knowledgeable. You know many things about Jesus without
knowing Jesus. The more you know about him, the less you think
that you need to know him. You become satisfied by and by; you
start feeling that you already know him without knowing him at
all That's what Christian teachings do And the more you have
been taught, the more you become familiar, the more it breeds
contempt.
So sometimes it happens that one who has not been brought up as
a Christian may have fresher eyes to see Jesus, because his mind
will be uncluttered. He will not know anything, he will look
through innocence. He will not have any conditionings, he will
look empty. He will approach Jesus without any prejudice for or
against. And you can know Jesus only when you go nude, naked - naked of all beliefs, naked of all prejudices, when you approach
him without any preoccupation, when your mind is utterly silent.
So in fact the Catholic upbringing has done just the Opposite.
All religions are doing that, it is nothing special to the Catholic
Church. Hindus destroy the possibility of knowing Krishna,
Buddhists destroy the possibility of knowing Buddha -- because
knowledge becomes more important than knowing, and
knowledge is second-hand. Only knowing can help. And
remember, let me repeat it again: Jesus is a stranger. He may be
standing by your side but he is not there, he is somewhere else.
You may be standing in front of Jesus but you are not there, you
are somewhere else. You and Jesus never meet, because the
planes are so different. You never criss-cross -- you cannot!
Unless you become something like Jesus, there is no possibility.
And to become like Jesus needs great meditation, needs great
intelligence -- not a Catholic upbringing, not a Sunday religion,
not foolish dogmas and creeds. Great intelligence, sensitivity,
awareness...
People are fast asleep. Somebody is asleep as a Christian, and
somebody is asleep as a Hindu. That doesn't matter -- sleep is
sleep. A Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan -- if all these three
get too drunk, will there be any distinction, differentiation
between their drunkenness The Hindu will behave as foolishly as
the Mohammedan; and the Mohammedan will behave as stupidly
as the Christian. Once they are drunk, they are drunk. And people
are asleep. It makes no difference what kind of theology you have
used as a pillow for your sleep. Whether the pillow is white or
green or blue or red does not matter. Once you fall asleep, you fall
asleep; the pillow becomes immaterial. Whether you are sleeping
on the Bible, on the Gita, on the Koran does not make any
difference; you are using a pillow. Somebody is using the Bible as
the pillow, somebody else is using the Koran as the pillow. And
you are snoring over your scriptures. And Jesus and Mohammed
and Buddha and Krishna remain strangers.
They do not belong to this world, that's why Hindus call them
avatars. Avatar means one who has come from beyond descended
from the beyond, like a ray of light descends into darkness. It
comes from the transcendental world, from the world of turiya -the fourth.
Jesus LOOKS like you, but he is not like you. Don't be deceived
by the appearance. He is here on the earth, and not of it. He
moves in the same world, the same market-place, the same
people, rubs shoulders with you, holds your hand, looks into your
eyes, but he does not belong to this world. He belongs to the other
shore. He has risen, he has risen in God.
You can also rise, and only by rising will you be able to
understand him; befreind him, otherwise he will remain an
outsider.
Jesus is a lotus. You are still the mud. There cannot be any
dialogue between the lotus and the mud -- although the lotus is
born out of the mud, although the mud is carrying many more
lotuses than have become manifest. Many unmanifest lotuses are
there in the mud, but the mud and the lotus are so different -strangers to each other. That is the situation. If you want to
understand the lotus you will have to become a lotus. Only a lotus
can have a dialogue with the lotus.
Never become a Christian. If you want to become something,
become a Christ. Never become a Buddhist. If you want to
become something, become a Buddha. Otherwise you will remain
unaware of the reality of Jesus. And because people feel uneasy -uneasy because they cannot comprehend Jesus -- they create
theories. Rather than transforming themselves, they load Jesus
with theories, theories which can help them make him
comprehensible. No theory can make him comprehensible. All
theology is false.
But there are only two ways: either you wrap theories around
Jesus which you can understand... In that way you feel that you
have understood Jesus, but you have understood only the theories
that you have wrapped around him. He remains there, absolutely
far away, distant. He is not even touched by your theories. You
can weave and spin beautiful philosophies around him. That
philosophy you will be able to understand -- it is woven by you -it is your creation, it is your invention rather. But Jesus, who is
just standing there hidden behind your philosophies, is still an
outsider. In fact your philosophies, your theories have made him
more of an outsider than he was. With those theories, there has
come a China Wall between you and him.
If you are a Christian you will never understand Jesus. Your very
Christianity will be an obstruction, a hindrance. How can you
understand Jesus when you are a Christian? Impossible! What
does it mean to be a Christian? It means that you have certain
ideas about Christ. You are clinging to certain theories: those
theories become more important than Christ himself! Naturally,
because you can understand those theories and you cannot
understand Christ. So those theories become more and more
important. You can discard Jesus, but you cannot discard your
theories. That's why there are so many Christianities -- the
Christianity of the Catholic, and the Christianity of the Protestant,
and the Christianity of many many other sects. They all go on
fighting, they are always at each other's necks, and they are all
followers of Jesus! So where is the conflict?
The conflict is not between their Jesuses, because Jesus is one.
The conflict is between their theories, and they cling to the theory.
They can discard Jesus very easily -- Jesus is discarded, but they
cannot discard their theory. Their theory is more important: it is
their invention. Jesus has become secondary.
No, you cannot understand Christ if you are a Christian or a
Catholic. You can understand Christ only if you are nobody. I am
not saying that you can understand Christ if you are a Hindu.
When you are nobody, when you drop all the curtains and you
start moving in that reality called Christ without any preoccupied
mind -- empty, clean, clear, no smoke around you, just a clarity
and the freshness that clarity brings, and the vitality that clarity
brings -- and you start approaching Jesus, with no idea of who he
is, then there will be a meeting. Only if you are a nobody can you
meet with Christ or Buddha or Krishna. And these are different
names for the same state of consciousness. It is the fourth state of
consciousness. Theories belong to the third state of
consciousness; and Jesus, Buddha, belong to the fourth state of
consciousness. You will have to drop many things before you can
feel Jesus.
Source - Osho Book "I Say Unto You, Vol 2"
http://www.messagefrommasters.com/jesuschrist/osho_jesus_chri
st_sacrifice%20_cross.htm
Question - Osho, Jesus said that His Sacrifice on the Cross was
for the Salvation of the World from the Sins of Man. Please
would you comment on this.
Osho - Anand Geetam, THE FIRST THING TO BE
UNDERSTOOD about a man like Jesus is that whatsoever the
church that is bound to grow around such a man says about him, it
is bound to be wrong. What the Christian church says about
Christ cannot be true. In fact the Christian priest does not
represent Christ at all. He is the same old rabbi in new garments,
the same old rabbi who was responsible for Jesus murder. The
Pope is not a different kind of person. It makes no difference
whether it is a Jewish establishment or a Christian establishment
or a Hindu establishment; all establishments function in the same
way.
Jesus is a rebel, just as Buddha is or Lao Tzu is. When the church
starts establishing itself it starts destroying the rebelliousness of
Jesus, Buddha, because rebellion cannot go with an
establishment. It starts imposing its own ideas -- once Jesus is
gone it is very easy to impose your own ideas. It starts selecting
what to keep in the Bible and what not to keep. Many things have
been dropped, many things have not been included in it. For
example, the Gospel of Thomas has not been included in the New
Testament. It was just discovered a few years ago -- and it is the
MOST important gospel. The four gospels that have been
included are nothing compared to it, but it is very rebellious.
It seems Thomas has simply reported Jesus without polluting,
contaminating, his message. That must have been the reason why
the gospel has not been included in the authorized version of the
New Testament. And those gospels which have been included,
they have also been edited. For centuries conferences went on
editing them, destroying them, distorting them.
I know Jesus because I know meditation. My knowing of Jesus is
not through the Bible, it is not through Christian theology. I know
Jesus directly. I know Jesus because I know myself; that s my
way of knowing all the Buddhas.
The moment you know your own Buddhahood you have come to
know all the Buddhas; the experience is the same. All differences
are in the mind; the moment you transcend mind there are no
differences left. How can there be differences in absolute void?
Two voids can only be exactly the same. Minds are bound to be
different because they consist of thoughts. When there are clouds
in the sky then each cloud is different, but when there are no
clouds at all then the sky is one and the same.
I don't know Jesus through Christian theology; I know him
directly. And my knowing is that he cannot talk in terms of
sacrifice -- first thing, the very first. A man like Jesus does not
talk in terms of sacrifice; it is celebration, not sacrifice. He is
going to meet his God dancing, singing. It is not sacrifice; he is
not a martyr. The Christian church tries to make him the greatest
martyr, the greatest man who has sacrificed himself for the
salvation of the world from the sins of man. In the first place it is
not sacrifice -- sacrifice looks business-like -- it is celebration!
Jesus is celebrating his life and his death.
Secondly: nobody can solve the problems of others, nobody can
be the salvation of the world. And you can see it: the world is still
the same. Twenty centuries have passed and Christian priests go
on talking nonsense, that he sacrificed himself for the salvation of
the world. But where is the salvation of the world? Either he
failed, he could not manage... that they cannot accept, that he
failed. Then what happened? The world seems to be exactly the
same -- nothing has changed! Humanity remains in the same
misery. But Jesus cannot have said, I have come for the salvation
of the world.
But it happens always when a church starts establishing itself that
it has to create such ideas, otherwise who is going to listen to the
priests? Jesus is salvation -- not only that but the ONLY
salvation!
Just the other night I was looking at a book: JESUS, THE ONLY
WAY. Why the only way? Is Buddha not a way? Is Lao Tzu not a
way? Is Zarathustra not a way? Is Moses not a way? Is
Mohammed not a way? There are infinite ways to reach God.
Why make God so poor? -- only one way?
But the Christian priest is not interested in God: he is interested in
creating a business. He has to claim that Jesus is the ONLY way,
that all other ways are wrong. He is in search of customers.
That's why every religion creates fascists and fanatics. EVERY
religion claims, My way is the only right way -- only through me
can you arrive at God. If you go on some other way you are
destined for hell, you are doomed." This is a fascist way of
thinking and this creates fanatics. And all religious people are
fanatics, and the world has suffered very much from this fanatical
approach. It is TIME, ripe time now, to drop all kinds of fascist
and fanatical attitudes.
Jesus is a way, but the way has to be walked. The way can go on
lying there; it is not going to help you. Just by being there, just by
being crucified, Jesus cannot be the salvation of the world -otherwise it would have happened! Then what are we doing now?
Then what are the priests doing now? What is the Pope doing
now?
Just the other day somebody asked: 'Osho, have you heard? The
new Pope has done a miracle?
Yes, I have heard: he has made a blind man lame. What else can
these popes do? What are these popes doing now? The world's
salvation has happened! Now no religion is needed and no church
is needed. Even Christ is not needed any more! The work is
finished. I have heard:
One young man came from medical college with a gold medal; he
had topped the university. His father was also a physician. The
father said, "Now that you have come I would like to go to the
mountains for a rest. For years I have not taken even a single
holiday. Now you look after my practice and for one month I
would like to go to the mountains."
So the old man went to the mountains. After one month when he
came back the young doctor received the father at the airport and
said, 'Dad, do you know? -- the old woman whom you have been
treating for thirty years and could not manage to cure -- I have
cured her within one month! '
The father simply hit his head with his hand and said, You have
destroyed the whole business! It is because of her that you could
go to medical college. And I was hoping that your younger
brother would also become a doctor. You fool! What have you
done? That woman was our business! You have finished my
whole life s career!
If Jesus has REALLY done the work of salvation, then there is no
point in Mohammed coming -- Mohammed came after Jesus.
Then there is no point in Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, coming,
no point in Kabir coming. He has closed the shop! But it has not
happened.
Buddha says: Buddhas can only point the way."
But the fanatic disciples always want to claim.... What to say
about Jesus? -- even Jainas claim that Mahavira came to the world
for the salvation of humanity. Now it may be a little bit relevant
with Jesus because he speaks in such a way that he can be very
easily misinterpreted, but Mahavira is VERY clear. He says in
absolutely definite terms that nobody can save another: "I have
not come to save anybody. If I can save myself, that is enough."
Even a man like Mahavira who has stated this absolutely, his
disciples -- the Jaina MUNIS and the Jaina monks and the Jaina
pundits -- go on claiming that he came for the salvation of
humanity.
Why are people after humanity? And how can you manage it?
You have not created the misery for the world so how can you
destroy it? If Jesus is the cause of the misery of the world, then
certainly he can withdraw it. If HE is the person who has
imprisoned you, he can open the gates, unlock the doors and tell
you to leave, and you are free. But he is not the person to do it.
You have done it; your hell is created by you. What can Jesus do
about it?
But this stupid logic has gone very deep in the mind of humanity - for a certain reason. We always want somebody else to be
responsible -- for our misery, for our happiness, we always want
somebody else to be responsible. We don't want to be
responsible! To avoid responsibility we become trapped in these
kinds of ideas.
Now, Christians say Adam and Eve committed the original sin
and the whole of humanity is suffering. It is so patently foolish!
Scientists say that humanity has existed for millions of years.
Millions of years ago, a couple, Adam and Eve, committed a sin
and we are suffering for it. Can you think of a more ridiculous
thing? -- that you are imprisoned because millions of years ago
somebody committed a crime. You did not commit it, how can
you suffer for it? And what original sin are they talking about? It
is neither original nor sin! What Adam did was a simple
phenomenon: he disobeyed the father.
Every child has to disobey the father. Unless a child disobeys the
father he never becomes mature. It is nothing, original, it is very
simple and natural. It is very psychological. There comes an age
when every child has to say NO to the parents. If he does not say
no to the parents he will not have a spine; he will be spineless. If
he cannot say no to the parents, he will be a slave his whole life.
He will never attain to individuality. Adam and Eve did not
commit any sin; they simply became mature. They said no, they
disobeyed. When your child goes behind the house and starts
smoking don't be worried too much; he is simply disobeying you
That is part of growth. If he never disobeys you, be worried. Take
him to the psychoanalyst -- something is wrong with him. If he
ALWAYS obeys you then he has no soul; he is abnormal, he is
not normal.
Be happy when your child disobeys you. Thank God that now he
has started moving towards becoming an individual. It is only by
disobeying, rebelling, that a child attains authentic individuality.
If parents are wise they will be happy.
And I think God cannot be so foolish as Christian priests are. God
must have been happy the day Adam and Eve disobeyed; he must
have rejoiced. He must have sung a song saying, "Now my
children are be-coming mature." I CAN'T see him being annoyed.
I can't conceive a God who cannot understand such a simple
psychological phenomenon.
You have to give your God a little more intelligence than
Sigmund Freud! It is such a simple fact of life that each child has
to disobey. It is not sin -- disobedience is not sin. And what is
original about it? It is nothing unique and it did not only happen
millions of years ago: it happens each time a child starts growing.
You will see it happening in your child somewhere near the age
of three or four the child starts asserting his freedom.
That's why if you want to remember your life you can remember
only back to the age of four or at the most three; beyond that all is
dark. Why? You had no individuality, hence no memory. You
attained your first individuality when you were three or four.
Girls attain at nearabout three, boys attain at nearabout four; they
are always lagging behind, and this is going to be their whole life
pattern. Apparently the husband is walking ahead, but deep down
he is always behind the wife.
I have heard a story:
The great King Akbar once asked his ministers, "My wife was
saying to me that all my ministers are hen-pecked. Is it true? I
want to know the truth and please don't try to deceive me. If I find
that you have deceived me, then death will be the penalty. So
stand in a row on the right all those who are hen-pecked
husbands, and on the left those who are not."
All except one moved to the line of hen-pecked husbands -embarrassed, hesitating, but they did not want to be false to the
King. They knew perfectly well, "He will go into deep research,
and sooner or later, if he calls our wives, we will be caught. So it
is better to say it once and finish it."
But one man, whom the King had never thought very heroic, who
was the most cowardly, was standing alone. The King said, "I am
happy. At least there is one person who is not hen-pecked."
The man said, "Wait! Don't misunderstand me. When I was
coming from my home my wife said, 'Avoid crowds. That's why I
am standing here -- just to avoid the crowd. If she comes to know
that I was standing in the crowd there will be difficulty, sir, and I
don't want any difficulties."
Nearabout the age of three or four That's why I say this parable of
Adam and- Eve has so many aspects; I am never tired of talking
about it from different angles. It was Eve who was the first to
disobey -- that means one year ahead. Adam came to his senses a
little later; in fact he was persuaded by Eve.
If the world is really left free then women will seduce men, not
men women; that will be the natural course. And in fact that's
exactly what happens right now, but in a very subtle way. The
woman seduces the male, but seduces in such a subtle way that
the gross male mind cannot understand it. The gross male mind
thinks, I am taking all the initiative," and the woman goes on
laughing deep down; she knows who is pulling the strings. She
never takes a single step on her own visibly; you cannot see it.
She always allows the man to approach her; she can wait. She
trusts her own capacity to pull the man. She does not want to wag
her tail; she always manages, persuades the man to wag his tail.
That's what happened: Eve ate the fruit first, disobeyed God, and
then Adam followed. This is not something that happened once; it
happens always. It happens to every child and it is good that it
happens. It is nearabout four that the child starts feeling a kind of
individuality of his own; he starts defining himself.
Lanahan, an Irish political prisoner, escaped from jail by digging
a tunnel that opened into a school playground. As he emerged in
the open air Lanahan could not help shouting at a small girl, I am
free, I am free!"
"That's nothing," said the girl, "I am four."
There is a time when the child wants to declare to the world that
"I am here!" that I am!" He wants to define himself, and the only
way to define himself is by disobedience. So there is nothing
original about it and nothing like sin; it is a simple process of
growth. And because Christianity has been denying it as a simple
process of growth, it has not helped humanity to become mature.
All the religions have been trying to keep humanity immature,
juvenile, childish. They are all afraid that once humanity becomes
mature then they will not be of any value; they will lose all luster.
They will not be able to exploit a mature humanity; they can
exploit only children. So what sin has humanity committed so that
Jesus is needed to come for the salvation of the world?
I would like to make it absolutely clear to you that there is no
need for ANY salvation. Secondly: if there is any need you feel, it
can't be done by anybody else except you yourself. Thirdly: you
are not living in sin; you are living in nature -- but if nature is
condemned you start feeling guilty. And that is the trade-secret of
the priests: to make you feel guilty.
I don't think Jesus said that his sacrifice on the cross was for the
salvation of the world from the sins of man. Priests must have
imposed their ideas on Jesus. The New Testament was written
centuries afterwards, and then for centuries it was edited,
changed, and the words that Jesus spoke were in a language
which is no more alive -- Aramaic. It was not even Hebrew -- a
dialect of Hebrew, but different in many ways.
When Jesus' words were translated -- first into Latin -- a great
change happened: they lost their original quality, the flavor. They
lost something very essential: their soul. And when from Latin
they were translated into English, something was again lost. For
example, a few words you can meditate over: 'Repentance' is one
of the key words because Jesus uses it again and again, says to his
disciples: Repent! Repent ye, because the Day of Judgment is
very close. He repeats it so many times that it must have been of
tremendous value to him. But what does it mean -- 'repent'? Ask
the Christian priest; he will say, "This is a simple word;
everybody knows what it means: repent for your sins, repent for
your guilt, repent for all that you have done." And the priest can
be helpful; he can help you in the ways of repentance. But the
word 'repent' has nothing to do with repentance.
Jesus' word for repent simply means 'return'; it does not mean
repentance at all. 'Turn in' it means, 'return to the source', it
means, 'return to your own being'. That's what meditation is all
about: returning to the source, returning to the center of the
cyclone, returning to your very being.
Now you can see the difference. When you use the English word
'repent' it has something very ugly about it: sin, guilt, the priest,
confession; this is the climate of the English word 'repent'. But the
Aramaic word simply means return to the source, return! Return,
don't waste time. And that's how it is with almost all key words.
It is almost impossible to understand Jesus through the priests.
The only pure way, the only possible way, is to go in, return
inside. There you will meet Christ-consciousness. The only way
to understand Christ is to become a Christ. Never be a Christian -be a Christ! Never be a Buddhist -- be a Buddha! Never be a
Hindu -- be a Krishna! And if you want to be a Krishna, Christ or
Buddha, then you need not go into the scriptures and you need not
ask the scholars: you will have to ask the mystics how to go in.
That's exactly what I am doing here: helping you to become
aware of yourself. And the moment you know yourself you will
be surprised: you have never committed a sin. Sin is the invention
of the priest to create guilt in you.
You don't need any salvation. All that you need is a little shaking
up so you can wake up. You don t need priests. You certainly
need awakened people, because only the awakened ones can
shake those who are fast asleep and dreaming. And humanity
needs to be free of guilt, free of the idea of sin, free of the idea of
repentance. Humanity needs innocence, and the priests don't
allow you to be innocent; they corrupt your minds.
Beware of the priests. They are the people who crucified Jesus -how can they interpret Jesus? They are the people who have
always been against the Buddhas -- and the irony is that finally
they become the interpreters.
Source - Osho Book "Be Still and Know"
Source - Osho Book "I Say Unto You, Vol 2"
Question - Beloved Master, Please could you tell me the
difference between Innocence and Stupidity?
Osho - Innocence is the ultimate flowering of your
consciousness. Even a child is not innocent; he is simply
ignorant. He does not know, but he is not aware that he knows
not. The child most probably will become stupid, because the
society needs stupid people, the religions need stupid people, the
politicians need stupid people. All vested interests need the
masses to remain stupid. Their stupidity is the opportunity for all
vested interests to exploit them.
It is very rare that somebody rebels against religions, politics,
social structure, and tries to retain his individuality; chooses
ignorance rather than to be knowledgeable, because ignorance at
least is natural. In being knowledgeable you have gone far away
from your nature. The person who rebels against all these vested
interests and discovers that he knows nothing, that he only knows
one thing, that he knows nothing -- he is the innocent man.
When Bodhidharma was asked by Emperor Wu of China, "Who
are you?," Bodhidharma said, "I do not know." It was not
ignorance. Bodhidharma is one of those few people who have
come to innocence.
Socrates' last statement is, "I know only that I know nothing."
Stupidity is common. It comes in all sizes, all shapes: Christian
stupidity, Hindu stupidity, Mohammedan stupidity, Buddhist
stupidity, communist stupidity. One thing about stupidity: it never
looks inwards. It can see outside -- for example, a Hindu can see
that Jesus cannot be enlightened, for the simple reason that he
drinks wine and moves with prostitutes. It is impossible for Hindu
stupidity to recognize Jesus as enlightened.
The Christian cannot see Krishna as enlightened. He had sixteen
thousand wives, all forcibly taken from their husbands, from their
children -- and the man is the perfect incarnation of God! It is
difficult for the Christian to see how Krishna can be the
incarnation of God. He forces Arjuna to go to war, convinces him
-- against his will -- to go into a war which is known in India as
the Great War, which destroyed India forever. It broke India's
spine; since then India has never been able to reach any heights. It
was available to all kinds of invaders, easily available to become
enslaved. The whole responsibility goes to Krishna.
Now, a Christian who believes, "Love your enemy, love even
your neighbor"... I am always wondering why Jesus has not said,
"Love your wife too, love your husband too" -- because the
enemy is far away, to love the enemy is easy. To love the
neighbor is more difficult, and to love the wife or the husband is
almost impossible.
The Christian teaching seems to be of peace, and Krishna's
teaching seems to be of war, violence. No, it is not possible for
Christians to accept Krishna. They can see the stupidity of Indians
who believe in Krishna. The Christian cannot accept even Gautam
Buddha, for the simple reason that he never healed sick people, he
never gave eyes to the blind, he never raised the dead back to life.
Then what kind of a savior is he? He never served anybody, and
service is religion to the Christian mind.
Just look from the other side. If you ask the Buddhist, "Do you
think Jesus Christ is a savior?" he will simply laugh. He will say,
"Saviors are not crucified. Jesus could not save himself; he is a
pretender, a hypocrite, claiming that he can save the whole
humanity."
And the Hindus, the Jainas, the Buddhists, all the Indian religions,
believe that if a certain person is crucified, that means in his past
life he must have committed really grave crimes, perhaps
murders. Otherwise crucifixion is impossible; it has to be related
to his life.
Jainas say that when Mahavira, their savior, walks on the road,
even thorns move away. Because Mahavira has not committed
any crime in his past life, he cannot suffer even a thorn. Hindus
say, if Meera is given poison, the poison turns into nectar,
because she has not committed any sin in her past life. So Jesus'
crucifixion, which is very significant to the Christian, is simply a
proof for Hindus, Jainas, Buddhists, that this man was simply a
pretender.
Stupidity has this trait: it can see in others, but it cannot look
withinwards. No Christian can see anything wrong in Jesus
Christ, no Hindu can see anything wrong in Krishna, no Buddhist
can see anything wrong in Gautam Buddha. Suddenly their
intelligence disappears; they become immediately retarded, they
fall back. This is one of the characteristics of stupid people.
Stupid people can become very knowledgeable. They can become
great scholars, popes, shankaracharyas, Ayatollah Khomeiniacs,
great rabbis full of knowledge, but no knowing of their own. All
knowledge is borrowed. In themselves they are just empty; they
are covering that emptiness with borrowed knowledge. It is not
their own intelligence that has become sharpened, it is only their
intellectuality that has become too full of information.
Remember, a computer has no intelligence, but it has memory. It
can have as much information as you feed to it. The stupid person
can become a great scholar, a world-famous scholar, but he is just
a computer. All knowledge is information; it is his memory, not
his experience. In his experience he proves very stupid. I will give
you two instances of two very great scholars.
One is a great Greek scholar, thought to be one of the greatest
mathematicians; he discovered many things in mathematics. He
discovered the principle of averages -- that is his greatest
contribution to the world. Before him nobody had ever thought
about the principle of averages.
One Sunday morning he took his family for a picnic. They had to
cross a small river. The wife said, "Take the children on your
shoulders" -- they had four children. "Two I will take, two you
take."
He said, "Wait. I am a mathematician, and no ordinary
mathematician. Let me first see the average height of the children
and the average depth of the river."
Naturally, the river somewhere was very shallow, somewhere
very deep. The bigger children were taller, the smaller children
were shorter. But the average... he figured it out on the sand with
his finger and found that the average height of the children was
enough that the average depth of the river could not drown them.
The wife insisted, "You keep your average: I don't understand
mathematics, I can only see that there is danger."
He said, "Don't be afraid. You just follow me." And then the
children started drowning, because the average is just a pure
mathematical concept. It does not exist, it is not found in reality.
And when the wife shouted, "The children are drowning!" do you
know what he did? He did not go to save the children, he rushed
back to the bank. He said, "Then there must have been some
mistake in my calculations; otherwise, how is it possible? Their
average height is greater than the average depth of the river." This
is stupidity. The man is a great mathematician, but if you put his
mathematics aside, he is simply retarded.
The second example I give you is about Karl Marx. He was a
chain-smoker, and one day he found a cheaper brand of cigarette.
He was an economist, and certainly one of the great economists of
the world. And if you think of his influence, he is the greatest
economist because he has influenced more than half the world.
Communism is his philosophy, his economic theory.
Seeing the cheaper brand, he purchased as many boxes as he
could carry home. When the wife saw him carrying so many
boxes of cigarettes, she said, "What are you doing? Doctors are
saying to you, 'Stop smoking!' Your friends are saying to you,
'Stop smoking!'"
And Karl Marx with a big smile said, "You don't know -- I have
found a way. Now there is no need to be worried about earning
money. If I smoke one cigarette, so much money is saved in
comparison to the older brand; the more I smoke, the more money
is saved. So now I am not going to do anything except smoke,
because you have always been asking me for money, money,
money. Now have as much money as you want!"
The wife could not understand how the money could be saved by
smoking. But this is an economic theory, it does not correspond to
reality. She had to inform his closest friend, Friedrich Engels, "He
has gone mad. In his room he is sitting and smoking continuously
-- to save money!"
Engels came, and he asked, "What is the matter?"
Marx said, "Now I can explain to you, you are an intelligent man.
My wife cannot understand higher economics. I was smoking up
to now a brand which was costly. Now this is a cheaper brand;
with each cigarette so much money is saved. The natural
consequence is: the more you smoke, the more money is saved."
This is sheer stupidity. He may have been a great economist, but
that is only scholarship, computer scholarship. As far as his own
experience is concerned, he is behaving stupidly. So stupidity can
become very knowledgeable. That does not mean that it has
disappeared; you have simply covered it up.
Innocence is not knowledgeable. Innocence simply means a clean
clarity, insight with no preconceived ideas, knowledge. Innocence
simply means just to be a mirror, which is empty but able to
reflect anything that comes before it. Innocence is the greatest
achievement. Only a very few people have been able to become
innocent.
It is said, when a person becomes so innocent, he is just like a
child. Remember the words "like a child." He is not a child. There
is a certain similarity. The child is ignorant, without knowledge, a
clean slate, a tabula rasa -- but he will soon gather knowledge,
because he is ignorant and it hurts to remain ignorant.
The innocent man is also a tabula rasa, but he will never again
accumulate knowledge. It has already been too hard to drop it. It
has been too hard to get rid of the mind and its accumulations.
The child is bound to get lost in the world of knowledge. Socrates
or Bodhidharma are not corruptible; nobody can corrupt them.
They have passed through all the dark stages of corruption, and
they have survived. Now their state is of pure silence. They know
nothing as far as knowledgeability is concerned.
Socrates makes a beautiful distinction; it is worth remembering.
He says, "There is knowledge which is ignorant, and there is
ignorance which knows." It looks contradictory, what he is
saying: knowledge which is ignorant, and ignorance which
knows. He is talking about innocence.
Innocence has no claim to knowledgeability, but it is open,
available, capable of responding spontaneously, just like a mirror
reflecting. It is tremendous freedom, and tremendous
individuation. Now you can commune with the flowers, with the
mountains, with the clouds. You are so innocent that there is even
a possibility of communion with existence. Knowledge is a
barrier.
I used to have a very famous man once in a while as my guest,
Mahatma Bhagwandin. He was the only one, other than Mahatma
Gandhi, who was known as "mahatma"; only two persons in India
were known as "mahatma." Mahatma means the great soul, the
great saint.
Whenever he was my guest, I used to take him for a morning
walk. And he was so full of knowledge about everything -- he
was an old man -- he knew the name of every flower, its uses,
what diseases it can help cure; he knew all the different trees and
their uses.
He would continuously talk, and I had to tell him, "You please
shut up! -- because I have come for a morning walk. I want to
enjoy the flowers, I don't want to become knowledgeable about
them. I don't want even to know their Latin names. And your
knowledge is a barrier -- you can't see the rose. Your whole
knowledge stands between you and the rose -- its Latin name, its
properties, its uses in different diseases. The roseflower is lost, far
away; you start moving into your knowledge."
I said, "If you want to come with me, then please keep your
mouth shut. You can do whatever you want in your mind -- that is
your business -- but I don't want to know the names of the trees
and the plants and the flowers and the leaves and the trunk and the
bark. You destroy my whole morning! I want to remain
completely available to this beautiful sunrise, the flowers dancing,
the beautiful breeze blowing. I don't want to be hindered by
knowledge. My experience of their beauty is enough."
He would remain silent for a few minutes -- but you cannot say to
computers, "Shut up!" After a few minutes he would forget again.
Seeing something new, he would say, "Look at that plant. This is
very good for people who are suffering from migraine."
I said, "You are giving me migraine! Please give me a few leaves
of that plant too. You are my migraine. I come every day, I never
suffer from migraine." I asked him, "Can't you enjoy at all the
beauty, the radiant morning, the freshness of it all? Have you to
bring your knowledge in?"
The last time I saw him, he was almost dying. I asked him, "What
about your knowledge? You know about all the kinds of plants
which can cure everything. Now why are you bothering about
allopathy? And I can see that allopathy is not helping."
He was continuously coughing; he had become just bones. And I
said, "What happened to your knowledge? You missed your
whole life, you never lived it. Your knowledge became a bondage
to you, and now you are dying and that knowledge is of no use.
Perhaps if you had lived totally, intensely, that experience might
have transformed the experience of death too."
To those who do not live, death seems to be an end. To those who
live totally, death is not an end but a new beginning: an old house
is abandoned, and a new form, a new world opens up. But that
depends on whether you have lived or you have just been hung up
in your head.
I saw tears in his eyes. He said, "Perhaps you are right. I never
lived, I was always accumulating knowledge -- and it has not
helped me. My whole life has been just a desert without any oasis.
But now it is too late."
I call this stupidity. The man was known as a great sage, but to
me he was a great idiot. And he confirmed before dying, with his
tears, that he had missed.
Innocence comes as you become more conscious, more alert, and
you start dropping unnecessary luggage. Have you ever thought
how much unnecessary luggage you are carrying within yourself?
A conscious man slowly starts dropping everything, because the
most precious treasure in you is to be absolutely unburdened,
clean, pure, innocent.
The innocent man is the only wise man. The knowledgeable man
is the only stupid man. All your universities and colleges and
schools create stupid people. My effort here is to undo what your
universities and colleges and schools have done to you -- to
deprogram you. And I don't have any other program to replace
theirs. I deprogram you and simply leave you deprogrammed.
That is innocence, and it is tremendous intelligence. It is such a
great insight that there is no need of knowledgeability.
Source - Osho Book "From Bondage to Freedom"
Question - Beloved Master, What is Innocence and What is the
way to become Innocent?
Osho - Sonja, innocence is your very nature. You do not have to
become it, you are already it. You are born innocent. Then layers
and layers of conditioning are imposed upon your innocence.
Your innocence is like a mirror and conditioning is like layers of
dust. The mirror has not to be achieved, the mirror is already there
-- or rather, here. The mirror is not lost, it is only hidden behind
the layers of dust.
You don't have to follow a way to reach your nature because you
cannot leave your nature, you cannot go anywhere else. Even if
you wanted to, it is impossible. That's exactly the definition of
nature: nature means that which cannot be left behind, that which
cannot be renounced. But you can forget about it. You cannot lose
it but it can be forgotten.
And that's exactly what has happened. The mirror is not lost but
forgotten -- forgotten because it is not functioning anymore as a
mirror. Not that any defect has arisen in it, just layers of dust are
covering it. All that is needed is to clean it, to remove those layers
of dust.
The process of becoming innocent is not really a process of
becoming, it is a process of discovering your being. It is a
discovery, not an achievement. You don't attain to something
new, you simply attain to that which you have always been. It is a
forgotten language.
It happens many times: you see a person on the road, you
recognize him, his face seems familiar. Suddenly you remember
also that you know his name. You say, "It is just on the tip of my
tongue," but still it is not coming to you. What is happening? If it
is just on the tip of your tongue, then why can't you say it? You
know that you know it, but still you are not able to remember it.
And the more you try, the more difficult it becomes, because
making an effort makes you more tense, and when you are tense
you are farther away from your nature, you are farther away from
that which is already there. When you are relaxed you are closer;
when you are utterly relaxed, it will surface of its own accord.
So you try hard, but it doesn't come, so you forget all about it.
Then lying down in your bath, or just swimming in the pool, and
you are not even trying to remember that man's name when
suddenly it bubbles up. What has happened? You were not trying
to remember, and you were relaxed. When you are relaxed you
are wide, when you are tense you become narrow -- the more
tense, the more narrow. The passage between you and that which
is inside you becomes so narrow that nothing can pass through it,
not even a single name. All the great scientific discoveries have
been made in this very mysterious way -- in this very
UNscientific way, so to speak.
Madame Curie was working on a certain mathematical problem
for three years continuously and the more she tried, the farther
and farther away the solution seemed. She tried every possible
way, but nothing was working, nothing was happening. And there
was somewhere a deep, tacit feeling that "The solution exists. I
am not struggling with something absurd." This tacit feeling
continued all the time as an undercurrent; hence she could not
drop the effort either. She was getting tired -- three years wasted
for a single problem. But deep down within herself somebody
was saying, "The solution IS possible. This exercise is not futile.
Go on." And she went on stubbornly, she persisted. She dropped
all other projects, she forced herself totally into the one problem.
But the more she tried, the more impossible it became.
One night it happened, almost as it happened to Gautama the
Buddha; of course, the problems were different, but the process
was the same. Buddha had struggled for six years to attain
enlightenment and he had attained nothing. Then one night he
dropped the whole effort, went to sleep, and, by the morning
when the last star was setting, he became enlightened.
That night Madame Curie dropped the idea, the whole project -she closed the chapter. "Enough is enough! Three years wasted is
too much for one problem." There were other problems which
were waiting to be solved. It was finished in her mind, although
the tacit understanding was still there just like a constant murmur.
But she had followed it long enough, it was time. One has only a
limited time; three years is too much for one problem.
Deliberately she dropped the idea. As far as she was concerned
she closed the whole project. She went to sleep never to be
bothered by that problem again.
And in the morning when she got up she was surprised. On a
piece of paper on her table, the solution was there, written in her
own handwriting. She could not believe her eyes. Who had done
it? The servant could not have done it -- he knew nothing of
mathematics, and if Madame Curie had not been able to do it in
three years, how could the servant have done it? And there was
nobody else in the house. And the servant had not entered in the
night -- the doors were locked from inside. She looked closely
and the handwriting resembled hers.
Then suddenly she remembered a dream. In the dream she had
seen that she had got up, gone to the table, written something....
Slowly slowly, the dream became clear. Slowly slowly, she
remembered that she had done it in the night. It was not a dream,
she had actually done it. And this was the solution! For three
years she had been struggling hard and nothing was happening -and the night she dropped the project, it happened. What
happened? She became relaxed.
Once you have dropped the effort you become relaxed, you
become restful, you become soft, you become wide, you become
open. It was there inside her, it surfaced. Finding the mind no
longer tense, it surfaced.
Innocence is there, you have simply forgotten it -- you have been
made to forget it. Society is cunning. For centuries man has
learned that you can survive in this society only if you are
cunning; the more cunning you are, the more successful you will
be. That's the whole game of politics: be cunning, be more
cunning than others. It is a constant struggle and competition as to
who can be more cunning. Whosoever is more cunning is going to
succeed, is going to be powerful.
After centuries of cunningness man has learned one thing: that to
remain innocent is dangerous, you will not be able to survive.
Hence parents try to drive their children out of their innocence.
Teachers, schools, colleges, universities exist for the simple work
of making you more cunning, more clever. Although they call it
intelligence it is not intelligence.
Intelligence is not against innocence, remember. Intelligence is
the flavor of innocence, intelligence is the fragrance of innocence.
Cunningness is against innocence; and cunningness, cleverness
are not synonymous with intelligence. But to be intelligent needs
a tremendous journey inwards. No schools can help, no colleges,
no universities can help. Parents, priests, the society, they are all
extrovert; they cannot help you to go inwards. And buddhas are
very rare, few and far between. Not everybody is fortunate
enough to find a buddha. Only a buddha can help you to be an
intelligent person, but you cannot find so many buddhas who
want to become primary school teachers and high school teachers
and university professors; it is impossible.
So there is a substitute for intelligence. Cunningness is a
substitute for intelligence -- a very poor substitute, remember.
And not only is it a poor substitute, it is just the opposite of it too.
The intelligent person is not cunning; certainly intelligent, but his
intelligence keeps his innocence intact. He does not sell it for
mundane things. The cunning person is ready to sell his soul for
small things.
Judas sold Jesus for only thirty silver coins -- just thirty silver
coins. And a Jesus can be sold. Judas must have thought that he
was being very intelligent, but he was simply cunning. If you
don't like the word 'cunning' you can call him clever; that is just a
good name for the same thing, for the same ugly thing.
The society prepares you to be cunning so that you are capable of
competing in this struggle for existence, the struggle to survive. It
is a cut-throat competition, everybody is after everybody else's
throat. People are ready to do anything to succeed, to be famous,
to climb the ladder of success, name and fame. They are ready to
use you as stepping-stones. Unless you are also cunning you will
be simply used, manipulated. Hence the society trains every child
to be cunning, and these layers of cunningness are hiding your
innocence.
Innocence has not to be achieved, Sonja, it is already there. Hence
it is not a question of becoming, it is your being. It has only to be
discovered -- or rediscovered. You have to drop all that you have
learned from others, and you will immediately be innocent. Hence
my antagonism towards all knowledge that is borrowed. Don't
quote the Bible, don't quote the Gita. Don't behave like parrots.
Don't just go on living on borrowed information. Start seeking
and searching for your own intelligence.
A negative process is needed; it is to be achieved through VIA
NEGATIVA. That is the Buddha's way. You have to negate all
that has been given to you. You have to say, "This is not mine;
hence I have no claim over it. It may be true, it may not be true.
Who knows? Others say it is so; unless it becomes my experience
I cannot agree or disagree. I will not believe or disbelieve. I will
not be a Catholic or a communist, I will not be a Hindu or a
Mohammedan. I will simply not follow any ideology." Because,
whoever you follow, you will be gathering dust around yourself.
Stop following.
Here, being with me, you are not my followers, remember it.
Friends certainly, but not followers. You are in a love affair with
me, but it is not a question of following. And my work here is not
to teach you something, but to help you to discover yourself. Just
drop all knowledge. It hurts because you have carried that
knowledge for so long and you have been bragging so much
about that knowledge -- your degrees, M.A.s and Ph.D.s and
D.Litt.s, and you have been bragging about all those degrees. And
suddenly I am saying to you: Drop all that nonsense.
Just be as simple as a child. Just be again a child as you were
born, as God sent you into this world. In that mirrorlike state you
will be able to reflect that which is. Innocence is the door to
knowing. Knowledge is the barrier and innocence is the bridge.
Source - Osho Book "The Dhammapada, Vol 12"
Never born, never died
Only visited this planet earth
between Dec 11 1931 - Jan 19 1990
osho rajneesh speaks - where is osho ?
Osho Discourses
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5. Osho - Isn't Tantra a way of Indulgence?
6. The Sufi is not an escapist. He is utterly against
escapism
7. Osho - The Tao that can be told of is not the
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8. Osho on New Man - New man will not live out of
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9. My work is a movement not to create a Religion
but to create Religiousness
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Osho Discourses on - Empathy, Frustration,
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Osho on famous people - Albert Einstein,
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Bhave, Subhash Chandra Bose
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2. Bauls Bliss Body Buddha
3. Celebration Celibacy Chakras Children
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4. Death Drugs
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6. Intuition
7. J. Krishnamurti
8. Laughter Life Love
9. Marriage Money Music
10.
Parenting Philosophy
11.
Reincarnation
12.
Sadness Samadhi Satori
13.
Tantra
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Zen
More Osho Quotes
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Osho Quotes on Witnessing Part 1 Part 2
Osho Quotes on Mind Part1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Osho Meditation Quotes Pearl 1, Pearl2, Part 3, Part4
Osho Quotes on J Krishnamurti, Satori
Osho Meditation Quotes
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Osho on Jesus Christ Life and Enlightenment
1.
2.
3.
4.
Christ is totally different from Christianity
Why is Jesus thought to be born out of a Virgin Mother?
Jesus Christ died as a fully enlightened man - a full moon
When and where did enlightenment happen to Jesus
Christ?
5. Jesus is not a Meditator -- How can he become
Enlightened?
6. Jesus Christ Sacrifice on Cross for Salvation of World from
Sins of Man
7. Osho on Jesus Christ Life in India - Jesus Christ never died
on the cross
8. In comparing Jesus to Buddha, Jesus seems very active and
revolutionary. Why is this?
Osho on Jesus Christ Teachings and Christianity
1. Osho on Martin Luther and 'The Reformation' Event
2. Gospels provide no techniques for developing a loving
heart
3. Osho on Jesus Christ and John the Baptist teachings on
Repentance
4. I was brought up as a catholic, So how come Jesus is a
stranger to me?
5. What is the difference between your Philosophy and that
of Christianity?
6. There is no difference between the Catholic's basic doctrine
and the Protestant's
7. Osho - Christ's message is rejoice and be merry.
Christianity's message is: be sad, look miserable