Poona Two

    1987 – 1990

    Poona-II

    Contents

    The Police Commissioner’s Conditions

    Later that day, the Order is stayed by the High Court. Negotiations begin with Police Commissioner Misar to allow Osho to stay. Misar demands that the ashram agrees to a number of conditions.

    I am not going to tolerate this police commissioner here. Either I am going to be here or he is going to be here! I don't believe in compromising....

    His conditions. and he has not even the guts to say, "These are my conditions." He

    persuaded the office, the ashram in-charge, Svabhav, to sign saying that "These are our

    ideas," that "we will abide by the following norms." And you just look at the norms.

    About two norms, I talked this morning. But then I found it is a long list. You have to understand it, and you have to make the whole city understand it.

    First: only for two hours a discourse is allowed. Is this the freedom for which thousands of people died? Is this the freedom for which Bharat Singh was crucified? Is this the freedom for which, for one hundred years continuously, the country was struggling? And it goes against the constitution of India. A third-rate government servant violating the constitution of India--who is he to tell me that my discourse should be only for two hours? It will never be. But his stupidity knows no limits.

    Second: only five meditations, one hour each. In the country where meditation was born, in the country where there are one hundred twelve meditations, in the country where all the geniuses for almost ten thousand years have done nothing but meditate...a police commissioner ordering us that we will abide, and we will do only five meditations, each meditation only for one hour. How much does he know about meditation? If he has any guts, he should come here and first let us decide how much he knows about meditation. I don't think he can even give the names of one hundred twelve meditations; to know about meditation is a totally different thing.

    And the constitution gives us religious freedom. Why only for us?--if you are making it a law, then it should be for the whole country; for all the temples, for all the mosques, for all gurudwaras. This is a temple of God.

    Nobody can say to us that we cannot meditate for more than one hour. Today he is saying. I warn the people of Poona: this insane person should be removed immediately,

    because today he is imposing himself on a small, nonviolent group of people who have done no harm to anybody--"You should meditate only one hour." My discourse should be only for two hours. Soon he will be imposing on you--"Your intercourse should be only for two hours." What about intercourse? What about himself? What is the limit he has imposed upon himself? How long, three minutes?

    And Third: discourses will be open to police officers. Why? Discourses are for the disciples. This is not a police academy. And do you think your police officers will be able to understand the discourses? Only idiots enter into the service of police. And why should discourses be open to police officers? If they are interested, they should come here as disciples; they are open to all. But we cannot allow specifically police officers--they can come here as human beings. Have they lost their humanity completely?

    And not only police officers--their men accompanying them Who are these "men"? Shiv

    Sena people? Hindu chauvinists? Who are these "men" who are going to accompany police officers? Why can't they come by themselves? Last time also--when the same person, Vilas Tupe, had thrown a dagger at me--they had asked for twenty police officers for my protection. It is strange...now things are more clear, looking retrospectively....

    The same man and the same group--and again the same number of policemen are asking to enter here. This is a simple, logical inference: the men accompanying him are nobody else but Vilas Tupe and his group. He should have also asked that at least one of them should be allowed to carry a dagger!

    Fifth: the discourses will not be provocative. Then what is the purpose of the discourse? It has to provoke your sleeping souls, it has to provoke your potential. It has to be provocative; otherwise there is no purpose.

    This is not a kindergarten school. This is a school of mysticism and the effort is to provoke in you a longing, a tremendous desire to see the truth.

    But who is this man who is trying to destroy my freedom and your freedom?

    Sixth: they should not be against any other religion. Hindus can be against Mohammedans; otherwise why don't they go to the mosques for their prayers? Mohammedans can be against Hindus, Christians can be against others.

    I am against all religions, because I am a religious person and a religious person is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian nor Buddhist. I will speak against all religions because they are pseudo--they are not true religions. And if he has any intelligence to prove otherwise, he's welcome. If he can prove that the organized religions are true religions...but destroying the freedom of people to be religious is against all human values.

    I will speak against all religions. I have to, because I stand for religious_ness,_ not for religions.

    Seventh: the number of foreigners residing in the ashram will not be more than one hundred. We don't believe in countries and we don't believe in nations. For us, nobody is a foreigner.

    We are children of the same universe, of the same earth--who is a foreigner? And what right has he got? Where in the constitution is the right given to police commissioners to restrict the number of foreigners listening to a master? From where did he get this number one hundred?--why not ten thousand? How has he decided for one hundred? It is arbitrary.

    And as far as I am concerned and my people are concerned, here nobody is a foreigner. The moment you enter this house of God, you are simply human beings.

    And I am not going to change because of these stupid, ordinary public servants who know nothing of religion, who know nothing of humanity, and still. He has some nerve.

    But I am going to put him right. He has got into trouble unnecessarily. Whoever gets into trouble with me will repent for his whole life.

    And their names will be informed to the police. Here, everybody's name is a sannyas name. They are all rooted in the Sanskrit language. How are you going to find that this name is a foreigner's? I have my own ways....

    Nine: the number of foreigners daily visiting the ashram for discourses will not exceed one thousand. This man seems to be. something is either loose in his head or something

    is too tight. But he need not be worried; we have in our ashram all kinds of mind- mechanics. He can come--either we will loosen his mind or tighten his mind. Just one problem about which I am afraid, apprehensive: if there is no mind inside?--then it is going to be trouble. But we will find some solution.

    He does not understand. This is a democracy; this is a free, sovereign country. And if the government allows people from all over the world to enter the country...he seems to be superior to the government.

    We are not going to abide by any nonsense, and if this man is not removed, he will have to face me in court. And in court, I am not going to have an advocate; I myself am going to face it.

    Tenth: no member of the ashram or visitors is allowed to carry firearms. What about the twenty police officers? They will have to leave their firearms outside, according to his own dictates. He seems to be having nightmares--nobody has any firearms here. He wants twenty police officers to bring firearms.

    My attorney, Tathagat, had told him: "Usually there were seven thousand to ten thousand people from all over the world. You cannot cut the number to one thousand."

    And he said, "We don't have enough people to control ten thousand people." This is said by a commissioner! He can control the whole district and he has enough people for the whole commissionery but just for a six-acre area of land, he does not have enough people to control. And who is asking him to control?

    We have been here from 1974 and there was never a need to control our people. There has been no fight in the ashram. He does not even understand that the people who have come here have not come here to fight. They have come here to be more loving, to be more honest, to be more sincere, to be more truthful--they are seekers. There is no need of any control. Nobody controls here.

    So he should remember: whoever comes to the doors of this temple--as a seeker, not as a police officer--whether his skin is white or black, whether his nose is long or short, he's welcome. And if he has any problem with that, either he can come here...or if he raises such nonsense questions again, I am dragging him into court....

    Eleventh: members of the ashram are prohibited from indulging in any obscene behavior in the ashram or outside the ashram. Does he know what the word "obscene" means?

    The temples of Khajuraho should be demolished by the order of the commissioner of Poona because they are obscene. The temples of Puri should be demolished, the temples of Konark should be demolished. The beautiful caves of Ajanta and Ellora should be demolished.

    These are the things which attract the whole world--and if they are not obscene, then he will have to show, in front of my people, what obscenity is.

    You have naked Jaina monks and that is not obscene. You have naked Hindu monks and that is not obscene. And all over the country, you have shivalingas. Shivalinga represents the penis of Shiva and the vagina of Parvati, and they are all over the country-- everywhere, in every city, under any tree. They are not obscene.

    I would love to know: Is this police commissioner born not of a woman? Wasn't his father obscene? Wasn't his mother obscene? And while his father was doing all kinds of obscenities to his mother, if my sannyasins had entered the room to give him an invitation..."You are invited for a discourse. "

    He is saying "inside the ashram or outside the ashram." The whole of India is obscene. Their scriptures are obscene. He should go to some library and just look into Shivapuran and he will find out what obscenity is. And Shiva is one of the gods of the Hindus.

    These people are going to teach me? There is nothing obscene in the world. Everything is natural--it is your interpretation. Yes, I can understand if he had said, "They should not be indulging in any behavior which is obscene outside the ashram." I have no concern outside the ashram. It is their individual responsibility what they are doing or not doing.

    And it is for the police commissioner and his police to go to the court and get a clear-cut definition of obscenity. Up to now, all over the world, no court has been able to decide what is obscene and what is not. But I think you have got a police commissioner who knows what is obscene. We would love to see him just give us a little show of his obscenity, so that we can also understand that this is obscene behavior and we are not to do it outside the ashram.

    Twelve: the police officers will have the right to visit the ashram during any time of day or night. Their lawful directions will be complied with, without any hesitation.

    Are my sannyasins also allowed to enter your houses during any time of day or night? No sane person could ask that police officers be allowed in the night. For what? We don't need them even in the day! Their faces, their uniforms, their retarded minds--for what do we need them? No. This is a temple of God, and you will have to act according to our directions. You cannot order us unless we indulge in any crime. If we are murdering people, of course it is lawful for you to ask for permission to enter the premises.

    You have seen what has happened in the gurudwara of Amritsar. For three hundred years, the British people were more intelligent; they never entered the temple of the Sikhs. A temple should be respected.

    It is our temple. Do you want to create another Amritsar? Then certainly we will need ten thousand licenses for machine guns. Of course they will be lawful. But if the police behave in such a way, then I am not a Gandhian. I do not believe in violence; but I also do not believe in anybody else doing violence to my people.

    We are nonviolent people. We don't need any police. And there is no need for them to enter the premises of the ashram without permission, behaving in the same way they would behave in their own temples. They can come to the gate. That is the limit. Beyond that, it belongs to God--not to the commissionery of the police commissioner....

    And we believe in love, we don't believe in machine guns. But if you force us, you will find yourself destroying your constitution, your democracy, your prestige in the whole world. mess107

    In February, police arrive in the night, at 1:00 am. Eleven ashram residents are arrested and jailed overnight. Telephone lines to the commune are cut. In the morning, several busloads of police come to aid Municipal Corporation demolish so-called 'unauthorised' construction. The mayor arrives and tells the corporation authorities to leave.

    Support from the Mayor of Poona

    Balasaheb R. Borade from the City Youth Congress has written to me, saying that "We will fight for you."

    And today, the Mayor of Poona, Ulhas Dhole Patil came, saying that "Whatever has happened is so ugly that I have come just to apologize. Forgive us; it should not have happened." He has written a letter to me, saying, "You are welcome in the city of Poona and I want you to stay here forever." And just now he came again and told my secretary, Neelam: "I am going to pass a resolution in the Poona Corporation that the Corporation should ask forgiveness, and ask that you please don't leave Poona, but remain

    here." mess107

    Just yesterday I received another letter from the Mayor of Poona:

    "With my deepest love and pleasure I wish to state that Osho, presently residing at 17 Koregaon Park, Poona, in my home constituency, is undoubtedly an enlightened person. His authoritative views on religion are most needed in these turbulent times. He is one of the well-versed, great mystics and a spiritual master of our time. His conduct and loving behavior cannot and has never created any legal problems, nor has he ever been found guilty in any provisions of criminal law. In fact, his teachings are conducive to creating a very peaceful and tranquil atmosphere in the present circumstances when the country as a whole is passing through a very disturbed state." mess117

    A few days ago the mayor of Poona came to my room. He could not restrain himself; he touched my feet. And when he was going out, he told Neelam, "I have never been in such a silent room, so cool, so fresh--it is really a temple. I am overwhelmed by the atmosphere of the room."

    Anybody who comes here will be overwhelmed. These trees are no longer ordinary--they are sannyasins. The very air has a different vibe: even when you go away, your song, your dance, your joy go on vibrating here. This is how a temple is created. A temple is not made of bricks, is not made of statues; a temple is made of a different vibe--the vibration of silence, peace, joy, and blissfulness. spirit16

    American and Indian government persecution of Osho and sannyasins continues

    I am receiving messages from all over the world that sannyasins are being refused by all the Indian embassies. And you will be aware of what is happening in Poona. Whatever is happening in Poona, a small public servant, the police commissioner, has not the guts to do it. He must have had the support of the Maharashtra government and the central government from New Delhi....

    Hundreds of sannyasins are being turned back from Bombay airport. Now who is going to pay their fare, their hard-earned money? They earned money just to come to see me and be here for a few weeks and they are thrown back.

    I would like to tell Mr. Rajiv Gandhi that your government owes that money to my sannyasins. That money should be given back. On what grounds are you turning them back from the airport? They have never committed a crime in your country, they are not coming here to commit crimes. They can commit crimes anywhere in their own countries.

    And if they are coming here to sit silently and listen to me, or just sit silently in my presence, to share my love--who are you to throw them out from the airport? And who is going to give them back their hard-earned money?

    The Indian government should be aware of the fact that if you don't stop all this nonsense, I am going to the high court or to the supreme court, and bringing Mr. Rajiv Gandhi there. Things are so clear that I don't even need a legal expert--just common sense is enough. mess111

    A friend from Delhi informed me that I should leave India, because the Indian government is thinking of arresting me. Their reason for arresting me is that I have paid four hundred thousand dollars as a fine and from where did I get that money? I myself don't know! I sincerely have no idea who the sannyasins were, from all over the world, who gave that money. shanti12

    It is a strange story but even Indians coming to the ashram are being harassed by the police; and these are police sent from Delhi, by the central government. And Indians are being asked for their passports--in their own country. It is against the very constitution; it is against freedom of movement--in your own country you have to carry your passport! I have never heard such a stupidity happening anywhere in the world; but India is really a genius in being stupid. bolt07

    Many television companies have written saying, "We are continuously being refused. We are asking to come to Poona; they immediately refuse, and they don't give any reason why."

    Newspapers have been refused permission to reach me. Thousands of sannyasins from all over the world have been refused visas. Somehow thousands have already got their visas,

    because now I have taken away the orange robe, the mala--so they cannot figure out whether the person is a sannyasin or not.

    I am not a serious man, so I have told my sannyasins, "If they ask you, simply ask, Who is this man Osho? Do you want us to go to him? Where is Poona? We were never thinking of going but you seem to be interested..." Although many people have got visas, some have been turned back from Bombay airport and from Calcutta airport, back to their countries. This is because, the American government has given the Indian government a whole list of the people who were living in the commune. They are asking continuously, that every sannyasin who is here should give the police commissioner his full address and how long he is going to be here, so that, even if you have reached me one time, the next time you cannot. We have not given any names; we have asked them, "On what grounds are you asking? If you are asking one religious institution, you should ask all the religious institutions of the country to keep a record of anybody who comes there and make a report every day. And if you want, you can open an office in front of the ashram, and anybody who comes you can take his name. That is your business; that is not our business. It is not our concern and it is against our philosophy and religion to discriminate between people of different countries or different races, or different colors. And we will not do anything against our own thinking."

    So they are at a loss what to do, because if they do anything against the constitution we are going to fight. But Ronald Reagan goes on insisting. The American Embassy goes on insisting to the Indian government to prevent people from reaching here. Twice, the American Embassy has been here to watch how many people there are around the ashram. And now the police commissioner has asked us, "Why does the American Embassy come again and again to the ashram? This is strange."

    They should ask the American Embassy. How do we know? And why should we bother? If all the embassies of the world start coming it is perfectly good. We are not doing anything criminal here.

    But this man Reagan has lost his humanity. invita09

    Just the other day I received a letter from a friend from Delhi saying that the American government is still insisting that my voice should be silenced. But while I am alive nobody can silence my voice. And of course, crucifixion is a little out of date. But they are trying in every way: my books should not reach the people, whatever I say should not be printed by the news media.

    The speaker of the upper house of parliament in India told the parliament, "I am surprised why newspapers publish his views." And this is a democracy where freedom of expression is accepted as one of the fundamental rights. America is a great democracy.

    One democracy is telling to the other democracy that my voice should be silenced.

    My friend was afraid. He enquired: "What does it mean? Does it mean that he should be killed? Is it a code--`His voice should be silenced'?"

    And the officer said, "It is not possible for me to give you the exact meaning of it."

    If you want to be wise, if you want to be intelligent, you are bound to be a rebel, because you will have to fight against so many superstitions, so many stupid ideas which people think of as ultimate truth, that you will irritate everybody. You will have to allow yourself to be completely free from the past, from the whole heritage of humanity. That's what will make you wild. zara217

    I have turned the whole world into my enemy for the simple reason that I go on pulling the necks of the ostriches out of the sand, and tell them that it does not matter whether you see the enemy or not. It is better to see, because by seeing you may have some way to escape, but putting your head into the sand you are absolutely defenseless. razor02

    I have lived a very strange life. Anybody else would have found so many tangles in it, so many troubles. I have also passed through all kinds of tangles, troubles, problems, but I have remained unscratched; I have enjoyed the journey. Whatever life brought to me, I have enjoyed it. I have tried to make the best out of it, whatever it is.

    There is no point in crying and weeping over spilled milk. Any situation can be made a learning, a step towards maturity, can be turned into a beneficial opportunity. That is what I call intelligence; otherwise, what is the difference between intelligent people and unintelligent people. invita24

    I have lived life the way I wanted; it was difficult but it was immensely rewarding. It gave me the feeling that although society may be powerful, if you have guts no power can enslave you. They can kill you, they can destroy you, but they cannot enslave you. And to be destroyed is not undignified; to be killed is not against your individuality, against your dignity, against your pride. In fact, these sacrifices will make you more and more authentically yourself.

    Deep down, if you are a meditator, you know your body can be taken away but your being cannot even be touched--your immortality is sure. invita08

    My own experience is, every day brings so much that when I think retrospectively I cannot conceive that I could have expected it--and it always brings in abundance!

    Existence is so compassionate and so sharing, but only to those who don't demand. Desirelessness is the foundation of all great happenings. invita03

    Osho's Garden

    I have been in this garden for seven years before I went to America. My people had planted small plants and now it has become really a jungle, so beautiful that you need not

    do anything--just sit silently under the shade of a tree and feel what trees are whispering to each other. There is constant communion between the earth and the sky.

    And if you have heard that whispering, your heart will start dancing with joy. That whispering will become your song of life. That whispering will make you understand the Song of Solomon. mess114

    This garden is not just an ordinary garden. These trees have heard me as much as you have heard me, and these trees have loved me as much as you have loved me. These trees are as much my disciples as you are. So be respectful with them. With loving care, with sensitive alertness, you will not only be a good gardener, you will also become a higher consciousness--more human, more divine.

    Shower on these trees all your love. They cannot speak, but they are very sensitive.

    The latest experiments about trees are so revealing--they can even read your thoughts. Their sensitivity is far greater than man's sensitivity.

    Scientists have developed certain instruments like the cardiogram. They put the cardiogram on a certain tree and the cardiogram starts making a graph of how the tree is feeling. The graph is symmetrical, and then suddenly they bring a woodcutter with an axe, and the moment the tree sees the woodcutter the graph changes. It goes berserk, the symmetry is lost. Nothing has been done to the tree, it is just that the woodcutter has come with the idea to cut it. That idea is being caught by the sensitiveness of the tree, and now, there are scientific ways to find it out.

    The strangest thing is that if the woodcutter is just passing without any idea of cutting the tree, the graph does not change. It depends on his idea--his thought creates a certain wave. Every thought is being broadcasted from your mind, creating waves around you, and those waves are picked up by the sensitiveness of the tree. They are very much

    alive. splend21

    Just by the side of Chuang Tzu hall there were no flowers three days ago. Then one day the storm came and the rains came, and in the morning suddenly there were beautiful sunflowers--just in one night. I had seen the place; in the evening there were no flowers, in the morning there were flowers. golden04

    And for a man like me who has an allergy to perfumes...

    My gardener, Mukta, has to keep all the flowers outside my windows, which are never opened, so I can see the roses but the perfume cannot reach to me. And poor Mukta has to work hard because keeping those roses around my room... There are such big, huge trees, so much shadow, and roses cannot blossom perfectly unless they have sunlight. So she has constantly to change the flowerpots.

    But she manages for me to see the roses all around me wherever I am in the house. She is deceiving the sun and she is deceiving the roses. She has to continuously move them in a rotation; whenever a flower comes to its total blossoming, she brings it around to my side outside the windows. And when she sees that the plant is not happy without the sun, she takes the plant to the sun. So she has to keep a double row rotating. It is a rotary club. But she manages perfectly well. She knows I love the roses, but I cannot tolerate their fragrance. I am too sensitive to their fragrance. That immediately disturbs me. gdead04

    Just for the last few days I have been seeing a bird. When I left for America it was not here, and I have never seen it anywhere else. It is so beautiful: pure white, with a black head and such a long tail--the bird is very small, the tail is almost six times bigger than the bird. Because the tail is so long, it cannot fly like other birds; it moves in air like a fish moves in water. I enquired...because it is a strange bird, I have never seen one so beautiful. It has made a point...every day when I am taking my food in the morning and in the evening it comes for certain. Shunyo told me that this bird is a rare bird; it is called the "bird of paradise."

    I said, "It looks like a bird of paradise--it doesn't seem to belong to the earth. The beauty is so unique...with a small black head, and so snow-white, and the tail is so long that it cannot fly, it just hops from one tree to another tree. The way it moves is almost like a fish moving in water." I told Shunyo, "Watch, he cannot be alone, there must be a girlfriend or boyfriend--in this place he may be a bird of paradise, but he cannot be a saint!"

    She says she has seen his girlfriend. She has a little small tail--that is the only difference. But I have not seen the girlfriend yet. It is my experience, if the girlfriend comes first to me the boyfriend is bound to come. But if the boyfriend comes first, then it is not necessarily so--the girlfriend even may become an enemy to me, jealous. The poor fellow comes alone. And every day I have been watching, looking; she must be sitting somewhere. But she is avoiding me.

    This whole existence takes responsibility for the oceans, for the mountains, for the stars. razor06

    The miracle of Osho’s Discourses

    On 8 January 1987, Osho gives a series of morning and evening discourses, in Chuang Tzu Auditorium, on Khalil Gibran's The Prophet. In February and March, Osho answers questions from disciples. There is a celebration of live music and dance as Osho enters and leaves the Auditorium.

    Khalil Gibran says: If this is my day of harvest, in what fields have I sowed the seed, and in what un-remembered seasons?

    Whenever I have read this statement, it has always reminded me of myself. My whole life I have been sowing the seeds in fields all over the world...And in what un-remembered seasons? I have not waited for the right season to sow the seeds because the next moment is not certain. I may be here, I may not be here. And if this moment you are available, it is better not to bother about the spring. Let the seed wait in you; whenever the spring comes, the seed will become a sprout. mess103

    I try my best to invite you to dance, and if you are mad enough you are going to start clapping, at least. And that is the moment when you forget that you cannot hold on to the window frame and clap too. The moment you start clapping, the window frame is lost; your hands have slipped from the root. razor13

    You ask: It is strange...The closer I come to you, the more ordinary it feels. It is a calmness and a coolness and a nothingness, and yet out of this space I find myself dancing, clapping, laughing, and rejoicing with you. But it feels so different--as though something has gone, but I can't remember what. And if I look for words to describe this new feeling, I can only say, "love." But I say it uncertainly, insecurely. Oh, Beloved Osho, what is going on?

    The observation that you have made is right and shows immense clarity. You are saying, "It is strange." It appears strange only in the beginning. The more you become acquainted with it, the more the strangeness will be gone....

    Your dancing, your singing, your clapping, your laughing, your rejoicing. it feels so

    different for the simple reason that it is happening spontaneously; it is not your doing. In these beautiful moments of dancing and singing and clapping, it is not that you are doing them, they are happening. You are just a witness, at the most. The doer, the ego, is absent; hence, the difference....

    Your observation is very clear, and I am happy; everybody's observation has to be so clear. You are simply in a state of awe. You are asking, "Oh, Osho, what is going on?"

    It is better not to be rational about it, not to intellectualize it, not to label it. "What is going on?" I can say only that whatever is going on is tremendously beautiful. Allow it-- no need to have any explanation. Experience it--no need to understand it, to explain it. Be totally possessed by it, and this total possession by love will bring a new birth to you, a new life, and a new world all around.

    You are passing through the most beautiful space every meditator has to pass through. Unafraid, go dancingly into the unknown without ever being concerned where it is going to land you. If love is the guide, then you need not be worried; if the ego is the guide, then you have to be really concerned and worried. Love can take you only to the ocean. The ego always tries to go upwards, up-current, against the current.

    Love goes with the current.

    Love is a relaxation, a rest, the peace that passeth understanding.

    Don't start looking for that which is missing--it was not anything valuable, it was not your friend. That which you have lost, that something that you feel has gone, was your enemy. Say goodbye to it, and allow this new state to become more and more deep. There are depths beyond depths. There is no end to growth; there is no end to the mysteries of existence. Doors after doors go on opening. This is the infinity of the miracle of the universe. You should not be bothered about rationalizing your experiences, just drink them, and dance and sing and rejoice. And thank existence that it has been your

    fortune. razor23

    You say: In the discourses after you have danced with us and left the hall, something seems to linger in the air in this mandir that is not unlike the fragrance of a rare flower, ephemeral, and yet so tangible to the senses. Sometimes the silence is so profound that were my eyes closed I would never know that you were physically no more among us.

    It will appear absurd to the logical mind, but the fact is that blissfulness has its own perfume, silence has its own fragrance, just as love has its own taste, its own sweetness. Although you cannot eat love and you cannot taste love, you know perfectly well that love has a sweetness.

    Silence also has its own flowers, its own fragrance. And the enlightened man's consciousness can be approached through any of your senses. You can see it in his presence, in his grace, in his eyes; in his gestures you can smell it. You can hear it, just a small whisper, as if a breeze has passed through the pine trees--subtle, but absolutely certain. You can taste it....

    When I go out, you have been through a great shower of love, peace, silence, song, music and dance. Your whole being is cleansed. You feel the freshness, you feel the profundity, so tangible that if your eyes are closed you may think I am still present here--but in a certain way nothing changes, only my body moves away from here.

    I am always present--wherever love longs for me and a heart beats for me, wherever a consciousness searches for me, I am available there....

    Buddha promised his disciples, 'Whenever five of you are together in deep silence and meditation, the sixth also will be present--I am the sixth.'

    So if you are sensitive--and meditation makes you more and more sensitive--then even when I am gone and its only my physical body that is no longer here, your sensitivity will not let my consciousness go away so easily. I will remain amongst you for a little while.

    There are many of you who don't want to go away from Chuang Tzu immediately, because it is an experience in itself--in my absence you are still feeling my presence. So people linger on a little, laughing, dancing, or sometimes singing, or sometimes just

    sitting surrounded by an unknown energy, an unnamed energy...but yet somehow familiar.

    It all depends on your love, on how much you love. Love destroys distance, and if love is total, it destroys distance totally. Then even when you are alone--no need for five persons--you will feel me with you. spirit27

    When Osho is unable to dance because of pains in his arms, his sannyasins return his namaste and spontaneously bow down

    Communion is a silent meeting.

    Just as a river disappears into the ocean, two beings disappear into each other, without holding anything back. Two flames come close to each other and suddenly become one flame. Neither loses anything, and both gain all the treasures of the other.

    You are saying, "I have tried and cannot find the words that adequately convey the beauty of those moments when you enter the auditorium." Words will always fail whenever something really beautiful, something existential, something of the beyond, something sacred is happening. Words simply fall short.

    Always remember, when words fall short, it is a very blissful moment; when you cannot express it, then it has some significance. If you can express it, if it is possible to put it into words and language, then it is just something below mind.

    Everything below mind is mundane. Everything beyond mind is sacred.

    But that which is beyond mind cannot be put into language, into words. So whenever you see a moment arising in you that is so big that no word can contain it, you are blessed; you are showered by flowers from the beyond.

    You are saying, "I see the heads of my beloved friends bend down: their love and reverence for you is so poignant, and touches me so deeply. And when your eyes fall on mine, I feel as if I am drinking from a chalice full of golden light. This connection between you and us, your devotees, this is the real `holy communion', isn't it?"

    Yes, this is the holy communion, where the egos disappear in a great flood of love, where small minds are left far behind, and you are flying like eagles across the sun, in the infinity of the sky--where you are not bound by your bodies, by your minds; where suddenly, you have become a freedom, a spirit. And if there are many people together in the same space it certainly deepens the mystery, the glory, the magnificence, the divineness of the moment. Yes, this is what I call "holy communion."

    I am not.

    I have not been there for a long time.

    In certain moments you join me, and you are also no more. In this silence, in this nothingness, where neither I am nor you are, but only a silence prevails--this is the "holy communion." This is the greatest beatitude, the highest benediction.

    This is the door to the divine. This is the door invisible to the eyes, but perfectly visible to the inner being.

    Those who enter this door are no more Hindus, no more Christians, no more Buddhists. They are simply pure spirits, just innocent beings--with a fragrance they have never known, which surrounds them with a light that dispels all darkness...with a music which is without any sound, and a feeling of dance, although there is not any movement.

    This is the great secret of being religious. dawn01

    Sitting here in silence, being showered by my silence, my serenity, everything in you becomes fresh, young. Silence is such a shower of the soul.

    Listening to the music--not only listening, but participating, almost dancing with joy--you forget your ordinary worries and the world, the tensions and anxieties; those are the layers of dust on your eyes.

    And just being with me here, something that is not visible to the eyes transpires between me and you. Some energy, which can only be called divine, passes from heart to heart. I can see that there are moments when you all disappear, and only one consciousness remains. You forget your individuality, your separateness. And this is such a rejuvenation, such a refreshment, such a rebirth, that when you go out--things are the same--but the green looks greener; the people look softer and more loving. The song of the birds, although meaningless, starts having a significance of its own. All your senses are at their maximum sensitivity. The light passing through the trees fills you with wonder. The wind passing through the trees whispers unknown secrets to you.

    So on the one hand you are ready, available, fresh, rested, relaxed, and silent; and on the other hand you are part of existence. Existence rejoices with you. It is not only that your eyes are fresh and your mind is silent, that the trees are greener--that is only one part of the story.

    The other part is that because of your silence, because of your dance, because of your music, they really are greener--just for you, a special gift.

    It is said that whenever Gautam Buddha passed by any path, even if it was not the time for the trees to blossom, they blossomed. Buddhists have not been able to explain it; no scientific explanation is possible. Only a mystic can understand it; only a meditator can understand what it means--that trees which were without leaves immediately started growing leaves and foliage, preparing a little shadow for the tired Buddha to rest under.

    That is what you are experiencing: existence certainly rejoices when you are blissful. Existence is almost an echo of your being. If you are in anxiety, everything around you becomes tense; and if you are silent, everything around you becomes a silent music, a silent dance.

    Remember that you are not separate from existence; so when you are happy, all these trees are also happy. Happiness is contagious. When you are dancing, these trees are also moving in rhythm with you.

    When you are full of love whoever meets you--he may be a very primitive, crude man, but your love is more powerful than any crudeness, any primitiveness...with you, suddenly he feels he is becoming soft.

    You have known this experience in many other ways. There are people with whom you become sad. They have not done anything to you and they have not said anything to you, but their sadness is so heavy and so powerful. We are continuously broadcasting our hearts all around us.

    If a sad man passes by, his sadness is going to touch your heart too, unless your joyfulness is bigger than his sadness; then he will be touched. And you know about people with whom you suddenly become joyous for no reason at all, just being with them it feels as if a certain joy, a certain happiness has entered into you.

    But listening to me is nothing but a meditation. This is my simplest device, in which you have not to do anything at all. I tell you to meditate, but I cannot leave it to you. You may think, "Yes, I will meditate," and you go on postponing. That is why every morning and evening I speak to you. It does not matter what I say. I am not an orator, neither am I a preacher, nor am I giving you a doctrine or a philosophy. This is a device: because you want to listen to me, you are bound to be silent. Without your knowing, you are falling deeper and deeper into your being.

    So when you go out, you have not gone out of a lecture hall. This Chuang Tzu hall is not a lecture hall, it is a place--a temple--of meditation. That's why I always go on leaving gaps for you: in those gaps there is every possibility you may touch your innermost core.

    So don't say after "listening" to me, say after "meditating" with me, when you go out all your senses are more sensitive. And the whole of existence rejoices because you have a totally different fragrance, a different presence. You carry something of me with you every day.

    Slowly, slowly you will be able to sit by yourself alone, doing nothing, sitting silently. And in that silence, you will know all the mysteries of existence.

    This is one of the mysteries: that everything is interconnected. Your joy is felt by the trees--your sadness too. Your silence is experienced by the birds--your dance, your music too. spirit14

    Passing through the gate of this mandir for the first time in eight years, I felt a kind of fragrance which has stayed with me ever since. Is it possible to take this fragrance with me when I leave?

    The fragrance that you have felt in this temple of seekers is not something that you can leave behind. This fragrance contains love, meditativeness, silence, trust, life-affirmative values, a song of gratitude, a dance with the trees and with the stars...This fragrance is an experience of a totally new atmosphere that does not exist in the outside world. If you meditate, you will become the same temple. Then, wherever you go the fragrance will go with you like a shadow; even others will feel it.

    It is not the first time that such a question has come to me. The moment they enter the gate many people have felt suddenly, as if they are entering into another world--the air is different, the vibe is different--as if they have come home. And there is bound to be a certain fragrance, because so many people are meditating, and slowly, slowly their inner- being flowers are opening. The whole purpose of all these people to be here is absolutely different from any gathering anywhere outside in the world.

    These are the people who are in search of the essential, existential life source. They are at different stages of evolution in consciousness, but they are all radiating something of higher stages. So when you enter the temple, you will find the air is different, the trees are different, the people are different. And if you also become a meditator, as I know you are becoming, this fragrance will start coming from within your own being. Even others may feel it wherever you go.

    I want my sannyasins...I have taken away the clothes which made them distinct; I have taken away their malas. But still people feel that they look a little different from others; still the airport officers catch hold of them! In Indian embassies when they go for a tourist visa, they immediately get the idea that they are going to Poona; Poona has become synonymous with my name. And many sannyasins have wondered--they are not wearing the orange, they are not wearing the mala--how they have become suddenly suspicious?

    A sannyasin will have a certain fragrance, a certain style, a certain way which is subtle; it may not be very apparent to the eyes, but it can be detected.

    I would like you to be known as separate from the crowds, not by your clothes not by anything outer, but just by your very being--your silence, your peace, your love, your eyes.

    Every gesture of you should declare that you are a sannyasin. invita20

    You say: This morning, when you left Chuang Tzu, at the door you turned towards me and something happened between you and me which went beyond mind and heart. I felt my body moving in a way I could never do deliberately.

    For seconds everything stopped, I had no control of anything. It was like a delicious, fearless dying. For a long time afterwards I felt drunk, weak and strong at the same time. I don't know what really happened....

    I am aware that something happened to you. It was a jump, and it was not short. But it was a jump of consciousness--that is why you are puzzled. And when consciousness jumps, the body goes into strange postures, which you could not do deliberately even if you wanted to. The jump of consciousness was not deliberate. Here, whatsoever happens is never deliberate.

    Anything deliberate is going to be very small, it is going to be smaller than you. Anything that happens without any deliberation on your part--you are just a watcher, and it happens. you are just standing by the side, only an observer, not a doer: then something

    greater than you is happening.

    Later on you felt both weak and strong. That must have puzzled you--and will puzzle others--but it is an absolutely certain consequence, because something happened that was beyond your control. Your ego was not in control, hence the weakness. Your ego felt threatened; you had come too close to the point where the ego can simply fall apart.

    And at the same time you felt strong. Your consciousness felt strong because for the first time, for a few moments, it was not controlled by the ego. For the first time, for a few moments, it had wings of its own, it was not in the chains and the bondage of the ego. So your soul felt strong and your ego felt weak.

    It is a good sign. The beginning of the death of the ego, the beginning of the end of the ego, and the beginning of your entry into the world of consciousness.

    But later on your ego must have taken up its old possession, its old domination over your consciousness; and then you wrote: "The only certainty I have now is that I cannot jump." That is not your certainty, that is the ego, which has taken the power back into its own hands. For a moment the consciousness had slipped out.

    You need not deliberately try to jump, that will not happen, because who will deliberately try? It will be your ego. You don't have any access to your consciousness yet. It was just that as I turned back and looked at you, you completely forgot about your ego--and jumped. Forgetting one's ego is the only jump that can bring you back to yourself. But never try deliberately. Allow it to happen just as it happened this morning, on its own. Do not make any effort. When it happens, just be totally with it, don't hinder it, and don't feel weak. The weakness is not yours, the weakness is of the ego--the false self that is pretending to be your real soul.

    Your real soul has felt strong for the first time. Give it more chances. And slowly, slowly it will become capable of coming out of the bondage on its own. The ego cannot keep it; it is just a kind of hypnotic conditioning, because from the very childhood your ego has

    been supported by everybody. All the nourishment has been given to the ego, and your soul has been starving. You have forgotten all about your soul.

    Being here with me, it is going to happen more and more. Now that it has happened once, the possibility will become greater and greater. It will happen suddenly, first in my presence and then even without my presence. Sitting silently in your room, you will find a tremendous strength arising in you. And at the same time something is dying-- something that is not you; something that has always been pretending to be yourself. The pretender has to die, the false has to disappear, so that the real can take its place.

    And once the real is in its own place, your whole life becomes authentic. Each act takes on a tremendous beauty and grace; each word comes out from the very deepest part of your being, full of fragrance--fragrance that you cannot find anywhere else in the world. spirit17

    Eight years ago I saw you on TV. There was a report about the Poona ashram. I saw you doing the energy darshan, putting your finger on to the third eye of some people, causing them to fall down. At that moment I recognized you. It took me six years to sit in front of you. The first time you looked at me, I fell down, and there was a flash in my brain.

    What happened to you was tremendously significant, rare and unique. It is one of the contributions of the East to the world: the understanding that between these two eyes, there is a third eye inside which normally remains dormant. One has to work hard, bring his whole sexual energy upwards, against gravitation, and when the energy reaches the third eye, it opens. Many methods have been tried, to do that, because when it opens there is suddenly a flash of light and things which have never been clear to you suddenly become clear....

    There have been other methods. When I emphasize watching, witnessing. that is the

    finest method to bring the third eye into action, because that watching is inside. These two eyes cannot be used, they can only look outward. They have to be closed. And when you try to watch inside, that certainly means there is something like an eye which sees. Who sees your thoughts? Not these eyes. Who sees that anger is arising in you? That place of seeing is called symbolically "the third eye."...

    Because you had seen on T.V. that by touching them with my finger on the third eye, people were going into some inner space, for these six years you must have been thinking to know that inner space yourself. So when you came here and I saw you for the first time, the experience happened without my even touching your third eye. You were almost ready, just on the verge of it.

    To see you is also a way of touching you. It is a remote way of touching....

    So it may have just been a coincidence: for six years it was lying like a seed, in your unconscious, and when you came here and I looked at you, suddenly there was a flash

    and you fell down. But it is a tremendously fortunate state; it means your third eye can function very easily.

    Just try to watch with your eyes closed, and the third eye will become more and more active. And the experiences of the third eye are the door to higher spirituality.

    The third eye is the sixth center, the seventh is the highest. Six is very close to the highest center of your experience; it prepares the ground for the seventh. At the seventh center you become not only a flash of light, but just light itself. That's why the person who reaches the seventh center...his experience we call "enlightenment." His whole being becomes just pure light, with no fuel--because any light that needs fuel cannot be immortal. There is no fuel; hence the light has an eternity. It is the experience of your very being and the being of the universe. splend19

    The silences during Osho's discourses

    The silences during Osho's discourses become increasingly longer. He draws attention to these silences as they are the essence of his teaching, of meditation

    Just be watchful this minute. In this silence you are tasting something which is beyond time.

    We are tasting the taste of this minute of eternity....

    It is something very strange, that all the mystics, whether they were born thousands of years ago, or they are alive today, all fundamentally agree on the essential points of spiritual growth and realization.

    For example: the silence, this minute, gives you not an explanation--but it gives you an experience.

    Dancing and singing, allow yourself to be so completely overwhelmed that nothing is left behind. And you have entered into the temple of God, where you are the mirror, and you are the face mirrored in it; where you are the seeker and you are the sought; where you are the devotee and you are the God at whose feet you are offering yourself. spirit23

    I realized that it is easier to become silent while listening to you than in any other meditation. When you stop talking everything seems to stop for a moment and I get a glimpse of what meditation can be! these are the most precious moments for me! Why is it easier to become silent in your presence?

    The question you have raised is significant not only to you, but to many more who are not fortunate enough to be in my presence, but who will be reading these words or listening or seeing this on the video screen all over the world.

    The question arises almost for everyone, that the way I talk is a little strange. No speaker in the world talks like me--technically it is wrong; it takes almost double the time!...

    My purpose is so unique--I am using words just to create silent gaps. The words are not important so I can say anything contradictory, anything absurd, anything unrelated, because my purpose is just to create gaps. The words are secondary; the silences between those words are primary. This is simply a device to give you a glimpse of meditation.

    And once you know that it is possible for you, you have traveled far in the direction of your own being.

    Most of the people in the world don't think that it is possible for mind to be silent. Because they don't think it is possible, they don't try. How to give people a taste of meditation was my basic reason to speak, so I can go on speaking eternally--it does not matter what I am saying. All that matters is that I give you a few chances to be silent, which you find difficult on your own in the beginning.

    I cannot force you to be silent, but I can create a device in which spontaneously you are bound to be silent. I am speaking, and in the middle of a sentence, when you were expecting another word to follow, nothing follows but a silent gap. And your mind was looking to listen, and waiting for something to follow, and does not want to miss it-- naturally it becomes silent. What can the poor mind do? If it was well known at what points I will be silent, if it was declared to you that on such and such points I will be silent, then you could manage to think--you would not be silent. Then you know: "This is the point where he is going to be silent, now I can have a little chit-chat with myself." But because it comes absolutely suddenly. I don't know myself why at certain points I stop.

    Anything like this, in any orator in the world, will be condemned, because an orator stopping again and again means he is not well prepared, he has not done the homework. It means that his memory is not reliable, that he cannot find, sometimes, what word to use. But because it is not oratory, I am not concerned about the people who will be condemning me--I am concerned with you.

    And it is not only here, but far away. anywhere in the world where people will be

    listening to the video or to the audio, they will come to the same silence. My success is not to convince you, my success is to give you a real taste so that you can become confident that meditation is not a fiction, that the state of no-mind is not just a philosophical idea, that it is a reality; that you are capable of it, and that it does not need any special qualifications.

    You may be a sinner, you may be a saint--it does not matter. If the sinner can become silent, he will attain to the same consciousness as the saint.

    Existence is not so miserly as religions have been teaching you. Existence is not like the KGB or FBI--watching everybody to see what you are doing, whether you are going to the movie with your own wife or with somebody else's wife. Existence is not interested at all. The problem of whether the wife is yours or not is just a man-created problem. In

    existence, there is nothing like marriage. Whether you are stealing money, taking it out from somebody's safe or from your own, existence does not and cannot make the difference. You are taking out the money from the safe--that is a fact--but to whom the safe belongs, that is absolutely of no concern to existence....

    My effort here to speak to you is to give you a chance to see that you are as capable of becoming a no-mind as any Gautam Buddha--that it is not a special quality given to a few people, that it is not a talent. Everybody cannot be a painter, and everybody cannot be a poet--those are talents. Everybody cannot be a genius--those are given qualities from birth. But everybody can be enlightened--that is the only thing about which communism is right. And strangely enough, that is the only thing communism denies.

    Enlightenment is the only thing, the only experience where everybody is equal--equally capable. And it does not depend on your acts, it does not depend on your prayers, it does not depend on whether you believe in God or not. It depends only on one thing and that is a little taste, and suddenly you become confident that you are capable of it. My speaking is just to give you confidence. So I can tell a story, I can tell a joke--absolutely unrelated!...

    My own understanding and experience is that the idea of sin, the idea of virtue, the idea of reward, the idea of punishment, heaven and hell, are simply ideas to exploit you, to keep you under control. It is a psychological bondage, because I don't see any point....

    My own experience is that if you can be silent, and if you can transcend mind and your consciousness can grow, it does not matter what you are doing; your actions are not counted at all, only your consciousness....

    So I have changed it completely. Religions were insisting on action; my insistence is on consciousness, and consciousness can grow only in silence. Silence is the right soil for consciousness. When you are noisy you cannot be very alert and conscious. When you are conscious and alert, you cannot be noisy--they cannot co-exist.

    So my speaking, my talking should not be categorized with any other kind of oratory; it is a device for meditation to bring confidence in you which has been taken away by religions. Instead of confidence, they have given you guilt which pulls you down and keeps you sad. Once you become confident that great things are available to you, you will not feel inferior, you will not feel guilty--you will feel blessed. You will feel that existence has prepared you to be one of the peaks of consciousness. But you have not been going accordingly; you have been following the priests who have destroyed your dignity and your pride.

    You say, "I realized that it is easier to become silent while listening to you than in any other meditation," because in those other meditations you are alone. It will take a little time to gain confidence--that's why I am speaking morning and evening, almost for thirty years continuously. Perhaps two or three times in these thirty years, I have stopped because I was not feeling well; otherwise I have continued to speak.

    Every morning and evening I want to give you the confidence that you are losing in your meditations. When you are meditating, of course it is you who are meditating; your mind goes on with its old habit. And many people who have not been given the confidence have turned back. They try meditation for a few days and it becomes a failure and a sadness that it doesn't happen. And they start thinking, "Perhaps my evil acts of the past life"--which the religions have forced in your mind--"or perhaps my belief in God is not total; something is wrong with me."

    I want you to be absolutely certain that nothing is wrong with anybody; all wrongs have been fed into you.

    Religions have not been helpful in creating a better humanity. They have only destroyed all that was beautiful in man; they have stopped its growth, they have cut the very roots. Man has remained a pygmy in the world of consciousness.

    I have changed the whole focus. I don't say to you that you have to do this, you have not to do that, that this is sin and this is virtue. I say only, simply be alert and conscious and silent and blissful, and everything else will follow. Alone, it will take a little time for you. As your confidence becomes more and more solid, then alone also you will be able to be silent.

    With me, to be silent is easier because of one other reason--I am silent; even while I am speaking I am silent. My innermost being is not involved at all. What I am saying to you is not a disturbance or a burden or a tension to me; I am as relaxed as one can be.

    Speaking or not speaking does not make any difference to me.

    Naturally, this kind of state is infectious. Seeing me, being here in my presence, looking into my eyes...even watching my hands, you can feel that they are the gestures of a silent man. Slowly, slowly you become infected, contagious; moreover, around a silent man there is a certain energy field created....

    A man of silence moves with a certain field of energy around him, and if you are receptive, his vibe starts touching your heart.

    Have you noticed? A husband and wife, if they have really been in love, non-possessive, non-jealous--and if they have helped each other to remain individuals and they have deep respect for each other--living a long life, for fifty years together, you will be surprised to know. it is a well-known fact noticed down the ages that they start looking almost the

    same. Their voices, their eyes, their faces, their gestures. they become so harmonious

    with each other.

    Certainly, between a master and disciple the phenomenon is a millionfold greater, because there is no conflict at all. And particularly with a man like me--I am not in any way forcing you to be disciples, and I will not prevent anybody from leaving me. I welcome you when you are here; if you leave, my welcome remains the same. My love does not change. You can go away, you can even betray me, but my love remains the

    same. There is no contract between me and you; you are here out of your freedom, any moment you can go. I am here out of my freedom; you don't bind me.

    In this state of freedom the master and disciple can come closest, and naturally energy flows from the higher to the lower. It is just like water coming from a mountaintop towards the valley....

    You say, "When you stop talking, everything seems to stop for a moment and I get a glimpse of what meditation can be." You have forgotten to note one thing. What you have noted is right, that you get a glimpse of what meditation can be. You have forgotten to note that you are capable of having such silent moments, that you see that meditation is not something impossible, that it is not only for any exceptional category of people, that it is available to everybody. You have pointed out one thing absolutely correctly, but you have forgotten to see that you are also capable of being silent, which is very important to remember.

    Because I cannot go on speaking the whole day to keep you in meditative moments, I want you to become responsible. Accepting that you are capable of being silent will help you when you are meditating alone. Knowing your capacity. and one comes to know

    one's capacity only when one experiences it. There is no other way.

    You are saying, "These are the most precious moments for me. Osho, why is it easier to become silent in your presence?" In my presence you forget your own ego, you forget yourself. The emphasis should be not on me, the emphasis should be on you, on the fact that in my presence you love me, you respect me, you trust me, so you put aside your defense measures--your ego is your defense measure.

    Pay more attention to it, to why you become silent. Don't make me wholly responsible for your silence, because that will create a difficulty for you. Alone, what are you going to do? Then it becomes a kind of addiction, and I don't want you to be addicted to me. I don't want to be a drug to you.

    The so-called masters and teachers of the religions of the whole world--I have come across almost all kinds and all categories of teachers--want their disciples to be addicted to them, to be dependent on them. That is their power trip. I don't have any power trip. I love you, whether you are with me or not with me.

    I want you to be independent and confident that you can attain these precious moments on your own.

    If you can attain them with me, there is no reason why you cannot attain them without me, because I am not the cause. You have to understand what is happening: listening to me, you put your mind aside. Listening to the ocean, or listening to the thundering of the clouds, or listening to the rain falling heavily, just put your ego aside, because there is no need. The ocean is not going to attack you, the rain is not going to attack you, the trees

    are not going to attack you--there is no need of any defense. To be vulnerable to life as

    such, to existence as such, you will be getting these moments continuously--soon it will become your very life.

    If you ask me, I have almost forgotten the taste of misery; and because I have forgotten the taste of misery and suffering and anxiety, I have also slowly been forgetting the taste of joy, blissfulness, ecstasy--they have become natural. Just as a healthy man does not feel continuously that he is healthy, only sick people become interested in health. The moment that you have become healthy...coming out of your sickness, you will feel health but when it becomes your natural experience of every day, every moment, you don't have any contrast of sickness to compare it with.

    You don't know your head unless you have a headache--have you observed it? Do you become aware of your head? You become aware of your head only when you have a headache. A headache gives you the idea--people who have not experienced headaches, don't know what it is to have a healthy head without any headaches.

    All our experiences depend on their opposites. If you cannot taste the bitter, you cannot taste anything sweet either--they go together. If you cannot see darkness, you cannot see light. And if you are continuously in one state, you start forgetting about it.

    That's what I call going beyond enlightenment--the day you start forgetting that you are enlightened, the day it becomes just the natural course of your life, ordinary, nothing special. The way you breathe, the way your heart beats, the way your blood runs in the body, enlightenment also becomes part of your being. You forget all about it.

    When you ask the question, I am reminded that yes, there is an experience called enlightenment. But when I am sitting alone I never remember that I am enlightened, that would be crazy! It has become such a natural, ordinary experience.

    First go beyond mind. Then go beyond enlightenment too. Don't get stuck anywhere until you are simply an ordinary part of the existence, with the trees, with the birds, with the animals, with the rivers, with the mountains. You feel a deep harmony--no superiority, no inferiority.

    Gautam Buddha had some glimpses of going beyond enlightenment. He mentioned it, that there is a possibility of going beyond enlightenment. He did not say that he had gone beyond it, but he recognizes the fact that there should be a state when you forget all about enlightenment. You have been so healthy, you have forgotten all about health; only then have you come home. Finally even enlightenment is a barrier--the last barrier.

    Now a joke for you, not related to anything! I am grateful to you that you allow me to say anything that I want; you don't object. nvita14

    Osho has a clipboard with copies of the sutras, questions and jokes. While he refers to these there is silence, and anticipation

    What is the hidden mystery in the silence between the pages in front of you?

    All that I want to say to you is in my gaps. I use the words only to create gaps. So when I am simply looking at the pages, I am giving you a chance to receive the message which cannot be said in words, which can only be relayed, transferred, in utter silence.

    There is an ancient proverb: "People will believe anything, if you whisper it." Particularly if you want the women to hear anything, whisper it! But I go one step further. If you really want to express the truth, don't say anything about it, just leave the gap. Let people hear without your saying anything. That's the only way truth has always been transferred-

    -from one silent heart to another silent heart.

    In utter silence is the only possibility to meet, to merge, to share.

    A joke for you. The purpose of the joke is not the joke. The purpose is the laughter that

    follows, because in that laughter your thinking stops. In that laughter, you are no more mind. And after the laughter, just a very small gap and I can reach to the deepest core of your being. invita09

    This beautiful silence. this is my creation.

    Thousands of lotuses suddenly start flowering.

    Thousands of hearts suddenly become a tremendous harmony, a song, a blissfulness. satyam30

    I am giving you these moments of silence for a single purpose. I don't have a teaching, I have only strategies for transformation. I speak to you not to convey anything in particular, I speak to you so that I can give you a few gaps of silence.

    Listening to me, there are two possible ways: the way of the scholar--he will listen to my words--and the way of the seeker, who will listen to my silences.

    My silences are my communion with you.

    My words are only to divide small pieces of silences for you. One word is being used only so that before I utter another word, you can feel a silence sweeping over you.

    Nobody has used language in this way. Language is just creating possibilities for silence. Alone, your chattering mind does not allow you to be silent. But with me, I am chattering and you are freed at least for a few moments because in those moments you are waiting for what I am going to say. Naturally, a waiting gives you an experience of

    silence. mani18

    Just a joke to make this silence deeper. First experience this silence, so that after the

    laughter you can experience the deepness of it. how laughter can make silence deeper,

    how laughter can make love deeper, how laughter can make meditation deeper. But first, feel it. pilgr09

    This silence is beautiful, but each laughter makes the silence go deeper. Have you observed it or not? After each laughter, there is a deeper layer of silence revealing itself to you. It is almost like being on a road, and a car passes with its headlights on. Suddenly there is light where there was darkness. But once the car has gone, the darkness becomes darker.

    Something almost similar happens; hence I have started calling my jokes "the time for prayer." mani16

    Be more alert and watch and note down whenever you see something hilarious happening--and particularly in my place. Where do you think I get all these jokes? My people just go on watching each other and creating jokes and informing me. I never go out. But people are learning watchfulness, so they come across so many hilarious things in themselves and in others. They go on preparing jokes for me.

    I'm never short of jokes, because in my place in twenty-four hours there is nothing else to do. It is a continuous carnival. chit02

    I have made you serious again! Once in a while I forget. So for no reason at all, just for a good laugh, because I hate to leave Buddha Hall unless I see you all are rejoicing and laughing. pilgr06

    Last night you did great. I went on hearing your laughter for almost half an hour. I loved it so much that my people are starting to learn how to pray. Don't be miserly as far as laughter is concerned; that is the only miserliness I hate. satyam19

    Osho's discourses become more intimate and personal

    Osho's discourses become more intimate and personal as friends arrive from around the world to sit with him again

    You are asking, "What is this longing to be close to You?" Translated rightly, it is the longing to be close to yourself.

    I am no more than a mirror. You see something of your originality reflected, something of your beauty reflected, something that you are missing, and missing very deeply. It is like a wound in you. You want it to be healed, and you know if you come closer, it will be healed. It is not knowledge gathered from books, it is your intrinsic wisdom.

    It is almost like: a moth finds it irresistible to go close whenever it sees a beautiful flame, although it knows that by going closer to the flame it will be consumed. But moths are not skeptical, not doubting--they trust in their longing. Knowing that their death is sure, they also know somewhere deep within their consciousness that after death is resurrection. Nobody has told them.

    This longing to be close to me is the longing of a moth to be close to the flame.

    "To rest my head on Your feet"--this is something very strange, of which the West is absolutely unaware. The East, for thousands of years, has understood the longing; it is an energy phenomenon.

    The master is almost like a river that is coming down from the hills, with all the coolness, with all the songs of the forest, with all the beauty of the wild animals.

    The East has understood it, that if you put your head on the feet of the master, his energy will start flowing into you. It can flow only from his feet.

    Energy cannot go upwards. It follows exactly the same law as water: it goes downwards....

    "What is this longing to be close to you, to rest my head on your feet, to dance so wildly that the Rolls Royce stops, to play the guitar and sing so loudly, to look into and drown in your eyes, to stop breathing when you move your hand? What is this irresistable pull to be physically close to you?"

    Just a natural longing of every disciple to be drowned in the blissful energy, loving energy, in the ecstasy of the master. And to be drowned in the ecstasy of the master, one wants to dance madly so that the ego disappears and only dance remains--because the ego cannot dissolve into the master, but the dance can dissolve. To sing so loudly and so madly that the singer disappears; only then the song can dissolve into the master.

    And because you are not yet aware of the whole phenomenon, you think it is "a pull to be physically close to You." There you are not understanding your own longing clearly, only very vaguely. It is not a question of physical closeness, it is a question of spiritual closeness. But because you have known yourself only as body, you are absolutely unaware of the treasures of your soul.

    The body is there today, tomorrow it may not be; but your soul is going to be forever. The irresistable urge is to let your soul, your consciousness, become one with the master. I have called that state the state of a devotee.

    The student is only intellectually interested; the disciple comes closer--he is not only intellectually interested, it is not only his curiosity to know more and more--the disciple wants to be more and more. But there comes a limit, when the disciple cannot resist the urge to be one with the master, to be one with the beloved. This is a spiritual urge.

    But everybody feels it first as if it is an urge to be physically close. spirit26

    When you look at someone as a master, your eyes radiate so much love that the love people are accustomed to knowing is left far behind. The ordinary, biological love becomes almost a contempt. The moment you have known, and your eyes are filled with

    the love for a master. Falling in love with a beautiful body is one thing; it is very

    superficial. Falling in love with a beautiful being has an additional depth, immeasurable. zara119

    When I am looking at you, it is not only that I am looking at you; you are also looking at me. The abyss has its own ways of gazing into you. The empty sky also gazes into you, the faraway star also looks into you. And if the abyss is allowed to gaze into you, soon you will find a great harmony between yourself and the silence of the abyss, you will also become part of the abyss. The abyss will be outside you and also inside you. golden05

    I am as many as you are; my heart is beating in you. Without you I don't have any purpose to be here. Just a thin thread of love is keeping me amongst you. It all depends on you--as you grow more, I am more....

    Your hands are my hands, and your eyes are my eyes, and only if this happens, you rise from disciplehood to the status of a devotee. So your feeling is perfectly correct. I am talking to you just to keep you engaged so that I can work in other ways on you, on your heart.

    It is spiritual surgery. Unless you are silent, quiet, calm, just absorbed in listening to me, I cannot do the subtle work. My speaking is nothing but anesthesia. razor24

    I rarely promise--but if you are absolutely certain that you will go on digging deeper and deeper to the very ultimate center of your being, I promise you I will be there to welcome you. Because the center is one. we are different only on the periphery.

    Just think of a circle and a center: from the center towards the circle many lines can go. On the periphery those lines are very distant; as they move towards the center they come closer, and closer, and closer, and closer. And those who have reached the center are all ready to welcome you.

    Not only will I be there, you will also find all those people whom I have been talking about. Just reach to the center, so I can introduce you to Chuang Tzu, to Lao Tzu, to Kabir, to Gautam Buddha, to Eknath, to Hotei, to Tilopa, Naropa. unique people; every

    one a unique flower, with a fragrance of his own.

    And it is not only a promise to you (the questioner), it is a promise to you all: the day you reach the center, you will find me there ahead of you. I am already there, just waiting for you. Don't get lost on the way: reach to the very end. spirit09

    These sannyasins have taken a tremendous step. They have risked their established mind to enquire into the unfamiliar and the unknown--and ultimately, the unknowable. They have put aside all their explanations in favor of the miracle and the mystery of existence. They have dropped their ambitions, their desires for money, power, prestige, respectability. Now their whole concern is simple and single: how to know, Who am I?...

    These people have taken a courageous stand against the whole world. It is not ordinary, it is absolutely extraordinary. To stand alone like a lion, and not to be a sheep in the crowd, is the greatest courage in existence. Very few people are able to get out of the mass psychology, of the collective mind. The collective mind gives a certain sense of false security. Naturally it gives you the idea that so many people--there are five billion people on the planet--cannot be wrong. Naturally there is no need for you to search for the truth individually. All these people have discovered it; it is easier and cheaper just to follow them...just to be a Christian, or a Hindu, or a Mohammedan, or a communist. It is very easy when a crowd surrounds you to feel warm and cozy.

    Standing alone like a tall Lebanon cedar, utterly alone in the sky, far away from the earth, almost reaching to the stars...But the beauty of the cedars of Lebanon--their courage to go beyond the crowd, their courage to be alone...

    Gautam Buddha used to call sannyas a lion's roar. So whenever I am in a gap, if you are in tune with me, you are in a gap. Then you will become aware that you are surrounded by a strange crowd. It is not the ordinary crowd of the marketplace--these are seekers, these are enquirers. These are people who are ready to sacrifice everything for the truth. These are the people who have renounced all borrowed knowledge and are in search of something of their own, because that which is not yours, is not right. It may have been right for Gautam Buddha, it may have been right for Jesus Christ, but it is not right for you.

    You are a unique individual in your own right.

    You have to find the truth alone, not by following somebody else's footsteps. The world of truth is something like the sky where birds fly but don't leave any footprints. The world of truth also has no footprints of Jesus or Gautam Buddha or Lao Tzu. It is the world of consciousness: where can you leave the footprints? pilgr25

    Osho is ill

    For three weeks in April and May, 1987, Osho is ill and unable to give discourses

    When I saw you the other morning, you seemed so totally fresh, so new, so radiant-- deeper, and higher, and vaster than ever before. What has happened to you in these days of silence?

    There are many things that have not been told by the mystics to people, just so that they don't freak out. One of the things is the moment you become aware, conscious, reaches which were unknown to you before become available. Your contact with the body becomes loose, particularly after enlightenment.

    The general understanding is that you will be more healthy. You are in an inner sense more healthy, but as far as your body is concerned, you become more fragile. So whenever I have a great opportunity of being sick, I use it--just resting under my blankets, being utterly silent. I love to be sick, to tell you the truth, because then I can sleep twenty hours, at least. It is sleep to the outside people; but to me it is a deep meditation.

    So, because both my arms and their joints are in bad shape, I cannot even participate in your rejoicing and in your music. I have been resting completely. And whatever I do, I do totally. That may have given you the idea that I looked "totally fresh, new, radiant-- deeper and higher and vaster than ever before."

    I am always the same. But as you become more and more centered inward, even to look outside is a strain on the eyes, even to speak a word is a strain because effort has to be made. Otherwise the silence cannot be translated in any way and conveyed to

    you. golden15

    You are saying, "I see you here every day, so radiant, so full of light, so far away from the everyday reality of my life."

    Don't take it for granted, because one day you will not see me. And then you will repent for all those old days when I was alive and available, and could have helped you in every possible way. It is a strange thing about the human mind that you become aware of things only when you have lost them. When you have them, you tend to forget them--they become too obvious.

    You are saying, "You are a shining beacon showing the way, and the possibility of something more that can happen in me."

    How long are you going to see me just as a shining beacon showing the way? It is time. You should walk on the way; otherwise, what purpose is my beckoning, my shining, my calling you forth, if you don't move a single inch? Just don't get lost in enjoying my presence; it has to become your experience too, and for that, you have to walk the way. Gautam Buddha is reported to have said, "Buddhas can only show the way, they cannot walk for you." Nobody can do that. It is just not part of the nature of things....

    Now you are saying, "It does not seem to matter really anymore, each day seeing you again is enough in itself."

    That is a very dangerous conclusion, because one day certainly you will not see me. I cannot help it. I would love to remain with you forever, but that is not how things happen. Today I'm with you, tomorrow is uncertain, and the day after tomorrow it is certain that I will have to leave.

    You can be nourished by my presence, you can drink me, you can allow yourself to be showered by me; but all these things should create a passion to reach to the same state in

    which I am. Otherwise, you will not be able to console yourself--your misery will be great because you have made me something ultimate.

    My presence is momentary. We are together for the moment--for a few moments at the most--and then we have to depart. And this departure cannot be canceled. So enjoy it, but don't be contented with it. The enjoyment of my presence and your love for me should be shown by your passionate search for enlightenment. There is no other way. rebel03

    Growth of Osho’s new commune

    The commune is rapidly growing around Osho again, along the lines he recommended during his world tour. There is no organisation. A few residents take care of administration of the premises.

    You say: Sometimes I am blessed by this overwhelming feeling that this commune is becoming gently one body, one organism, one heartbeat. Am I dreaming? Am I once more the usual utopian? Oh, amore, please tell me it is not a dream.

    Sarjano, it is a dream that is coming true, but it is a dream--not your dream, but the dream of everybody who is here....

    When the commune in America was crushed, almost bulldozed criminally, anyone in my place would have dropped the idea--but I am stubborn! I will go on till my last breath or

    even after that.

    Sarjano, what is happening here again is that the dream is becoming true. And we have learned much in the destruction of the commune in America--it has not been a bad experience. Learning is always good, and learning always comes through failures. The commune had succeeded, almost succeeded.

    Here, we will avoid those possibilities of destruction. It is better to continue to dream for a better humanity than to settle into sadness and pessimism. Things are still coming together again. People are returning and they are more experienced now. They know not to have a structure that is capable of being destroyed. Something totally new, a more organic body, not a dictatorial regime; no enforcement of ten to twelve hours' work, but a more joyous, life-affirmative. Each according to his need, each according to his choice.

    We are making every effort not to disturb anybody's individuality, not to sacrifice any individual for the commune. On the contrary, make every individual as strong as possible, because that will be the total strength of the commune--and the seeds have started sprouting.

    You are right, Sarjano, when you say, "Sometimes I am blessed by this overwhelming feeling that this commune is becoming gently one body, one organism, one heartbeat. Am I dreaming?" No, it is a reality that is happening.

    "Am I once more the usual utopian?" We are making every effort to change the meaning of the word, `utopia'. The meaning of the word `utopia' is that which never happens, and we are determined to change the meaning. We are committed to the idea that utopia is that which can happen. Its old definition has to be changed totally. Utopia is the very heart of human beings. A man without dreams for a better humanity is not a man, he is a desert.

    "Oh, amore, please tell me it is not a dream." Sarjano, it is both: it is not a dream because the dream is turning into reality, but it is still a dream because much more has to be done. You should not be satisfied.

    This is a dream which goes on growing with new possibilities, with new dimensions. But we are determined to create it, to make it a reality. This is our religion. We are not interested in going to paradise; we are interested in making the paradise come here. It all depends on our love, on our silence, on our peace, on our meditation, and being aware and alert not to fall again into any trap of the vested interests.

    Once the tree has become strong, has gained roots in the earth, it will be difficult for anybody to destroy it....

    Be clear in your vision, be conscious in your efforts. The dream is gaining roots and I hope soon we will see the flowers. They are not far away. invita01

    In this temple you are allowed to be yourself without any inhibitions. I would like this to happen all over the world. This is only the beginning. Here, start living moment to moment totally and intensely, joyfully and playfully--and you will see that nothing goes out of control; that your intelligence becomes sharper; that you become younger; that your love becomes deeper. And when you go out into the world, wherever you go, spread life, playfulness, joy, as far away as possible--to every nook and corner of the earth.

    If the whole world starts laughing and enjoying and playing, there will be a great revolution. spirit17

    You ask: All these years with you in the commune, I did what I was told. Now it is up to me, but who am I to know what to do?

    I want you to be meditative; I want you to have some time to relax; I want you to have some time to think about the vital problems of life, and to do something about them.

    And we have all the arrangements for meditations, for group therapies, for counseling, for all kinds of possibilities that can help you to become a spiritual giant.

    The work is needed because you need food, you need clothes. So, it is good working five hours--and that should also not be too tight. Here we are not going to create an army to conquer the world. We are creating a commune of individuals with their own spirituality, unhindered, uninterfered with. We want them to cleanse their minds, sharpen their

    intelligence and enter into the deepest center of their being. Those four, five hours' work is just to keep you alive so that you can meditate, so that you can realize one day a consciousness full of light, full of joy.

    Here nobody is going to tell you what to do. I want you to find what you can do the best, what you would like to do; that which you can enjoy, which will not be a burden, which will not be imposed on you, which will be your own creativity.

    I want your work also to be part of your spiritual growth; not against it, but for it. But that can come only from your own spontaneity. You have to take the responsibility on yourself.

    I want individuals to be absolutely free, responsible, alert, aware, neither allowing anybody to dictate to them; nor allowing themselves to dictate to anybody. It has to be a beautiful communion. It is not based on any dictatorial ideology. It is based, basically, on ultimate freedom.

    And if freedom is the ultimate goal then it should be your first step too, because only the first step will lead you to the last step. It is not possible that your whole life you are just a beast of burden, doing things that people tell you to do and then suddenly one day you will become enlightened. That is not possible.

    You will have to take all the responsibility for what you are doing. And you will have to grow in your consciousness and awareness so that only the right flows through your actions, so that whatever you do beautifies the commune, helps people.

    This is a gathering, not a crowd; it is a brotherhood, not a factory. Here, every individual has an equal opportunity to grow into whatsoever he wants to grow. And my whole effort is that you should not be interfered with....

    Now, stand up on your own two legs. Remember that you are alone, there is no God, there are no messengers, and there is no dictator. You have to be decisive about your own life. It is your life and you have to live it according to your own style. Only then you can make your life a celebration; otherwise it is burdened with so many rules and regulations that you cannot dance with that much burden. invita10

    What place does a structured meditation technique have in the lives of your sannyasins, both when we are living near you and when we are away?

    Is it sufficient to sit in meditation in your presence or listen to a video, and then to carry that meditativeness into the rest of the day, or should additional time be set aside to do zazen or vipassana?

    It is up to everyone's convenience.

    If you feel that it is not enough to be meditative in all your activities, then it is perfectly good to have some small time just for meditation. But if you feel that you have the same joy, the same silence when you are doing your work meditatively as when you are sitting especially for meditation, then there is no need.

    Ultimately, there should be no need. For the beginners I am saying, at your convenience. But finally, your whole life should be nothing but a meditation. Whatever you do should be a meditation. And there should be no separate, particularly structured timetable. That is for the beginners. And I don't think you are beginners; now it is time enough not to be beginners. turnin08

    Meditation is only a word to you. It has not become a taste, it has not been a nourishment, it has not been an experience for you; hence I can understand your difficulty. But you have also to understand my difficulty: your diseases may be many, but I have only one medicine, and my difficulty is to go on selling the same medicine for different patients, different diseases. I don't care what your disease is, because I know I have got only one medicine.

    Whatever your disease I will discuss it, but finally you have to accept the same medicine. It never changes. As far as I know, in these thirty-five years it has never changed. I have seen millions of people, millions of different questions, and even before I hear their questions, I know the answer. It does not matter what their question is; what matters is how to manage to bring their question to my answer. satyam16

    To me, meditation and responsibility come simultaneously. As you go deeper into yourself, you become more and more responsible. You know that there is no God. You know that everyone is suffering around you and you have found the space where no suffering is possible.

    The only thing that remains for you is to share your space, to indicate the innermost being of everyone. This I consider to be the greatest creative act in existence. If you can make somebody aware of his being, his indestructible being, his immortality and eternity, you have done the greatest creative act possible.

    And you have to do it, because there is no God who can do it! Only you can do it.

    Meditation throws you upon yourself. It takes away all responsibility that you have put in the name of God. Obviously, if God has created the world, then he is responsible for everything that happens in the world. If God created man, then certainly he has created his destructiveness also, his violence, his greed, his anger, his tendency towards murder, rape, suicide. For everything God is responsible, because he has planted the seeds in you of all these things. You are free of responsibility.

    Do you understand what I am saying?...

    God has to disappear from the mind of man; only then will you have a tremendous feeling of responsibility, of sharing, of helping people on the path. There is nobody else; only we are here on the earth...alone.

    Our responsibility is tremendous. poetry03

    Being in the role of a therapist, I seem to be able to help some people from a space of loving uninvolvement and centeredness. But I realize at the same time that I cannot see my own blind spots of unconsciousness.

    It is good to realize that you cannot see your own blind spots of unconsciousness-- although you are in the role of a therapist and can help others to solve their problems. It is good to be aware of it, because many therapists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, and psychiatrists fall into a trap because they can help people through their expertise. They forget completely that their own problems have remained unsolved. In fact, they have become so much concerned in solving others' problems, they have forgotten that they also have problems to solve....

    You have to go deeper into meditation and you have to help those people who come into your therapy groups towards meditation. Give them as much help as you can through your expertise, but make meditation the foundation.

    And while you are running a group. as a therapist you know much more than the people

    who are participants, but as a meditator you can join them as a participant, not as a therapist. That will bring you closer to them. That will give you a deeper understanding of your heart, and they will also feel your humanity more clearly, more deeply, your compassion and your love.

    Meditate with them. Make it a point that in every therapy group one hour should be devoted to meditation. The remaining time you work your methodology, your technique-- but start with meditation and end the group in the night with meditation. People should go to sleep after meditation. After meditation they should not do anything else, so that their whole night has some aroma of meditation, some vibe of meditation continuously floating in their being. And as they wake up, they wake up in a different way than they have ever awakened before: more peaceful, more serene, more calm, more collected.

    So, the first thing should be meditation and the last thing should be meditation, and in between you do your therapy group. In times of meditation you should be a participant. You should join hands with them, you should be one amongst them. In the therapy group you have a higher position--you are more knowledgeable, they are less so. They have come for help, you are helping them--certainly you have a superiority.

    But in meditation no one is superior, no one is inferior. Begin with this beautiful equality and end your group with the same phenomenon. And your therapy group will become both together: a meditative therapy or a therapeutic meditation....

    Not only you, but other therapists also should make it a point: it is one of my basic approaches to create a synthesis between therapy and meditation, because that will create the final synthesis between West and East. That is a very fundamental beginning.

    Because the West continues to work within the mind, goes on round and round in the mind, and the East has taken steps out of the mind long before, centuries before. And what the West is searching for in the mind, the East has found beyond the mind, without any difficulty.

    A synthesis is needed. Western techniques of psychotherapy can be helpful in resolving life problems, relationship problems, mundane problems, ordinary problems, but they cannot resolve your fundamental problem of the meaning of life. They cannot resolve the quest for truth. The East can resolve the problems which are not of this world. And if both are together we can help man in both ways: we can make him more capable to live in the world--with more efficiency, with more culture, with more lovingness--and we can also help him to go into his aloneness and to move out of the world. Even though he is in the world he can remain always in touch with the eternal.

    Once a man has become efficient in both, he is a healthy bird with both wings ready to fly into the vast sky--to his ultimate destiny of faraway stars. Therapy can help in such ways. rebel26

    It is one of the stupidities that no university in the world teaches people the art of living, the art of loving, the art of meditating. And I think anything else is far lower than love, life, meditation, laughter. You may be a great surgeon, you may be a great engineer, you may be a great scientist--still you will need a sense of humor, still you will need the art of love, still you will need the art of living, still you will need all these great values in your life.

    But you will be surprised: I teach only these things--love, life, laughter, and as a background for all these, meditation--but the government of India is not willing to accept this school as an institution of education. They would accept it as an institution of education, if I was teaching geography, history, chemistry, physics--the mundane things of life.

    I don't say that they should not be taught, but they should not be the only education. They should be a lower kind of education, and each university should have a higher faculty of education where you are taught real values of life...because geography cannot make you a better man, nor can history make you a better lover, nor can chemistry make you meditative.

    All that is being taught in the universities cannot give you the sense of humor. You cannot laugh, you cannot dance, you cannot sing. Your life becomes almost like a desert. zara102

    Osho guides sannyasins on living in the world

    Can you say something about coming to the master and going back to the world?

    You need not be worried if you have found the master in me. Then wherever you are you will find me very close, nearby--just following you like a shadow. But if you get lost into the world, that will also be a good experience, to understand that you have not found the master. In any case, these are the only two alternatives--either you will find me in your gratitude, in your love, in your peace, in your silence, in your meditations, in your joy, or you will forget about me in the crowd. In both of the ways it will be a beautiful experience and a beautiful test.

    I want everybody here...those who are essential to run the commune should remain here; otherwise, people should come and go. They can manage it to be here for three months-- be here three months and go back into the world.

    The day you can start finding me wherever you are is the greatest day of your life. invita27

    I would like my people to remember it: never advise unless it is your experience. In the world, advice is the only thing which everybody gives and nobody takes, so why bother? Everybody enjoys giving advice and nobody ever takes it, and the reason is that everybody knows that advice is meant for others--not for yourself.

    I would like my people to remember: never advise, unless it has been your own authentic experience. Then too you can simply say, "This has been my experience. It is not necessary that it will be right for you--you can experiment. If you feel that it brings more harmony to your life, more joy, you can go ahead. If you feel it is not bringing anything...because individuals are different. What fits me may not fit you, what is medicine to me may be simply poison to you."

    An absolutely alert man is always alert about what advice to give and what not to give. Even if he gives advice, it is always conditional--conditional upon experiment. He says it only as a hypothesis: "You try a little bit--perhaps it works. If it works, good. If it does not work, don't go on doing it. It has helped me, that's true, but that does not mean that it will help everybody on the earth."

    People are different; each individual is unique, and each individual needs a unique way that suits him. tahui04

    The greatest miracle in the world is that you should dance and disappear in the dance-- then let the dance do whatever it can do. That you should love and disappear in the love-- then let the love do whatever it can do. You cannot claim that you are doing it--you have already disappeared.

    In your disappearance is the whole possibility of some miracle happening. So please don't guess; otherwise deep inside your love will remain half-hearted--you are doing it for

    some purpose. And when love becomes a purpose it is no longer love. Your joy will become phony, because if you are joyful so something can happen in the world, you are not really joyful--you are using joy. And if your dance is a means towards an end, it cannot be total. Unless your dance is an end in itself, there is no possibility of its being total.

    And only a total dance, an authentic love, a whole-hearted joy, perhaps may create some miracles around you. But you will not be the one who has done them; you will not be the one who can brag about them. They will happen only when you are not.

    God happens only when you have moved out of the way and left yourself totally empty, spacious. It is a very strange phenomenon: The guest only comes inside the house when the host disappears. splend16

    On the surface it seems everything is going perfectly well, but deep down there is great turmoil in the unconscious layers of human beings. You are not even aware of your own unconscious nightmares, but humanity is suffering as it has never suffered before.

    It is restless as it has never been before. It has forgotten the language of relaxation, it has forgotten the language of totality, it has forgotten the language of intensity. And all those qualities are needed to make your meditation a revolution in your being. It is not a question of morality, not a question of character, not a question of virtue--religions have been concerned with all those things for thousands of years, and they have not been successful in changing man. It is a totally different approach, a different dimension: the dimension of energy and the concentration of energy.

    And just as atomic energy is the explosion of a small atom into its constituents of electrons, protons and neutrons--it is not visible tot he eyes, but the explosion is so vast that it can destroy a great city like Nagasaki or Hiroshima--exactly parallel is the inner explosion of the living cell. The atomic energy is outside and destructive--objective and destructive. The inner energy, the subjective cell of your being, has the same qualities, the same tremendous power once it explodes--but it is creative.

    It is a chain reaction: one cell inside you explodes, and then other cells inside you start exploding in a chain. The whole life becomes a festival of lights. Every gesture becomes a dance; every movement becomes sheer joy....

    I am trying to change the whole pattern of religious thinking. I am trying to say to you: This is your home; this very moment is your paradise. It all depends on you. You do not need to be virtuous to dance totally; you do not need to be learned to dance totally; you do no need to be pious to dance totally. To dance totally, all that is needed is that we accept the reality only of this moment. We will accept the reality of the next moment when it arrives, but we will not be waiting for it.

    All the religions have been teaching you to wait. I am teaching to live, to love, to dance, to sing--and don't wait. splend15

    I used to be very hopeful. Still, I go on hoping against hope that perhaps, in a very dangerous situation, man may awaken. But there seems to be a sadness in my heart because I can see that if nothing is done, then this century is going to be our end.

    And not only our end, but the end of the whole of existence's dream of creating consciousness....

    My sadness is not about myself. I am absolutely contented. Death cannot take anything from me. My sadness is concerned with the whole of humanity, because their death will take away any opportunity of their becoming enlightened, of their becoming blissful, of their knowing meaning and significance. They have lived in darkness. Are they going to die in darkness too?

    I would like my people, at least, not to waste time in postponing their own growth, because politicians are absolutely prepared to destroy each other--to destroy all and everything. Their lust for power has come to the climax. Before they succeed in committing a global suicide, at least you should have known the god that exists within you.

    You should spread your joy and your silence and your laughter to anybody you come in contact with. You cannot give a better gift to your friends, to your acquaintances, to your lovers, to your children.

    The time is very short and the work is tremendous, but if you have courage, the challenge can be accepted. Don't depend on politicians; they cannot do anything; they are not even aware of where they have been leading humanity--into what darkness....

    I was hopeful, but as the days have passed and I have become more and more acquainted with the stupidity of man. I still hope but just out of old habit; really my heart has

    accepted the fact that only a few people can be saved. The whole of humanity is determined to destroy itself. And these are the people. if you tell them how they can be

    saved, they will crucify you. They will stone you to death. Going around the world, I still laugh, but there is a subtle sadness in it. I still dance with you but it is no longer with the same enthusiasm as it was ten years ago.

    It seems that the higher powers of consciousness are helpless against the lower and ugly powers of politicians. The higher is always fragile, like a roseflower; you can destroy it with a stone. That does not mean that the stone becomes higher than the roseflower; it simply means the stone is unconscious of what it is doing.

    The crowds are unconscious of what they are doing, and the politicians belong to the crowd. They are their representatives. And when blind people are leading other blind people, it is almost impossible to wake them up; because the question is not only that they are asleep--they are blind too.

    There is not time enough to cure their eyes. There is time enough to wake them but not enough time to cure their eyes. So now I have confined myself completely to my own people. That is my world, because I know those who are with me may be asleep, but they are not blind. They can be awakened. splend07

    Enlightenment is the greatest revolution you can conceive of because it destroys all fictions, all rituals, all gods, all traditions, all scriptures. It leaves you with only the essential consciousness of your own being. Its trust in consciousness is so total that there is no need of anything else.

    It has not been said as clearly as I am putting it...I want to make it absolutely clear that the very idea of enlightenment is against all religions. Or, in other words, the only authentic religion is that of enlightenment. All other religions are part of the marketplace; they are businesses exploiting human helplessness, exploiting human weakness, exploiting human limitations.

    Enlightenment is a rebellion against all traditions, against all priests, against all religions, because it declares that there is nothing higher than man's consciousness. And man is not suffering because some stupid man in the past disobeyed a fictitious God; man is not suffering because of millions of lives of evil acts. Man is suffering for the simple reason that he does not know himself. His ignorance about himself is the only cause of his suffering, misery, torture.

    Enlightenment brings everything to a very simple and scientific conclusion. It pinpoints that all that you need is to learn the art of awareness....

    Enlightenment is the key, the only key which opens all the realities and all the blessings and all the potentials which have been hidden within you. You are a seed: enlightenment is nothing but finding the right soil and waiting for the spring to come.

    Enlightenment is such a radical standpoint. It is not another religion.

    It is the only religion.

    All other religions are pseudo....

    Enlightenment is the very essence of human dignity, human grandeur. It is certainly the key. It is the golden key. And for anybody in the world who really wants to be

    religious, except enlightenment there is no other way. tahui34

    Russian Sannyasins, and Osho’s prediction on Gorbachev

    In May 1987, Osho predicts that the Soviet Union will open up, and dedicates a book to Gorbachev

    You say: After six years of sannyas and a long struggle with authorities, I succeeded in leaving my home country--the Soviet Union. Sitting in darshan just a few meters from you, I remembered all my sannyasin friends who are not able to travel to you, and my joy was mixed with deep sadness. Do you see the Soviet Union under Gorbachev becoming a more open society, so that your message of love and meditation will spread more easily there?

    I can understand your sadness for those friends in the Soviet Union who cannot reach me. But the night in Soviet Union seems to be coming to an end. The man, Gorbachev, is, perhaps for the first time in the whole history of the Russian Revolution, a man who has an insight into human values and is trying his best to make the Soviet Union a really communist democracy, an open society....

    Gorbachev's coming into power is a great hope, because the man does not seem to be a politician. He is a man in politics, but he is not a politician. His vision is for a better humanity--it is not confined to the Soviet Union alone. And he is slowly relaxing the dictatorial bureaucracy that has grown up like a monster in the past sixty years.

    He is taking one of the most risky steps. If he succeeds. and I hope that he will succeed

    For sixty years half of humanity has lived under such tremendous slavery that it can be expected that a second revolution will come. And a second revolution will be bigger than the first, greater than the first. The first revolution in the Soviet Union destroyed feudalism; the second revolution will destroy the dictatorship and the slavery of millions of people.

    Gorbachev to me is almost a reincarnation of Lenin. In the world of politics, he is the only man I have any respect for.

    It will not be a long time until the Soviet Union becomes an open society, and it will be possible for my sannyasins to come to me. It will be possible for them to be sannyasins openly.

    I have dedicated my book on human rights to Gorbachev and Sakharov--I have never dedicated any of my books to anybody before--because I can see a ray of light in this man, and a courage to create a second revolution which will be bigger than the first. The sannyasins in the Soviet Union should help this second revolution to the utmost of their capacity. Gorbachev needs every support of all those who believe in freedom, who believe in individuality, and who respect differences in people; who are not of a fascist mind to impose themselves on others, but of a democratic spirit to help everybody to be himself.

    Gorbachev has a task which not only can make the Soviet Union an open society, but will prove that all condemnation by the American politicians of the Soviet Union is utterly false and baseless. The Soviet Union becoming an open society will take away all the power that America has accumulated by creating fear in the world against it. If that fear disappears, the power of America will disappear with it. America does not want the Soviet Union to become an open society....

    The question of a nuclear victory is simply not possible. And Gorbachev is the first man who has seen the fact that with the invention of nuclear weapons, the third world war has become an impossibility--because nobody can win, nobody can be victorious. If a third world war happens, everybody will be destroyed. There will not be somebody left even to write the history of what happened in the third world war....

    Give the message to my sannyasins in the Soviet Union: "Your day has come." Just as the first revolution had come unexpectedly to the Soviet Union, even more unexpectedly the second revolution is coming--it has already begun. They should rejoice and make every effort to help Gorbachev in making the Soviet Union the land of freedom, love, friendship, respect to human life. It is going to happen--you can take it from me, almost as a prediction....

    I predict that Gorbachev is going to succeed in bringing the second and greater revolution to Russia, and his revolution in the Soviet Union is going to affect everything in the whole world.

    I would like my sannyasins to meet him--they have to meet him to present my book that I have dedicated to him. Invite him to come to my people here whenever he needs a little encouragement and hope, whenever he needs a spiritual support, a nourishment. And tell him that his meetings with Ronald Reagan are not going to fulfill anything, but if he dances with my sannyasins he will gather a new spirit, a new joy to accept the great challenge that is his destiny.

    And it will not be long before sannyasins from the Soviet Union will be allowed to come here, and my sannyasins from other countries will be entering into the Soviet Union.

    I have gone around the world--except to the Soviet Union. It will be an immense help for Gorbachev to make the Soviet Union an open society if he invites me and my people....

    Nobody else can destroy the people who are full of lust for power, and nobody else can revive the spirit of the people which has been repressed for sixty years.

    If my people just go and sing and dance and move around in the Soviet Union, they will create an atmosphere in which Gorbachev can work more easily for the second great revolution. This is my message for my sannyasins, and for Gorbachev, and for Sakharov.

    So when you go back, meet Sakharov and tell him from me that he should make arrangements for my sannyasins in the Soviet Union to meet with Gorbachev. He is the right person, in the right place, in the right moment. golden17

    You are asking me, do I have a special message for this great man, Gorbachev, who is bringing a second revolution in the Soviet Union? Yes, I have a message for him. And my message is not special, but the same as it is for every human being, wherever he exists. But the situation is certainly special....

    My message to Gorbachev is: Introduce meditations in the schools, in the colleges, in the universities; open the doors for Zen, for Tao, for Hassidism, and let people see that the essential religion is not a bondage, but the ultimate freedom. All other freedoms are small--political, economical, social. The only freedom that cannot be destroyed by anybody, and cannot be taken away by anybody, is of the spirit. He is trying to introduce political freedom, freedom of expression. These are good, but they are not enough; they are all superficial.

    The Soviet Union is in a very special state. For sixty years they have been denied....

    There is a deep longing for truth, for freedom, for love--it is almost like a land that has been lying unused for sixty years, waiting for its spring, waiting for someone to sow seeds. It has gathered so much potential and power that if you sow the seeds this land can produce the most beautiful flowers, the richest crops.

    Gorbachev himself has to be introduced to the art of meditation, and he has to open the doors and the windows to all the dimensions that have been closed for sixty years, so people can choose the method to find themselves. A spiritual realization has to be made available to the people of the Soviet land. That will be the greatest contribution Gorbachev can make. golden21

    Just now there is an exhibition going on in the Soviet Union. I have sannyasins in the Soviet Union; of course, they have to remain underground--they cannot declare that they are sannyasins--but there are a large number of sannyasins. Our stall of books is overcrowded; it is the most successful stall even in Russia. But the people don't have money, so they are stealing books. I have informed my people, "Don't pay any attention-- let them steal. At least those books will reach to millions of people, and if you catch somebody red-handed, just tell him, `I'm not against stealing; what can you do if you don't have any money? Just keep one thing in mind: when you have read it, pass it on.

    That is the price.'"

    They confiscated first all our videos, all our audios--because they were worried, one never knows what is in them Now they have released the audios and videos. They must

    have seen them first, the KGB must have watched everything!

    The president of the exhibition was so surprised that an unknown man, who has never come to Russia. and you cannot send any book into Russia, you cannot send any

    newspaper, you cannot even correspond with people; everything is censored or confiscated. They could not believe that such a crowd would be there on our bookstall the whole day. All the other bookstalls were empty.

    The president came to Lani, who went from here, saying, "What is the matter?" Looking at my beard in one of the pictures he said, "Is this man something like Leo Tolstoy?"-- because Leo Tolstoy had a big beautiful beard. "Why are so many people around here the whole day?" They don't know that most of them are my sannyasins! I am the only underground movement in Russia...and there was trouble. The KGB thinks that I am an American agent, and America thinks I am a Russian agent--and the Indian government thinks it is unfortunate that I was born here, because they cannot deport me. That is their trouble!

    Success brings so many troubles. If I had known...

    There is a beautiful song of Meera which says, "If I had known before that love brings so many agonies, I would have informed the whole world that nobody should fall in love." I can say to the world that success is not a bed of roses--not even mixed with thorns; it is completely thorns. pilgr12

    In America, nearabout one million dollars' worth of my books were being sold every year. But suddenly no bookseller, no chain stores--who were continually saying that "your supply is not enough for our demand"--are ready to put my books in their showcases. Who is a fascist country today? America has turned into a far more fascist country than the Soviet Union or Germany has ever been. mess114

    Osho’s books; bad and good publicity

    Just a few days ago one of my friends from Delhi informed me, "There is talk going on in the inner circles of the government that your books should first be censored, your tapes should first be censored, by the government. Only then can they be allowed to reach the masses."

    I informed him, "Let them decide it, and they will have to face me in the Supreme Court!"

    Who is the man--I would like to see his face--who is going to decide what is right in my book and what is wrong? I know all those ministers, I know most of the parliament members. They don't have the caliber or the intelligence. None of them has ever meditated; how can they decide whether what I am saying is right or wrong?

    Tomorrow they may start telling scientists, "Before you publish your papers, government bureaucrats will see whether they are right or wrong." And the government bureaucrats have no idea of science, no idea of philosophy, no idea of poetry, no idea of music. If they had any idea of poetry and science and literature and philosophy in the first place, they would not have been bureaucrats! That is the ugliest thing in the world. To be a

    government bureaucrat means you have become part of an ugly machinery and you have lost your soul. You don't exist anymore as an independent thinker. rebel31

    The other day I received a letter from Australia. Just like other lands and other continents, Australia also has a Rajneesh Foundation, and we have thousands of sannyasins in Australia. The Theosophical Society of Australia was selling my books up to now, and those books were their best sellers. This time, when the representative of the Australian Rajneesh Foundation went to the Theosophical Society, they said, "We have been ordered by our world headquarters that your books should not be sold."

    The sannyasin saw that books that were written against me were being sold, and he asked about it and the man said, "I love Osho myself, and his books were our best sellers. I even wrote a letter that this is not right, but they overruled my letter and they said, `You have to do what you have been told. Books against Osho can be sold, but literature of Osho or any literature written in his favor is banned.'"

    It was not a surprise to me--but it is very inconsistent with the Theosophical Society's own philosophy. They pretend that they are synthesizing all religions, all philosophies, all approaches--just excluding my standpoint! They are exposing themselves, because this letter banning my books must have gone not only to Australia; it must have gone to Japan, it must have gone to America, it must have gone to other countries in Europe.

    What is their fear? Their fear is that they cannot make my approach fit with all other religions' approaches. It stands aloof and apart and alone in its own majesty. satyam19

    Shiva used to be sitting by my side every evening in darshan. He was a guard--not my bodyguard, just one of the guards--and his function here was that when people in darshan sometimes fell down, if they felt such an upsurge of energy that they could not manage to sit, his function was to take them back to their seats or take them and make them lie down by the side.

    I had never seen anything that could be called intelligent in him. He never wrote a single word, he never wrote any book about his experiences here. Perhaps he was so insensitive that although he was amidst tremendous experiences happening, his insensitivity did not allow him to be aware of it.

    The day I left for America he followed me. Certainly in America there was a different arrangement; the whole commune was a different kind of functioning organization, and he was not chosen to be a guard....

    Shiva was so much hurt because his power had been taken away that he wrote a book, Rajneesh, the god that failed. If he had been authentic and true he should have written, Shiva, the guard that failed. But nobody looks at himself; people always project on others. satyam27

    Shiva has written a book against me, full of lies. I have told the English sannyasins to sue him in court, because what he is saying is utter nonsense. And you can see the cunningness. In Poona, every evening I used to have a meeting for people who were taking sannyas. It was an open meeting--almost sixty, seventy, sometimes a hundred people would be present. One dozen people or maybe more would be initiated. And ten sannyasins were dancing as mediums to create a vibrant energy.

    And Shiva has written in his book that every night I need ten women, without making any reference to the fact that those ten women are mediums and they dance in an open place with one hundred people watching, a dozen people present to be initiated. He does not mention that; he simply mentions every night I need ten women.

    Can you see--can a person be more ugly? And he used to trust in me so much that he used to say that he can give his life--and this is what he is giving! And there are thousands of things which are absolutely wrong, fabrication, fiction, from his own mind. mystic25

    The people who know me, who have come into deep inner communion with me, who have experienced me, remain silent.

    It is not new. It is part of a strange human psychology. The positive person is humble; even to say something he feels embarrassed, because he knows that whatever he is going to say is not going to be up to the experience that he had. It is going to fall very short; hence the embarrassment.

    But the negative person has no fear, no embarrassment. He has not experienced anything. And to deny or to lie, or to create a fiction, is sensational. The people who have been writing against me...all the publishers are eager to publish their books--without knowing what they are writing, all kinds of rubbish.

    And a few of my sannyasins who have been with me from the very beginning have written books just to answer those lies and allegations, with facts and figures, with solid arguments.

    The publishers are not willing to publish them. They say there is no sensation in it. Lies have sensation; the truth is non-sensational. And the masses are interested in sensationalism, they are not interested in knowing the truth. Truth is simple and plain.

    But this situation has to be reversed; there is a limit to everything. The positive people have to come out in the light, and tell with emphasis their own experiences and what they understand about me and my relationship to my people. Unless they come out and do it, they are in an indirect way helping the negative people. Because if those negative people are not contradicted, it becomes an argument in their favor--why are they not contradicted? dawn14

    Maneesha is writing a book about her experiences with me. Just the other day I heard that her mother from Melbourne, Australia, has written a very angry letter, "First you made

    me condemned by the Christian society here in Melbourne, and now you are trying to write a book, I hear. That means you would expose it to the whole world, and particularly in Melbourne where I will have to suffer."

    And it is not any exception. Devageet has received a letter from his mother saying, "Stop writing the book," because he is also writing a book. Now these poor mothers are in great anxiety. What are these people going to write about them?--that must be a deep fear.

    Secondly, they will expose that Christianity is no longer relevant, that something new, something basically discontinuous with the past is needed. And that's what sannyas is. So they must be afraid of the crowd, of the church, of the congregation, of the priest; what they will say: "Look what your son has done," or "Look what your daughter has done.

    You did not bring them up rightly; they have gone astray."

    Everybody is concerned that everybody else should not go astray. And what do they mean by astray? You should not go in a different direction than they are going. And you know their whole life is misery, you know their whole mind is full of anxiety and agony; you have never seen them joyous. You have never felt a deep harmoniousness with your own parents. And they have tried in every way--in your helplessness, because every child is helpless--to force you onto the way that they think is right.

    But their whole life proves that they are not right. If their life was a life of joy and songs and celebrations, the children would have followed without any punishment, without any harassment, without any torture. And now Maneesha and Devageet are not small children; they have their lives, they have their lifestyle and they want to share it with the whole world. Why should their mothers be so concerned? What is the fear? invita12

    Just the other day I received a letter from a sannyasin who was present in a Jaina gathering, which also had one night invited the great poets of the country. One of the greatest poets of contemporary India, Neeraj, was there--he has been here, so you all are acquainted with him--and he was hooted down, forced to leave the stage, and the reason was that he mentioned my name. He introduced himself before the recital saying, "All my poetry belongs to Rajneesh. He is my source of inspiration."

    Thousands of other writers and poets go on repeating what I am saying, but don't have the courage to make it clear to people from where their inspiration comes. Sheer fear of the crowd! But Neeraj is a man of all the qualities of a lion. He said, "It does not matter even if you shout. This hooliganism, this _goonda-_ism, won't make any difference." He left the stage saying, "Long live Rajneesh!" isan04

    Just today I received a letter from one of my old sannyasins in Holland, Amrito. He is a famous Dutch writer, with all possible qualifications, degrees, honorary degrees. He has written many books, including at least eight books on me. Today I received a letter saying he is writing another book on me and is coming for my blessings in just a few days. The title of the book is, Ten Years of Preparation. Ten years ago he became a sannyasin, and still he calls those ten years just a preparation.

    This patience is needed. In a hurry, you can get only seasonal flowers. They come and go. The deeper your patience, the greater will be your growth. chit04

    Deva Amrito wants it to be his whole pilgrimage, the seeking and the search, and he wants to end it by finding me. He has already written eight books on me and he thinks this book is going to be very comprehensive--answering everything, destroying all lies that have been spread by governments, by politicians, by journalists, by all kinds of criminal people who are around. mani14

    Just a few days ago, I was seeing one of the most significant books to be published in this century, Millennium. It is a deep research into Nostradamus and his predictions. Eighty thousand copies were published--which is very rare--and they were sold within weeks.

    Now a second publication, a second edition, is happening in America, another is happening in England, and the book is being translated into many other languages-- Dutch, German....

    Nostradamus was a great mystic with an insight into the future. And you will be surprised to know that in his predictions, I am included. Describing the teacher of the last days of the twentieth century, he gives eight indications. Krishnamurti fulfills five, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi fulfills three, Da Free John fulfills four--and I was amazed that I fulfill all eight.

    In this book Millennium, they have made a chart of the teacher about whom Nostradamus is predicting--that his people will wear red clothes, that he will come from the East, that he will be arrested, that his commune will be destroyed, that flying birds will be his symbol, that his name will mean moon. Three hundred years ago that man was seeing

    something that fits perfectly with me--my name means "the moon." And in their chart they have declared me the teacher of the last part of the twentieth century. golden17

    Just a few days ago I received a message that one of my books, The Supreme Understanding, is the biggest selling book of one publisher in Japan. Sixty thousand copies. and it is still in demand; more editions are needed. It has gone through twelve

    editions already.

    Somebody has sent a list of the books: my books are the top sellers, next to me is Friedrich Nietzsche, and then third comes somebody Japanese. Although I have not been in Japan, almost two dozen of my books have been translated into Japanese and have been received with great love and understanding. Almost every university in Japan is teaching Zen through my books. It is their tradition, they have developed it, but my interpretations have appealed to them more than their own commentaries and their own interpretations. dawn33

    My people in Europe have been thinking to make a book with a cassette. The book will give all the background of the meditation and the cassette will give all the instructions, so you need not go anywhere. Just sitting in your room with your tape recorder and you have a master! Gautam Buddha is no longer needed. pilgr13

    One of the most important novelists of America (Tom Robbins) has asked me a question: "Osho, what do you think about the Jewish and Arab conflict in the Middle East? What is the solution, and what are the implications for the future?"...

    So I have given my answer to Tom Robbins, because he is going to write a book and he wants my opinion. I know he must be surprised, because nobody has ever said this, that Israel is a strategy of Christian politics to destroy Jews--not directly, but by creating a situation so that Mohammedans can do the job and Christians can keep their mask that they have been so helpful, even to the enemies. They have followed Jesus' philosophy: Love your enemies. They have been pouring money and help in the form of outdated arms--armaments which are of no use, which have to be thrown out, either into the ocean, or in Israel.

    And at the same time American Jews go on helping American politicians because they are helping Israel. So the American politicians exploit their money, they exploit their support.

    Just by chance, yesterday when I dictated my letter to Tom Robbins, I received the message: the Supreme Court has specifically made it clear that the government has been absolutely illegal in restricting the use of the commune's land, its other properties. So now it is again in our hands.

    I have said to Tom Robbins that my suggestion is that if you want to help the Jews, Oregon should be given to them as a new Israel. Move the Jews from Israel and give Israel to the Mohammedans; it belongs to them, it is ugly to keep their land.

    And as for me and my people, we offer our commune land as a beginning. It is enough for at least one hundred thousand people. We give all our assets--all our houses, hotels, roads, dams, fields--everything that we have in Rancho Rajneesh we give them as a friendly gesture, without taking any money for it, with the condition that Rancho Rajneesh should be the capital of the new Israel.

    And let America show its real face. If they want to help them...half of the state of Oregon is already owned by the federal government, and it is very sparsely populated so there is no problem. Half the land already belongs to the federal government; give that land to the Jews. pilgr15

    You will be happy to know that the University of Oregon did a survey about the commune: how much intelligence the commune people have and how much intelligence the average Oregonian has. They were surprised, shocked.

    They did not publish the survey until after I had left and was deported from America. But now the survey is published and it says that the average Oregonian has only seven percent intelligence, and the average commune member had fourteen percent

    intelligence--double that of any Oregonian.

    And the research is being done by the Oregonians. You might think that people who have seven percent intelligence cannot judge about people who have fourteen percent. They must have tried to bring their intelligence as high as possible. My understanding is that it cannot be more than three or four percent; seven is make-believe. And the commune people must have nearabout twenty; they were reduced to fourteen.

    But still, it is so obvious that the lower intelligence destroys the higher intelligence. Stones are very much against the flowers.

    Belief is of the ignorant people who do not want to explore the truth themselves. But a man of sincerity never believes in anything--any God, any scripture, any religion. He searches. turnin08

    Just the other day an Italian sannyasin has told me that he wants to put on record--he is collecting my statements--what I think about illegitimate children. I said to him, "There are no illegitimate children, there are only illegitimate parents." How can a child be illegitimate? And who are the illegitimate parents?--not necessarily those who are not married. Any child who is not born of love makes the parents illegitimate. Whether they are married or not is irrelevant--but the child certainly is never illegitimate. tahui33

    An invitation has come from the Italian Radical party that they would like me to be their president. I have informed them: I cannot be a member of your party, but I can be a friend--and if you need guidance in bringing more rebellion to your country I can be immensely helpful.

    I am particularly interested in Italy because of this pope: until the Vatican is destroyed completely, humanity will not know what freedom is. The pope is not the representative of God, he is the representative of the whole idea of how to enslave people. spirit11

    You are going to be my ambassadors.

    They can prevent me from entering their countries, but they cannot prevent my ambassadors. So I am going to declare soon, in all the countries, my ambassadors-- propagating the birth of a new man and a new world. mani10

    In fact, every sannyasin is my ambassador. To make a certain man responsible is not making him a dictator for you. It is making him a help, a contact center, because the fight is going to be all over the world. Twenty-five countries have prevented me from entering them. Now I have to find my own ways to enter. And in each country I am going to have my embassy.

    For the first time, a single individual is going to have embassies around the world.

    And those embassies will be your meeting places, because the fight is going to become more and more intense. Because I cannot enter, in every country sannyasins have to fight their own governments and their stupidity.

    And the fight is so total that I disagree with the past on every point. It is not a question of choice--it is a question of breaking away with the past completely and creating a new man. I can see the new man arising in you on the horizon. And with this new man will be born a new humanity, a new vision, and a new way of life.

    I am not interested in creating a religion, which is a very simple affair. I am interested to create as many religious people as possible--an atmosphere of religiousness, with no organized church but every individual having his own individuality as his religion.

    Man has never been given that freedom. I want every individual to have his own religion-

    -in other words his own lifestyle, his own philosophy--and to live according to his own deepening insight.

    You have to be alert of a tremendous responsibility that I am handing over to you:

    You have to be the harbingers, you have to be the dawn of a new, totally new humanity, completely discontinuous with the past. mani14

    Memorable discourses

    In March 1987, Osho comments on Neitzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra and, in July, gives two memorable series on zen masters Bodhidharma and Ta Hui. Osho was heard to say that his discourse on Ta Hui's sutra 'The Inescapable' was the best he had ever given. Below is an excerpt:

    The inescapable...it is one of the most significant problems for every meditator.

    There are things which will disappear as your meditation deepens. All that is false will be gone, all that is illusory will no longer exist; all that you have projected, expected, or dreamt will have no reality. But still there will be something left which is not your dream, which is not your projection, which is not the creation of your mind: this is called the inescapable. In other words, the real will remain--only the false will be gone....

    Ta Hui is making an immensely important point, and only a man who has come to this experience can make that statement. Otherwise it is very simple, ask anybody: to go with means to be in harmony, and to go against is to be in discord.

    But Ta Hui says, "Even to go with is a discord, very subtle, very hidden, but you are keeping yourself separate. Real harmony is neither to go with nor to go against. Let

    reality possess you. Just be overwhelmed by that which is inescapable, and you will find immense peace."

    These sutras are important for every meditator on the path....

    Meditation has to be only a watchfulness, then it is possible to have it twenty-four hours a day. Even while going to sleep, be watchful. To the last moment, when you see that now sleep is taking you over--the darkness goes on growing, the body is relaxing and the point comes when suddenly from wakefulness you move into sleep--watch up to that moment. And first thing in the morning, as you become aware that the sleep is finished, immediately start watching; soon you will be able to watch even while you are asleep.

    Watchfulness will become a lamp that goes on burning day and night inside you.

    This is the only authentic meditation. All else that has been told to you in the name of meditation is simply a toy to play with, to deceive yourself that you are doing something spiritual. With this meditation you will come across the inescapable. Everything illusory will disappear.

    But everything in existence is not illusory. That which is not illusory is inescapable, and what are you going to do with the inescapable? Perhaps you have never thought about it.

    This very inescapability itself is meditation.

    If you go on watching even the inescapable, you will be able to see clearly that that which disappears while watching is illusory; that which becomes even more clear, more crystal clear, which was before hidden behind the cloud of your illusory dreams, desires, now stands absolutely clear....

    Ta Hui is saying, This very inescapability itself is meditation. tahui24

    Death of Swami Maitreya, and his Mahaparanirvana

    On 17 July 1987, Swami Maitreya, one of Osho's oldest and most loved disciples, dies from a heart attack. There is a big celebration for him.

    Earlier Osho has answered a question from Maitreya:

    You say, "Every day You are becoming more and more mysterious."

    This is a good symptom. That means you are slowly, slowly coming closer and closer to me. The closer you come to me, the more mysterious you will find me.

    And that moment will also come, Maitreya, when not only I will be mysterious; you will also be mysterious. And when two mysteries meet, they are not two. There is no demarcation line between two mysteries. Two mysteries always become one, just like two zeros always become one; two nothingnesses always become one.

    You are asking, "What is this unending mystery?" This is life.

    This is love.

    This is a deep laughter. spirit04

    This is a special evening, because one of us has left for the other shore. Swami Anand Maitreya was certainly a man of tremendous courage. He met me sometime near 1960. He had already been a member of parliament for twelve years and he was very close to the first prime minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. But the moment he heard me he simply dropped his whole political career.

    Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru tried to persuade him, saying, "There is every chance for you to become the chief minister of your state."--he was from Bihar, the land of Buddha.

    But Maitreya said, "I want one thing understood clearly: ambition is hell and I am not going to look back; politics is finished for me. All ambitions are finished for me." And since then he has been with me.

    He has never asked a single question. He has never doubted, his trust was absolute. In these years, thousands of people have come to me; many have been lost, but he remained unwavering. He could not conceive how people can find contradictions in my statements.

    Sometime in 1984 Maitreya became enlightened, but he had chosen to remain silent, so he remained silent. He did not even tell me what had happened to him....

    All these years before his enlightenment and after his enlightenment, he just remained absolutely ordinary, with no ego, with no desire, with no greed.

    Just before I came back to Poona, Maitreya told me in Bombay, "I have got ten thousand rupees in a post office deposit in Patna, Bihar; that's all I have, but now I will not need it." Certainly he was becoming aware that his time of departure was coming closer. And he transferred the money to Neelam for the ashram. He died without anything, any possessions. And he slipped very slowly, very silently, from sleep into eternal sleep.

    I am saying this evening is special, because one of us has moved from the world of mortals to the world of immortals. He will not be born again. He has attained to the freedom and the liberation we have been talking about.

    This is a moment of great celebration and rejoicing. It happens very rarely. In millions of people perhaps one comes to this silent explosion of light and disappears into the ocean of consciousness that surrounds existence.

    I would like these talks to be dedicated to Swami Anand Maitreya, who slipped from sleep into eternal sleep. But he was not asleep! He has gone in full awakening. He has gone with full awareness. You will keep him in your memories because he has shown the path to you, too. He lived joyously, although he had nothing, and he died peacefully, blissfully.

    That's what attaining to one's destiny means. Those who live in misery and die in misery go on missing their destiny. They are failures, and because they have failed so many times, they become accustomed to failing again and again. But even if one person amongst you succeeds, it is your success, too. He has proved that what we have been talking about is not mere philosophy--it is an authentic path to self-realization.

    Maitreya will be missed. Just the other night, when I last saw him, I had a certain strange feeling...as if he is going to depart very soon. And this feeling happened to many other people too; it was as if he was gathering himself and preparing for the eternal pilgrimage. He has gone the way a man should go--joyously, ecstatically.

    You have to remember that his whole experience was based on two things: one, that he has fallen in trust with me...It is a strange language that I am using. You may not have ever heard the phrase `falling in trust'. Falling in love happens every day. Falling in trust happens only once in a while.

    And secondly, not for a single moment since he has met me has he missed entering into meditation as much as possible. His death was not an end to life, but the ultimate culmination of a tremendous trust and meditativeness. Where trust and meditation meet, one attains to one's potential in its whole glory and splendor. tahui06

    Maitreya! Maitreya! Forever dividing himself,

    He is here, there, everywhere-- Yet scarcely noticed.

    This haiku is particularly important for us, because Maitreya is lying here. Hotei was not aware where Maitreya is. He used to sit here in the front row, and he has been missed....

    He is being missed tremendously, but anyway he is here in the trees, in the air. exist03

    Osho is ill again, and nearly dies

    From mid-September 1987, for two weeks Osho is again too ill to give discourses. On 29 September, he returns to give discourses for 5 days.

    All these days that I have not been coming, I have been watching. An ancient tree, just by the side of my house, has been dancing in the rain, and its old leaves are falling with such grace and such beauty. Not only is the tree dancing in the rain and the wind, the old leaves leaving the tree are also dancing; there is celebration.

    Except man, in the whole existence nobody suffers from old age; in fact, existence knows nothing about old age. It knows about ripening; it knows about maturing. It knows that there is a time to dance, to live as intensely and as totally as possible, and there is a time to rest.

    Those old leaves of the almond tree by the side of my house are not dying; they are simply going to rest, melting and merging into the same earth from which they have arisen. There is no sadness, no mourning, but an immense peace in falling to rest into eternity. Perhaps another day, another time they may be back again, in some other form, on some other tree. They will dance again; they will sing again; they will rejoice the moment. pilgr20

    During the days you were not speaking, I was in a total emotional and mind crisis. I got so much love, juice and energy from sitting two times a day in discourse--and after you stopped speaking my energy broke down.

    It is going to happen to you--it is natural. But you have to learn to transcend it. I cannot be always with you. I would love to, but existence does not allow it. Existence gives only so much rope, and it is good; otherwise you will start taking me for granted.

    One day I will not be amongst you. It is good that once in a while I am absent, so you can start learning that what happens in my absence is your reality. When I am with you, you become overwhelmed with me. You forget yourself.

    And you have not to forget yourself!

    You have to remember yourself, because only through remembrance you will be able to transform yourself.

    It is natural; hence I am not condemning it. But you are in search of something beyond-- beyond the normal, the natural--something transcendental. You have to learn the way, and the way has to be traveled alone.

    I cannot come with you. I can show you the way, I can show you the moon. But my fingers are not the moon, and I cannot continue to show you the moon. Sooner or later

    you have to forget my fingers and you have to look at the moon yourself. You have to follow the path alone.

    Naturally when I was not coming daily, morning and evening, to be with you, you started feeling a kind of breakdown. It was not a breakdown; it was simply that your reality was surfacing. It had not been getting the opportunity to surface. I was so much with you that you had gone into the shadow, into the background. I had become more real to you than yourself.

    When I was not coming, in my absence your reality was exposed to you. It is good, because unless you know what you are, where you are, your pilgrimage cannot begin. So those days were of great importance.

    Remember: whatever you find within yourself, however much rubbish it may be, it is your reality. It can be cleaned, it can be dropped; you can move away from it. But before anything can be done about it, you have to know it. That is the first and the most significant thing. pilgr26

    Never take me for granted.

    I am simply alive just for you.

    My work is finished and my boat has been waiting for long to take me to the other shore, but your love and the fear that without me, you may be lost...and you are coming so close, that if I can manage to wait a little longer on this shore, I can give all of my people what I have received from existence. But the moment you take me for granted, immediately you forget, become unconscious, create distance. pilgr18

    I am laughing for you, speaking for you, living for you, but it is not in any way making you obliged to me. It is just my joy. You need not even be thankful towards me. It is out of my own joy that I will continue to rejoice with you as long as existence goes on giving me a little more time to linger on this shore.

    My time is up, that is certain. It has been up for almost thirty-five years. But existence is very understanding and very intelligent and very compassionate. It knows that I am not living for myself. And to take me away is not just taking me away, it is taking away millions of people's laughter, their joy, their possibility of flowering; and existence will not do it. It will allow me a longer holiday. Nor am I in a hurry to reach to the other shore, because I know both the shores are the same; one is on this side of the river, the other is on the other side of the river. When you reach the other side you know it is the same shore, there is nothing different.

    And existence understands certainly that my body or my mind are no more a bondage to me. I am no more confined to them. I am already free. Death is not an urgency to make me free. I will continue until I penetrate into the deepest core of your being. All that I

    have experienced I would love you also to experience. Hence I am not keeping anything secret. chit21

    Was Osho poisoned by the US government?

    From 4 October 1987, Osho is seriously ill and nearly dies. On 6 November resuming discourses, Osho discloses that his doctors believe he was poisoned while in the custody of the United States government

    My beloved ones,

    I have been away from you much too long. It has been a very painful absence for me. For seven weeks continuously I have been only filled with your love, your patience, your thirst, your longing.

    These days were remarkable in many ways. Seven weeks before, I was infected in the ear. It was a simple thing; according to the best expert available here, Dr. Jog, it cures in four days at the most--but it continued for seven weeks. He has never come across such a case in his life. He could not believe it, because no medicine was working. He tried all kinds of medicines, all kinds of ointments. Finally he had to do an operation, but then the wound of the operation was not healing. Doctor Devageet thought perhaps it was something to do with my teeth--he is my dental surgeon--but nothing was found.

    My personal physician, Dr. Amrito, immediately informed all sannyasin doctors around the world and asked them to contact the best experts about poisoning, because his own analysis was that unless I have been poisoned there is no possibility to explain why my body has lost all resistance.

    And as this idea became stronger in his mind, step by step he started searching into the matter and he found all the symptoms that can happen only if some kind of poison has been given to me.

    I myself had been suspicious about it, but I have never mentioned the fact to anybody. The day I was arrested in America for no valid or even invalid reason, they refused to bail me out--although the United States attorney argued for three days and concluded in the end by saying, "I have not been able to prove anything against him, but neither has the other party been able to prove anything."

    It was hilarious, because the innocent cannot prove his innocence by any means, and no law in the whole world requires that an innocent person should prove his innocence. The

    burden was on the government of America, which had arrested me, to prove the reason for my arrest....

    Now, Dr. Amrito feels I was poisoned. Perhaps they poisoned me in all the six jails; that was the purpose of not giving me bail and that was the purpose in taking twelve days to complete a journey of six hours. A slow poisoning which will not kill me immediately, but in the long run it will make me weak--and it has made me weak.

    Since those twelve days in the American prisons, all sleep has disappeared. Many things started to happen in the body which were not happening before: disappearance of all appetite, food seeming to be absolutely without taste, a churning feeling in the stomach, nausea, a desire to vomit. no feeling of thirst, but a tremendous sense as if one is

    uprooted.

    Something in the nervous system also seems to have been affected. At times there has been a sensation of tingling all over the body which was very strong--particularly in both my hands--and a twitching of the eyelids.

    The day I entered the jail I was one hundred and fifty pounds; today I am only one hundred and thirty pounds. My food is the same, but I have been losing weight for no reason at all. And a subtle weakness. And just three months ago, the bone in my right

    hand started hurting tremendously.

    These are all symptoms of certain poisons. My hair has fallen, my eyesight has become weaker, my beard has become as white as my father's beard was when he was seventy- five. They have taken away almost twenty years of my life.

    Dr. Amrito immediately informed all the doctors who are my sannyasins to approach all the best poison experts in the world. And one of the doctors, Dr. Dhyan Yogi, immediately took my blood samples, urine samples, samples of my hair, and went to England, to Germany, to the best experts. The European experts suggest that after two years there is no poison which can be detected in the body, but all the symptoms show that a certain poison has been given.

    No resistance against disease, falling weight without any reason, hair becoming white before its time, hair falling out without any reason, tingling sensations in the extremities, loss of appetite, tastelessness, nausea, the bone pain in my right hand. One of the experts,

    a doctor from Germany had come twice to check my bone; he could not figure out what kind of disease it is--because there is no disease. The expert here--Dr. Hardikar, a man who loves me--has been here continuously watching for three months and has not been able to figure out why this pain should be there.

    The European experts in England and Germany have suggested a name of a certain poison, thallium. It is a poison of a family of poisons of heavy metals. It disappears from the body in eight weeks' time, but leaves its effects and destroys the body's resistance

    against diseases. And all the symptoms that I have told you are part of thallium poisoning.

    The American experts have suggested a different poison which they think has been used by governments against rebellious individuals. The name of the poison is synthetic heroin. It is one thousand times more dangerous than ordinary heroin. All the symptoms are the same as with thallium, but the poison is more dangerous and after two years there is no possibility to find any trace of it in the body.

    The Japanese experts, who have been working in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on atomic radioactivity, have suggested that these symptoms can also be created in a more sophisticated way by radioactive exposure--either while I was asleep, or food can be exposed to radioactivity and there is no way to find any trace of it.

    One of the scientists who is immensely interested in me is coming within a week or two. He has been working for twenty years only on radioactivity. His suggestion is that the Americans, the bureaucracy in America, must have used the most sophisticated poisoning which leaves no trace.

    Dr. Amrito's own research...and he is a genius as far as medical science is concerned. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Physicians in England, and he is a rare individual in the sense that he is the youngest man ever accepted by the Royal Society of Physicians as a member. He has all the highest qualifications. His own research is about a fourth, very uncommonly used poison. The name of the poison is fluorocarbon. This poison disappears immediately. Even within minutes, you cannot find any trace in the blood, in the urine, but all these symptoms indicate towards it.

    It does not matter which poison has been given to me, but it is certain that I have been poisoned by Ronald Reagan's American government.

    There is other circumstantial evidence for it. *

    It is absolutely certain that I had been poisoned, and these seven weeks I have been in an immense struggle.

    I don't have any reason to live in the world. I have experienced, I have realized the very essence of eternal life, but something else forces me to linger on a little more on this shore before leaving for the further shore beyond.

    It is you, it is your love.

    It is your eyes, it is your hearts.

    And when I say `you' I don't mean only those who are present here; I also mean all those who are spread all over the earth--my people.

    I would like these small sprouts to become trees. I would like to see the spring come to you all, the flowering of your ultimate being, the blissfulness and the ecstasy of enlightenment, the taste of the beyond.

    These seven weeks you were not aware...you were simply thinking I was sick. Doctor Premda, my eye surgeon, had immediately rushed from Germany with the recentmost medications, but nothing helped against the poisons except my meditations--the only medicine that can transcend all that belongs to matter.

    These seven weeks I have been lying in darkness almost the whole day and night, silently witnessing the body and keeping my consciousness unshadowed by anything.

    I was struggling with death.

    It was a fight between death and your love.

    And you should celebrate that your love has been victorious.

    This time Jesus has been crucified in America by Christians themselves.

    The story is repeated again. I was crucified--this time in America...and these seven weeks I have been struggling against the poison.

    And I am happy to declare to you that the crucifixion is over and I am resurrected.

    It is symbolic that Jesus is crucified this time in America and is resurrected in India. It is symbolic in many dimensions. It is the victory of love over hate. It is the victory of life over death. It is the victory of East over West. It is the victory of truth over criminals like Ronald Reagan. It is the victory of consciousness over body.

    These seven weeks I have been only thinking of you.

    It would have been immensely painful for me to leave you in this beautiful state when you have started growing upwards.

    My garden is still a nursery.

    I would leave the body rejoicingly the day I see you all have blossomed and you have released your fragrance and you have attained your destiny. The day I see the great pilgrimage--from here to here, from crucifixion to resurrection--is over for you all then I can go with a dancing heart and melt into the universal consciousness.

    And I will be waiting there for you still.

    It is certainly of tremendous importance that even after twenty centuries a man like Jesus will be crucified by Christians themselves. It was a conspiracy of the fundamentalist Christians of America and Ronald Reagan.

    Perhaps civilization is still an idea--it has not happened in reality.

    I would like my people to transform themselves and through them I would like to bring authentic civilization and humanity to this beautiful planet.

    There is only one religion, and that is the religion of love.

    There is only one God, and that is the God of celebration, of life, of rejoicing. This whole earth is one and the whole humanity is one. We are parts of each other.

    I have no complaint against those who have poisoned me. I can forgive them easily. They certainly do not know what they go on doing.

    It is said that history repeats itself. It is not history that repeats itself; it is the unconsciousness of man, the blindness of man that repeats itself. The day man will be conscious, alert and aware, there will not be any repetition anymore. Socrates will not be poisoned, Jesus will not be crucified, Al-Hillaj Mansoor will not be murdered and butchered. And these are our best flowers, they are our highest peaks. They are our destinies, they are our future. They are our intrinsic potential which has become actual.

    I am sure you will not have any anger in your hearts or any hatred for anyone, but just an understanding and a loving forgiveness.

    That is the only authentic prayer. And only this kind of prayerfulness can raise humanity to higher levels of consciousness.

    I have absolute inner certainty: they may have been able to poison my body, my nervous system, but they cannot destroy my consciousness, they cannot poison my being. And it was good that they have given me a chance to see myself beyond my body, beyond my mind.

    These seven weeks have been a fire test. Without your knowing you have always, each moment of these seven weeks, been a tremendous help to me. Without your love it would not have been possible for me to overcome the poison, because without your love there would be no need for me even to struggle. I am fulfilled and absolutely contented; I have arrived home. But I see you are stumbling, groping, and it will be very heartless and uncompassionate for me to leave you in this situation. I would like in all your lives a sunrise, the birds singing and the flowers opening. Other than that, I don't have any reason to be here at all.

    Remember it: I am here for you.

    That remembrance will help you not to go astray. That remembrance will help you to be aware of the uncivilized world in which we are living, in this madhouse that we call humanity. It will go on reminding you that we have to give birth to a new man and to a new humanity.

    This is the tremendous challenge. Those who have guts and intelligence and a desire and a longing to touch the farthest stars...only those very few people have been able to understand me, have been able to become my fellow travelers. I don't have any followers-

    -I have only lovers and friends and fellow travelers.

    I would like you all to reach to the same beatitude, to the same blissfulness, to the same ecstasy that has become my very heartbeat. It is also the heartbeat of the whole universe. crucif01

    *Note: see Part VIII

    Investigation of American persecution

    My attorney, Swami Prem Niren, is sitting here. He is now doing deep research into what was going on behind the screen when I was arrested in America. And such hilarious facts are coming out! One cannot figure out whether this world is sane or a big

    madhouse. mani23

    He has been going through all the jails where they mistreated me in every possible way. And they are lying--I have to speak with Niren about the points where they are absolutely lying. I have an inner, intuitive guarantee that in the Oklahoma jail I was poisoned, poisoned with thallium, which has shown its effects over the last two years....

    And in Oklahoma--Niren has been there--they simply denied that I have been in that jail....

    But I was not alone in the car. Another prisoner, a woman, was also sitting by my side. I told her, "Listen carefully to what is being said." Niren has to find that woman, because all records have disappeared--records about me, records about that woman, because she will be the witness. When Niren reached there he found that on their computer there is no record. They have made their records on the computer since 1986. He had to force his way, insist that "I have an absolute guarantee that he has been in this jail and I want to look into the records in your basement."...

    Niren found the document and he has brought a photocopy of the document, but my signature is missing. Still, that document indicates one thing: "David Washington, Rajneeshpuram, Oregon." And that is in the handwriting of the U.S. Marshall of that jail. My feeling is they have simply destroyed the form on which I have signed, knowing that it will create difficulty, and they have filled in another form. I would like Niren to go back to Oklahoma, because the question is very simple, that on this form there is no signature, either of Shree Rajneesh or at least of David Washington. Some signature is needed; otherwise what is the value of this record?...

    And these people go on lying. He said to Niren, "I treated Shree Rajneesh the best. In no other jail he was treated the way I treated him." In fact the truth is that I was treated the worst in Oklahoma. And I have witnesses. Just by chance they put me in an isolation cell with a small window--and the glass of the window was completely dark, so dirty you could not figure out what was beyond the window. But just across from me there was another person. I don't know him, but one thing is certain: he was an orthodox Hindu sannyasin, because he had orange robes. And his face...I tried in every way to clean the window and to see that man, and just a few days ago that man was here--perhaps he may still be here--and he told Anando, "I am a witness that Shree Rajneesh was brought to Oklahoma and was put into the cell just across from me."

    Niren has to find the girl, who was released that very night. She is a fat girl, nearabout thirty years of age--but a courageous one; almost a jailbird. The way she was behaving in the jail was as if it were almost her home. Niren has just to advertise in Oklahoma and the girl will respond.

    Niren has also to ask the pilot of the plane, because there is only one U.S. Marshall's plane--that makes things simple. They all became very friendly to me--the pilot, the co- pilot, and a woman who was serving food to people. And they all felt that this was strange: "From North Carolina it is only five or six hours' flight to Oregon, and you are being tortured unnecessarily for twelve days!...

    And when these government people say things to you--I have to listen to Niren's interviews; he has brought all the tapes--don't trust them. Because in those twelve days they were all lying to me.

    Just by chance Niren met Judge Leavy, who finally gave me the punishment of four hundred thousand dollars, deportation for five years from America...and for fifteen years if I come back to America and commit any crime, then there will be no trial for it; I will be jailed. It will be enough that somebody has complained against me. Niren met him on the plane and for two hours they were together....

    Perhaps he has also been bribed in the same way, because now he has moved to a higher court. Just one step more and he can move to the Supreme Court. If he is a man of any guts, he should admit that he was not concerned with justice, he was concerned with his own promotion.

    I can understand Niren's difficulty, but you have to gather courage and you have to encounter these people. mani12

    Just today I have received the whole investigation report. I had asked them whether they have investigated how the bomb entered the jail with all their security and how it managed just to be under my seat. Now comes long report with so many contradictions and stupidities.

    The report says that at four o'clock, just after the judgment was given by federal judge Leavy against me, an anonymous phone call came to the police station, to the jail, and to a television station, that a bomb had been placed under a certain seat in the visitor's room. And the report says--it is from the police department of Portland--that "we searched the whole place, we evacuated the whole ground floor. But it was only a threat, no bomb was found."

    I have asked my legal secretary to write to them, "If you had evacuated the whole ground floor, why did you take me to that ground floor? You evacuated everybody from the ground floor and immediately you took me there." The first thing I had noticed was that there was nobody on the ground floor, where there used to be hundreds of people working. I asked the man who had taken me there, "What happened to all the people-- some kind of holiday?" If it was a bomb threat, then certainly they should not have taken me on that ground floor....

    Looking at the police department's report, it is absolutely clear that now they are trying to make it simply a rumor. But if it was a rumor, why did they evacuate the prison? And if they believed in the rumor and evacuated the prison, they should not have taken me in there. It is so clear. So what they have been doing for investigation is finding out who

    phoned. They found out the locality from where the call had come, but in that locality there are many people and many phones. That is the end of the street. The investigation has stopped. Where to go from there? satyam14

    Just the other day one man has been caught as a murderer and he confessed in the court that he was offered the opportunity, at whatever cost, to bomb the house where I lived in the commune. He went there, but seeing that it was too well guarded he did not dare. But his statement shows that people were trying to kill me, and now they are trying in a psychological way. shanti12

    Two days ago a sannyasin informed me that a man has been jailed in America for one and a half years. And the charge was that he had advertised in 1984, while I was there, that he was willing to kill anybody if half a million dollars were made available to him. From this advertisement he was caught. And the sannyasin went to the jail to ask the man, "Did you receive any answer to your advertisement?"

    He said, "I did, I received it from a government agency. But I am a professional killer, and I know how governments work. They will promise you half a million dollars--and they gave me the whole plan. "

    We had a small lake near the entrance of the commune, Krishnamurti Lake. They had given him a plan, knowing that I always went for a drive past Krishnamurti Lake...and that is a silent place; the commune is left behind, and for twenty miles there is nobody.

    "So you plant a bomb there which functions from remote control. And you hide--we will tell you where. We will take you there by helicopter so nobody can trace it. And after the car and the person in it have exploded, we will take you away in the helicopter."

    But a professional killer knows perfectly well. He simply refused. He knows that

    governments do this business, but they never give the money. On the contrary, you perform, and then they give you a shot, so that all evidence is removed. Instead of half a million dollars, you receive death as a reward. That is a well-known fact all around the world.

    Government agencies go on killing people, and they always kill the killer. In that way money is saved, and also the evidence is removed. Knowing this, he refused. But because he had advertised, the court sent him to jail although he had not committed anything.

    This new evidence shows the interest of the American government in killing me. This sannyasin is trying to find more and more sources. He wants to write a whole book* about the conspiracy to murder me. zenman09

    *A Passage to America by Max Brecher (Book Quest Publishers, Bombay 1993)

    President George Bush was very angry with me because of my Rolls Royces. But my ninety-three Rolls Royces cost only five point three million dollars--and I was not the owner of them, they belonged to different people who had donated to a trust.

    George Bush, I have come to know from very intimate friends of the White House, was very much against me. Again and again he was criticizing me: "The world is poor. Why does this man have ninety-three Rolls Royces?" As he became president, a special Lincoln Continental limousine was made for him. It took three years to make it, and six hundred thousand dollars; and he forgot all about what he had been saying about me.

    I want to remind him, "You have still a second-rate car." My sannyasin, Avirbhava, has a Rolls Royce here for me. It is the greatest Rolls Royce that has ever been made by the Rolls Royce company.

    George Bush is going to spend thirty million dollars on his inauguration as president--and this same fellow was talking about my Rolls Royces. And they were not mine. I don't own anything; I have enough friends around the world to take care of me....

    My interest was something else: to provoke the jealousy of the American so-called rich. And I succeeded absolutely. Even the president was jealous, the vice president was jealous. The super-rich, Rockefeller and others, were feeling defeated. For the first time somebody had made them appear poor. That was the purpose; otherwise, what is the use?

    I cannot ride in two Rolls Royces simultaneously. They were all of the same model, they all looked the same from the inside--and I was not sitting on the bonnet!

    In America, three million people are dying of cold and hunger, and President George Bush is spending thirty million dollars just for his inauguration. Jimmy Carter managed his reception on only three million dollars. If Jimmy Carter can manage on three million dollars--and that too was too much--then why can George Bush not manage?

    Has he forgotten all about me?

    Now it is my turn to hit him as hard as I can. yaku03

    Footnote: An unknown Dr Gilada gains world-wide press coverage when he accuses Osho of having AIDS. It seems he has been receiving large funds for his new institute from undisclosed American sources, indicating that he was bribed to accuse of Osho of having AIDS. Osho did not comment on this. see Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh: the Most Dangerous Man Since Jesus Christ, by Sue Appleton (Rebel Publishing)

    Discourses: the Mantra Series

    On 7 November 1987, Osho begins a five month-long series on ancient sanskrit mantras, in response to questions from disciples

    These are the mystic sounds. They are very few. I have talked to you about satyam- shivam-sundram, sat-chit-anand, hari om tat sat, om mani padme hum, om-shantih- shantih-shantih. These five I have chosen as the most significant, as the most deep-going. I will try to give you the meaning also, because that meaning will help the significance to become deeper. That meaning will not only touch your heart, it will also touch your intelligence. And you have to be touched in your totality to be transformed.

    I will begin with the last one. That is the sound every Eastern scripture ends with...om- shantih-shantih-shantih. It means "The soundless sound, or the sound of silence: peace...peace...peace..." Just giving you the sense of the whole scripture in these few telegraphic words. Every scripture in the East ends with the same. It may be Hindu, it may be Buddhist, it may be Jaina--it doesn't matter.

    They are all different in their philosophies. They are all different in their theologies. They are different religions continuously in controversy for at least ten thousand years. But strangely, they all end their scriptures with the sound of silence: peace...peace...peace...It seems they are all different roots of this experience.

    They may differ about their roots, about the description of their roots. They may quarrel, they may contradict each other, but as far as the end is concerned, when they reach to the

    highest peak of consciousness, all that is found is the sound of silence and utter peace, so deep that they have to repeat it three times: peace...peace...peace...

    The fourth is used by the Tibetans, although it takes almost all the words from Sanskrit: om mani padme hum. It is a very mystic statement. It says, "The diamond in the lotus...the sound of silence." You cannot conceive a more beautiful thing than a beautiful diamond in the most beautiful flower on the earth, the lotus. They are trying to convey to you the beyond in some way comprehensible to the mind: the sound of silence--_om--_the diamond in the lotus. I have loved it from my very childhood. Just the words, "the diamond in the lotus..." They have managed in the most beautiful way to express the beyond.

    And the third is hari om tat sat: "the sound of silence...this is the only truth." And the second is, sat-chit-anand: "truth, consciousness, bliss."

    And the first is, satyam-shivam-sundram: "truth, godliness, beauty."

    These five I can say to you belong to the universal religious consciousness, not to any organized religion, because they have come from individual mystics. They have poured their heart, they have poured their enlightenment, they have poured their awakening into these five mantras.

    There is no word in English to translate mantra. It means a sacred word, not of any use in the day-to-day life experiences, but only significant when you go beyond this visible world and enter into the invisible consciousness. A mantra is a secret key. It opens the door to the ultimate. chit07

    Buddha Hall roof and mosquito net

    An enormous canopy is erected over Buddha Hall with attached mosquito net. From December 1987, all discourses take place here.

    I look again and again, and I see only Jayesh and his great tent. Sometimes I think perhaps God is sitting on Jayesh's tent--but we have looked; our engineers have been searching all over the tent, and they have never found any God anywhere.

    On which cloud is God sitting?

    The physicists have explored as far away as possible. Just empty space and stars, but no God. yaku02

    And when I came to Poona, I realized the mosquito net is far more necessary in this religious, cultured city. You can see all around--even in such a hall you have to put up the mosquito netting. I have looked at the mosquitoes; they are bigger than the mosquitoes of Sarnath. satyam13

    Flies will be there, and mosquitoes will be there--although you have the biggest mosquito net in the whole world! But they are waiting outside! They are very silent people, and very musical; when they get you caught, they sing a small song. And they are the ancient enemies of the meditators, but you have not to bother. You have to go on. fire06

    Osho’s personal life, and friends

    I don't usually ask personal questions about your private life, because I feel it is private and none of our business.

    It is good not to ask me personal questions, because they are not going to help you in any way. You are here for your own personal growth, you are not to be worried about my personal life; in fact, I don't have much personal life. Eighteen hours at least is sleeping.

    I have been told many times that I should write my autobiography. What autobiography? No love affair...Even Niskriya is smiling. He must be thinking, "Now look in what trouble I have been up to now."

    I am not in trouble. Just to avoid trouble I am not in any love relationship. And without love relationships, without a wife and children what autobiography...? I am not a man of actions.

    Today after I finished lunch, my Coke was just sitting in front of me on the table, but I waited and waited for Shunyo...

    Finally she showed up. She said, "You have finished?"

    I said, "I have finished long ago, I am just waiting for my Coke." She said, "But the Coke is here."

    I said, "It is there, that's what I am thinking. The Coke is here; I am here--nothing is happening. I am simply waiting for someone..."

    These people, you don't know...Anando opens the door and forces me into my bathroom: "It is time to take a bath."

    I said, "This is strange, I could have walked myself." They don't even allow me to open the door of the car...!

    I have looked many times--at the most, half a page will do for my autobiography, and the rest of my life I have been sleeping. Seeing the fact that for eternity one has to sleep, I thought, why bother? Just start it right now.

    My physician, Dr. Amrito goes on trying to cure my troubles. My hand hurts--he has been injecting it as many times as he wants. I am so lazy that I will not even stop...so let them do what they want to do. Finally, this morning I said, "Just wait a few days. When I am gone keep my skeleton and study it well, and wherever things are incorrect correct them. Why torture me unnecessarily now?"

    I don't have any personal life. Just today I told Hasya not to answer any letter from anybody who addresses me as "friend," because I don't have any friend.

    I don't take any responsibility. Once you accept somebody as a friend you have accepted somebody to be an enemy in the future. It is better from the very beginning to be on the safe side. Already I have so many enemies, why go on increasing them?

    A person who is asking questions, but is not ready to be a disciple does not deserve to be answered either, because disciple simply means one who is capable of learning. And a person who himself is accepting that, "I am not going to be a disciple, but I want these questions to be answered"--why should I bother? He has not even the respect.

    You don't ask spiritual questions to your friends; you don't ask questions about meditation and the inner life to your friends. Friends are in the same boat; I am not your friend. I may call you friends just out of my love, but that does not mean that you can call me your friend. The moment you call me your friend, I am not going to answer, because you are in the same state of consciousness as I am...what is the point of answering? You must know!

    If you want to learn you have to be a learner, a disciple. If, because of my love, I call you my friend that does not give you the permission to start calling me your friend.

    The distance between our consciousnesses is infinite. I am calling you from a sunlit peak.

    And you are in a dark valley.

    And anyway Maneesha, neither do I have any personality nor any personal life.

    Reduced to its simplest: I talk to you twice if my body allows. Once in a while it freaks out. Then two times a bath--just a quick shower, as quick as one can do. Fifteen hundred

    calories of food--which even small babies will find insufficient--because if I take more I will have to become a member of the Couch Potato Club.

    I don't have any antagonism as far as potatoes are concerned. They are very good people; they have never done any harm to anybody. But still I don't want to enter into that company.

    So for your information, this is my autobiography.

    And then two times of sleep--in total eighteen hours. I don't have any ambition for tomorrow. If by chance I am still here I will talk to you about things which may help you on the path. If I am not here perhaps that may also help you, because then you cannot take me for granted. Perhaps my remembrance may give you much more light than I can give you.

    Never take me for granted, because I have nothing to stay for: no desire, no ambition, nowhere to go. I have not even visited the M.G. Road market. I hope that some time, by chance...

    Just a few days ago I had to go to Jehangir Hospital to see one of my old lovers, Manik Bafna, because he had a second heart attack. If it was the first I would not have gone. A second is too much. The third is the last--after the third also I will not go, because there is no point. The right point was the second.

    And I heard from sannyasins that there is a rumor in the hospital that I had a heart attack, and I had come to be checked, but I did not like the place so I did not go--because within two minutes I was out. Naturally the hospital servants and doctors must have thought that I did not like the place. Who likes places like hospitals?

    So Maneesha, there is not much. I think I could have given you more information-- Maneesha is writing books about me; she would have been helped--but I am helpless. You can invent anything you like. I will say yes, so you need not be worried. Even if you say that I have a wife and five children, I am not going to contradict it. What is wrong in it? Everybody has a wife, everybody has many children. And there is no harm; one really feels proud.

    But it is better not to ask such questions. shanti21

    I would like to be in synchronicity with you. Would you mind telling me what time it is, so that I can set my watch by yours?

    Anand Vimal, it is not difficult for me to tell the time. But keeping your watch in synchronicity with my watch is not the real thing; your heart has to be in synchronicity with my heart. The watch will not help. Just for your consolation, on my watch it is eight- ten. But you have to synchronize with my heart, with my being.

    And I know you are coming along, slow but steady...and the moment will come when your heart will beat with the same rhythm as my heart....

    In deep silence you all synchronize with me, because silence knows no distinctions. In laughing together you synchronize with me, because laughter knows no boundaries. In understanding what I am saying and where I am leading you, you synchronize with me.

    Watches won't do, Vimal. In fact, you don't want to synchronize with the watch; you want to synchronize with me. That happens as your meditation deepens, as your love becomes unconditional, without any expectations. Once it happens, it has happened forever.

    And the synchronicity, the harmony with the master, does not think of contradictions, inconsistencies; those are all far below in the dark valleys. The moment you synchronize, you start rising towards the sunlit peaks, towards the stars.

    It will happen. The way I have been watching you, it is already happening. Don't bother

    about watches--because what will you do if I don't have a watch? In fact, the watch I have is not mine. Even if you synchronize with it, you will be synchronizing with somebody else, whose watch I am wearing. People give me watches to wear while they are here, just to bless their watches, so they can rejoice when they go that they are going with something, some heartbeats of me. This is difficult for the outside world to understand.

    Gayan makes my clothes. She could have been paid highly anywhere; she is a perfect seamstress. Here she gets nothing except my love. She works day and night--but perhaps she has got the insight that there is nothing more valuable than the love of one who has arrived. His love will pull you also with invisible strings to the whole.

    Everything I have does not belong to me. My shoes Arpita goes on making; my hats Veena goes on making. They rejoice that I am wearing their hats, their shoes, their dresses. Somebody brings a car and is grateful that I am using the car for coming to Buddha Hall. I could have come walking--it is not such a great distance, just from one house to another house--but then I would not have made somebody happy without any effort.

    It is difficult for the outsiders to understand me. They have never known such a thing-- that anybody will give me their watches just to wear so that the watch starts vibrating with my heart, and then it becomes sacred to them....

    It does not matter whether it is valuable or not valuable. people from around the world

    go on sending me strange things, knowing perfectly well what I will do with them. Just the other day somebody sent a beautiful stone from Mount Sinai, where Moses met God, according to the theology of the Jews, so Mount Sinai has become a holy place.

    I respect the idea, although the story may be false. The story may be just a story, but the person who sends a stone, packaged beautifully, has a tremendous love in his heart. What

    should he give to me?--everything is trivial. But this stone from Mount Sinai, which is the only place God has ever spoken to any man, is holy. Although it is just a stone, because it is holy, somebody sends it to me.

    I go on receiving all kinds of things, and I will go on distributing them to others. What will I do with them?--I have come naked and I will go naked from the world. And I am still naked under my clothes, I know it!

    I have been seeing you, watching you, Vimal. Perhaps you need a few sutras: they bring you closer to me. Seriousness separates; laughter brings closer.

    Never put off until tomorrow what you can enjoy today. pilgr10

    Last night, I noticed your beard. It is really a magnificent thing; it reminds me of a lion's mane. Does a beard like yours come with enlightenment? Or do you have to be born with it?

    Vimal, you are a little bit crazy, but not more than me. I insist: if you want this kind of beard, you will have to be born with it. It does not come with enlightenment.

    Enlightenment has no concern with your beard. Even a woman can become enlightened. That does not mean she will have a beard. This kind of beautiful beard comes only with your birth. chit09

    I don't even shave my own beard! Nirvano goes on saying to me, "I can trim it a little." I say, "No, absolutely no! These are my original hairs. I have never shaved my beard.

    They are the same original hairs as when they first had started growing in my youth, and I am going to keep them to the very last."

    She feels worried that they will become thinner, that this beard will become too long. I said, "Don't be worried. Even if it starts touching the ground, I am always in favor of the original." pilgr16

    I have never done anything in my life. If somebody happens to do it...

    Just on the way, Shunyo was telling me--she must have met Jayesh, and I have told Shunyo that without Jayesh I don't know how things would have been settled. He has been doing too much. The poor fellow had come to Rajneeshpuram to meditate, renouncing the world to sit silently, and he met me in the plane and got arrested with me! Since then, he is running continuously all around the world. He has completely forgotten for what he has come; he has no time.

    And I simply go on watching him doing everything, just nodding--"Well done! Good boy!" So Shunyo must have told him, and he started crying.

    I know those tears are of great joy, of deep love....

    From my very childhood, my parents, my neighbors, my teachers, my professors...everybody has repeated again and again: "Listen, if you don't change your ways you are going to end up into nothing." I have ended into nothing! They were all right, but I am enjoying this nothing so much. Gautam Buddha had to try for it. I have not tried, I have just not listened to anybody--and ended up into nothing. I have never listened to anybody's advice, howsoever great. I simply remained my lazy self, bone-lazy.

    Anando was worried that I used to sit cross-legged always, but just for a few days... "Why are you not sitting cross-legged?"

    I said, "This is strange, but it does not happen to me. It used to happen...but what can I do?" Should I cross my legs because Anando will be in trouble?

    I am not going to listen to anybody; I am going to sit this way.

    Even Niskriya is laughing. When he laughs I know everything is all right. Otherwise, he is a serious person. yaahoo26

    Just this morning I said to Shunyo that Anando has too much work--and I go on loading her with more and more work. I go on calling her morning, evening and night. And if I don't call her she waits; if I don't call her I feel guilty that she must be waiting. And the strangest thing is she has never said no to anything. Howsoever burdened, she immediately is ready to take on a new project, knowing that it is almost impossible for her to do all these things. But if I am saying it, that is enough for her: "There must be the potential in me which I am not aware of--but my master has to be aware. If he is saying,

    `Do it,' I will do it." I have never heard even a hesitation.

    Sannyas needs a total yes and then it can happen this very moment. shanti26

    I seem to have become very muddleheaded and scatter-brained lately...

    Anando, you are a rare intelligence but it often happens that the people who are intelligent don't have a good memory. And people who are intelligent, if they are not a little eccentric, are very flat and boring. You are not flat and boring. You are a born cuckoo....

    Anando is an intelligent woman. Somehow she has escaped from the trap, and all intelligent people are so individualistic that the crowd thinks that something is wrong with them, particularly about a woman.

    In the first place, she is not expected to be intelligent; in the second place, she is not allowed to be a cuckoo, and Anando is both! And I love cuckoos, because cuckoos will reach enlightenment before anybody else. And a man or woman who does not have something eccentric in them is not interesting. They are too flat, too boring. A small eccentricity makes people more juicy.

    So Anando, there is no need to be worried....

    So as far as I see, everything is going perfectly well. And I am watching you every day-- because Anando is one of my secretaries, so I see her every day. She is growing, becoming more and more silent, joyous, humorous, sharp. dawn32

    Knowledge cannot bring tears. Tears are indicating something very deeply significant, that you have touched something which can only be expressed by tears or laughter or dancing--which are all irrational. You cannot explain them rationally!

    I gave Shunyo a small antique Rolex watch for Veeresh. I told her, "Find him and give it to him."

    She came running back to me saying, "Veeresh is really crazy. When I gave him the watch, he simply started crying and dancing. I could not believe it! He did not say anything, he is simply dancing outside!"

    And because she was searching for him, she told Anando also to look for him. After Shunyo had given the watch to Veeresh, Anando found him and she could not believe either--"What has happened?" Just tears and laughter together, and he was dancing, jumping. She brought him close to my room, to inform Shunyo.

    And Anando said, "It is strange. What has happened to him?"

    Shunyo said, "It is nothing, just that Osho has given a watch to him." chit03

    Now my Veeresh is here, hiding himself; this is the crazy type of man I am talking about. He has been following me everywhere on my world tour, but always hiding, just like that. He has not even a desire to be recognized--"I have been following you all around the earth"--but a pure love. He goes on working for me in Europe, in every possible way, doing whatever he can do. He puts his total energy into it and when he comes here--and he must be wanting to come here every day--he hides.

    That's the way of unconditional love. It is enough that I have looked into his eyes. It is enough. If I can catch hold of him once in a while he is fulfilled, he is contented; that I

    have recognized him, I remember him--that's enough. satyam28

    Veeresh, in Europe, is creating "Rajneesh Misfit Cities."...

    The misfit has to accept one thing: that he will not be respected by the ordinary society. He will not get recommendations and honors and awards for being a misfit. I am certainly thinking to create an award, a world award each year, to be given to the greatest misfit in the world....

    The society needs a few misfit people. They are the people who carry the torch of freedom and consciousness from generation to generation. splend21

    Osho is ill; he receives and comments on therapeutic bodywork

    Osho is sick and unable to give discourses for approximately two weeks in each month of December, January and February 1988. He is given sessions by sannyasins trained in therapeutic bodywork, including massage and rebalancing

    You ask: Is it possible for a master to take the pain of his disciples in helping them to understand their enlightenment, and in the process cause his body to become sick?

    Amrito, it is possible for a master to take the pain of his disciples in helping them to understand their enlightenment, and in the process cause his body to become sick.

    Theoretically it is possible, but practically it is not.

    When I say, theoretically it is possible, I mean, there is no barrier in its happening. But the problem is that the moment the master becomes enlightened, his grip over his own body comes to the minimum. Most of the people who have become enlightened have died either immediately or within a few minutes or a few hours. The experience is so great, and the shock to the system of the body is unabsorbable. Out of thousands, perhaps a few have survived. And there are reasons why they survived.

    But they suffered tremendously from sicknesses. These are not sicknesses taken away from disciples, these are sicknesses intrinsic to the experience of enlightenment.

    Enlightenment means suddenly becoming aware that you are not the body, and a distance is created. The old identity that, "I am the body," was keeping you together. You start falling apart. Mostly, the shock is so much that people have died.

    But it has not been discussed because to discuss it...People have thought, "Rarely does somebody become interested in enlightenment. And if you tell them that enlightenment means that you will have to suffer afterwards, then anybody will simply say, `Then why should we become enlightened? We are good as we are.'" That part has not been disclosed. But I don't want to keep anything secret, because I know my people can die celebrating, laughing, rejoicing. Death is not a fear to them.

    Just today, Anubuddha was massaging me, because my hand has been in terrible pain for many weeks. He said, "You seem to be aware of every pain point, wherever I touch. I have never seen anybody..." And he is our best body worker--very sensitive, very alert, very loving, and very successful.

    His work is that ordinary people, who are identified with the body, should become more aware, if there is some pain or not. "But you are not identified with the body. Then how do you become aware? And so minutely?" Because I go on telling him, "This is the right point, this is where you should work." Nobody may have told him before, because you don't tell the body worker--he is the expert, not you.

    And I go on telling him, "You missed a point just now." And he has to go back and he finds it. So he was asking...I told him, "After the massage." But then I forgot, so I said, "It is better to tell it now."

    Once you are enlightened, a distance starts creating itself between you and your identity with the body. That does not mean that death is inevitable. It only means that now you will not be able to control the body in the same way you used to control it in the past. But it does not prevent your awareness; it gives you more awareness. You become a witness.

    Just as he is working on my body...for him it is only guess work, whether some point is a pain point or not. To me it is not guess work; I am seeing from within that it is a pain point.

    Awareness comes with enlightenment, but awareness brings its own problems. Ramakrishna died of cancer, Maharishi Raman died of cancer, J. Krishnamurti suffered for forty years continuously with a terrific migraine. The migraine was so much, twenty- four hours a day, that he said, "Sometimes I feel like hitting my head against the wall and crushing it. The pain is unbearable."

    Amrito, your question is created by the disciples, because disciples cannot understand-- "J. Krishnamurti suffering from migraine? No, it cannot be. There must be some hidden reason. He must have taken the migraines of many, many disciples." And then they feel satisfied--a right explanation has been found.

    Ramakrishna suffered from cancer, and his disciples go on writing that he had taken the cancer of some disciple. But even if you take the cancer of some disciple, that disciple is not going to become enlightened, so what is the point? The poor fellow was suffering with cancer. At least there was something--you have taken even that.

    In fact, if your body sicknesses can be taken by enlightened people, you will not think of becoming enlightened. It is better to be unenlightened and let the enlightened people take care of your sicknesses, and meanwhile enjoy--unless accidentally you become enlightened, because then you cannot go back. That's what I mean when I say, theoretically it is possible. That needs some explanation.

    You have two words in English, `sympathy' and `empathy'. Sympathy is when you feel superficially: somebody is miserable, somebody is sick and you feel sympathetic. You sit by the side, cry a little and then go on to the movies. What else to do? Your eyes are more clean, and now...Empathy means that you become so one with the person that sicknesses or anything can be transferred.

    (Here Osho recounts the story when Ramakrishna inexplicably experienced pain as if beaten. It was then discovered that nearby a man was being beaten.)

    That's why I say, theoretically it is possible. And once in a while it has happened, not because consciously enlightened people take other people's sicknesses and diseases on themselves, but accidentally, just like in the case of Ramakrishna.

    The reality is that the enlightened person is somehow pulling together his body. He has lost all desires, all ambitions. He has no impetus for tomorrow. Even to breathe one more breath he has no reason for. So a great gap goes on growing. Awareness becomes more and more clean and clear, he can witness his own body from inside, but a witness is only a witness; he cannot do anything.

    So all these stories that are being spread around, that some master took away a disease, are just an explanation to protect the so-called master. But how can a master fall sick? In fact, the master can fall sick more than anybody else, because he has separated himself from his body. The old clinging, the old grip is gone. Now it is a miracle that he goes on living for a few days. Hence he lives in a very calculated way.

    You can see me: I live in such a calculated way that all that I do is speak to you. I have saved all my breath just to give you a sense of the eternal and an experience of the ultimate. And mostly I am asleep. You cannot find a more lazy man in the world. hari16

    Osho undergoes extensive dental work

    A fully equipped dental room is prepared in Osho's house, and for several months, Osho undergoes extensive dental work.

    Naturally, if my body is sick, then my doctor knows more than I know. I don't interfere with my doctor. I am really a good patient; you can ask Devaraj, you can ask Shunyo. When something is wrong with my teeth--you can ask my dental surgeon--I am quite patient.

    In fact he must be wondering...because nobody loves the dentist's chair, but I love it. I really enjoy it. I find a small excuse and I immediately tell my dentist to make arrangements, I am coming. Just a slight excuse, it does not need any dentistry--but I love the chair. And I never interfere in whatever they are doing; messing with my teeth or whatever they are doing I allow them to do. That is their work and their responsibility, and I don't know anything about it so I simply keep out of it. last218

    This very morning, Devageet was working on my teeth. For the first time in years, when I left his dentist's chair, I asked him, "Are you satisfied?" Because I could see his dissatisfaction--that he has not been able to do the work that he wanted to on my teeth.

    In the evening, I told him to finish it, because who knows about tomorrow? I may not be here, then fixing my teeth will be absolutely absurd. He did try his best but I am a master who is teaching everybody to be present at every moment....

    Shunyo works hard continuously, taking every care for my well-being, but she still goes on asking, "Do you love me?" I am in the dentist's chair under maximum gas and she is asking, "Do you love me?" And because I had promised my dentist that, "I will not talk". but it is impossible.

    Because I did not say, "I love you," she must have become so disturbed that she forgot to put the towel in my bathroom. I had to take a bath without a towel. Later on, when I asked her, she said, "I am sorry."

    But it is not only her situation. It is almost everybody's situation. And my whole teaching is that you have to be respectful to yourself. It is falling from dignity to ask this--and particularly from a master whose love is already being given to you. Why be a beggar?

    My effort here is to make emperors of you.

    The day, the moment you understand the tremendous glory of being present, nothing else is needed. You are enough. Out of that arises the great joy, "Aha! My God! I have been here and was looking everywhere else." this07

    The other night, I went to my dentistry--it is just by the side of my library--and Shunyo was with me. New shelves are being created with mirrored glass, so she showed me and said, "Osho, it is not right that only women stand before mirrors for hours. I have been watching: everybody who passes here stands before the mirror, puts his collar right, smiles a little, looks all around whether anybody is watching or not."

    You are so afraid. Even to look in a mirror, you are worried somebody may be looking. Enjoy looking, there is no problem. If one side of your mustache is going this way and the other side is going the other way. put it right! There is nothing wrong in it, no

    sin. yaahoo24

    Work begins to convert Chuang Tzu Auditorium into a new bedroom for Osho, with marble floors and walls, enclosed by ground to ceiling windows overlooking the gardens where a waterfall feature is being created. Osho's library will expand throughout the ground floor of his house.

    World Academy of Sciences for Creativity

    In January 1988, Osho again talks of a World Academy of Sciences for Creativity, which he had envisioned in Rajneeshpuram.

    I have my vision, and I want my people to be aware of the vision. This ashram is not only for the old and the retired who don't want to do anything but need shelter and food. That has been the situation with ashrams in the East....

    I want this ashram slowly to develop into a World Academy of Sciences for Creativity. This will be perhaps the greatest synthesis ever. Your search for religious truth in no way hinders your search for the objective reality, because both areas are absolutely separate; they don't overlap.

    You can be a scientist and a meditator. In fact, the more you go deeper into meditation, the more clarity, the more intelligence, the more genius you will find flowering in you which can create a totally new science.

    The old science was created as a reaction against religion. The new science I'm talking about is not a reaction against anything, but an overflowing energy, intelligence, creativity. Politics corrupted science because its own interest was only war. Religions could not accept science because they were all superstitious and science was going to demolish all their gods and all their superstitions.

    Science has passed these three hundred years in a very difficult situation, fighting on the one hand with religion and on the other hand, unconsciously becoming a slave to the politicians.

    I want this place to grow and I am making arrangements for a world academy of sciences and arts totally devoted to life-affirmative goals....

    Just a few days ago Dr. Masashi Murakoshi from Japan was here. He has been working for twenty years in Hiroshima, experimenting. As the radiation of the atomic explosion becomes less and less, he has come upon a far more important discovery than Albert Einstein himself did. He went to Hiroshima and wondered at the fact that atomic energy, radiation, is destructive only at a certain quantity. At a lesser quantity it is very creative, very productive, immensely helpful.

    He himself, when he had gone to Hiroshima, was forty-five years old. Now he is sixty- five years old, but looking at him you would not say he is sixty-five; he still looks as if he is forty-five. His colleagues are dead and those who remain cannot believe the miracle that has happened to him.

    Radiation in small quantities is life-affirmative. It is the higher dose that destroys.

    I have been in contact with scientists, Nobel Prize winners, who have been fighting for my rights in other countries. In Italy eighty-four of the most eminent people have just signed a protest against the government. Amongst those eighty-four there are at least six Nobel Prize winners. The same is the situation in Germany and in Holland.

    These Nobel Prize winners, eminent scientists, artists of different dimensions, will constitute the academy, and they will make efforts to change science's whole trend of being destructive.

    Our sannyasins--and there are many who are scientists, artists, physicians--will help the academy. We will arrange scholarships, and people from all over the world can come and study a new way of science, a new way of art that affirms life, that creates more love in humanity and that prepares for the ultimate revolution.

    That ultimate revolution is a single world government--because while the world does not have one government, you cannot stop wars. Each nation has to have its own military, its own defenses, its own weapons, and there is competition as to who has more destructive power. But once there is one world government there is no need of any armies, air forces or navies; all these can be transformed into services dedicated to life, to the whole of humanity.

    And the World Academy of Sciences will be the first step, because if we can take scientists from all over the world slowly out of the grip of the politicians, all the power of the politicians will be finished. They are not powerful; the scientist is the power behind them. And the scientist is in a difficulty, because there is no institute in the world which will give the scientist enough of the materials, instruments, machines that he needs to work with....

    It seems existence is arranging for the money that we will need to create the academy. Another very important man in Japan, who holds many foundations for humanitarian services, is also coming to see whether it is possible to bring money from those many foundations to create this world institute. And it will have support from all over the world, from all the scientists without exception, because now everybody is seeing that they are serving death, not life.

    We can have the greatest library for scientific research and we can have sannyasins working, studying. The synthesis will be that everybody who is working in the institute will also be meditating, because unless meditation goes deep in you, your love sources remain dormant. Your blissfulness, your joy remain unblossomed.

    Man is not for science, science is for man....

    Scientists are in a difficulty. They cannot work individually; they have to work under a government. The government's interest is war, and no religion is going to support them because their findings go on destroying religious superstitions.

    There is an immense vacuum which I want to fill by creating a world academy absolutely devoted to life, love, laughter--absolutely devoted to creating a better humanity, a better and more pure, healthy atmosphere, to restoring the disturbed ecology.

    I have called these two people, and Dr. Murakoshi has already been here. He has already created a few things which radiate atomic energy, but in such minute doses that they help; they remove diseases, they give more well-being.

    He has made for me, specially for my bathtub, a small radiator disk: just ten minutes and the whole bathtub becomes full of radiation. Just to check whether it works or not, I have used the bath; it certainly works.

    He has made a few belts filled with radiating material, and sannyasins are using them and are finding immense energy that they have never had before. He is going to come with more gadgets that he has invented.

    He loves me so much that he informed me that it will be better if I move the ashram to Japan, because there he has contacts with the emperor, with other scientists. And he is ready to found the academy and provide the money that will be needed--and it is going to be an enormous amount of money.

    But I have informed him that Japan is running out of land. It is the most crowded country in the world; they have even made artificial islands in the ocean, and they have floated a few to create industries on them.

    Secondly, Japan is very costly. Its currency is now the most valuable in the world. It will prevent my poor sannyasins from going there...and to be there for months will be too costly.

    I have called him and I am certain I will convince him that this is the right place. The whole of Koregaon Park is for sale!--and we are finding sources of money to purchase the whole of Koregaon Park. Then all the gadgets can be used by every sannyasin.

    Mechanisms can be managed to purify water, to purify air--because Poona is utterly polluted. But one thing is good about India: things are cheaper, and people can come from every country, be here for three or four months, and then in eight months back in their country they can earn enough and come back. There is no need for them to work here.

    Here is their temple of meditation. And I want all the dimensions--the best musicians to teach you music, the best artists to teach you painting, the best poets to teach you the experience of poetry and the expression of it.

    I am an incurable dreamer.

    But I can say to you that whatever I have dreamed in my life, I have managed it, without doing anything. Just a proposal to existence....

    For four months a sannyasin remains here. He will learn much about natural cultivation, how to live in tune with nature, not against it; how to make your life free from all bondages that the past has imposed on you....

    The most important thing for the academy will be to create pure science, just the way I am making every effort to create pure religiousness.

    Man can have inside him a pure religiousness--that means love, that means silence, that means meditation--and also a sense of pure science, so that no branches of science go on doing work unnecessarily which is destructive to other parts.

    The second great thing the academy has to do...Up to now science has developed accidentally. There has been no sense of direction; people just went on discovering anything without any idea for what. Moving accidentally, still they have created much, but it is in the service of destruction. Pure science will give the sense of direction and a unity of all the sciences, so that science works as a whole, not as different branches....

    There are so many things that the world academy has to do. The first thing is to spread around the world the idea that misery is unnatural, that sadness is sickness, that the lust for power needs psychiatric treatment, that a man who goes on gathering money is mad.

    And once we make the whole of humanity aware of the dangers of our past ways of life and where the whole past is leading us--to a global suicide--it will not be difficult to convince the intelligent, the young, to drop the past and to welcome the future.

    The world academy, devoted in every sphere to creativity, is going to happen. I don't like to prophesy, but once in a while. This is my prophecy: the world is not going to be

    finished by idiot politicians. All over the world, that's all they are doing--preparing the funeral pyre for the whole of humanity. We are going to stop it. And if they insist, we will tell them, "Jump into the funeral pyre yourself!"

    Once we can get rid of the priests and the politicians, the whole earth will become so full of peace, silence, love. so many flowers and so many rainbows. We have been in the

    wrong hands; the world academy has to create an atmosphere so that these wrong hands are no longer powerful.

    We have destroyed so many trees that the oxygen layer on the earth has fallen low. That is affecting everybody's health, because without oxygen you cannot live. We have created industries, and the smoke from those industries has such chemicals that it has made holes in a certain layer around the earth, the ozone....

    We have done the same stupidity by sending rockets to the moon; those rockets have also made holes. But perhaps it has all happened unconsciously. Nobody was aware what the effects were going to be.

    The world academy is a conscious effort to do everything perfectly aware of what the consequences will be. Small experiments can be done which will give us the idea of the consequences. Right now there are thousands of inventions of scientists which have been purchased by the vested interests and are lying down in their basements; they have never been brought into the market for the people to use.

    Because we are behaving so insanely, any invention is bound to change many things. Perhaps many industries will be closed because a better product, more life-affirmative, is available. Now those industrialists will try to purchase the rights and keep those scientific discoveries hidden from humanity.

    Even Dr. Masashi Murakoshi was approached by the greatest nuclear manufacturer of America who said, "We want to purchase all your discoveries and all the things that you have made. Whatever the price, say it and you will be given."

    But Masashi is a man of tremendous courage; he refused. He said, "That means all my life's effort will be lying somewhere down in your basements." He is not ready to sell his patents; he wants to give the patents to the academy so that millions of dollars can simply come here just from his small inventions.

    The second man I mentioned is one of the most respectable men in Japan and has many foundations in his hands, with millions of dollars for any humanitarian purpose. I cannot think what more humanitarian purpose there can be than creating an academy of sciences and arts totally devoted to life and to enhancing life.

    This is going to happen. When I am saying this is going to happen, I am not saying it; I am simply a vehicle for existence. I know perfectly well that when it comes from my absolute nothingness it is a message from existence itself.

    It is going to happen. Nobody can prevent it.

    And this is the only hope for the new man and the new humanity. mani30

    AIDS-Negative certificates required to enter the ashram

    Osho again anticipates science when he says the outbreak of AIDs in the East will be wide- spread. In January 1988, AIDS-negative certificates are required by people entering the Ashram

    In the commune, I was the first man in the whole world who proposed all the preventive methods. And in the commune, we managed perfect control. And I was criticized by Christians, I was criticized by all kinds of journalists, I was criticized and laughed at by the politicians, who said that I was unnecessarily creating fear. And now they are all thinking on the same lines. exactly the same program is being given to all the countries all over the world. And the dishonesty is such that not a single country has said that I was

    the first to tell the world that at least two-thirds of the world's population can die if immediate steps are not taken to prevent AIDS.

    The steps that we have taken are now being accepted by EVERY government in the world, and nobody is laughing and nobody is criticizing. And nobody is mentioning who the person was who first brought this whole program. sermon23

    Just to give you a total view, I can say that if the Eastern countries are also surveyed, where homosexuality has existed longer than in the West, there may be at least twenty million people suffering from AIDS--which has no cure....

    The AIDS virus can come from any liquid coming out of the body, even perspiration, saliva, tears--anything coming out of the body can carry the virus. And the virus seems to be immortal; no medicine kills it. It becomes immune to all kinds of treatment. satyam21

    Here, there are a few sannyasins. because I have made it an absolute rule that no AIDS-

    positive person should be allowed to enter the gate. If he wants to go anywhere, he should go to the Vatican. The Vatican is the most responsible for creating AIDS. And the pope's position has to be changed--not as a representative of God but as the superintendent of an AIDS hospital. All people suffering from AIDS should move towards the Vatican.

    I have prohibited their entry. People have to bring a certificate saying that they are negative. But you will not believe how irresponsible man can be. There are many doctors who are selling negative certificates, so you simply give some money. there is no need to

    be worried, take the certificate. It seems we will have to make our own lab to test people before we allow them into the campus. Their certificates can be bogus. You give just a few rupees, and in Bombay you can get a certificate. And this is happening all around the world. But such irresponsibility has never been seen. They only think of themselves and the money that they are getting. They are not worried what harm this man can do--to his friends, to his family, to his children, to his wife....

    Here, we will be creating an institute to check your AIDS report, whether it is authentic or not. I want my people to be saved not only from nuclear weapons, but also from inner causes that can destroy the whole humanity. hari06

    Osho talks about Music

    Since the move to Buddha Hall, there is space for a larger group of musicians, instruments from around the world, and better electronic equipment. Osho guides the musicians on how he wishes them to play before and after discourse

    I hear your blessed music, but I don't see your guitar. Beloved Master, what is your instrument?

    Milarepa, neither the music is mine nor the guitar. The music belongs to existence, and the guitar belongs to you. You are the guitar, and this whole vast universe is the music.

    I am at the most just a passage for the music to reach to the guitar. That's why you don't see my guitar--because you don't see yourself. Who are you? On whom am I playing my music? You hear my words and you also hear my silences, and naturally you feel a certain music surrounding me. That music is your response, your love, your trust.

    In a way I am not here. It has been a long time since I left this small house for the eternity. It is the compassion of eternity that this small house still goes on continuing to function. It is also your love, your prayers, your gratitude that helps my body-mind system to function. I don't have any desire to be fulfilled. All is fulfilled--and when all is fulfilled a music arises. I don't have any ambition....

    We take the present moment and squeeze the whole juice of it--that's our religion. Wherever we will be, one thing is certain: we will recognize each other just by the style of squeezing the juice from the present moment.

    Faces may be different, planets may be different, that does not mean anything. We have a key to recognize our people: in their eyes, in their faces, they are always existential.

    Milarepa, you are my instrument. Your guitar is my guitar. Your fingers playing on the instruments are my fingers. Can't you allow that?...

    Milarepa, you hear my music; that music comes from the beyond. I cannot claim any monopoly, any copyright on it. And you want to see my guitar--just look at your guitar, just look at your hands. In deep love a synchronicity happens. You start doing things which my deepest being wanted to do, but I don't know music; I cannot even recognize which is a guitar and which is a harmonium and which is a saxophone.

    I have never been a singer, not even a bathroom singer. I have lived in many houses in this country with many friends, and many times people have asked, "At least we were thinking you will be singing in the bathroom, but you don't sing?"

    I don't know singing...I am a song. I don't know singing--you will have to sing in me. You will have to allow yourself to be totally available to me.

    You can dance and it will be my dance. You can sing and it will be my song.

    You can play on instruments, but your fingers will be in synchronicity with me, and I am in synchronicity with the whole. So it is just formal to say that you are my songs, that you are my music. I am just a small passage; the beyond comes through me to your eyes. And because it is of the beyond it has a tremendous capacity to transform you.

    I have not said a single word to you on my own; hence I can claim originality in the literal sense of the word. Ordinarily originality means nobody else has said it, only I am saying it; that is using the word wrongly. Originality should mean it is coming from the origins...origins of life, origins of love, origins of existence. pilgr06

    You shower me with love and I am so ashamed, I can't look at you sometimes. Inside I know I don't have anything to give you, and what little there is feels so inadequate.

    Master, my heart is broken. Please help me.

    Milarepa, your question surprises me, because you give so much love to me. You have given yourself to me--your music, your poetry, your dance. What can be more valuable? You have trusted me--a stranger. What more can there be that you should feel ashamed? You should rejoice, because all that you had, you have given to me, without holding anything back. You have given your heart.

    But perhaps you don't think that your songs, your music, your dance, your love, your trust, have any value. They certainly are of the greatest value--although they don't have any price.

    You are not poor. Just not to have money does not make a man poor; not to have power, not to be a president or a prime minister of a country, does not make a man poor. What makes a man poor is not to have a soul. And your soul is so full of songs, so full of dance, so full of laughter--there is no question of your feeling ashamed. You have given to me the richest gifts that anyone can give. But perhaps you have not thought of it in this way.

    There are some of the richest people in the world who are so poor inside that all their money cannot make any difference. Their money is outside, and their poverty is inside-- anything from the outside cannot destroy the inner poverty. The inner poverty is destroyed only by inner values: love, compassion, silence, prayer, meditation--these are the things that make a person really rich. He may be just a beggar on the street, it does not matter, but even emperors will find themselves jealous of him.

    You are misunderstanding. Put things right. splend18

    In February begins a series of remarkable concerts by world famous Indian classical musicians, dancers, and poets, who perform out of their love for Osho, and for the meditative atmosphere of the ashram. Musicians include Pundit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, flautist, Ustad Zakir Hussein, tabla- player, Pandit Shivkumar, on santoor

    Music is not something biological; it is not something concerned with your chemistry or physiology. Music is not even of the mind. Music is something. a space between mind

    and meditation. It is one of the most mysterious phenomena. To conceive of it in intellectual terms is almost impossible for the simple reason that it is beyond mind--but it is not yet meditation.

    Music can become meditation--it has both possibilities--it can come down and become mind. Then you are only a technician, not a musician. You may be playing perfectly on

    the instruments, without any faults, but still you are only a technician. You know the technique perfectly and entirely, but it is not your heart and it is not your being; it is just your knowledge.

    Music can go higher and further away from mind, and then it starts becoming closer and closer to peace and silence. One is a musician only when he understands the sound of silence, and one who understands the sound of silence is capable of creating sounds which are synonymous with silence. That is the most miraculous thing. Then the musician has come to his full flowering. Beyond this music starts the world of meditation.

    In fact, as far as the East is concerned, the ancientmost sources say one thing definitively about music, and that is that it was born out of meditation. People who went deep into meditation enjoyed the silence of it, loved the peace that seems to be unfathomable. They wanted to convey that you are far more than you think you are, far bigger than you think you are; you are as big as the whole universe--but how to say it? Words are very poor philosophical concepts, almost like beggars.

    The ancient meditators tried to find some way to convey their peace, their silence, their joy, and those were the people who discovered music. Music is a by-product of meditation.

    But you can go both ways: either from meditation you can come to music as an expression, a creative expression of your experience; or you can go from music to meditation, because music brings you closer and closer to meditation as music becomes immense silence, sounds merging into silence, sounds creating deeper silences than you have ever known. Then you are very close to the boundary of your meditation....

    Music is not in the same category as sex, although in the West the modern music has fallen so low that it has come very close to the category of sex. Only that music is appreciated in the West which provokes sexuality in you. Sex is the lowest point of your life energy, and if music is used to provoke sexuality, then naturally it has to fall to the same category.

    Superconsciousness is the highest point of your life energy. When music reaches superconsciousness, it provokes within you unknown territories, unexplored skies. It can become a door to the divine. Just as it can become a door to the animal on the lowest, on the highest it can become the door to the divine.

    Man is only a bridge to be passed. Man is only a bridge between the animal and the divine. You should not make your house on the bridge--bridges are not for making houses on--you have to pass on, from this shore to that further shore. satyam22

    Music is your creativity.

    But we have lost contact with the authentic music. And slowly slowly, as humanity has become less and less interested in the inner world, its music has become lower and lower. The contemporary music is absolutely the lowest that has ever existed. It touches you, but it touches you at your lowest center of sexuality. The contemporary music is sexual, and the classical music was spiritual. I would like my people to create music on the path of meditation--or create music if you have found meditation, as a language to express the silence of it. mani22

    Compared to classical music, jazz music is in the lowest category, because rather than creating a spirituality in you it simply activates your sexuality. The great classical music takes you higher, beyond your mind, to silences which can give you a taste of meditation, a taste of existence.

    But always remember that a certain reference in a certain context does not mean my whole approach to a thing.

    You are saying, "This question comes from two jazz musicians. Is our love of jazz music an obstacle on the path to enlightenment?" It depends on you. You can make your jazz music free from the lower gravitation of sexuality. You can make it connected with your higher centers of being, and then it will not be an obstacle on the path to enlightenment.

    In fact, as far as my people are concerned, they are going to enter enlightenment with jazz music! It has never been tried; hence it is a great challenge and must be tried. hari09

    The Mystic Rose

    On 19 March 1988, Osho begins a series on the Mystic Rose. In the following days several events occur, in response to which Osho experiments with devices to bring consciousness and fun to the situation.

    Love is the blossoming of your inner being just like a rose.

    That's why I have called this gathering and the talks, The Mystic Rose. Mystic, because only stupid people think that life can be understood. The greater is your intelligence, the more you will become aware of your ignorance; the wiser you are the less you know.

    And the wisest is one who becomes absolutely innocent, and the whole of life, existence in its all dimensions, becomes just a mystery. A mystery to be enjoyed, loved, lived, but not to be understood. The very effort to understand existence is an insult. Love does not want to understand; love simply wants to share. yaahoo27

    The mystic rose is an ancient symbol of tremendous importance....

    Evolution needs to be not of the body but of consciousness; then it becomes a spiritual progress. But Darwin had no idea of any spirit in man. To him, man was just the body and nothing more.

    I propound a theory of spiritual evolution, and that has been the basic of all mysticism in the world.

    Man is born as a seed.

    To accept the seed as your life is the greatest mistake one can commit. Millions of people are born as seeds, fresh, young, with tremendous potential of growth. But because they accept the seed as their very life, they die as a rotten seed; nothing happens in their life.

    The symbol of the mystic rose is that if man takes care of the seed that he is born with, gives it the right soil, gives it the right atmosphere and the right vibrations, moves on a right path where the seed can start growing, then the ultimate growth is symbolized as the mystic rose--when your being blossoms and opens all its petals and releases the beautiful fragrance.

    Unless you blossom into a mystic rose, your life is nothing but an exercise in utter futility. You are born unnecessarily, you are living unnecessarily, and you will die unnecessarily. Your whole biography can be reduced to a single word: unnecessary.

    But if you can blossom and release that which is hidden in you, you have fulfilled the longing of existence. You have given back to existence the fragrance that was hidden in your seed. You have come to fulfill your destiny.

    The mystics have never accepted man as the ultimate product. Man is only a beginning and one should not die as a beginning; that is ugly, insulting, damaging to your dignity. Man should reach to the absolute fulfillment--not only for his own contentment, but for the contentment of the cosmos. That is the secret of the mystic rose.

    Yes, in a few traditions the mystic rose is also called the magic rose. Both words are meaningful. It is certainly magic when you see within yourself the blossoming of the rose, the beauty of it, and the divinity of it, and the truth of it.

    Satyam, shivam, sundram.

    You cannot believe your own eyes. You have never dreamed that you contain so much, that your potential is so valuable, that your interiority is a treasure inexhaustible, that you need not be in debt to existence forever. You can return to existence a millionfold what existence has given to you. That moment is of great joy, not only on your side but on the side of the whole cosmos.

    The experience is such a mystery that there is no way to demystify it. You can experience it but you cannot explain it--that is the meaning of the word `mystic'--you can have it, but you become almost dumb. You cannot utter a single word that may carry something of that rose, its beauty, its fragrance, its dance, its music--nothing can be carried through any word.

    The word `magic' is also meaningful. Things like this only happen in magic. Unbelievable...you see with your own eyes things which should not be happening but they are happening....

    Magic simply means something unbelievable, so absurd, so irrational that you cannot find a way to figure it out. That's why both the words have been used, the mystic rose or the magic rose. But even the rope trick is nothing compared to your inner flowering. Because you don't think you have anything inner, just hollowness. but in that hollowness is the

    possibility and the potentiality of a rose blossoming.

    And this is no ordinary rose; it does not die. It is not that in the morning it blossoms, dances the whole day, sings songs, plays with the wind and the rain and with the sun, and by the evening all the petals are fallen to the ground and tomorrow you will not find even a trace of it.

    This inner rose is eternal. Once you have found it, it will be always within you. satyam18

    The man in Japan who is thought to be the richest man, just because he has twenty-two billion dollars; and the richest man in America, who has four billion dollars--both are just poor in comparison to the person who has reached his own being, who has touched the reality of his eternal existence, whose mystic rose has opened its petals. yaahoo20

    Osho and a Hitler salute

    Osho often teases Swami Niskriya who operates the video camera in front of the podium.

    Love is not the ultimate, it is just a training school for learning how to be alone. This togetherness is so painful that finally, even the most retarded learn that to be alone is the secret of being blissful.

    Even Niskriya has learned it! He is a silent fellow; he tolerated as long as possible. He has no time for anything except his work, but even to him it became a trouble and finally, he had to get rid of it. Since then, he is looking very happy. I have just been wondering how long he will remain happy. It is possible--he may remain happy--he has his camera to hold on to! invita03

    Niskriya is so statue-like that one feels afraid.

    I have heard people ask for photographs of Niskriya just to make their children afraid....

    Just last night he was standing almost the way the soldiers of Adolf Hitler used to stand: straight. And the day before he was wearing the Chinaman's cap with a small note:

    Excuse Me. You will have to think of the whole joke, then you will understand what "Excuse Me" means. He is trying his best. Just see what he does today...!

    (As Osho leaves the Hall, he raises an arm to Niskriya, in a playful Hitler salute) shanti20

    Last night, when you stood up to leave, you saluted with the gesture that we call in Germany the "Hitler" greeting. May I ask you what was your idea in doing this? What were you conveying through this gesture?

    Now look Niskriya, how many troubles you are creating for me! This question is from Hilmar Pabel and Inge Byhan, photographer and journalist for Bunte. Soon you will see my photograph on the cover of Bunte with the salute...and I hope with a negative article. I enjoy negative articles!

    And Pabel, I know you are not negative. You have loved the place, you have loved my people. You will be in difficulty now. You will have to write lies. But write! If you write anything positive about me, the article will not be published.

    I am just making you aware and alert: if you want your photographs and article to be published, make it as negative as possible. I love all kinds of things.

    Your question may seem superficial to others--it is not. As far as I am concerned there are many kinds of greetings....

    The people who have gathered here are not soldiers, are not in any way interested that there should be any violence, any destruction. They know, and I want you and your readers of Bunte to know, that I am not a serious man. So I was just making a joke. And I have chosen Niskriya because he looks. Should I tell him to stand up again?

    It is better...when I go then I will give you another chance to take the photograph--not only of me, but of everybody else! Let the Bunte readers also enjoy!

    Pabel, you will forgive me, it is time for prayer (jokes). yaahoo03

    Osho repeats Hitler-like salute, and encourages everyone to do so too. German magazine Bunte reporters are upset.

    Last night, I was amazed to see that the people from `Bunte' magazine were upset by your remarks in the discourse. For myself and other German sannyasins it was beautiful to see you make such gentle and hilarious fun of the whole Nazi trip. My laughter helped to dissolve the whole heavy past and guilt associated with Hitler's Germany.

    But the `Bunte' reporter, Inge Byhan, could not see the joke. She was totally enraged and wanted to leave in the middle. She said that what you were doing was a terrible insult to humanity. She was screaming afterwards.

    Osho, I feel so sad that this stupid woman behaved so insanely. I ask you for forgiveness on her part and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for liberating me.

    Turiya, it is amazing and yet it is not amazing. It is amazing because the old woman from Bunte magazine could not understand simple humor. I am absolutely against any Nazi ideology. It may be German, it may be Italian, it may be Indian--basically, I am against all fascist attitudes towards life. My message to all is: never for a single moment desire to dominate anybody, nor allow anybody else to dominate you.

    The very idea of domination has to disappear from the world. Only then can we call this world a human reality. Otherwise, it is absolutely inhuman. Millions of people all over the world are standing with loaded guns just watching for orders to be given. Missiles are ready, just buttons to be pressed, which any idiot can do. Pressing a button does not need much intelligence.

    And the whole world will be just a huge fire. Not even grass will grow for millions of years. I was making a joke against Adolf Hitler, but to understand a joke needs intelligence--and particularly for a German; that too an old lady journalist of a yellow, third-rate magazine. That's why I say it is amazing yet it is not amazing.

    She wanted to scream. I also feel sad--not that she wanted to scream, I felt sad that she did not scream. We would have loved it, and screamed together with her! It would have been such a tremendous revelation; she would have been shocked to see what was happening all around. She would have been the first to stop screaming! But unfortunately, she did not scream. She had not even the courage to say what her whole being was exploding with.

    What was the trouble with her? It is not only with her; it is with all of my German sannyasins, more or less. But it is natural. Under Adolf Hitler, Germany has made such wounds in the heart of humanity that every German, although he was not a participant in it, perhaps he was not even born at the time of the second world war--still, just being German and something inside hurts that "my country, my people have been so nasty, so destructive, so inhuman." They have destroyed forever a healthy heart without any guilt.

    My effort was simply to help you to laugh at the point, because what is past, is past. And what Adolf Hitler did, you are not responsible for. If you can laugh, the wounds can be healed, the guilt can disappear. But rather than laughing, if you start screaming at me, you are simply proving my point that inside you the same fascist attitude still prevails.

    Still you think you are a superior race, superman; that the second world war was only a small battle, the real war is going to happen when the real Aryan German blood will rule over the world.

    These may not be conscious ideas in you. But the whole atmosphere in which you have been brought up has left its imprints in your unconscious. And unless you start laughing at the very stupidity of the idea of ruling over the whole world, of being somebody special, superior to anybody else...Laughter is a great medicine. It is a tremendously

    powerful therapy. If you can laugh at your own unconscious, the unconscious loses its force. In your very laughter your guilt, your wounds, disappear.

    Those two old German goats...it was specially for them! My hand has been hurting for months, but thinking that these poor fellows have come from Germany, I forgot about my hand. And they were so angry that today they were going to have interviews with sannyasins but because of their anger they left Poona immediately--with a threat to Turiya, because Turiya is a princess of Hannover, so that old woman who was screaming, or wanted to scream, was calling Turiya again and again "Your Highness"...Poor Turiya felt ashamed at what that old goat was saying: You are a princess, royal blood, the last descendent of the German emperor, the oldest royal dynasty in the world, and you are mixing with these common people? She told Turiya, "I am going to write against Osho."

    I laughed, because I told her beforehand! She was really stupid; otherwise I would have helped her more. I did as much as I could on my own. If she wanted to write...and that was specially the purpose, because Bunte magazine and those kinds of magazines and newspapers are not in search of anything good happening anywhere. They are in search of something dirty, nasty. They are seekers of gutters. Unfortunately, we don't have any gutters here....

    That old goat was threatening that she is going to write against me. I have told her myself--"Please, write against me, because nobody is writing against me and I enjoy people writing all kinds of lies and fictions. I have nothing to lose." All these idiots have made me a world celebrity, and I am just an ordinary man.

    But she has gone in great anger. I have told her, "Let my picture with the `Hitler salute' be on the front page of Bunte, with seven thousand hands raised." And she could not understand that this is a joke, and in a very nice and loving way I am telling that you are still carrying your past within you. It doesn't matter that you are carrying a German past-- everybody is carrying his past, and my effort is to destroy your past, to free you from your past....

    Just enter into your own kingdom. And a kingdom which cannot be conquered by anyone--unconquerable. A kingdom which once found cannot be lost. A kingdom which blossoms in everyone.

    I was talking about that kingdom yesterday as the mystic rose. But that old goat did not hear a word of what I was saying. She was only concerned that I have "insulted humanity." I cannot see any logical connection between the fascist salute of Adolf Hitler and humanity. Adolf Hitler killed humanity, insulted humanity. Forty million people--a very good account!--he murdered, butchered, gassed. And that old woman did not think that he has insulted humanity.

    I am simply making you aware that if some part of you is still carrying, without your knowing, the junk that the past always leaves behind. and it goes on being given from

    one generation to another generation. Let it evaporate in a great laughter. Drop it. Forget that you are a German, forget that you are an Indian, forget that you are English.

    It is enough that you are human. yaahoo04

    Let-go Meditation at the end of Discourse And the Yaa-Hoo! Mantra salute

    On 24 March 1988, Osho introduces a let-go meditation to be done at the end of discourse. Osho tells a joke featuring the yell 'Yaa-Hoo!'. He asks Niskriya to shout 'Yaa-Hoo!' to signal the beginning of the meditation. Osho experiments with this meditation, and leads it at the end of every discourse from then on.

    Recently, you said: "Remember, 'let-go' is the most important word in existence." It penetrated me like an arrow. Since then your words have been haunting me. Beloved Master, could you please speak a little more on the art of letting go?

    Let-go is certainly the most fundamental principle of religiousness. It simply means no goal, no desire, no longing, no past, no future--just being here in utter totality, drowning in this silence, without any resistance.

    There is no art, there is no knack, there is no method; just a simple understanding. Who is preventing you? Your own past, that you think is valuable...how can you drop it? It is a treasure, it is your heritage! The future...how can you drop it?--although you don't have it. Still, you are worried how to drop it: "How can one drop the future? Future is all that we have. All the dreams, all the tomorrows, all the great things that have to happen are in the future."

    And when I say to you, "Drop the past, drop the future, just simply be"...

    In that moment of simple being, immense blessings descend on you, silences, ecstasies-- effortlessly. And because you have not made any effort and the flowers go on showering on you, it creates a very new dimension in your being: the dimension of gratitude, which religions have wrongly interpreted as prayer.

    You cannot pray before you have known let-go. All the churches and all the temples are full of people who are praying, but they don't know; they are not in a state in which prayer arises on its own as gratitude.

    Prayer cannot mean anything else but gratitude--gratitude for so much that is given to you each moment without your asking. You could not have conceived of any more than what happens in the moment, if you allow it to happen.

    And the allowing is very simple:

    No past, no future--just this moment. (there is a long pause)

    This silence is let-go. You are not creating it. It is surrounding you.

    It is overwhelmingly here.

    It is all around you. If it can touch your heart, you have understood more than anybody can elaborate on let-go.

    O'Reilly walks into the pub, orders a triple whiskey, swallows it in one gulp, spins around and falls flat, face down on the floor.

    "That's what I like about O'Reilly," remarks the bartender to the others in the bar. "He always knows when he has had enough."

    Just learn something from Mr. O'Reilly. Existence is not to be understood but to be drunk. It is alcoholic, there is no other drug that makes you more silent, more festive, more in tune with existence. Just one gulp of it. and flat on the ground! What more can

    be said about it? It happens every day to almost everybody except a few dodos. Just the ground is not much, so people spin in their own places.

    But if you want I can allow it one day: Don't bother who is sitting by your side or in front of you or behind you. Just fall flat! And enjoy let-go.

    Niskriya. (Niskriya lets go!) That's the way, right! Today we will do it in the end, after

    the prayer.

    So a few prayers to prepare you for the final let-go. And let us see how many dodos are there. Once in a while, it is good to check....

    A pretty girl is driving through the American West when her car runs out of gas. An Indian comes past and gives her a ride to a gas station, sitting behind him on his pony. Every few minutes as they ride along, he lets out a wild whooping yell that echoes around the hills. Finally, he drops her off with a last, "Yaa-Hoo!"

    "My god," says the gas station owner, "what were you doing to that Indian to make him shout like that?"

    "Nothing," says the girl, "I just sat behind him with my arms around his sides, holding onto his saddle horn."

    "Miss," says the man, "Indians don't use saddles."

    Now, before the let-go, there are a few questions which have been waiting for long. So, Maneesha, you can ask your questions before the great Yaa-Hoo! happens.

    It is going to happen, there is no way to avoid it. How else are you going to learn let-go? Now, the dodos are looking very afraid. I can see how many dodos are all around.

    Just do it carefully, because poor Niskriya's camera is there, somebody's glasses are there. Do Yaa-Hoo! but just have a look all around. Meanwhile, I will answer a few questions. You take a careful look, which side will be good to do Yaa-Hoo! And don't do it on the poor musicians. Just a little care has to be taken.

    So, one question more...

    Beloved Osho,

    As I write this question my hands are shaking.

    Soon, more than your hands...everything will shake! Okay, let them shake. You ask the question. Go on!

    Even the dodos are laughing now. By the time your question is complete, I don't think anybody here will dare not to let-go.

    (Given the festive mood, everyone laughs uproariously at the seriousness of the question and Maneesha is forced to pause. Osho himself is laughing, which tickles everybody into even more laughter.)

    While reading the chapter called "the wanderer" from the sound of running water I saw that the culminating sentence was, "Yet the call is heard, as somewhere in our being the promise is remembered." With this sentence there was an explosion of energy in my heart, bringing tears to my eyes.

    Yes, it will happen again. An explosion too will happen. And tears will also come to your eyes--they are already coming!

    Complete the question.

    (The reading of the question is accompanied by continuous laughter, as Osho jokes about the coming let-go...)

    Osho, I have always known--but I feel so afraid: even as the explosion happened...

    You have been always afraid and now it is going to happen!

    Just gather courage.

    Go on.

    Even as the explosion happened, I was escaping. Osho, I call you "Beloved Master" but still I escape.

    (There is a silence as Osho searches through the pages of his clipboard, and chuckles.)

    You read the next question now because the reading of your questions is preparing people. Go on.

    Beloved Osho,

    Ten years of sannyas have finally brought me to a total chaos. Give a good applause! Somebody has come to a total chaos! But you have not known total chaos--just wait...

    On the one hand I welcome it; on the other hand there is so much fear about whether I'll come out of it.

    There is no hope--once you are in it, you are in it. Nobody has ever come out of the chaos.

    (Everyone is overwhelmed with laughter...)

    Just complete his question.

    And this "tiger" about whom you were speaking to me comes closer and closer.

    That's true.

    What to do at such a meeting? My fear is of dying or going cuckoo.

    Most probably cuckoo, because in let-go nobody is going to die. A few people will shout "Yaa-Hoo!"--that means they have gone cuckoo. A few will remain sane and try...but they will be stupid. Such chances rarely come in life.

    Beloved Osho, My heart is trembling. Can you please say something?

    I don't know what to say! Should we do the exercise?

    Niskriya, stand up. Yeah.

    Now, give the order--"Yaa-Hoo!"

    (Everyone falls from their meditation cushions onto the ground in a great let-go)

    That is good! Now...stop! Come back...

    Okay, Maneesha?

    Yes, Osho. yaahoo06

    Let-go is a simple phenomenon. It is not a question of who is going into this let-go. And last night when you went into let-go, there was nobody. Everybody was gone.

    Seeing that everybody was gone, I was gone too. I was feeling hungry and I said, "I don't know when these people are going to be back." And I sent Shunyo to check whether people had come back or gone. She reported, "Don't be worried; a few have come back, but most are still flat. A few are coming back, a few are moving towards the canteen..." But now I see that everybody has come back.

    So this let-go is beautiful; you take a dip, and you come out fresh and young. Last night must have been the most beautiful night in your life. yaahoo07

    The Hitler-like salute becomes the two-armed salute with a shout of "Yaa-Hoo!". This is known as the 'mantra salute'*.

    *Note:In 1989 this is changed to a shout of "Osho", with the two armed salute

    What do you mean by the raised hand and "Yaa-Hoo"?

    Neelam, you must have seen that today I have raised both my hands, because the German idiots have made a law in Germany that raising one hand is a criminal act. And what about all the dogs? They are not just raising one hand, they are raising one leg all over the Fatherland and pissing! They are the real followers of Adolf Hitler.

    I had not been aware that Germany will never become intelligent. It is unfortunate that they have banned me from entering Germany; otherwise I would have been in jail by now, another deportation...I have missed a great experience!

    Because if you have seen a German jail the American jail is nothing you have seen the very hell. But the Germans themselves have prevented me; otherwise I would have raised one hand, without fail!

    But thinking of my sannyasins...I don't want to create more trouble for you. I have created so much trouble already. So we leave behind that son-of-a-bitch Adolf Hitler. We will be raising both hands, meaning that our longing is for the stars.

    And as far as "Yaa-Hoo" is concerned, it means nothing, but it has tremendous significance. It somehow vibrates you without saying anything; just say, "Yaa-Hoo!" and something in your belly...

    And, as I have told you, all other greetings are born out of war. This is the only greeting which is born out of laughter, out of love in fact, out of a joke. I searched the whole day for the Red Indian who created the trouble, because in India you can find Indians, but Red Indians...very difficult. But in America, they will not allow me to enter; otherwise I would have searched there and asked the fellow, "What was the reason?"

    But a great salute certainly has to have some meaning. And all words have to be given meaning by us; no word has a meaning on its own. You must have heard Mohammedans say, ya allah. It means, "Ah, God." Yaa-Hoo means "Ah, God."

    It is easy to give meaning, just a little searching I have to do. I am a lazy man I could not find any Red Indian. What to say about Red Indian, it is very rare to find an Indian here. I looked all around; then I finally thought, "It is better that I should put in a little of my own effort and work out the meaning." Now it is absolutely clean, clear: it means "Ah, God." So you need not be worried if somebody asks you what it means.

    And naturally, two hands reaching to the stars...you have to shout, "Ah God!" in our language; why should we borrow from anybody else? Adolf Hitler himself has borrowed his swastika from India; we never objected. And now, my raising one hand they will discuss in their parliament: "One more reason that this man is criminal." And certainly, according to the definition I become a criminal.

    Unfortunately, I am not in their territory so they cannot do anything to me. But many of the sannyasins come from Germany. For them, I had to find a way. And I am not a man to step back. To step forward is my way so from one hand, I have gone to two hands.

    Now let them make a law against raising two hands....

    And you call these countries democracies, where you cannot raise your hands? It is a crime, and dogs are free and man is in all kinds of chains. Just on the first day, when I raised one hand, Premda he is a doctor and my personal optician. He became afraid

    because he was sitting in the front row, and his picture was also taken. He started trying to find ways. "Somehow drop my picture, because if this picture is found in Germany, I

    am finished!"

    In fact I told my people, "Don't let him remove his picture". because as it happens he is

    the head of the darkroom! Then I understood also that Niskriya looks so innocent but is not so innocent. that cunning fellow was raising both hands, knowing perfectly well that

    one hand can create trouble back home!

    I was thinking, "What is the matter? Why is he raising two hands?" But there is no need to be worried. Now, knowing that those idiots have passed a law that raising one hand is a crime...I had even to consult one of my sannyasins who is an attorney in Germany to ask him what is the situation. He said, "One hand is going to create great trouble, unless we can prove that it was raised in a comedy or in a drama."

    I said, "It will be very difficult because it is not comic and it is not a drama. And even if it were because of me it is impossible for any court to accept that this is a drama." So I told my sannyasin attorney, Sadhu, that I would change it.

    And why not find something better? Why bother about a dirty past and an ugly nightmare? I had raised that hand only to provoke those two dodos who had come from Bunte magazine. That work is done. Now we settle for two hands and a good full-heart "Yaa-Hoo!"

    Just give me a demonstration....

    That's good! yaahoo08

    Now the let-go meditation is preceded by two-minutes silence:

    Now we can do our prayer. Two minutes of absolute silence, and no movement. And when I say, "Let go," then simply allow your body to fall, without any effort on your part. So, begin. Relax...

    Okay, come back. yaahoo18

    Disturbances cause Osho to leave discourse

    Osho creates many opportunities for laughter during discourse. However, while he is speaking and in the pauses between his words, there is pin-drop silence. On 7 April 1988, one visitor interrupts Osho's speaking with continuous hysterical laughter.

    The following evening, this laughter becomes louder when a thunderstorm tears the roof bringing in wind and leaves.

    Osho has continued speaking, but now he stops. Now there is only the sound of wind and rain, the immensity of his silence, and still--unbelievably--the giggling. Finally he speaks.)

    This is out of the joke.

    (But the giggling continues. Osho rises from his seat without further comment, namastes and walks to the exit. He raises his arm in salute, and the stunned assembly responds-- "Yaa-Hoo!"

    Away from the microphone, his words can be heard only by those in the first few rows.)

    Don't wait for me to come out tomorrow night. yaahoo20

    The following evening there is general meeting in Buddha Hall. Anando explains that so many sannyasins have apologised to him, and requested him to continue speaking. There is a celebration of music and dance as Osho arrives.

    Beloved Osho,

    Last evening I had my first experience of death. Your answer to the beautiful question put before you had taken me so deep within, so high, that by the time I realized what was happening--you were gone.

    Oh most precious and most Beloved Master--you have told us to be here only if it is top priority. Your presence makes the Buddha Hall into our temple.

    You have told us how J. Krishnamurti died with the regret that he had only been an entertainment to his people. How shamefully we take you--your love, your grace, your compassion, your being with us--for granted.

    We must hurt you again and again and again. Osho, Please forgive us?

    Zareen, it was not your fault. It was my fault, because I have loved you too much. I had not kept a distance between me and you. That's why it became possible for a few people to misbehave. They did not hurt me, they hurt you all. Otherwise there was no need, because you can see--a bigger storm has come and there is no need to laugh.

    In fact it gives you an opportunity to be more silent. If you cannot be silent when there is storm and darkness, your silence is not true. It is only a question of looking at things in a right way. The storm is so beautiful, so fresh, is bringing you news of a constantly changing life. The old leaves are dropping, without making any fuss about it, to make way for the new leaves to come. The very dropping of the old leaves...if watchfully, consciously understood, you have understood the secret of relaxation. The dead leaf does not cling to the tree, neither the tree clings to the dead leaf; they depart peacefully, in silence. They loved, they lived, and it is now time to depart.

    As far as I am concerned, just as the storm has come again, I have come again. I was not going to come, it is the storm that persuaded me: "I am going again--you will be missed."

    Hundreds of letters just like Zareen's have come to me. And many more people must have been sad and with tears. But I have felt your sadness, your tears.

    I wanted you to know that I am not an old-style Zen master, but I also hit--in my own way, more sophisticated. I also destroy your clingings, your egos; I also destroy your taking me for granted, because one day suddenly I will be gone, just like the storm will be gone. Before I am gone, I would like you to blossom into the biggest roses possible.

    When I see you in silence, in peace--and also in laughter which comes out of silence and peace, not out of hysteria...Yesterday I had to leave because a few of you behaved so unconsciously that they needed to be made alert, that this is not a gathering where you can remain unconscious. The whole purpose here is to become more alert, more conscious. If the storm has come, nothing is wrong in it. You should have listened to it and its song, and you should have rejoiced in the falling leaves. You should have learned something of tremendous importance.

    But rather than learning anything a few of you behaved in a very stupid way. I had to hit you hard, knowing perfectly well that it will bring many tears to you and your hearts will be crying and weeping. But it can be of great value to understand that it is absolutely wrong to take my presence for granted. Then it becomes a routine, and you forget completely that one day I will be gone.

    Before I go I would like to see you all blossom in mystical roses, releasing your fragrance.

    Laughter is beautiful when it comes out of understanding, out of innocence. But when it is hysterical it is insane and stupid.

    I was not angry, I cannot be angry. I was simply sad to see that a few people are still here whom I continue to call my people, but they are not yet alert enough to be given that much dignity. There is no question of forgiving you, because I have not been angry. It is just that I have been feeling that perhaps my love has not reached a few people.

    I allow you more laughter than has ever been allowed; I have loved you as no master has ever loved his disciples. Gautam Buddha would not have loved you at all. Yes, he was compassionate, but being compassionate is not the same as loving. Compassion is dry, compassion is a distance; one is higher and one is very far down in the darkness.

    I am not compassionate to you; I authentically love you. My love is not dry; it is not in any way a feeling of superiority, of taking your dignity and reducing you to inferiority. I give you so much honor, as has never been given by any master to any disciple.

    Because to me, being a master or being a disciple is just a fiction. The difference is very small: whatever I am, I know; and whatever you are, you do not know. Only this much difference does not make somebody superior and somebody inferior. You are exactly the same universal soul which any Gautam Buddha or Zarathustra or Bodhidharma has

    experienced. It is within your reach any moment to enter into the ultimate, into the very roots of your being, and all differences between the disciple and the master disappear.

    The whole function of the master is very strange. He is destroying his mastership continuously, as he is making you more and more aware. The day you become fully aware--and I will be able to rejoice in seeing my garden full of roses--there will not be any difference between my heart and your heart. We are all part of one universal heartbeat. And in every possible way--even impossible way--I am trying to bring that synchronicity between you and the universal which is your real and original face.

    But if I see that you start taking me for granted, that I am speaking and you start laughing unnecessarily, at a wrong point, that means either I am in a wrong place or you are in a wrong place. What has happened yesterday, remember: it should not happen again. I am holding myself with difficulty together. I can disappear any moment. Then all your tears will not bring me back; then all your sadness will be of no use. Perhaps sooner or later you will forget it, as a beautiful dream that you had seen once.

    Very few will be able to continue on the journey without me, and to meet me finally in their self-realization. But those will be very few. You need me, because my garden is almost a nursery; you have just started growing. It is not the moment for me to retire and to relax into the universal.

    If yesterday's incident makes you more understanding and conscious, then it has been a blessing in disguise. Storms will be coming again and again, but you have to remember.

    I have been using laughter itself as a device to wake you up. Nobody in the whole history of man has used laughter as a device. Sometimes I wonder why it has not been used, because it is a well-known fact that in a dream you cannot laugh loudly. If in a dream you laugh loudly you will wake up. In a dream, mostly you never laugh. Laughter is too far away; even to smile in a dream is a very rare experience.

    But one thing you know: almost everybody once in a while has experienced nightmares. In a deep danger, perhaps falling into a bottomless abyss, or perhaps being approached by a ferocious lion--trembling, you wake up.

    My own experience says to me that if you can laugh rightly, in the right moment, it will bring you out of unconsciousness into the open sky, from the darkness to the light. I am introducing laughter as a meditation because nothing makes you so total as laughter; nothing makes you stop your thinking as laughter does. Just for a moment you are no more a mind. Just for a moment you are no more in time. Just for a moment you have entered into another space where you are total and whole and healed.

    For Zareen, I will give a few moments to laugh totally. They are for all of you. And I have chosen her question out of hundreds of others just as a representative, because they were all saying the same things but not with so much totality and with so much love and with so much heart....

    (Osho tells several jokes, while the rain has begun drumming insistently on the roof.)

    The storm has come back!

    Now laugh totally, whether the storm comes or not. It is coming....

    I have been told that you have been celebrating for almost one hour. I want everything to be celebrated--even tears, sadness, even the feeling that "I have done something wrong or at least participated in something that should not be done, or only remained silent, without interfering with the wrongdoer."

    Our way of asking for forgiveness can only be a celebration. I believe only in celebration. Whatever the excuse--somebody dies, it is not a time to celebrate, but I say to you, "Celebrate!" because death too is part of existence. And one should not reject existence, and one should not be afraid either.

    Committing mistakes, just as you committed yesterday, is simply human. By celebrating, it can be dropped. I don't want you be sad for anything or guilty for anything, because these are the things which all the religions have used to exploit humanity: making them guilty, making them sad, making them feel that they are unworthy.

    I don't want you to feel in any way unworthy. Even when you commit a mistake you are not committing a sin.

    Because you have been celebrating for one hour, I would like to have our prayer: two minutes of total silence, no movement, close your eyes...

    Now, let go.

    ...Come back to life.

    The storm is coming too. yaahoo21

    The revolutionary new Mystic Rose Meditation

    Out of this incident Osho introduces the new Mystic Rose Meditation as one of the greatest revolutions in meditation since his Dynamic Meditation.

    I have chosen Leela, one of my therapists, to create a new meditative therapy. The first part will be Yaa-Hoo!--for three hours, people simply laugh for no reason at all. And whenever their laughter starts dying they again say, "Yaa-Hoo!" and it will come back. Digging for three hours you will be surprised how many layers of dust have gathered upon your being. It will cut them like a sword, in one blow. For seven days continuously,

    three hours every day...you cannot conceive how much transformation can come to your being.

    And then the second part is "Yaa-Boo." The first part removes everything that hinders your laughter--all the inhibitions of past humanity, all the repressions. It cuts them away. It brings a new space within you, but still you have to go a few steps more to reach the temple of your being, because you have suppressed so much sadness, so much despair, so much anxiety, so many tears--they are all there, covering you and destroying your beauty, your grace, your joy.

    In old Mongolia they had an ancient idea that every life, whatever pain is suppressed...and pain is suppressed, because nobody wants it. You don't want to be painful so you suppress it, you avoid, you look somewhere else. But it remains.

    And the Mongolian idea was--and I agree with it--that life after life it goes on accumulating in you; it becomes almost a hard shell of pain. That's why all the saints and the sages have been telling you, shouting--"Go into yourself!" You listen to them, but you don't go. There is a reason why you don't go: you know that going in, you have to encounter pain; going in, you have to encounter misery, suffering, agony. It is better to remain outside--engaged, busy. Never be alone, because in your aloneness you may unconsciously start moving inwards. Being alone, having nothing else to do you may start looking inwards....

    If you go in you will find both, laughter and tears. That's why sometimes it happens that by laughing, suddenly you find tears also start coming together with it--very confusing, because ordinarily we think they are contrary. When you are full of tears it is not a time to laugh, or when you are laughing it is not the right season for tears. But existence does not believe in your concepts, ideologies; existence transcends all your concepts, which are dualistic, which are based on duality. Day and night, laughter and tears, pain and blissfulness, they both come together.

    When a man reaches into his innermost being he will find the first layer is of laughter and the second layer is of agony, tears.

    So for seven days you have to allow yourself to weep, cry, for no reason at all--just the tears are ready to come. You have been preventing them. Just don't prevent, and whenever you feel they are not coming, just say, "Yaa-Boo!"

    These are pure sounds, used as a technique to bring all your laughter and all your tears and clean you completely, so that you can become an innocent child.

    This is absolutely my meditation.

    Leela will be in charge of it and you will be surprised that no meditation can give you so much as this small strategy. This is my experience of many meditations, that what has to be done is to break two layers in you. Your laughter has been repressed; you have been

    told, "Don't laugh, it is a serious matter." You are not allowed to laugh in a church, or in a university class...

    So the first layer is of laughter, but once laughter is over you will suddenly find yourself flooded with tears, agony. But that too will be a great unburdening phenomenon. Many lives of pain and suffering will disappear. If you can get rid of these two layers you have found yourself.

    Maneesha, there is no meaning in the words, `Yaa-Hoo' or `Yaa-Boo'. These are simply techniques, sounds which can be used for a certain purpose to enter into your own being.

    And you may have felt it--when you shout, "Yaa-Hoo!" you may have felt a sudden breeze of freshness and joy.

    I don't want so many people to cry here; that's why I have not used the other part. That is to be used in special groups.

    I have invented many meditations, but perhaps this will be the most essential and fundamental one. It can take over the whole world. Already from every country news cuttings are coming to me--"What is this Yaa-Hoo!?" People are making up meanings of their own, but it has taken over around the world. Now the second thing is Yaa-Boo! And the whole process of Yaa-Hoo and Yaa-Boo, the couple, married...arranged marriage!

    Every society has done so much harm by preventing your joys and your tears. If an old man starts crying you will say, "What are you doing? You should feel ashamed; you are not a child, that somebody has taken your banana and you are crying. Have another banana, but don't cry."

    Just see--stand on the street and start crying and a crowd will gather to console you: "Don't cry! Whatever has happened forget all about it, it has happened." Nobody knows what has happened, nobody can help you, but everybody will try--"Don't cry!" And the reason is that if you go on crying, then they will start crying, because they are also flooded with...

    Those tears are very close to the eyes.

    And it is a healthy thing to cry, to weep, to laugh. Now scientists are discovering that crying, weeping, laughter, are immensely healthful; not only physically but also psychologically, they are very much capable of keeping you sane. The whole of humanity has gone a little cuckoo, for the simple reason that nobody laughs fully because all around there are people who will say, "What are you doing? Are you a child?--at this age? What will your children think? Keep quiet!"

    If you cry and weep without any reason, just as an exercise, a meditation...nobody will believe it. Tears have never been accepted as meditation. And I tell you, they are not only

    a meditation, they are a medicine also. You will have better eyesight and you will have better inner vision.

    I am giving you a very fundamental technique, fresh and unused. And it is going to become worldwide, without any doubt, because its effects will show anybody that the person has become younger, the person has become more loving, the person has become graceful. The person has become more flexible, less fanatic; the person has become more joyful, more a celebrant.

    All that this world needs is a good cleansing of the heart of all the inhibitions of the past. Laughter and tears can do both. Tears will take out all the agony that is hidden inside you and laughter will take all that is preventing your ecstasy. Once you have learned the art you will be immensely surprised: why has this not been told up to now? There is a reason: nobody has wanted humanity to have the freshness of a roseflower and the fragrance and the beauty.

    I have called this series of lectures The Mystic Rose. "Yaa-Hoo!" is the mantra to bring the mystic rose in your very center, to open your center and release your

    fragrance. yaahoo30

    Just today, Leela has sent a question to me: "People who are doing the Mystic Rose meditation in the third stage, the watcher on the hills--many start feeling tears coming for no reason at all. What has to be done about it?"

    Leela, nothing has to be done about it. This is simply beautiful. These tears are not of pain. These tears of people in silence are of gratitude. These are just flowers, they are pouring unto the feet of existence itself. Rejoice in their tears. Remember this saying of Saigyo--a great master--What it is, I know not; but with gratitude my tears fall. bolt07

    I am not a religious person in the sense of being a blind believer--I am just the opposite. But what is true is true, and cannot be denied. My own experience I cannot deny. I have never cared about myself; I have never thought about the tomorrow and never thought about the yesterday. I have simply lived moment to moment, day by day. yaahoo27

    Live Zen and drumbeat

    In April 1988, Osho begins a new series on Live Zen. In May, while commenting on Zen master Kasan, he asks percussionist Nivedano to beat the drum loudly for each stage of the let-go meditation at the end of discourse.

    Before I talk about the anecdote, I would like. Who is at the drum? Nivedano, beat the

    drum first.

    (Drumbeat)

    (Nivedano hits the drum hard.)

    You will have to do it again and again whenever I say....

    This anecdote about Kasan's beating the drum looks so simple from the outside, but from the inside it has tremendous meaning and is multidimensional.

    The first....

    You have to understand what a drum is. A drum is emptiness enclosed.

    Nivedano. (Drumbeat)

    There is nothing inside the drum. That is our actual state. We are just an outside cover, inside is emptiness. And just as the drum can speak out of emptiness, you are doing everything out of emptiness. This is one dimension of the meaning of Kasan's beating the drum.

    The other dimension is that whatever question is asked to him, he goes on saying in answer, "Beating the drum." It does not matter what question you are asking--there may be millions of questions but there is only one answer:

    Nivedano. (Drumbeat)

    ...and the answer cannot be verbalized. That's why Kasan used to keep a drum by his side. You ask him anything--it does not matter what you are asking, he will simply beat the drum. That was his answer....

    A monk asked, "What is true passing?" Kasan said, "Beating the drum." Nivedano. (Drumbeat)

    The monk asked again, "What is the true teaching of the Buddha?" Kasan said, "Beating the drum."

    Nivedano. (drumbeat)

    The monk asked once more, "I would not ask you about this very mind is the Buddha, but what is no mind, no Buddha?"

    Kasan said, "Beating the drum."

    Nivedano. (drumbeat)

    The monk still continued to ask: "When an enlightened one comes, how do you treat him?"

    Kasan said, "Beating the drum."

    Nivedano. (Drumbeat)

    This "beating the drum" of Kasan is a tremendous device. He says, "All your questions, howsoever great they look, howsoever profound and philosophical, they are all coming out of an emptiness within you." He is saying, "Just for a moment think of yourself as a drum."

    That was his meditation to his disciples. If you can conceive of yourself as emptiness enclosed by the body, you will have understood the absurd action of Kasan. It is not logical; in fact, a logical person will think this man is mad. And by the way, Nivedano is-

    -otherwise, why are you beating the drum? Nivedano. (Drumbeat)

    Good!...

    He is saying, "Kasan is simply concerned with the ultimate truth of your emptiness. Out of your emptiness all kinds of sounds, thoughts, imagination, dreams. but a good hit on

    your coconut. "

    Nivedano. (Drumbeat)

    Yeah, it hits well--many people seem to realize the emptiness!

    Even if nobody else becomes enlightened, Nivedano's drum is going to become enlightened. That is not a small matter....

    Nivedano. (Drumbeat)

    Have you got the feel of beating the drum?

    There is nothing inside, still. it makes so much noise. Just look within yourself. What is

    there? A heartbeat, breathing coming in and going out. and what else? When you are

    utterly silent you are pure emptiness. Emptiness breathing. emptiness full of the dance of

    the heartbeat.

    This is what is called going beyond, passing beyond--beyond knowledge, beyond ignorance--into the world of no knowing....

    Now, Nivedano, the last beat on the drum (Drumbeat)

    Now the drum should be allowed to rest. And specially for the drum, I am going to tell a few stories: livzen14

    Gibberish, and Meditation at the end of discourse

    For three weeks Osho is unable to come to discourse. When he returns on 26 May 1988, he introduces the final form of the meditation at the end of discourse: (1) few minutes gibberish; (2) silent sitting; (3) let-go, lying down; (4) sitting silently. This is followed by celebration.

    My Beloved Ones,

    I am introducing you to a new meditation. It is divided in three parts.

    The first part is gibberish. The word `gibberish' comes from a Sufi mystic, Jabbar. Jabbar never spoke any language, he just uttered nonsense. Still he had thousands of disciples because what he was saying was, "Your mind is nothing but gibberish. Put it aside and you will have a taste of your own being."

    To use gibberish, don't say things which are meaningful, don't use the language that you know. Use Chinese, if you don't know Chinese. Use Japanese if you don't know Japanese. Don't use German if you know German. For the first time have a freedom--the same as all the birds have. Simply allow whatever comes to your mind without bothering about its rationality, reasonability, meaning, significance--just the way the birds are doing.

    For the first part, leave language and mind aside. Out of this will arise the second part, a great silence in which you have to close your eyes and freeze your body, all its movements, gather your energy within yourself.

    Remain here and now.

    Zen cannot be understood in any other way. This is the last part of the series Live Zen.

    In the third part I will say, let go. Then you relax your body and let it fall without any effort, without your mind controlling. Just fall like a bag of rice.

    Each segment will begin with the drum of Nivedano. Before Nivedano gives the drum, there are a few more things I have to say to you....

    I am extremely sorry that I have not been physically here for many days, but I am also extremely happy that you never missed my presence.

    I was in your heart

    and I was in the wind and in the rain and the thunder of clouds.

    I was in your tears,

    in your nonsense utterances....

    I was absolutely present here with you-- and those who are present know it perfectly.

    I was absent only for those who themselves are absent. At least today, don't go anywhere. Nivedano, give the first drum (Drumbeat)

    (Gibberish)

    (Everyone bursts into a sea of sound, volume and tempo clashing and crashing in one great crescendo--a tidal wave of mind.)

    (Osho motions to Nivedano for the second drumbeat, and an instantaneous silence falls over the whole of Buddha Hall.)

    (Drumbeat)

    Now the third drum Relax. (Drumbeat)

    The fourth drum Come back! (Drumbeat)

    This begins and ends the series called Live Zen.

    What I could say, I have said to you.

    What I could not say, I have given to you. livzen17

    Now, Nivedano...

    Remember, the first step of the meditation is gibberish. And gibberish simply means throwing out your craziness, which is already there in the mind, piled up for centuries. As

    you throw it out you will find yourself becoming light, becoming more alive, just within two minutes.

    You will be surprised that when Nivedano gives his second beat, to enter into silence, you enter into silence as deeply as you have never done before. Just those two minutes have cleaned the way.

    In fact in those two minutes, if you put your total energy...the more you put into it, the deeper will be the following silence. So don't be partial, don't be middle-class. Just be a first-rate crazy man!

    About women there is no question, they beat every man every day. Nivedano... cuckoo12

    The following evening at the end of discourse, Osho experiments with a variation of the Mystic Rose meditation: laughing, crying, sitting silently, lying down. This is the only occasion he leads this technique. After this, he retains the gibberish technique.

    Osho also creates the new No-Mind Meditation Group: 1 hour of gibberish, followed by 1 hour of silent sitting, daily for one week.

    Osho gives detailed instructions for further meditation groups: Born Again, and Reminding Yourself of The Forgotten Language of Talking to Your Mind and Body. All his meditation groups continue to be popular programs in the Meditation Academy.

    Discourses on Zen

    From May 1988, on all discourses are on Zen. Osho comments on anecdotes about Zen masters.

    Zen is special in many ways from other traditions of the mystics. But one thing that stands out, very unique, is these strange, small dialogues: just reading them you cannot see how those small dialogues can bring enlightenment to someone.

    Secondly, Zen itself gives no explanations. That is one of the reasons a living tradition of enlightenment has not overtaken the whole world. I would like you to understand these small dialogues which apparently mean nothing, but in a certain circumstance, produced by other Zen methods, can bring awakening. The dialogues are remembered down the centuries; and the people on the path of Zen enjoy them immensely. But for outsiders they remain an anathema, because the context is never told; in what reference the awakening happened is never discussed.

    Behind these small dialogues there is a long discipline of meditation, understanding-- maybe years and years of work. But only the dialogue is known to the outside world. You don't know the men who are discussing with each other; they are not ordinary people.

    The awakening is possible only if they have a background which can make the small piece of dialogue--which in itself is nothing--of tremendous importance.

    But when you read them, you cannot believe how these dialogues can make somebody enlightened--because you are reading them and you are not becoming enlightened!

    Something is missing in your perspective.

    My effort will be to give you the whole context, and to explain not only the words of the dialogue but also the individuals who are engaged in these small dialogues. Only then will you see that they are not small things, they are the very optimum. Those people have reached to the last point; these dialogues are just a little push. They were almost ready...it can be said that even without these dialogues they were going to become enlightened, maybe a week later. These dialogues have cut not more than one week from their being enlightened.

    Now that Zen has become fashionable all around the world there is so much written about it. But nobody I have come across up to now...and I have seen almost everything that has been written about Zen by people who don't have any enlightenment, but who are impressed by the beauty of the people who have been following Zen. They have picked up things which make no sense, are almost nonsense, and they don't have the capacity to give you the background.

    Remember, everything depends on the background: long years of preparation are there, long years of waiting, longing, long years of silent patience, meditating. This dialogue comes at the apex, at the very end. If you can understand the whole process, then it will be explained to you how the dialogue can bring enlightenment to someone.

    Without knowing the whole process, Zen will remain just entertainment to the world. What is enlightenment to Zen people falls down to a state of entertainment. These dialogues are not the whole process. It is just like an iceberg: a small piece is showing above the sea--one-tenth of the whole iceberg--and nine-tenths is underneath. Unless you understand that nine tenths, this one tenth will not give you any insight....

    Zen believes in the very essentials. It has no nonsense around it, no rituals, in which all other religions have got lost, no chanting, no mantras, no scriptures--just small anecdotes. If you have the right awareness, they will hit you directly in the heart. It is a very condensed and crystallized teaching, but it needs the person to be prepared for it. And the only preparation is meditative awareness. tahui25

    These small anecdotes are small only in size; in depth, no ocean can compete with them. It is a miracle that in such small dialogues, the greatest of experiences, which are inexpressible, are expressed. cuckoo11

    I hope these anecdotes will take away all the nonsense that modern times have forced upon you and will give you a taste of eternity. quant12

    I am interested in Zen only because Zen is pure meditation. The very word `Zen' means meditation. It has nothing else, it requires no rituals. Just as you are, the only requirement is to go in and discover your eternal self.

    That eternal self is pure ecstasy. You can sing and you can dance and your singing and your dancing, if they are coming from your innermost core, become your only prayers. They are the only authentic prayers; all others are composed by man, and a prayer composed by man is of no value.

    A prayer that arises within you, like a flame...and that is what happens in deep meditation. Suddenly you start experiencing a new warmth and a new flame, a new joy that you have never experienced before. It has been dormant, it has been repressed continuously, for millions of years. It has gone so deep that you will have to go that deep to find it.

    That's why I go on insisting: go on, deeper and deeper, and go on throwing the garbage that the past has left in you.

    These small anecdotes are all concerned with meditation in different ways. cuckoo15

    These anecdotes belong to another dimension which the world has completely forgotten. It is a totally different language, a different understanding, a different kind of opening of the mysteries of existence. In these simple anecdotes you will see the world that we have lost, and the world that we want to create again. This is the man who has reached to the ultimate peaks of consciousness at a time far away in the past, and this is the man who is needed again so that this whole stupidity of the world--its politicians, its priests--can all be dissolved and the world can again dance with joy and rejoice in love.

    I am fortunate to have the right assembly; otherwise these anecdotes will not be of any meaning--because you are also searching for the same door, you are all one in this search, dissolved into a deep silence. Only this silence can understand, because out of this silence these anecdotes have arisen--this silence is their source. The clouds are the witness; the bamboos are the witness; you in your silence are the witnesses. These are your stories. So don't think that you are reading some fiction. It is simply a hint to show you the way into your own being.

    A man is utterly useless, his life has no meaning, his love is futile, if he himself is not aware who is residing in. Of course, the body is not you, nor the mind; there is something else which is witnessing both the mind and the body. To provoke that witness is the whole art of any master, and these anecdotes are about great masters. bolt08

    I call Zen the only living religion because it is not a religion, but only a religiousness. It has no dogma, it does not depend on any founder. It has no past; in fact it has nothing to teach you. It is the strangest thing that has happened in the whole history of mankind-- strangest because it enjoys in emptiness, it blossoms in nothingness. It is fulfilled in

    innocence, in not knowing. It does not discriminate between the mundane and the sacred. For it, all that is, is sacred.

    Life is sacred whatever form, whatever shape.

    Wherever there is something living and alive it is sacred. livzen01

    Zen comes closer to science than any other religion for the simple reason that it does not require any faith. It requires of you only an intense inquiry into yourself, a deepening of consciousness, not concentration--a settling, a relaxing of consciousness, so that you can find your own source. That very source is the source of the whole existence. orig06

    Zen is the very principle of existence. Whether there is anyone who teaches it or not, whether there is anyone who learns it or not, it is there. Zen is the very heartbeat of existence. It is not dependent on any teaching, not dependent on any masters, not dependent on disciples. Masters come and go, disciples come and disappear; Zen remains. Just as it is. It is always just as it is.

    I have made my comment....

    I know Zen--not from any scripture. I do not belong to the tradition of Zen; I belong to these clouds. I belong to existence on my own accord. I have found Zen--not through the scriptures. That's why I can say, even in Japan there are only teachers and followers, no Zen. I am almost a stranger to the tradition; but I have found Zen on my own accord. It is my discovery, it is not an inheritance from the tradition, an inheritance from Mahakashyapa, Bodhidharma, Obaku. I don't have anything from these people--I don't owe anything to anybody....

    I am not a man who follows anybody; I am nobody's disciple. I have tasted existence and I have declared that I have known it. Anything that goes against my experience is

    wrong. livzen05

    These evenings have been very special and those who are present are very fortunate. The silences, the laughter, my eyes and your eyes meeting, my hands being understood. and

    we have created a golden age which has disappeared from the world. We have brought back the times of Mahakashyapa, Bodhidharma. This assembly would have made any

    enlightened person rejoice.

    It is true that when communication happens, the communicators disappear--you can feel it immediately. Here you are as if one consciousness, undivided. In your silence you are one, in your laughter you are one. This oneness is the door to the ultimate awakening of your consciousness.

    We have been one in silence, let us also be one in our laughter. To me a silence that cannot laugh is dead and a laughter that has no silence in it is superficial. When silence and laughter meet they create a dance, and our effort here is to join in this cosmic dance.

    Just relax into the whole...

    Don't keep yourself as a spectator. Don't remain separate. livzen06

    Master Shui Lao asked Ma Tzu. Ma Tzu is one of the strangest masters in the assembly

    of strange masters of Zen. Shui Lao is asking a simple question: "Why did Bodhidharma come to China? What special transmission was there that he had to deliver?" Ma Tzu then knocked him down with a kick to the chest: Shui Lao was greatly enlightened.

    Now incidents like this make intellectuals confused. What has happened? Ma Tzu has shown him that Bodhidharma has come to kill your ego, to release you from the fear of death. He kicked him in the chest, knocked him down. It was so strange and so sudden, it was not expected. He had asked a simple routine question; any intellectual could have explained why Bodhidharma had come to China--to spread Buddhism, to spread the message of the great master.

    But nobody could have thought that Ma Tzu would do this to the poor questioner and it was so sudden and so unpredictable. But it is only sudden and unpredictable to us; Ma

    Tzu could have seen the ripeness of the man, the maturity. that he needs just a small

    push, that this moment should not be missed. His kicking him on the chest and knocking him down may have completely stopped the functioning of his mind, because it was so unexpected and so strange. In that stopping of the mind is the release. Suddenly the goose is out! Shui Lao became enlightened.

    _He got up, clapping his hands and laughing loudly, and said, "How extraordinary! How wonderful! Instantly, on the tip of a hair, I have understood the root source of myriad states of concentration, and countless subtle meanings." Then he bowed--_in deep respect-

    -and withdrew. Afterwards, he would tell the assembly--he became himself a great master--"From the time I took Ma Tzu's kick, up until now, I have not stopped laughing. How can one stop laughing? This great affair is so ridiculous!...

    Naturally, people who have not been accustomed to the tradition of Zen will be shocked by such behavior. If I suddenly knock Maneesha here and now, although she is not yet ripe--but if I knock, will you understand? You will think, "This man has gone mad." You will think, "We already knew that he was mad; now he has crossed all the boundaries." And from tomorrow, those who sit in front will remain alert: at any moment...

    And this is going to happen, because I am not going to leave this world unless I make more people enlightened than Gautam Buddha. I am watching who is growing wings, who is becoming ready to be knocked--so don't be surprised. And when somebody gets knocked, rejoice in the happening! The man has become enlightened.

    But people who are not in a deep resonance with Zen will not be able to understand it-- Hindus or Mohammedans or Christians or Jews--because there is nothing like that in their whole history. Their whole history is more or less just intellectual gymnastics.

    Zen is absolutely existential. The master is there not only to teach you certain doctrines; he has to release you from the prison that you yourself have made. Whatever arbitrary, expedient methods are needed, he is not going to be worried about what people will think of them; he will use them.

    There have never been more compassionate beings than Zen masters....

    Get ready and be prepared. It is a totally different world from the days of Ma Tzu, but I would like to make that beautiful time and those beautiful incidents contemporary again. But it all depends on you. If you are gradually dropping all your garbage, becoming more alert, not forgetting for a single moment--walking, sitting, working, lying down, a constant undercurrent of remembrance--then the day is not far away when I will start knocking people down. There is no necessity to actually knock somebody down, because between me and Ma Tzu much time has passed, and I have got more refined methods! He is, in a way,primitive.

    I do my own kind of kicking and knocking, so don't wait for me to actually hit you on your chest. There is no need...I have developed more subtle methods--but you have to be ready anyway. tahui31

    Osho teases Niskriya Stonehead

    Osho teases cameraman Niskriya, who has shaved his head. Osho calls him Stonehead, after the zen master Sekito Stonehead, and asks him to bring a Zen stick to discourse

    I am so lazy that I cannot even hit my own head, let alone anybody else's. I am keeping for that purpose Zen Master Sekito--Stonehead.

    (The Master addresses Niskriya.) Where is your staff?

    (Niskriya picks up his staff and shows it to the Master)

    Yes, that's good, because any moment it may be needed. And I have chosen a German Zen master. because Japanese Zen masters will hit, but their hit will be just like a

    peacock feather. A real hit only a German knows. dogen08

    Our minds say that spiritual growth is very difficult. Our religions make it as difficult as possible. According to them it takes many, many lives to reach to your own self--how

    ridiculous, how stupid! If I am to reach to myself...in fact I will tell Zen Master Niskriya to give a good Yaa-Hoo hit to Joshu.

    Niskriya...

    (Niskriya is dressed up as a zen monk. It fits him very well!. He is hesitant, what to do.)

    Give it without any fear. (Niskriya gets up.) Where is your staff?

    (He produces a long wooden staff, to everybody's astonishment.)

    Right! Have the staff. Good. Whom do you think to hit?

    (Niskriya hits with the staff on his own head! Osho laughs and signals to him to sit down again.)

    Good.

    The real way is not difficult, because there is no way. You are already where you have always been and will always be. livzen02

    This. This. A Thousand Times This

    On 27 May 1988, Osho begins a new series of discourses entitled: This. This. A Thousand Times This

    Before I start a new series of talks on Zen--called _This. This. A Thousand Times This--_I want to devote today to preparation for the coming Zen anecdotes...absurd yet profound, without any rationality but still as truthful as language allows. this01

    _This. This. A Thousand Times This..._is the essence of existence, is the essence of your being, is the essence of Zen--This.

    This is vast: a small word, it contains total, universal, eternal truth. There are no boundaries to this.

    It never begins and it never ends. It is always here.

    You can wander here and there, but it is just like a fish moving in the ocean; it is the same ocean wherever it goes. You can be a child, you can be young, you can be old, you can be dead, but this remains an eternal truth of your being. Alive or dead, you cannot get rid of this.

    This essential point is being discussed again and again by Zen masters. In different ways they have sung their song, in different ways they have signed their signatures; but only the ways differ, all their arrows converge on this. We will see how it has been repeated and why it has been repeated--why for thousands of years those who have known, either said this, or remained silent in thisness. But whatever the case, whether they say it or not, they are pointing to this by words, by silence, by dance, by music, by just being....

    And a very small minority, one in a million, stops running, just remains standing here and now, drops all desires, asks for nothing and suddenly he finds everything within himself.

    This is the door of the kingdom of God....

    This is the only poetry, the only song, the only dance, the only answer, here, now, in your very breathing, in your very heartbeat....

    And if you can understand this, nothing else is needed--you have come home. You have been long going astray, you have wandered through lives in many forms on many paths; this brings you suddenly back to your essential self. And your essential self is the universal self. There is no distinction between the individual and the universal. Once the dewdrop falls into the ocean, all distinctions disappear, the dewdrop becomes the ocean....

    Every master worth the name lives only for those who can understand this. There is no other reason for an enlightened man to live--even for a single moment more. He has arrived home, but he can see many of his fellow travelers are still wandering in darkness. It will be very unkind not to give them a call.

    All the masters are nothing but calls to those who are wandering unnecessarily and suffering unnecessarily. This! and you suddenly open your innermost lotus. this15

    After a long profound silence, Osho comments:

    This is what Zen is all about: just a simple awareness.

    A flame, unwavering, a sword that cuts deep to the very core of your being. Remember, Zen is not a word but only a shadow of an experience.

    You are the reality.

    Everything else is just non-essential commentary. this13

    Zen has become my most beloved for the simple reason that it does not create any theology. It does not bother about God. Because God is always that, God is always there. And the real concern is this, not that. Here, not there. Now, not then. this02

    A furious monsoon rainstorm erupts and the power briefly goes out, plunging the whole assembly into an abrupt and silent darkness. When the power returns, Osho waits a few moments before beginning again.

    Do you hear the rain?

    If you can hear it intensely, totally, this moment can become your enlightenment.

    It is not a question to be discussed, it is an inquiry into your own inner space. It is stopping the mind from its wavering thoughts and coming to a stillness within you where nothing moves. this13

    I have always wanted to bring Seppo to you because he is one of the most precious buddhas who has walked on the earth.

    He was unique in his own way; in his teaching, words were not important but only thisness, the utter silence of existence. The chattering of the birds are the only holy scriptures in the world. And the commentaries of the bamboos are really honest, sincere and to the point.

    Seppo would have loved this assembly, this moment of silent waiting. He was not as fortunate as I am. He had very few disciples but that is very unjust of existence. Seppo should have had the whole world as his disciples because what he is giving is the ultimate essence.

    (The chirping of birds runs through the silence of Buddha Hall.)

    This was Seppo.

    They have all gathered here. this02

    Nansen was one of the greats. I count him with Gautam Buddha, Mahakashyap, Bodhidharma, Joshu, Hyakujo. There have been thousands of masters, but Nansen will still stand out with his own beauty, uniqueness. He became so well known to the people that the very mountain where he had a small cottage is now called Mount Nansen. this03

    By the way, just a few days ago I received an invitation from the Soto sect, founded by Tozan. They were celebrating a thousand-year-old tradition on a great scale. And the

    chief of Soto Zen must have read my books. He must also have heard the story that I have accepted that I am the fulfillment of Gautam Buddha's promise that he will be coming after twenty-five centuries and his name will be `friendliness'--Maitreya.

    The representative of Tozan and his sect--there are only two sects of Zen, Soto is the more ancient...And you will be happy to note that the chief of Soto Zen has recognized that I have the consciousness and awareness, that I have fulfilled the promise. He asked if I could come to their ceremony, and if I cannot come, I should at least send my robe--that is an old tradition in Zen.

    I have sent one of my robes--with my message--to their ceremony. In the ceremony almost a million people are participating, and more than two hundred fifty government officials are deputed by the government of Japan to be present in the ceremony.

    I have told my sannyasins there to go with my robe, my note and message. The chief of the sect presented my robe and my message to the whole gathering with deep love and devotion. He has informed me that he will be coming here soon to visit me and to see my people.

    In fact this is the only alive Zen assembly. In those one million people and two hundred fifty government representatives, not a single person knows exactly the space that you are feeling every day....

    Because the words--Buddha or Bodhidharma or Nansen or Baso--are just names of the forms. They all represent the same space; and whenever there are people who are ready to receive, they suddenly descend there.

    I have received many letters saying that in the meditations a strange feeling happens--as if something is descending, a deep silence from beyond, heavy, almost tangible. In that silence Baso is present, Buddha is present. When you are absent all the awakened ones are present to you. Then this assembly becomes an eternal phenomenon.

    We have been here always and always. Once in a while you forget who you are, but it is immaterial: Sooner or later you recognize again, sooner or later you again see your crystal clear being.

    Neither time matters, nor space, you are the one who never comes and never goes, the one who simply is.

    THIS! this04

    Just a few days ago a man from Japan who is translating one of my books on the Dhammapada--Gautam Buddha's greatest scripture, "the path of religiousness"--wrote to me, "I was surprised: you don't know Japanese, you don't know Pali, you don't know Sanskrit. And in your talks on the Dhammapada, in many places you have changed words which have been put there by the Christian missionaries." He was simply amazed because

    he looked in the Japanese translations and he found that I was right every time. He could not believe how a man who does not understand Japanese can say that instead of `faith', there should be the word `trust'.

    I can understand his difficulty, but it is not a difficult matter for me. I am not a commentator. When I speak on anyone, I have no commitment except to my own understanding, to my own illumination. And when I say that something is changed in a wrong way, translated wrongly, it does not mean I understand the Japanese or Chinese from which the translation has been done. It simply means that I know the very heart of Gautam Buddha. I know the emptiness of that heart, it is my own experience. No master who has touched the emptiness of the heart can talk in terms of faith. Faith is only for the blind....

    But I can understand the poor translator's difficulty. He is doing his best, but his conditionings pop up here and there, unintentionally.

    I don't blame these translators, but they have created a difficulty for the West. Just reading them, the Western mind will not be able to understand exactly where they have translated wrongly. I can see where they are wrong. And I can indicate to you that when you see, you see; when you know, you know--no belief, no faith. Those are words belonging to the world of the blind. We are entering into the world of the

    buddhas. empti03

    Silence, bamboos, cuckoos

    Buddha Hall is surrounded by tall trees and stands of giant bamboo, which sigh and creak in the monsoon thunderstorms. Osho comments on the silences, and the sounds of bamboos and birdsong

    Listen to the bamboos. They are giving their support to my statement. Listen to your hearts and you will find all the buddhas together, silently dancing without making any noise.

    Before you enter into your living flame, the bamboos are asking for some laughter. They cannot laugh, but they can hear. They can give commentaries. This series is dedicated to these bamboos. this09

    A real master will simply sit silently, listening to the wind coming from the mountains, listening to these bamboos chitchatting amongst themselves....

    Listen to the bamboos....

    (Osho waits for the bamboos, but at this moment they sing very quietly.)

    These bamboos are mischievous fellows! When you are ready to listen to them, they become silent. And when nobody is listening they are telling great truths.

    (The bamboos answer--very loudly!)

    Perfectly good!...

    Now something particularly for the bamboos; a few of them are bananas...(jokes follow) livzen08

    I hear the gossip has spread in the garden--the bamboos have told the birds--that you dedicated one of these zen discourse series to the bamboos. Is that why the birds were singing so fervently last night?

    I have heard them. That's why I am dedicating this series to the birds. I knew that they were feeling neglected: the bamboos were standing proudly in the sky and the poor birds were thinking, "Nothing is being said about us, and we are singing here and nobody is being even thankful to us."

    I am thankful to the birds. This series will be known in Basho's words--Zen: The Solitary Birds, Cuckoo of the Forest.

    Zen is very pagan; it trusts in nature, not in nurture. It trusts in the original, not in the carbon copy. It wants you to make your statement, but don't repeat the scriptures; they take away your dignity as man.

    Find your own signature.

    This is our whole search--finding your own signature.

    Before we enter into our daily meditation...now I have to mention also the birds. They are silent, being happy and proud. Soon the clouds will start asking! Before they ask...the coming series will be devoted to them.

    To the birds and to the bamboos and to the clouds, a few laughs, because they cannot understand our language but they can understand our laughter. cuckoo01

    In Zen, a saint means one who can listen, who can listen to the profound silence of existence. It has nothing to do with virtue, with doing good things. It has something to do with your being conscious, alert, aware...waking up, and suddenly you see the bamboos are saying the same truth that the buddhas have said. The birds are singing from the same life source that you are breathing from. It is one cosmic mystery, in which we all share....

    (In the pause, a cuckoo sings her evening song.)

    The cuckoo has just spoken it. Do you hear it?

    (And the cuckoo repeats her song.)

    It is the same life source, without any discontinuity...the heart of the cuckoo and her song is also your being. You don't hear it, you simply become it. You forget the distance between the singer and the listener, you simply become the song. In this silence, this cuckoo is doing her job, knowing perfectly well that these lectures are dedicated to the solitary cuckoo, deep in the forest....

    In the silences of the heart, there is a meeting between the master and the disciple. Both know that something has moved, some energy has been transferred, transmitted.

    The flame that was asleep in the disciple is asleep no more; it has jumped into aliveness and consciousness.

    This is the transmission of the lamp. But you can do it only if you have it. A strange situation is needed: the master has to have it and the disciple has to be ready to receive it.

    Nothing is said, nothing is heard and the dialogue is over. cuckoo07

    Listen carefully....

    The cuckoos are absolutely free to sing their song or not. Listen carefully to the birds, because these sounds are coming from the very center of existence. It is life singing, dancing, rejoicing. cuckoo08

    Is it not so, that we are literally "lost in thought" and found again in meditation?

    Ordinarily what you are saying is absolutely right. In thought, you are lost, in meditation you are found. But if you want to listen to the answer in Zen language, there is no losing and no finding.

    There is simply silence. You are not.

    These songs of cuckoos pass through you just as through a hollow bamboo.

    In thoughts, you start imagining that you are. When thoughts are not there, don't start imagining that now you are REALLY. Once thoughts are gone, you are also simply a thought; you are also gone. Then what remains is only a pure consciousness, without any "I" attached to it.

    You don't find yourself, you simply lose yourself, both the ways: either you lose yourself in thoughts or you lose yourself in no-thought. But losing yourself in thought is very ordinary; losing yourself in no-thought has a splendor and an eternity of joy and bliss.

    You are not there, but there is a dance of pure consciousness. It is not your dance--you

    are gone with your thoughts. You were nothing but the combination of your thoughts. As one by one your thoughts disappear, part by part you melt away. Finally, you are no more.

    And this is the moment--when you are no more--that the ultimate is in your hands. It is a strange situation:

    When you are, your hands are empty. When you are not, your hands are full.

    When you are, you are simply misery, anguish. When you are not, there is bliss. You cannot say, "I am blissful"; there is only bliss.

    There is only silence.

    There is only truth.

    The cuckoos have become silent, waiting for a few laughs from you. Remember, laughter is one of the ways in which you can disappear. Only laughter remains....

    The cuckoo has started again, calling forth. cuckoo11

    Once a monk asked Joshu, "What is the word of the ancients?" Joshu said, "Listen carefully! Listen carefully!"

    In this silence, listen carefully.

    It is an actual experimentation, it is not a sermon or a preaching. Listen carefully.

    You will not find any word but you will find a wordless silence, drowning you in immense joy.

    Joshu's answer is one of the great answers:

    Listen carefully!

    Just be silent and the whole existence opens its doors. cuckoo08

    "My religion has no words and sentences. It has nothing to give anybody."

    In that silence, he suddenly became awake.

    In this silence, anyone can become awake....

    This whole silence says more than any scripture can say. cuckoo08

    Sit still and all three worlds disappear. In this moment, listening to the cuckoo, all has disappeared. There is only a deep silence, in, deepening within your being. cuckoo11

    The bamboos are very silent, waiting to have a few laughs. Poor bamboos, they cannot laugh with you. But trust me: they hear your laughter, they feel the touch of your silence. They are with you, part of the assembly. cuckoo08

    Only in this silence have buddhas blossomed. Every day you have some feel of it. One day, suddenly, this feel will become your very breathing, the very beating of your heart. I declare this assembly to be the most blessed on the earth at this moment. Everywhere, there is the clicking of teeth. This small assembly of seekers is moving in a totally different dimension to the mind. It is moving in the dimension of no thought, no feeling, no emotion--just pure nothingness.

    Once you have attained to pure nothingness you have found the dance of the universal, of the eternal. You have found the meaning of life. There is no other way to find the significance and the fragrance of your own being.

    Before we enter into our silence, into the very essence of Zen, the bamboos are silent, waiting for a few laughs from you. Shunyo informed me yesterday that, since these meditations, since this silence and this laughter have begun, the bamboos have grown so much and new sprouts have come.

    Just for these bamboos, particularly for the new ones. quant13

    Before we enter into today's meditation. the bamboos are very silent and waiting for your

    laughter. My gardeners have informed me that they have never seen bamboos growing so fast. Particularly as the evening arrives they all start jumping up. They are participants, they meditate with you. They cannot say anything, but saying does not matter. They understand your laughter certainly. dogen04

    Poona has never known such rains as it has known this year. What is the reason? When ten thousand people sit silently, the clouds come by themselves. You just be silent, and everything comes simultaneously to you--and in abundance! Nature is absolutely ready to give up all its treasures to the empty heart. empti04

    Haikus

    For many years, Osho has commented on haikus, small poems from Japan. Now he illustrates his discourses with poetry

    A haiku is a special form of poetry which exists only in Japan. It has very few words but it tells much. Its beauty is that it is a condensed philosophy. And what cannot be said in prose, can sometimes be said in poetry.

    Both plains and mountains have been Captured by the snow--

    There is nothing left.

    He is describing his own being. Everything has been taken away. Even he has disappeared into the vastness of the universe; nothing is left behind. Just as a dewdrop disappears into the ocean, a man of enlightenment disappears into the universal consciousness. Nothing is left behind. matzu10

    These haikus are, as I have said to you, paintings in words. hyaku02

    Haikus don't belong to time. No objective art belongs to time; it is forever, because it comes from beyond the mind, from eternity itself. That's why you feel as if these haikus are written for you. These incidents have happened for you. This will be forever so; as long as man goes on searching for inner truth these haikus will remain contemporary, these anecdotes will not become out-of-date. nansen09

    These are not ordinary poems. These are statements of something that cannot be said but still has to be said. You can sing it but you cannot say it, you can dance it but you cannot say it. It is in my gesture but it is not in my word. You can see it but I cannot show it to you. cuckoo04

    Temple bells die out.

    The fragrant blossoms remain-- a perfect evening!

    Basho writes with such a golden touch.

    You can see it exactly! You can hear the bell ringing and dying into deep silence. You can see the blossoms still remain, and the fragrance.

    The silence deepens, the fragrance deepens...a perfect evening.

    Haikus are, as I have told you, word pictures. Without painting, just through words, the haiku paints a picture, a very living picture. With paints the picture is dead. The poet's great art consists in painting a picture that will remain alive forever. 1seed03

    Kido wrote:

    This cold night bamboos stir; Their sound--now harsh, now soft--

    Sweeps through the lattice window. Though ear is no match for mind, What need, by lamplight,

    Of a single scripture leaf?

    The moonlit night and the silence...there is no need of any scripture. You are the only scripture.

    Just learn to read yourself. cuckoo08

    Another poem runs:

    In the utter silence Of a temple,

    A cuckoo's voice alone Penetrates the rocks.

    These are great statements. Just feel for a moment...because these poems are written not to be understood by the mind, but to be felt by the heart like a cool breeze.

    _In the utter silence--_and that silence is here--Of a temple, A cuckoo's voice alone Penetrates the rocks.

    In this silence you discover your truth, your beauty. cuckoo13

    The cuckoo:

    Its voice alone fell, Leaving nothing behind.

    When every day in meditation you throw away all your garbage, what is left behind is pure silence. cuckoo15

    Meditation at the end of discourse

    The gibberish, silent sitting, and let-go meditation at the end of discourse becomes longer. Osho draws attention to the experience itself

    Nivedano... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish)

    Nivedano... (Drumbeat) Be silent.

    Let your body be completely frozen.

    Close your eyes, and look inwards with as much urgency and totality as possible. Deeper and deeper...you are entering the space we call the buddha.

    This beautiful evening can become a great radical change in your life, if you are courageous enough to go on, just like an arrow, to the very center of your being.

    You are just a witness, an empty mirror.

    To make it more clear, Nivedano... (Drumbeat) Relax.

    Watch--the body is not you, the mind is not you. Only the watching, only the witnessing is you. This witnessing is your eternity.

    With this witnessing comes all the ecstasies, all the blessings that existence can offer to you.

    The deeper you are, the more watchful you are--the more silent, the more peaceful. It is a great event.

    Every evening you go a little deeper into your buddhahood.

    Look around this empty space within you; you have to remember it, twenty-four hours, when you come back from the inner journey.

    Nivedano... (Drumbeat)

    Come back, but come back as buddhas--peaceful, silent, graceful, with a beatitude.

    Sit down for a few moments just as mirrors; remembering your inner world, collecting the experience so that it can become an undercurrent in your daily life.

    I don't want anybody to escape from life; I want everybody to make life richer, more blissful, more ecstatic.

    I am all for life, because to me life is the only God. The buddha is another name for life.

    Okay, Maneesha?

    Yes, Beloved Master.

    Can we celebrate the ten thousand buddhas? Yes, Beloved Master. matzu01

    The evening was beautiful on its own, but your presence, your silence, your witnessing, your melting into each other...This Buddha Auditorium is no more filled with ten thousand people. It has become just a lake of consciousness.

    Losing the boundaries is the greatest joy; melting into the universe is the greatest splendor.

    Before I call you back, have a good look at this space where you are, because you have to visit this space again and again.

    Take a good look at the path you have followed to reach to your center from the circumference. The same path, you will be traveling again coming back. It is a small path, just one step. But what a miracle in a single step! The ordinary becomes extraordinary, the nobody becomes a buddha.

    Nivedano...

    Come back, but come back as buddhas without any fear and without any doubt. The buddha is your essential self. Sit down silently for a few moments just to recollect the experience you have gone through. And live it out in your gestures, in your activities, in your words, in your silences. nansen05

    Before Nivedano calls you back, look at the space you have reached, look at the path that you have traveled. This path will be traveled again and again, back and forth till your buddhahood grows from the center to the circumference. At the center it is a seed, at the circumference it will become a full-fledged buddha. nansen07

    I have been using the word `arrow' purposely so that you can understand that going into yourself is not a morning walk--that you can return from anywhere. It is not something that you can do in parts; you have to do it one day in a single quantum leap. Whenever you decide, then don't look back, just go ahead.

    Certainly it needs guts and courage because you are moving in a dark and unknown space. You don't have with you even a lamp--no companion, you don't have any map. And meditation demands that you go with the speed of light, so fast that the journey of thousands of lives is completed in a single moment. exist02

    But my effort here is exactly that you should go inside. And there is no need to be afraid. You will meet no one else but yourself. And the sooner you do it the better, because nobody knows about tomorrow. At least know yourself in authenticity. nansen08

    You don't know your center...and I go on insisting, "Go to the center." And I know perfectly well that you don't know your center. So where will you go? But I know that wherever you go, just go--if you go with your full energy, then you are going to end up at the very source of your being. This is such a valid experience of thousands of mystics that there is no anxiety about it.

    I have not told you where the center is. I know only one thing, that if you go inwards with your totality and urgency, you will reach it. Nobody has ever missed. The moment you are total and there is urgency the center pulls you--the center itself pulls you towards itself. You don't go, you are being pulled.

    It is just that you have to be together. That togetherness is the problem. People are so fragmentary that even when I say totality, urgency, you think perhaps it is for somebody else--"I am not going to die this moment." But that somebody else may be you! Some moment you are going to die--why not this moment? Who knows?

    And in the moment of death, if you have not been going and coming, in and out, and you have not made the path clean from the circumference to the center, you will not be able to in the moment of death. It has to be done when you are alive, so fully alive that you can gather all your energy and go towards the center. Totality and urgency are the absolute prerequisites. If you go in a lousy way, just with a curiosity in the mind--"Let us see, what is in?"--you will not enter in.

    A curious mind has no way inwards. To reach your center a tremendous intensity is needed. You have to gather yourself, all that you have, into a single spearhead. Then don't be worried: go with speed, and wherever you reach will be the center of your being. You cannot go anywhere else. joshu01

    It hurts me to disturb your silence by using words, but I hope a day will arrive when we will be sitting together allowing the silence to become deeper--because whatever can be said only touches the periphery, it never goes beyond the periphery. No word has ever reached to the center. kyozan04

    Be as if you are dead and you have found the way--just surging inside you, a tremendous awareness, the very existence. It sings in the cuckoos, it blossoms in the roses, it has flowered in you as human beings; it can flower in you as buddhas.

    Hence I address you as my buddhas. Perhaps a few of you may realize like lightning, but a few of you may have a little more sleep.

    But tomorrow we will try again. If you have come here, you are caught in a net. Unless you become a buddha, you don't leave this place. Unfortunately, such places have almost disappeared from the world. bolt03

    That's why I say, every night, these few moments are the most valuable moments in your life. And every evening, when so many living buddhas gather here, this place becomes the most important in the whole world--the spiritual capital of the world. Because nowhere are so many people meditating together. Nowhere are so many people digging so deep that they can find the very life source, the eternity, the deathlessness. dogen07

    You have to look into your life, where you can find some natural experience of let-go. Listening to me you can experience a let-go. It happens every day, but you are not aware. I can see your faces changing, I can see your silences deepening. I can see when you laugh that your laughter is no longer chained and handcuffed, that your laughter is now your freedom. I can observe every day: you go on becoming more and more relaxed, as if you are not listening to a talk, but listening to soft music, not to words but to my

    silences. satyam05

    I make the atmosphere available to you. All kinds of people, in this atmosphere, can have a little experience. And that little experience starts growing just like a seed grows into a huge cedar, aspiring to the stars.

    Those who were more concerned with non-essentials have come and gone. In these thirty years thousands of people have passed--but now, as we are coming to the most precious experience, deeper and deeper, only those who are authentically interested in digging for the gold have remained.

    Now this assembly has become one of the greatest assemblies of seekers that has ever been on the earth. miracl09

    The very mastery, the art of being a master is to create an atmosphere in which things start happening on their own. What are we doing here? I don't know many of you, I don't know your names, I don't meet you personally. I simply create an atmosphere in which you can drown, in which you can drink the very juice of life. There is no need for me to

    work on individuals--that is a very poor and primitive way. I work by creating an atmosphere, an energy field, and every day that energy field becomes more and more powerful. Every one of you contributes to it. You are not just on the side of taking; you are also a giver.

    Here your presence, your consciousness, certainly creates a chain reaction. Just the man sitting by your side...you may not know him at all, but in your silence you meet with him. When everybody becomes silent there is simply a lake of buddhahood--one consciousness, one existence, one dance. You are not in tune with existence, you are it....

    You see the miracle every day. The new person comes and as he joins in this energy field he becomes as old as you are. His laughter is as deep as yours. Perhaps one day he may hesitate, but the next day he will see that everybody is laughing--"Why should I hesitate?" Perhaps one day he will not die, but when he sees another day that everybody here dies and comes back, then there is no fear in dying. one can die.

    The newcomer becomes very soon an old disciple, just within days. I can see when the newcomer for the first time enters the Buddha Hall he is hesitant, worried what is going to happen, cannot understand how he is going to do gibberish. But any child can do gibberish, it doesn't need any training. From the very first moment you are almost trained. Gibberish needs no training, nor does laughter need any training.

    If you can do the gibberish you are cleansing your mind of all kinds of dust that goes on gathering. And as the mind becomes silent. there is nowhere to go other than inwards.

    All roads are forgotten, there remains a single one-way traffic.

    Just for a day or two you may hesitate to go that much inside. Who knows whether you will be able to come back or not? That's the whole purpose of creating an energy field--so that you can see that so many people are coming and going, becoming enlightened, unenlightened. It is a playful, joyful exercise; there is nothing to be worried about, you can go as deep as you want. miracl02

    In ordinary life go on remembering that you are a buddha. Nothing else is needed, this very remembrance that you are a buddha is going to transform all your activities. exist07

    There is nowhere to go. You are already there, where you needed to be. And once you recognize it, then you carry your consciousness wherever you go. Then time makes no difference, nor does space. You are a buddha in the temple and you are a buddha in the shop; you are a buddha sitting silently, deep in meditation, and you are a buddha having a good laugh. miracl10

    I can say to you, it is true: every day you become a buddha. I see you coming back from your home, resurrecting. You are a totally different man--so silent, so peaceful, so fragrant, such a beauty to see.

    But I know you will forget. Forgetfulness has been your habit for millions of years. So this one moment of buddhahood will become a beautiful memory, and then the forgetfulness comes like a flood of old habit and the whole moon disappears behind the black clouds. But the moon is there; we will discover it again. There is no harm in discovering your buddhahood again and again.

    One can hope, one can trust that one day these old habits will become weakened and your whole buddhahood will become a simple matter, just like breathing....

    So when I say to you after your meditation that now we should celebrate the ten thousand buddhas, I am not joking. I am making a certain point again and again to you that you may forget after a few minutes, and rush to a party somewhere in a hotel! Buddhas are not supposed to do that! But times have changed--modern buddhas always do that. After having a good experience they celebrate it in many ways. And where to go to celebrate, to have a real Italian party?

    Nothing is wrong in it if you go on remembering that you are a buddha. Nothing is wrong in the world if your remembrance remains there in the background. turnin04

    When one becomes absolutely centered, one is almost drunk, drunk with an inner ecstasy.

    Many have reported to me that when you get up after your meditation, "We feel a little drunk." You start moving towards the canteen, but you can see people standing by the side; they are wobbly, they don't know what is happening. Because everybody is going towards the canteen they join them, but not absolutely certain whether they want to go there or not. But because everybody else is going there, it is better to keep company....

    It is dangerous to go out of the ashram. The police can get hold of you: "You are drunk!" You may say that, "I have been in ecstasy," and they will say, "Yes, that's what we are saying. You have taken the drug ecstasy. Just come along with us to the police station!"...

    I teach you drunkenness. There is no need for a man who has tasted his own inner being to take any drugs or alcohol.

    There is only one way to stop people from drugs and alcohol, and that is meditation--to pass through all the layers of the body and enter into a space which is no-body, no-mind.

    Then you are so full of contentment, so fulfilled that you don't need anything anymore. poetry03

    Sunglasses and US presidential elections

    I am wearing sunglasses in the night; it is due to the courtesy of President Ronald Reagan. His poisoning has created many after-effects. One of them is that my eyes have immensely weakened; they cannot face even the daylight. But even through my glasses I am perfectly able to see you.

    In this connection a practical joke:

    I have received an invitation from one of the most important global promoters in the election of the president of America. They want me to run for the presidency and they are ready to promote me. Even though I have been prevented--illegally, unconstitutionally-- from entering America for ten years, certainly I can enter the presidential election. The law cannot prevent me. I can remain outside of America.

    I have told Global Promotions to go ahead.

    It does not matter whether I win or I lose. What matters is that it will decide how many intelligent people live in America, how many people have a sense of humor and how many people have a universal sense of humanity as one.

    If by chance I win the presidency, it will be really the greatest laughter in history. And it will be the beginning of a new day. I certainly hope there are people, irrespective of party or religion or prejudice, who will support me just for the sake of a good laugh.

    These glasses will do good, they will look good on American television. At least my face will be more presentable than Ronald Reagan's. this01

    Just today I received information from my sannyasin representative in America that he was interviewed by the press, because they have become worried that I am going to enter the presidential election in America? And there is no law that can prevent me, although everybody knows it is a joke. I cannot fall that low. Twenty percent of American presidents have been murdered, so that is the most stupid place to be. A twenty percent chance of being murdered...! Even men like Abraham Lincoln and Kennedy are no exceptions. The best America has produced it has destroyed.

    Just as a joke I have said, "Yes," to the Global Promoters, the biggest promoting agency in America, to make it known to everybody in America that I am still alive and kicking. Who cares about being the president of America, I am not that stupid.

    The press has also asked the Immigration Department, "What do you say, now that Osho is going to enter the presidential election?"

    And the chief of the Immigration Department said, "This is possible only if God wants it."

    It is good to know that the Immigration Department of America will at least not prevent God from coming into America. And also it seems that the American Immigration

    Department--which fought me for five years and had not the guts even to arrest me-- seems to be a very faithful, religious, God-loving company. These are the people who have killed God also, because anybody who is preparing to destroy this planet--and America is number one...

    It is so hilarious that on the one hand they go on saying they believe that God created the world, and now Ronald Reagan is going to destroy it. Is this what fundamentalist Christianity means? quant06

    Osho's teases Sardarji

    Sardar Gurudayal Singh is laughing. And he does nothing, he just remains a buddha the whole day. You can find him in any position, but he will be the buddha. He has been with me for thirty-five years. Hitting him again and again, I have awakened him so much that now it is difficult for him to sleep! So he goes on waking up other people. What else to do when you cannot sleep? You cannot allow anybody else to sleep, it is too

    much. turnin04

    Now it is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.

    Sardar Gurudayal Singh has a special time (Sardarji gives a special whoop at this, and everybody laughs with him) because he is a special man. (Sardarji releases an even longer "whooooooo!" Accompanied by more laughter.)

    His speciality is--there are many new guests so I want to tell them--that he is the only man in the whole world who laughs before the joke is told!

    And these jokes have a certain spiritual purpose. We have been serious. (Sardarji

    punctuates again.) Before going into meditation, you have to calm down, relax, laugh, forget all about religion. (This time, Sardarji really enjoys!) christ01

    When you laugh, laugh totally, without any considerations. Don't hold anything back. Learn to laugh from Sardar Gurudayal Singh, who is a laugh unto himself--a real joke. He is the only man in the whole world I have come across who laughs before the joke. There are people who laugh in the middle of the joke because they suddenly realize what is going to happen. But from the very beginning, when I have not even started. that is the

    real and authentic man of laughter. And I know. he has his disciples. He is a very

    respected, old sannyasin. People sit around him just to have a good laugh. dogen05

    It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh--a really great time. Put on the light, because I want to see the faces of my people laughing! celebr02

    And a good news before I take the sutras.

    A famous New York sculptress, Martine Vaugel has just now taken sannyas from the New York Center of Neo-Sannyas International. She is a world-famous sculptress. She must have been listening to my tapes, and must have been hearing Sardar Gurudayal Singh's name every day. So, without seeing him--she has not yet come to Poona, and she has not seen Sardar Gurudayal Singh...but this is the sensitivity of an artist, a creativity. She has made a statue of Sardar Gurudayal Singh, and she has sent me a picture of the statue to see whether she is right? And I was amazed. She is absolutely right. The picture looks almost like Sardar Gurudayal Singh.

    (the master holds up the photograph of Sardar Gurudayal Singh for all to see. In response, everyone cheers and claps.)

    Sardar Gurudayal Singh...take your picture!

    (The master, enjoying the situation immensely, holds out the photograph for Sardar to take.) celebr06

    Osho's teases Vimal

    Vimal, who reads the questions whenever Maneesha is unable to, wears on one occasion a Ghandi cap and pyjamas

    I am puzzled looking at Vimal's situation. Now the poor fellow is wearing a cap to deceive me. He must be thinking that perhaps I will think somebody else is there. He was even using glasses--and he cannot read with the glasses on, that's why I had asked him to take off the glasses.

    And this shirt, and this cotton pajama...This seems to belong to that fellow who lives in the bamboo hut! Perhaps he forgot to mention about the Gandhi cap--Gandhi cap, Nehru shirt...and the pajama certainly belongs to someone else because I have never seen Vimal in such a situation. He is praying day and night--but Maneesha is also very stubborn.

    Now she will prolong her cold one knows not how long and poor Vimal is going to suffer every day. yaahoo18

    On another night Vimal wears a sari

    A real woman is sitting in front of me! I offer to introduce you to this woman. You will not find such a woman anywhere in the world; with a small beard, a beautiful mustache. And really looking beautiful!

    I wonder, why has Vimal not been using this dress from the very beginning? After I have left, you all have to see her--I really mean her, it is not a mistake--and rejoice in a real woman. yaahoo19

    Just before osho's car comes, a big black gorilla enters the hall and sits behind Maneesha.

    Now look, just by the side of Maneesha, a gorilla is sitting. Gorilla, sir, will you stand up?

    That's good.

    Soon it is going to be very difficult, if tigers and gorillas hear you--and they are bound to hear, because here is a place where they can be respected.

    So playful, so childlike, so non-serious, so alive is the approach of Zen.

    It is perfectly good for tigers and lions and deer to come to this gathering. They will appear, for this gorilla is going to spread the news. Gorilla sir, please be silent, although it is not your way, neither is it in your nature; but please don't start gossiping about this temple. We don't want tigers and lions, because we don't have space. Just wait a little...once we have got a bigger space, which we will be getting, then you can bring all the gorillas--you must have friends, a wife, children. A gorilla does not believe in celibacy, he is not a Catholic monk.

    And having a few gorillas here dancing with you will be a real joy. Today you will have to be satisfied with only one. But when one comes, a second will be close behind him....

    I would love every species to be represented here, but unfortunately there is not much space and when such great people as gorillas start coming. They are your forefathers, be

    respectful. This is not me, but Charles Darwin speaking.

    I don't know whether this gorilla can give a good gorilla shout.

    (the gorilla screams loudly.)

    Don't make Maneesha afraid! Be a gentleman! It is a question of the dignity and respect of gorilla culture. Anyway, everybody is happy that you have come. I hope you will give a dance too at the end. So get ready. quant03

    Although Vimal was hiding behind a gorilla coat, still Vimal was Vimal.

    The body that Vimal has is another coat, given by biology. Behind that coat, given by your society there is another layer: the mind. And within that mind is your temple, your buddha. We are searching here for nobody else but our own authentic being.

    It was good of Vimal to come in a gorilla dress, because everybody is wearing different kinds of dresses. The inside has the same taste, the same sweetness, the same song, the same laughter. quant04

    Osho teases Avirbhava

    Avirbhava waits by the door when Osho arrives and leaves, and he makes a playful mock- threatening expression towards her, at which Avirbhava screams with delight. Now he teases her during the discourse as well.

    I don't scare anybody except Avirbhava, because she has a quality of a child. I don't know why. Perhaps her father is dead, her mother is dead...I feel a tremendous feeling for her-- and she is utterly innocent. So once in a while--not once in a while, almost every day-- whenever I have the chance and she is close by, I try to do my best. pilgr16

    Last night, when I went out, Avirbhava was on the outside door to open the car...And I have my own way of relating to people; I scare her, and she is so innocent, she gets scared--at least she pretends. She never disappoints me, "No..."...

    It is just out of my love, and everybody knows it: whenever I see her, I like to scare her a little--and she enjoys it. Many times I wanted to pass without scaring her, and I felt, "No, it is not good, because she will be expecting it and I am going without doing it. It is inhuman. " pilgr09

    Two Zen masters are just like children--shouting, shrieking, screaming, for no reason at all.

    You know Avirbhava's shrieking.... That is Zen shrieking--for no reason at all. Because I don't do anything to her. ! But I miss her when she is not there at the door. She is almost

    like a gong declaring: "The Master has come!" When she is not there, I miss her. Her screaming is just like a small child, so innocent, without any purpose. But she is total when she screams, it is not from her mind, it is coming from deeper spaces. So even sometimes when I have entered the hall, she goes on screaming. My car goes away and then she drops on the ground with immense joy. celebr05

    I have known one person who does not need to be tickled. Just from far away you make the gesture, and that is enough. Here there is also one person, everybody knows her. She is sitting so buddha-like, but just if I do this right now...

    (The Master jiggles his fingers in a tickling gesture towards Avirbhava, who shrieks in surprise. Each time he "tickles," everyone roars with laughter, and the Master himself is chuckling behind his sunglasses. He alternates his tickling gestures with a series of hand movements to calm us down. Until the next outbreak of laughter.)

    And where is Anando?

    (The Master, spotting Anando, begins to jiggle his hand in her direction and is laughing himself. More waves of laughter.)

    That is Anando, I could see.

    This is the only way buddhahood arises: the master has to tickle. Now do you see the effect? I have not even tickled Avirbhava, neither have I tickled Anando, and you are all laughing!

    (More "tickles" and more laughter ensue.)

    This tickling is called, in the sutras, The Great Transmission. I have not even touched...

    (He "tickles" several people, laughing, and everyone is carried along with him again.)

    The master can only create a device. The device has no logical connection. Now do you see why you are laughing? Of course Avirbhava, at least, is tickled from far away-- remote control. But why are you laughing? I have a remote control...

    (The Master demonstrates his remote control on Avirbhava, and we all laugh some more. He laughs, and then motions to her to be still.)

    Calm down. Just sit like a buddha...close your eyes _(He giggles)..._look inside. (Another burst of laughter.)...

    You have just seen it. Do you want to see it again?

    (The Master begins to "tickle" again provoking waves of laughter, with a few chuckles from him.) I have two remote controls--one for Avirbhava and the other for Anando. Wherever they are in the universe...just tickle and they will laugh. And with them, others will laugh for no reason at all.

    I want you to understand: enlightenment is so light, so loving, so peaceful--just like a laughter. The theologians have made it so heavy, so burdensome, that people ignore it. Enlightenment should also be entertainment at the same time. dogen08

    That's why Zen does not take things seriously. What does it matter?--in this life or in some other life you are to become a buddha.

    The buddha is the New Man. He is the man of the future.

    The whole human consciousness is moving towards buddhahood.

    Strangely, it is already there within you, but you are not aware. Hence, a master can be helpful to you.

    It is just like tickling you _(The master makes tickling gestures towards us)..._and you start laughing, and I have not tickled yet! _(Again he makes the movement)..._And you will start

    feeling...(For the third time, he stretches his fingers towards us) the master's work is to tickle you. And it is a joy to tickle ten thousand buddhas! isan08

    Osho inaugurates a Museum of Toy Gods

    In August 1988, Osho playfully inaugurates a Museum of Ancient Gods during discourse. Over the next few months, Avirbhava and Anando bring toys of animals which have been worshipped as gods.

    I have told Avirbhava, "Collect all kinds of toys. We will make a beautiful museum and I appoint you the director general." She has brought me a beautiful bear which walks, which makes sounds very similar to Avirbhava, and when he makes the sounds he waves his tail. It is really a beautiful toy.

    But all the gods are not even that much alive. The bear at least moves, waves its tail and makes sounds--and strangely enough those sounds are exactly like Avirbhava makes.

    Tomorrow you will see; Avirbhava will bring it herself.

    (The Master is laughing so much that he has difficulty speaking. Avirbhava is also laughing loudly.)

    Now this is...give it a try...how he walks and makes the sound...You will just be missing the tail, otherwise you are perfect.

    We are going to make a museum of all kinds of toys which humanity has been worshipping, so when visitors come you can show them that "These are your gods!" miracl03

    Before I enter into the serious statements of a scholarly Dogen, I would like Avirbhava first to inaugurate.

    It is not a bear, as I said yesterday--because around the world I have so many cases against me, accusing me of hurting people's religious feelings. And the bear is worshipped by men.

    It is really a pig. I had to ask Anando to research whether somebody's heart feelings would be hurt if we inaugurate the Museum of the Ancient Dead Gods with a pig. Avirbhava is going to be the Director General. She is completely ready--with the ears of a pig, and a tail too.

    (Avirbhava is dressed in pig ears and a curly tail.)

    About pigs: "In the ancient world pigs were considered the embodiment of the `Corn Spirit,' Osiris. He was the great Egyptian god of the underworld and judge of the dead.

    In Greece pigs were sacred to Demeter, the goddess of the fruitful soil and agriculture. And today they are considered sacred in New Guinea....

    In China, pigs are venerated because they represent good fortune."

    So it is absolutely appropriate for Avirbhava to inaugurate the museum with her own hands. Avirbhava, bring your pig. and inaugurate!

    (Avirbhava places a cuddly soft pink pig on the podium and it proceeds to waddle across the marble in front of The Master's feet, making grunting noises as its snout and tail wriggle.)

    That is good.

    Now we can turn to the serious matter. miracl05

    Before I discuss the great matter of Zen, Avirbhava has brought a few ancient gods to be inaugurated into her Museum of Gods. Her assistant, Anando, has also brought a few small gods. Before I tell them to show you what they have brought...

    The research on the subject of the rat as an object of worship. The rat is a very ancient

    god, but still prevalent, not dead. The research was done by the appropriate person, Sardar Gurudayal Singh....

    And simultaneously Anando is also contributing something to Avirbhava's Museum of Gods, the monkey. The monkey has also been a problem in India. You cannot shoot a monkey--a monkey can shoot you, there is no constitutional law against that....

    Now, Avirbhava, bring your rat, and Anando, your monkeys.

    (Avirbhava puts a big, black toy rat at The Master's feet. It starts dancing and making comical sounds. She also puts a clockwork monkey on the podium which wanders around The Master's feet. Anando sits a small rubber monkey on the podium.)

    Very meditative monkey!

    Well, where are your small monkeys?

    (Many little monkeys are put on the podium. Meanwhile Avirbhava's monkey is running away and Avirbhava has to jump to catch it. Everybody is laughing.)

    Just give a good clap, too.

    Now, remove your gods. Just ask all the sannyasins around the world to find out about all the animals that have been worshipped by human beings--to show to everyone what kind of past we have had. And there are still people who are worshipping animals.

    Religion has been reduced to such nonsense. And the harm is that people become involved in these absolutely absurd ideas and forget completely about themselves. The only religion is the religion of being conscious. All other religions are simply toys for children.

    But we go on living unconsciously, without seeing what people are doing. They celebrate monkeys, elephants, they worship even rats. This is such an undignified state of affairs that it has to be changed completely. miracl08

    Before I discuss the very important man of Zen, Bankei, and his remarkable statements, I have to introduce Avirbhava's new gods for the museum. Before I do it, I will say something to you about insects, which are worshipped by many people as gods.

    This museum is going to be a hilarious phenomenon. It is going to be a mirror for you of what humanity has been doing--its priests, its so-called wise men, all driving humanity into different directions of stupidity. But when religious garbage is poured on anything, poor people, the poor masses believe in it. And this is not only in the ancient world; man has worshipped almost anything, and is still worshipping almost anything, without considering at all that it is very undignified, that you are destroying your own humanity.

    My researchers have found that certain creatures of various insect species have been considered to be expressions of God since the earliest times....

    Okay, Avirbhava, bring your things.

    (Three huge butterflies start dancing around the podium, humming wildly. A large moth flies up to the roof of the auditorium, while a spider and a caterpillar parade past.

    The Master is chuckling in his chair, and everyone is going crazy with laughter, enjoying the show tremendously.) turnin07

    Every few days Avirbhava and Anando bring more toys and costumes, including talking parrots, fish, a dolphin, tiger, lion, a dragon...

    Anando, you are a hot potato. You may not know it but everybody else knows it--that this Anando is a hot-potato buddha.

    Satisfied?

    Now everybody will taste you. And just feel whether she is really a hot potato! Don't take my word, experience it.

    There is an even bigger hot potato, Avirbhava. She is taking a suntan somewhere in Singapore just to become more hot. Within two or three days you will hear her. She is bringing a whole load of old gods. forty she has already collected. Anando is her

    associate director. You can call the museum the Museum of Gods, or you can call it the Museum of the Hot Potatoes--they are synonymous. orig02

    My calling some of you hot potatoes or dancing plums, German stoneheads or laughing sardarjis--they are all devices. And I know that you are in the right place and you will not misunderstand me. It is out of love and out of compassion that I call you any name. For example, I called Avirbhava a big ripe plum. She understood it. She waved me a kiss.

    And today she is sitting there, hiding an egg. Avirbhava, bring your egg here...bring it.

    (Avirbhava puts a big green egg in front of The Master, on the podium. She breaks it, and two mechanical baby chicks jump out and hop around while The Master chuckles.)

    Yeah, that is the right egg! matzu04

    Ma Tzu, and the great matter about Anando and Maneesha’s jealousy

    In mid-September 1988, Osho speaks on Zen master Ma Tzu, who introduced extreme measures to enlighten his disciples. During this series, Osho uses his own methods to draw awareness to jealousy. This is triggered by a horse for the Museum of Toy Gods.

    Ma Tzu rebelled against the traditionalism that had grown after Bodhidharma. He introduced totally new ideas, new devices--hitting, shouting. Nobody had ever heard that you can wake up a man just by shouting at the right moment; it was a great contribution to human consciousness that hitting can become a reward....

    Ma Tzu went even further: the shoutings and the beatings nobody had ever heard of. His effort was so new--that enlightenment is possible if the master hits you at the right moment, or shouts at you at the right moment; that his very shout takes your consciousness to the deepest center of your being. What meditation does slowly slowly, a good shout of the master, unexpectedly, in a situation when the disciple was asking some question, and the master jumps and shouts, or hits him, or throws him out of the door, or jumps over him These methods were never known. It was purely the very creative

    genius of Ma Tzu, and he made many people enlightened.

    Sometimes it looks so hilarious: he threw a man from the window, from a two-story house, and the man had come to ask on what to meditate. And Ma Tzu not only threw him, he jumped after him, fell on him, sat on his chest, and he said, "Got it?!"

    And the poor fellow said, "Yes"--because if you say "No," he may beat you or do something else. It is enough--his body is fractured, and Ma Tzu, sitting on his chest, says, "Got it?!"

    And in fact he got it, because it was so sudden, out of the blue--he could never have conceived it. He had heard that Ma Tzu hits people, Ma Tzu shouts at people, but he had never heard that he throws them from a two-story building. He had multiple

    fractures...and then Ma Tzu jumped on him and sat on his chest. At that moment he was absolutely in such a shock that the mind stopped functioning--and that was the purpose of the whole thing. And because the mind stopped functioning, and Ma Tzu was sitting on his chest, looking into his eyes--a great silence, the same blissfulness that comes out of meditation. What a strange way! isan04

    Before I discuss Ma Tzu and his statements, I have to inaugurate another god to Avirbhava's Museum of Gods. This is a very important god. I will tell you about the god before Avirbhava brings it in front of you.

    The name of the god is horse. It has been worshipped around the world for centuries. Even today there are places where the horse is worshipped as a god....

    I am allowing these animal gods in this campus to make you aware of your past. And it is not passed completely, it is still hidden in your mind....

    Varanasi, in the whole world...

    (At this moment ripples of laughter spread through the assembly as a white horse enters the auditorium through the door to the left of the podium, gallops around it and disappears through the door on the right.)

    So, Avirbhava, you can come back, your horse is introduced. Come back to your seat.

    (Great applause from the audience.)

    Now, Maneesha's statements about Ma Tzu and his work: matzu08

    The following evening Maneesha is unable to come to discourse. In her place, Anando reads reads the sutras and questions to Osho, including a question from Maneesha

    Now, the question that has created in Maneesha a migraine, so that Anando has to represent her. She has asked:

    A situation that occurred last night was such a vivid illustration for me of how you are a living teaching Master of Zen, a Man of Tao.

    When the horse came trotting into the hall, anyone in your place would have been disconcerted because they could not see what the cause of the laughter was. You simply stopped talking and allowed events to take a new course. You looked so vulnerable, so innocent and unknowing, in those moments...

    This is not really a question; I just wanted an excuse to make sure the incident did not go unrecorded.

    This question--which is not a question--has created in poor Maneesha a migraine. She must have felt, how is she going to read it to me? But she is perfectly right, and she need not be worried that just for the record she has asked a question which is not a question.

    In Maneesha I have found a better recorder than Ramakrishna had in Vivekananda, or even Socrates had in Plato. She records everything perfectly well, that's why she has become shy--it is not a migraine. Tomorrow she will be here again.

    There is no need to be afraid, you can ask me anything. You can give any record of events. I enjoyed last night's episode. It is not that I was annoyed, I was enjoying it so tremendously because it was such an unexpected phenomenon. I thought perhaps Kalki, the white horse, had come; because his time is close--just twelve years more. By the end of this century Kalki is going to come. So I thought if he has come here it is a really great moment, and here there will be no need for him to make any judgments because all are sinners!

    And he came a little early, because inside him was great Avirbhava, and Avirbhava's associate, Anando, and naturally inside that horse you cannot remain long. One must be feeling suffocated. So they came a little early. It was Anando who was pulling Avirbhava back, "This is not time!"--but Avirbhava jumped in.

    It would have been a great accident if the horse had fallen in two. That would have been absolutely against the tradition, and somebody would have put a case against me, that their religious feelings are hurt--Kalki breaking down in the middle.

    But they both managed perfectly well....

    Maneesha, your recording is perfectly good. Next time when you feel the migraine, still come. When people do two minutes' gibberish, throw away your migraine--somebody will catch it! Just throw it far away. Everybody is trying it a double way: he is throwing his things out, and moving his hands to protect himself, because others are also throwing out all kinds of bullshit. One has to protect oneself--just exchanging your bullshit will not help. matzu09

    The following evening, Maneesha is back, but Anando is unable to attend

    This book is dedicated to Anando in spite of her reluctance. She has behaved very unconsciously for these two days.

    First, I am always worried about it that Maneesha is not allowed to take a holiday, migraine or no migraine, because if she is absent even for one evening--and I know she has this trouble of migraine for years--somebody else has to take her place. But just to take her place for one day is dangerous. The taste of it, and then one starts thinking, "Why should I not continue?" It is almost as if you are made the king for one day. It will be difficult for your whole life.

    So first she freaked out because I still addressed Maneesha, care of Anando. I could see her face and I could see her response. She did not like it, she wanted to be addressed directly. But I knew it was better to be "care of," because tomorrow she would be gone.

    The same trouble happened with Vimal. For a few days he was sitting with almost tears in his eyes. Once he has tasted the joy of asking me the questions, and then he has to give back the place, his kingdom is taken away. Now he has come back to his right mind. I did not want to disturb him again. That's why I ask Anando.

    And I have my own ways of working. In every way I try to find out some secret which needs to be revealed to the person. Anando may not be aware that she is never nice to anybody who is nice to her. She becomes nasty. It is her wrong upbringing from her childhood that she has carried. Secondly, she is never happy to receive anything. It needs courage. Perhaps you may not be aware. One loves to give, because by giving you are higher, but one has to learn to receive. At least when you are sitting at the feet of your master, you have to learn to receive. It hurts the ego that you are on the receiving end, not on the giving end.

    I wanted to see how she would receive it. She missed the point. First she freaked out about Maneesha's question, because she thought that Maneesha had indicated in it, that the horse came a little early and disturbed my speech. Because she was one half of the horse, she thought Maneesha was trying to raise the question again before the whole assembly, although there was no question of Maneesha raising it.

    Maneesha was asking something else. She was trying to inquire about me, what my response was to this suddenness. That's why Avirbhava was not disturbed. She was the main part of the horse; Anando was just the back part. Avirbhava proved to be more alert and conscious, seeing that the question did not have anything to do with the coming in early. In fact the early coming was very good: it surprised everybody except me. But I am crazy anyway. Nothing surprises me....

    Anando was not exactly disturbed by it; that was a very superficial thing. She was disturbed because I called Maneesha a better reporter, a better recorder than Ramakrishna had in Swami Vivekananda, or Socrates had in Plato. She became hurt because she is doing so much work. She is working hard on all the new books and their publication. She is in charge of the whole of publications and all of the construction that is going on in the ashram. Obviously she thought that Maneesha has been praised--and a subtle jealousy, and the female mind. I wanted them to be exposed.

    And the next day when I said that this new series was going to be dedicated to her, Anando freaked out even more--so much so that she is suffering from a fever which is absolutely psychological, emotional. She was absolutely okay when she was sitting here, and just as she reached her room, she declared that she had a great cold coming. And immediately, because that is the time she comes to see me--when I am taking my supper, she comes to see me--she did not come. She really wanted to avoid me because I have seen something which she was hiding. Not only did she not come to me, but she even

    removed herself from Lao Tzu House to Krishna House, with an excuse that she was getting a cold. She phoned Nirvano to say that she was getting suspicious, and that by dedicating the new series to her, "Osho is trying to blackmail me."

    This way you can see the difference between the disciples that Ma Tzu and Hyakujo had. Even if they were hit on their heads, they would bow down and touch the feet of the master. So much has changed in the world of consciousness. Man has fallen so low. For what should I blackmail? But just anger, the anger of being "care of," that anger became almost hysterical. Now whatever she is saying...again and again she has been phoning Nirvano asking, "What has Osho said about me?" I have not said anything. I waited for this question from Maneesha. I cannot take my word back....

    This book will be dedicated to Anando with the words, "In spite of herself." And I will be dedicating more books. I would love to dedicate books to all of you.

    If time permits and existence allows, each buddha is going to have a book in his name as a respect and love from the master. hyaku01

    Two evenings later Osho says:

    I have to settle this great matter about Anando. I call it the great matter, because to me you all are buddhas. You may know it, you may not know it, but in my vision, I perceive you in your perfection. I want and hope that one day, you will also be able to see clearly your buddhahood, because that is the only solution out of the troubles of the mind....

    Anando has written:

    Beloved Osho,

    I am sorry. I must be the most stubborn and stupid disciple of all time. I am not even sure I can be called a disciple after my behavior.

    I feel terrible that I forced you to hit me so hard, but I saw that my layers of pride and my stupid defenses of independence from love were so old and so thick, that I needed something drastic.

    I still don't know what you did, except that boy, did it hurt. Now I understand why the truth is so unpopular.

    But in spite of my worst efforts, you, with your love, have managed a miracle again. I feel healed and so grateful.

    Thank you sounds so inadequate, but I say from the depth of my being: I wash your feet with my tears of gratitude.

    Anando

    Anando, you have done perfectly well. It was something troublesome in you that you have dropped in this crisis. This crisis was painful--every crisis is--but few crises bring a new approach, a new attitude, a new being in you. And this crisis has brought a new dawn to your life.

    People don't understand at all that they are afraid of love. People think they are very loving, but their unconscious is very afraid of love. Love means merging, and that seems to the mind as if you are losing your independence, your individuality.

    In ordinary love affairs it is true to some extent. That is the whole struggle between lovers, continuously fighting. It is not certain things that they are fighting about--any excuse and they are fighting. Their fight is to survive as an individual. This flood of love creates great fear in them.

    But this is about the ordinary love affairs. What to say about the great love affair between the disciple and the master? It is a very tidal wave, but the difference is that the tidal wave will not take away your independence. In fact, you don't have independence right now, it is just a vague idea. You don't know freedom, you don't know independence.

    With the tidal wave of a master's love, all that is slave in you will be drowned. You will come out fresh, more independent, more individual, and yet, more grateful, more peaceful, more graceful.

    That's what has happened to you, Anando, you have come back home. You have gone a little astray, but with me it is very difficult to go astray. I give you as much rope as you want--I give you the whole rope--and then you come back with that whole load of rope.

    You proved to be an authentic disciple. And what you are saying is not simply words, it is your very heart.

    When I hit someone, remember always, I hit myself more deeply. I can understand that you are healed, because my pain has disappeared, and I can feel your gratefulness. Not only was I feeling the pain through which you were going, the whole assembly was sad.

    I would like Anando to bow down to all the buddhas here--they were all sad for all these days that you were in deep pain. Fighting with it, you have come victorious.

    It is not enough to be grateful to me, you have to be grateful to all the buddhas who are working here together in search of a lost treasure, a lost golden climate. It is not an organization of buddhas--buddhas don't organize--it is simply a meeting of brothers and sisters in a deep love. They are all moving towards the same center of their being, and the universal being.

    Anando, come in front and bow down to the whole assembly. This will be a record for the future.

    (Anando walks to the front of the assembly and stands in front of everyone in namaste. Osho tells her to bow down. She bows, and in response, before she returns to her place, everyone bows down.) hyaku03

    My heart is empty. And the more empty you become, the more you can be intimate with me. You will be intimate with me in becoming an empty heart. Then you will be falling into the same tune, the same dance, the same music. And this intimacy is not the old intimacy we talked about. It is a totally different intimacy, qualitatively different. I may not even know your name, you may have never met me personally, but still you can be intimate with me, because I am giving intimacy a totally new dimension. If your heart is empty, suddenly you will be in tune with me. And this intimacy will not create any jealousy.

    All those old intimacies were creating jealousies even in the masters' assemblies. If three persons were intimate, do you think others were not offended? Do you think others were not jealous? Everybody wants to be specially intimate. That was not possible in the old way, but my definition of intimacy is such that the whole universe can be intimate with me without creating any jealousy in anybody.

    You can be intimate because it is not dependent on me, it is dependent on you. You empty your heart and in that emptying of the heart you will become my intimate. You may be on another planet, that does not matter. And in this dimension of intimacy, there is no limitation. Everybody can be specially intimate to me. matzu05

    Two weeks later, Osho addresses the same problem of jealousy, in answer to Maneesha's question about a Zen anecdote

    Whatever Nansen meant when he requested "special treatment" for Joshu, apparently it didn't mean Joshu moving into Lao Tzu House and having private, daily chats with the master. On the contrary, Joshu's first job was in Zorba the Buddha restaurant, slaving over a hot stove. What is the lesson here for us?

    Maneesha, in the first place your question has come neither from mind nor from no-mind, but from migraine. I would have given you a good hit, but I don't hit people. My representative, Stonehead Niskriya, is hitting people in Germany. I have heard that he hits people, strangers, sits on their chests and asks, "Got it?" And obviously, to get rid of this fellow they have to say, "Yes! But what is it?" Niskriya says, "I don't know myself; I am just spreading the message." Fortunately he is not here; otherwise he would have given you a good hit.

    "Special treatment" does not mean a special job. "Special treatment" means: Be careful of this man; his flowering is very close. Don't neglect him in any way, because there are thousands of monks...Whatever job you give him, that is not the point. But just be careful: it is a precious time for him, he is ripening. And any moment, suddenly he will explode into enlightenment. He already had a satori....

    So when the head monk was told by Nansen to give Joshu special treatment, that did not mean to give him special comforts. That did not mean to give him no job, that did not mean that he had to be thought of as superior to others. Give him any job--that is the function of the head monk in a monastery--but keep an eye out, don't forget him. There are thousands of people you have to take care of. Keep an eye out, because this man is not going to stay unenlightened long. He is going to become a buddha very soon.

    So it is not a question Maneesha, that special treatment means "moving into Lao Tzu and having private, daily chats with the master." If you are aware of what you are asking...do you see your jealousy? Do you see your woman? How do you know that the people who are allowed to come to me are chitchatting? They have their work; they need instructions, they are called because of their work. It is not that they have the right to come to me to chitchat. What will I chitchat about?

    They have their work just as you have your work. Others are jealous of you. You are also in Lao Tzu and you have the special work of collecting my words, of editing my words. When we are all gone, Maneesha's collections will be remembered for centuries. But it is very difficult to get rid of our jealousies....

    The first commune was destroyed because of women's jealousies. They were fighting continuously. The second commune was destroyed because of women's jealousies. And this is the third commune--and the last, because I am getting tired. Once in a while I think perhaps Buddha was right not to allow any women in his commune for twenty years. I am not in favor of him: I am the first who has allowed men and women the same, equal opportunity for enlightenment. But I have burnt my fingers twice, and it has always been the jealousy of the women.

    Still, I am a stubborn person. After two communes, immense effort wasted, I have started a third commune, but I have not created any difference--women are still running it. I want women here in this commune not to behave like women. But small jealousies. Now,

    somebody has to bring my food--the whole commune cannot do that. Somebody has to make my room clean, my bathroom clean--the whole community is not needed there; otherwise the result will be the opposite!

    I call Anando every morning while I am eating, every evening while I am eating, just to give her instructions so that nothing goes wrong. Things go wrong so easily. and because

    Anando has been in all three communes, and is a law graduate, she understands very clearly why these two communes, created with such great effort, with so much money poured into them, got destroyed. She has a very clear conception. And whatever I say, she manages to do it. I have not heard her saying a single time that, "I have forgotten." She immediately takes notes and reports the next day what the situation is. Otherwise, very easily things can go wrong....

    I don't go anywhere. I don't know where the office of my secretary is, where the office of my president is, where the office of the ashram in-charge is. I know only three places: my bedroom, my bathroom, and Buddha Hall. If anybody asks me any question about the

    ashram, I am absolutely ignorant. Somebody needs to inform me--and somebody who has a comprehensive insight. So only Anando comes, and she comes only because I ask her to come. Just while I am taking food, she gives me information about publications, the books, how many books are in publication, how many are going into publication...how we should manage exhibitions around the world, how we should find publishers. And just in five or ten minutes--she is very accurate, not a gossipy type.

    Now Maneesha's question is full of jealousy. Not only I am saying it; Nirvano brings the sutras and the questions to show me--she wanted to change it. I said, "Don't change it, let it be as it is," because in commune life we should expose ourselves without fear. Love knows no fear. If something is arising in your mind, you should tell it.

    And remember one thing: everybody is doing his work. Nobody is to dominate anybody. Yes, everybody is allowed to suggest, to help, but to suggest and to help does not mean that you are being made a puppet. Nobody is a puppet here. It is a gathering of absolutely independent individuals.

    But just because it is a gathering of independent individuals there has to be much more responsibility, much more awareness, much more remembrance. Outside in the world you have learned jealousy, you have learned domination, you have learned stubbornness. You have learned that "I will do things according to my own mind; whether it is right or wrong does not matter." It is perfectly okay outside in the world, where there is so much mess that you cannot make it worse. But at least in this small commune don't bring in the outside world and the outside world's tendencies.

    We are trying a great experiment, that independent individuals can live together without enslaving anyone. Here everybody is equal. It does not matter what job he is doing. He may be editing, he may be cleaning, he may be cooking, it does not matter. What matters is that you should cook with awareness, as if a buddha is cooking. And you are cooking for other buddhas; your cooking has to be done with great awareness and love. It is not a duty; it is your contribution, your share, to the commune. It is as valuable as anybody else's work. If you are cleaning bathrooms, it is as respectable as being the president of the commune or the secretary of the commune. There is no question of jealousy at all, because nobody is superior to anybody else. joshu02

    And the following evening:

    Maneesha has asked a question:

    Beloved Osho,

    Has one only received a hit if it hurts?

    Maneesha, a master hits not to hurt but to heal. And a disciple receives the hit with tremendous gratitude, not with anger. Unless a hit is received with gratitude it cannot do its work of healing. You are all full of wounds, and they all need to be exposed to the sun,

    to the open sky. Unless you allow yourself to be exposed completely, you cannot get rid of those wounds. The normal way in the world is to hide the wounds so nobody knows about them--go on hiding them deeper and deeper in the unconscious, so even you forget them. But to work on the consciousness, cleaning it from all the wounds is absolutely necessary. Those wounds have to be brought into the open.

    You are asking, "Has one only received a hit if it hurts?" No, Maneesha. If it hurts you have missed. If it does not hurt but creates a gratitude, a love, it heals.

    Last night I did not feel hurt.

    You are an old sinner, Maneesha. You have been with this strange man long enough. You are saying:

    I saw the truth of what you said but did not hate myself or stop loving you. Did I miss?

    No, Maneesha, fortunately you did not miss. joshu03

    I am harassing you every night; whether you want to be a buddha or not, I am intent that you have to become a buddha. matzu05

    Osho brings gifts: Zen sticks, Buddha statues, and swans

    In October 1988, Osho brings several gifts:

    The master enjoyed hitting and the disciples enjoyed being hit. It is a very loving gesture, the hit was not hurting.

    Somebody has brought me a Zen staff. It is made of bamboo, and the bamboo is cut in such a way that howsoever hard you hit, it makes only sound, not much hurt. I have put it with Anando, so when Zen Master Stonehead Niskriya comes back he can have this really authentic Zen stick from Korea. However you hit, it makes a good noise. It seems as if somebody's head is broken!

    But Zen is a very playful religion. It has made even hitting a joyful play. There is no other religion in the world which allows playfulness and laughter and life and love. Zen allows total freedom in all the aspects of life....

    Zen has created a totally different approach to everything. If the world understands Zen, it will be a different world. It is certainly the most alchemical process.

    So when I said to you, Maneesha, that I will hit you just for the joy of it, remember that the joy is not only my joy. It has to be your joy also; only then it takes the great quantum

    leap. Then the master and disciple are simply playing with each other. Nobody is higher and nobody is lower....

    I am introducing you to Zen for a simple purpose: all other religions have destroyed your laughter, destroyed your smiles, destroyed your creativity--destroyed even the sense of humor. And life without a sense of humor is not much of a life. joshu05

    Our stickholder--because I am a lazy man, I cannot carry the stick--has come from Germany. Just show your stick and hit poor Maneesha! (Niskriya takes the stick and taps maneesha on the head. It makes a loud, sharp click.) isan08

    In my dining room I have got a small statue of Buddha. It is only a statue, but when Jayesh came for the first time and saw it, he said, "This statue has a great presence." I have loved that statue and carried it from India to America, from America to India, because it has a presence. It is only a statue, but a statue of a meditating buddha.

    Something of meditation in that very posture radiates a very alive aura.

    I have brought another statue for your Buddha Auditorium, to be placed just at the gate, so you can see that even a statue, because it is in a meditative posture, radiates something. Just sitting by the side of the statue you will find something flowing from the statue towards you. It is not a worship, it is just being silently close and watching the posture. Because the posture is of meditation, something of meditativeness radiates even from the stone.

    So when you are meditating, you are doing both the things: on one hand you are throwing away all that is garbage, and on the other hand you are helping roses to blossom. You will have an absence and you will have a great presence, together: absence of all that was ugly in you, and presence of all that is beautiful. rinzai06

    The marble buddha statue is installed at the entrance to Buddha Hall. In the meditation at the end of discourse, Osho says:

    Relax. But remain a witness. The body is lying there as an object, the mind is there as an object. You are the witness. You are neither the mind, nor the body. You are a pure consciousness. This pure consciousness we have been calling the buddha. The buddha is only a symbol.

    So many flowers have blossomed, so much fragrance. all boundaries have disappeared

    and the Buddha Auditorium has become a lake of consciousnesses without any ripples. You have to bring all this fragrance with you, all these flowers with you.

    Now I have brought the Buddha statue, just in front of the Buddha Auditorium. He is waiting there. When you pass by, remember: he was also one day just a human being, as you are. Pay your respects; pay your gratitude, because this man alone introduced the world to a new dimension--of beautitude, of truth, of dignity. This man alone declared

    that man is God, and other than man there is no god. This was the greatest revolutionary statement ever made.

    Nivedano... (Drumbeat)

    Come back, but with the same gesture of peace, silence and grace. Bring the buddha with you. Sit for a few moments silently, reminding yourself of your potential, and the glimpse, the center and the silence. Remember the beauty of eternity in the moment and the encounter with your buddha.

    You have brought a few invisible flowers; while going out of the Buddha Auditorium you can shower Buddha with flowers in gratitude.

    At this moment you have become his contemporary. I want to make everyone in the world a contemporary of Buddha. This is the only possibility for humanity to survive on a higher plane.

    You are not working only for yourself, you are also working for the survival of this beautiful earth. isan02

    Swans are brought for the large pond in Lao Tzu Garden. Osho designs a new logo of a swan flying, against a background of the moon.

    Zen wants you to know that even the leaves falling from the trees have a consciousness of their own. Nothing is unconscious. There are different ways of being conscious, but we are living in an ocean of consciousness. Millions are the aspects...so that we cannot understand exactly what the bamboos are doing.

    Now in Mukta's pond, two beautiful snow-white swans have come, flown from England. Great visitors! And every night when I come and go, I cannot resist looking at them.

    They look so meditative, the whole day doing zazen...because they don't have any rented bicycle, they don't have to go to any movie. They are so silent that if you sit by the side of Mukta's pond you will become silent, seeing their silence. They just don't do anything-

    -simply exist, no philosophical argument.

    Seeing those swans I remember that in India, the man of self-realization is also called paramhansa. Hansa means swan and paramhansa means the great swan. Every day seeing them, I could understand: they look so buddhalike, just enjoying being--no work, no job, no strike, no lock-out, no interest in the whole world around them; they don't have anything.

    But with their coming, the pond has become a temple. They are meditating day and night. What is happening inside them is difficult for us to know, but something must be happening inside them. They are such beautiful people. It must be in a different dimension, so we never crisscross each other, but in the same direction there must be other people, other birds.

    There were ducks also--now, ducks are small; they became afraid when the swans came. So the ducks were in a very great trouble for a few days because the peacocks peck them on the head, so they cannot come out of the pond. And in the pond, two big swans are there--so unfamiliar, one does not know what they will do. So the ducks were hiding in the bushes. But slowly slowly some communication is certainly happening, because the ducks are coming closer...and yesterday Avesh informed me that they have entered the water with the swans. In silence, something has grown, a friendship. Nothing has been said, nothing has been heard, but something must have transpired between them.

    Either the swans must have told them, "Come on, don't be worried," or the ducks must have asked, "Can we come in?" Something is bound to have happened, because suddenly it cannot be. But it is outside the area of our intelligence. joshu05

    Who shall halt the swan In its flight?

    Or life in its flow?

    I have been telling you: everything is moving so fast--and there is nobody who is capable of preventing a swan in its flight.

    The great swans live deep in the Himalayas, in the highest lake in the world, Mansarovar. Mansarovar remains frozen for nine months of the year, you can drive a car on it. It is a lake miles and miles long, but the snow becomes hard as stone.

    The swans leave--they have to leave because there is no water to drink, no fish to eat, they cannot penetrate the thick layer of hard snow--and three thousand miles they fly over the Himalayas and come to small lakes, rivers, around North India. It is a very mysterious phenomenon.

    In those nine months...nature has such balance, such harmony, that those nine months are the months for their mating also. So they mate and they lay the eggs, but before the eggs open and their children come out, nine months are over. Now Mansarovar will be melting. They fly again, leaving the eggs in the plains of North India, a three-thousand- mile flight--thousands and thousands of swans disappearing into the Himalayas.

    The miracle is, when the parents are gone, then the eggs open and those small swans immediately start moving towards Mansarovar. They don't have any map, no guide, no parents to tell them which is exactly the same route the parents have taken for millions of years. Every year the miracle happens: those small swans start flying three thousand miles high above the Himalayan peaks where the snow has never melted since eternity, and they take the same route and they reach to the same Mansarovar lake.

    And people think nature has no intelligence!

    Nature has tremendous wisdom, just we have forgotten to listen to it. The only way for you to listen to nature is by going deeper into yourself, because there are roots which are spread into existence. Those roots still understand the language of existence.

    Far away from the roots, you are hung up in the head. You don't know anything about the wisdom of existence. That's why you ask questions which are not needed at all. You need only one thing: to find a connecting link with existence, and all questions disappear.

    My new symbol is going to be a flying swan.

    _Who shall halt the swan in its flight or life in its flow?--_but people try hard. christ03

    Coleman Barks and sufism

    In October 1988, Coleman Barks, the noted American translator of Sufi poetry, visits the ashram. In answer to his question, Osho suggests he move from Sufism to Zen, since the former is based on out-dated concept of God.

    Professor Coleman Barks has asked a question:

    I feel very grateful for your enlightenment, your wisdom, your daring experiments, your life. Thank you!

    Rumi said, "I want burning, burning. " What is that burning? Shams said, "I am fire."

    What do the burning and the fire have to do with my own enlightenment?

    Coleman, you have asked a very dangerous question!--because burning has nothing to do with your enlightenment. On the path of enlightenment there is no question of burning.

    But because you are in love with Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi I also love the man. But you

    have to understand that Sufism still depends on a hypothetical God. It is not free from the hypothesis of God. And particularly Sufism has the concept of God as a woman. Love is their method--love God as totally as possible. Now you are loving an impossible hypothesis, and totality is asked. You will feel the same kind of burning, in a more intensive way, as lovers feel on a smaller scale....

    So although I love Sufis. I don't want, Coleman, to hurt your feelings, but I would

    certainly say that you will have one day to change from Sufis to Zen. Sufis are still living in imagination; they have not known the state of no-mind. And because they have not known the state of no-mind, however beautiful their personalities may become, they are still just close to enlightenment, but not enlightened. Remember, even to be very close is not to be enlightened....

    So it is perfectly good, Coleman; enjoy the poetry, but don't think that these poetries are coming out of enlightenment. They have not even heard the word enlightenment. No word exists in Persian, in Urdu, in Arabic, equivalent to enlightenment. They have "God realization," realization of the beloved--but the beloved is separate from you....

    And I say unto you, the same is true with us. We are born in godliness, we live in godliness, we die in godliness. Just one thing has to be remembered: either you can pass through this tremendous experience of life asleep, or fully awakened.

    Meditation is the only way to make you aware. And once you are fully aware, all around is the ocean of godliness. The very life, the very consciousness is divine. It expresses in all the forms--in the roses and in the lotuses and in the birds and in the trees. Wherever life is, it is nothing but godliness. We are living in the ocean of godliness. So don't search anywhere. Just look within, because that is the closest point you can find.

    Sufism is beautiful but is not the ultimate answer, and you should not stop at Sufism. It is a good training to begin with. End up with Zen....

    You are asking, "What do the burning and the fire have to do with my own enlightenment?" Nothing at all. You are enlightened in this very moment; just enter silently into your own being. Find the center of your being and you have found the center of the whole universe. We are separate on the periphery but we are one at the center. I call this the buddha experience.

    Unless you become a buddha--and remember, it is the poverty of language that I have to say "Unless you become " You already are. So I have to say, unless you recognize,

    unless you remember what you have forgotten. rinzai02

    The Book of 300 Mystics

    Anando is compiling a book on all the mystics I have spoken on. She talked to Professor Coleman Barks. He was very much interested; he wanted to publish it himself. But he said, "From where has he found these three hundred? I have not even heard these names-- three hundred buddhas!" He has left, otherwise I would have sent him the message that I am still living and I am going to speak on at least two hundred more. There are more still, but even their names are lost.

    You are listening to people and their sutras which have been forgotten by the majority of humanity. My effort is to revive all those golden peaks in your consciousness, so you can have the trust that "If so many people became enlightened, there is no reason why I cannot become enlightened."

    My speaking on these people has a single purpose: to create a trust in you about yourself, that your destiny is to be a buddha. rinzai08

    I would like to write history completely from the very scratch, particularly about these people, because I know them from my own insight--I don't have to be bothered about facts, I know the truth. These people had not gone against life: they had gone simply for solitude; they had gone for being alone; they had just gone away from

    distractions. zara101

    Each awakened person has a uniqueness of his own. This has created great misunderstandings in people, because Christ does not behave like Gautam Buddha, Mahavira does not behave like Gautam Buddha, Krishna does not behave like Gautam Buddha. Even Bodhidharma, a disciple of Gautam Buddha, does not behave like Gautam Buddha. This has created a great confusion in the world. People think these people cannot all be right.

    Buddhists think only Gautam Buddha is right; Christ cannot be right. The misunderstanding arises because they think every buddha down the ages is going to be the same.

    In existence, nothing is the same. Every person has his own uniqueness.

    And when he becomes enlightened, his uniqueness becomes even more unique. He becomes a Himalayan peak, like Gourishankar, standing aloof, alone, reaching to the stars. It is not like any other peak in the Himalayas, or like any other mountain. It is just itself.

    That's why I have been speaking on so many awakened people. This has been done for the first time in the whole history of man. Hindus have been speaking on Krishna, on Rama; Buddhists have been speaking on Buddha, on Bodhidharma; Christians have been speaking on Christ, St. Francis, Meister Eckhart. Mohammedans have been speaking about Mohammed; Sufis have been speaking about Jalaluddin Rumi, Sarmad, Al-Hillaj Mansoor. But nobody has dared to bring all the enlightened people together.

    My whole effort has been to make it clear to the world that all enlightened people, howsoever different in their behavior, howsoever different in their philosophies, howsoever different in their actions, howsoever different in their individualities, still have the same taste, still have the same no-mind. Their innermost core is the same. It is the same light.

    Don't go according to the shape of the candle. The candle can have any kind of shape, but the flame in every candle--of different shapes, different sizes, different colors--is the same. Those who know the flame don't bother about the candles and their shapes and

    their sizes and their colors. What is important is not the candle; what is important is the flame.

    No-mind is the flame of every awakened being. He functions out of his self-nature, not out of his mind....

    I want it to be impressed in you as deeply as possible that all over the world, in different ages, in different races, enlightened people have existed. And it is time that they should be recognized as belonging to the same category, although protecting their uniqueness. They have a certain oneness but that is their innermost core. On the periphery, they are as unique as you can conceive. And it is beautiful. bodhi05

    Osho is ill

    In October 1988, the pains in Osho's arms and hands increase. He is no longer able to dance, but sends a message to continue the celebration while he holds his hands in namaste.

    First I have to express my apology to you that I could not join in your dance. The whole credit goes to President Ronald Reagan. For no reason at all he dragged me through six jails in twelve days; I thought it was sheer torture. But as symptoms of poison started appearing in my body, experts in England examined every possible kind of poison that may have been given to me.

    And they found one poison which is a category in itself. It is the only poison that disappears and cannot be found either in blood or in any other way except in the symptoms. And that poison, given in a big dose, kills the man immediately.

    That made it clear to me why I was dragged through six jails. It was to give the poison in small doses so it would not kill me immediately, but would take years to destroy my body from inside.

    I have almost overcome the poison. Just in my hands, in the bones and particularly in the joints it is still stuck. I have been dancing with you without bothering about it. I would have continued, but today the pain became too much.

    But the pain is not the problem for me. The problem is: if I continue then perhaps I may have to stop speaking. So it is better to let this pain settle. I hope soon I will be joining with you again.

    It would have been good if Ronald Reagan had killed me completely; that would have been a great credit to Christianity and to American democracy. But he has poisoned me through his administration in such a way that I will remain crucified for years. I am saving all my energy just for these two hours in the evening; otherwise, I am lying down in the darkness.

    For me it does not matter whether death comes this moment or the next, my purpose is fulfilled, my dance is complete. I am just lingering around for you all to join with me in the great matter of enlightenment.

    So I thought it is better not to put too much stress on the hands; you can understand even my unmoving hands and their gestures. But I would like you to continue the dance before I come and to continue the celebration when I leave the podium. I hope that with your love the poison will be defeated and I will be able to dance with you, to celebrate with you.

    I don't have any complaint against anybody; nature, existence itself takes care of things. The day I was given poison--I remember the night in Oklahoma jail--that very moment Ronald Reagan's days were finished, he started declining. His associate, Ed Meese, the attorney general who was the main agent as far as the poisoning is concerned, has now had to resign because he has been found to have committed great crimes.

    His representative admitted at a press conference, after I was deported from America, that there is no evidence, no proof that I have committed any crime. "Our main object was to destroy the commune and without deporting Osho it was impossible to destroy the commune."...

    And they have forced the Indian government not to allow in sannyasins coming from all over the world, so that I am isolated, almost imprisoned in my own home.

    But my people are intelligent enough to manage to come against all odds. And it is your love that is now my life. It is a question whether love wins or the poison.

    There is every evidence that from the whole body the poison has disappeared. Just in the hands it is there. It will have to disappear from the hands too, because you cannot destroy an innocent man; existence would not allow it. But I have to be a little careful now about the hands.

    Why have they not been able to silence me? Truth cannot be silenced, neither love nor joy. But this is the stupid thing, for centuries people have been doing that: they killed Socrates by poison, but his voice is still ringing in the ears and in the hearts of those who want to understand the deepest meanings of life; they crucified Jesus, but that has not made any difference, in fact it gave a tremendous importance to his teachings.

    I want to remind you that whether I am here or not the celebration has to continue. If I am not here, then it has to be more intense and it has to spread around the world.

    Celebration is my religion. Love is my message.

    Silence is my truth. nansen10

    In November, Osho is sick for twenty-five days. From 1st December, Osho gives discourses for one week.

    And the love between a disciple and a master is the most intimate, is the ultimate. You have to learn my absence; you have to rejoice my absence the same way as you rejoice my presence, because I cannot remain here forever. And don't postpone it, because any day...

    My work is absolutely complete as far as I am concerned. If I am still carrying on, it is just out of my love for you. But you have to learn my absence, because the days of my presence will be shorter. Every day the days of my presence will become shorter; my days of absence will be longer.

    I am not going to come again in the body; this is the last time. You have to become as silent, as loving, as meditative with me or without me. The difference between my absence and presence should completely be lost. isan07

    I am a master who had no master. So I cannot see and cannot say what you see in my eyes, in my face. But whatever you are seeing is really a pure reflection of your love and your trust. This body will wither away, but I have another body, of light. Before this body withers away, you have to become acquainted with my light body, with my inner center. And your center and my inner center are not two. In that area there is always one--neither two nor three. dogen08

    Osho is recognised as Maitreya Buddha, and changes his name

    From 7 December 1988, for three weeks, Osho is very sick and nearly dies. During this time he becomes a vehicle for Gautam Buddha.

    This time has been of historical importance.

    For seven weeks I was fighting with the poison day and night. One night, even my physician, Amrito, became suspicious that perhaps I cannot survive. He was taking my pulse rate and heartbeats on his cardiogram. Seven times I missed one heartbeat.

    The seventh time I missed a heartbeat, it was natural for his scientific mind to think, "Now we are fighting a battle that is almost lost." But I said to him, "Don't be worried. Your cardiogram can go wrong; it is just a mechanical device. Trust in my witnessing. Don't bother about my heartbeats."

    On the last day of the seven weeks' struggle when all the pain from my body disappeared, Amrito could not believe it. It was happening almost like a miracle. Where has all the pain disappeared?

    That last night, in the middle of the night I heard somebody knocking on the door. It is rare; nobody knocks on my door. I had to open my eyes. There was absolute darkness in the room, but I saw suddenly, with the door closed, a human being made of pure light entering. For a moment there was silence, and I heard from nowhere, "Can I come in?" The guest was so pure, so fragrant. I had simply to take him into the silences of my heart.

    This body of pure light was nobody but Gautam the Buddha.

    You can still see in my eyes the flame that I have absorbed into myself, a flame that has been for twenty-five centuries wandering around the earth to find a shelter. I am immensely blessed that Gautam the Buddha knocked on my doors.

    You can see in my eyes the flame, the fire. Your inner being is made of the same cool fire. You have to carry this fire around the earth, sharing, from eyes to eyes, from heart to heart.

    We are not here to create a new religion; our every effort is to destroy all religions....

    I will be continuing to create so much fire in you that it will burn your ego and your slavery simultaneously and make you a freedom, a light unto yourself. In your very eyes is the hope of the world. nomind04

    On 26 December, Osho resumes discourses and says the poisoning has finally left his body. Katue Ishida, the Japanese seeress, recognizes him as the vehicle for Maitreya Buddha. He drops the name "Bhagwan", takes the name Gautama the Buddha. This is the first of four new names.

    My Beloved Ones, I have been too long away from you. But this "awayness" was just like the glasses I'm wearing. Although you cannot see me, I can see you.

    I used to hear your "Yaa-Hoo." And each time I heard it stars showered over my small hut.

    These few days and nights have been days and nights of a certain purification. The poison that has been delivered to me by President Ronald Reagan and his staff. from all over the

    world experts in poison said that amongst all the poisons this is the one which cannot be detected in any way. And it has been the practice of the CIA in America to give this poison, because there is no way to find it out. And if you cannot find it you cannot give any antidotes. Death has been almost certain.

    These long days and nights I have taken the challenge of the poison, just witnessing. The poison was a constant torture on every joint of the bones, but a miracle has happened.

    Slowly slowly, from all joints it has disappeared. The last were the two arms. Today I am free from that too.

    I have a strong feeling that although I was not physically present here, you have felt me in the air. You have felt me more closely than ever before. And in your songs, I was present. In your meditations, remember, I was more present than physical presence allows.

    I had to come out today for a special reason.

    A few months ago in Bombay, Govind Siddharth had a vision that Gautam Buddha's soul has been searching for a body. And he saw in his vision that my body has become a vehicle for Gautam Buddha.

    He was right. But this is the misfortune of man: that you can go wrong even though you had touched upon a point of rightness. Because I declared him to be enlightened, he has disappeared. Since then I have not seen him. Perhaps he thinks, "Now, what is the use? I was searching for enlightenment and I have found it."

    Enlightenment is only the beginning, not the end. He came very close and has gone very far away.

    But I was waiting for the recognition from a Zen source that Gautam the Buddha is trying to use my words and my silences, my heartbeats and my inner sky to create a few more rainbows, to spread a few more flowers in the world. That recognition has come from a very famous seeress and prophetess from Japan.

    One of our sannyasins was there. He could see the sincerity of the woman. She never praises anyone; her insight is clear. He was afraid to ask about me, but finally he decided to ask and without any hesitation she said, "I was waiting for a messenger. You have come at the right time. Gautam Buddha is using Bhagwan's body.

    "Right now take these twenty-one very precious real pearls as a present to Bhagwan with my congratulations that a soul that has been wandering around in search of a vehicle has found it."

    The sannyasin was a little doubtful, because he said, "Bhagwan's body has been poisoned in America. Will Gautam Buddha accept a vehicle which has been poisoned?"

    The sincerity of the woman reminds me of Almitra of Kahlil Gibran's Prophet. She said, "Have you ever heard that a Satan or a devil has been poisoned? It has been the destiny of the Buddhas. Don't think that the body has become impure by poisoning. This has been a fire test, and Bhagwan has come out of it. You take these pearls and my message, and I will be coming myself to pay my respects."

    By the way, I have been calling myself "Bhagwan" just as a challenge to this country, to the Christians, to the Mohammedans, to the Hindus. They have condemned me, but none has been courageous enough to explain the condemnation. From faraway sources there have been articles and letters sent to me saying, "Why do you call yourself Bhagwan?" And I have laughed, because why does Ram call himself Bhagwan? Is he appointed by a committee? And a Bhagwan appointed by a committee will not be much of a Bhagwan, because the committee does not consist of Bhagwans. What right have they?

    Is Krishna elected by the people as Bhagwan? Is it an election matter? Who has appointed these people? No Hindu has the answer. And a man like Krishna has stolen sixteen thousand women from different people--they were mothers, they were married, unmarried--with no discrimination, and yet no Hindu has the courage to object that a man with such a character has no right to be called Bhagwan.

    They can call Kalki, a white horse, "Bhagwan." Strange people! And they ask me why I call myself Bhagwan. I don't have any respect for the word. In fact I have every condemnation of it. It is not a beautiful word--although I have tried in my own way to transform the word, but the stupid Hindus won't allow it. I have tried to give it a new name, a new meaning, a new significance. I have said that it means the Blessed One, a man with a blessed being, although it was my invention.

    The word `bhagwan' is a very ugly word. But the Hindus are not even aware of it. They think that it is something very special. Its root meaning--bhag means a woman's genital organs. And wan means a man's genital organs. The meaning of the word `bhagwan' is symbolically that he brings about in the feminine energy of existence, through his male chauvinistic energy, the creation.

    I hate the word! I have been waiting for some Hindu idiot to come forward, but they think that it is something very dignified and I have no right to call myself Bhagwan. Today I say absolutely, "Yes, but I have every right to denounce the word." Nobody can prevent me. I don't want to be called Bhagwan again. Enough is enough! The joke is over!

    But I accept the Japanese Zen prophetess. And from now onwards I am Gautam the Buddha. You can call me "The Beloved Friend." Drop the word `Bhagwan' completely. Even very intelligent people, people who respect me and love me...

    Just the other day I received an appreciation of my book Zarathustra by an internationally famous journalist. He has praised it, and he has said that after Adi Shankara--the most famous Hindu philosopher--I am the second as far as intellectual, rational, spiritual authenticity is concerned.

    But still he could not forget the word `bhagwan', why I called myself Bhagwan. But does he know that he is comparing me with Adi Shankara who has been called for over a thousand years "Bhagwan Adi Shankara." And nobody asks the question why.

    Anybody would be happy to be compared with Adi Shankara, but I am not. It is not a compliment to me, because Shankara is the reason that Buddhism, which was a higher flowering, was destroyed--by Shankara and the Hindu priesthood. I cannot accept that Shankara has any genius. He is orthodox, just trying to protect the investment of the Hindu priesthood, which is the world's worst, the ancientmost rotten priesthood.

    I refuse to be compared with this man, particularly because he was the reason the roses were destroyed that Gautam Buddha had managed to grow in the soil of this land. In my eyes he is a criminal of the worst kind.

    But as far as Gautam the Buddha is concerned, I welcome him in my very heart. I will give him my words, my silences, my meditations, my being, my wings. From today onwards you can look at me as Gautama the Buddha.

    I will tell you about the Japanese Buddhist seeress--she has sent her picture:

    "Katue Ishida, mystic of one of the biggest and most famous Shinto shrines in Japan, stated recently after seeing Bhagwan's picture, that: `This is the person that Maitreya the Buddha has entered. He is trying to create a utopia in the twenty-first century. Lots of destructive power is against Him, and some people call Him Satan. But I have never known Satan to be poisoned. He is usually the poisoner, not the poisoned. We must protect this man, Bhagwan. Buddha has entered Him.'"

    With great love and respect I accept Ishida's prophecy. She will be welcome here as one of my people, most loved. And by accepting Gautam the Buddha as my very soul, I go out of the Hindu fold completely; I go against the Jaina fold completely. nomind01

    On 28 December 1988, Osho changes his name to Maitreya the Buddha.

    I am feeling so light, just by dropping a single word. I feel I can fly like a swan to the eternal snows of the Himalayas. That small word I had chosen as a challenge to this country's whole past. For thirty years I carried that word....

    By dropping the word `Bhagwan' I have disconnected myself absolutely from an ugly tradition--inhuman, barbarious. It has created a mind for slavery, uncreative in every sense, and in the name of spirituality every kind of nonsense goes. nomind02

    Yesterday you witnessed a historical moment.

    I have accepted Gautam Buddha's soul as a guest, reminding him that I am a non- compromising person, and if any argument arises between us, "I am the host, and you are the guest--you can pack your suitcases!" But lovingly and with great joy he has accepted a strange host--perhaps only a strange man like me could do justice to a guest like Gautam the Buddha. Twenty-five centuries ago he was the most liberated, but in twenty- five centuries so much water has flowed down the Ganges. It is a totally new world of which he knows nothing.

    With great respect he will have to depend on me to encounter the contemporary situation.

    He understood it immediately. His clarity of vision has remained pure all along these twenty-five centuries. I am blessed to be a host of the greatest man of history. And you are also fortunate to be a witness of a strange phenomenon....

    Gautam Buddha fought like a lion. I am immensely happy that he has chosen me. His area of fight was very small, just the state of Bihar in North India; my field of work is the whole world.

    I have to fight not only against the Hindu superstitions, I have to fight with the Mohammedans, with the Christians--alone, but with great rejoicing, hoping that the courageous ones are going to join my caravan.

    The fight is at the most crucial time. The world cannot be saved. These coming twelve years are going to be the last for this beautiful planet to breathe, to blossom into flowers. My work and yours is to find the chosen people before the idiotic politicians destroy the world. Let us create as many buddhas as possible because they will be the only ones whose bodies may be destroyed but whose souls will have wings to fly across the sun into the blue sky and dissolve into eternity with joy, with dance, with gratitude....

    It is my great destiny that he has chosen me to be his host. I will do--in fact I have been doing already--the same kind of work of spreading awakening. Hence it is not a problem to me. An ancient buddha residing inside will certainly strengthen my work.

    You are asking about poisoning, "Is there any connection (between the poisoning of Gautam Buddha,* and yourself)?" Certainly, seeing that I have overcome the poisoning, which was far more dangerous than the poisoning that Buddha suffered. The poisoning has been a great purification for me. This purification makes me receptive to the wandering soul of Gautam Buddha.

    He is not a weight. He is rather more like wings. He is not the man to dictate anything-- the pure agnostic, the greatest individualist, the utter rebel. I have been, without knowing, preparing a home, a shelter, for a wandering Buddha. It is my fortune that he has accepted me to be his home for a few days at least.

    You are also fortunate to be the assembly of two Buddhas, a bridge stretched between twenty-five centuries, so rich that if you miss, nobody except yourself will be responsible for it.

    It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh. Gautam the Buddha may not be aware. because I

    don't find in his scriptures any sense of humor. But now in this assembly even a dead man will start laughing. nomind02

    *Note: Gautam Buddha died after eating contaminated food.

    Beloved Buddha, Is it not a paradox that you--who must be the most truly individualistic of beings--have proved also to be the purest medium for another?

    I am not the medium for anyone. Gautam Buddha is just my guest. It does not in any way interfere with my individuality. He knows it, there is no need to say it. He is not the man to interfere. He himself is one of the greatest individualists. That's why meeting with him is almost like meeting with oneself.

    I am not anybody's medium. I have just found another companion, a tremendous force to help you. Now the caravan is not only to depend on my insights. Now my insights will also be supported by the greatest human being, Gautam Buddha.

    And his choice to be my guest is simply because what he has known I have known, what he has become I have become. There is such a deep synchronicity that it is only in language I can say there is a division between the host and the guest. But in existential terms, the host and guest have become one. When two unbounded souls meet, it is a merger. It is just a merger like a river descending deep into the ocean and

    disappearing. nomind04

    On 30 December, Osho announces that Gautama was unable to adjust to the 20th century, and has left. Osho is now to be called Shree Rajneesh Zorba the Buddha

    My Beloved Ones,

    These four days have been of immense difficulty to me. I had thought that Gautam Buddha would be understanding of the change of times, but it was impossible. I tried my hardest, but he is so much disciplined in his own way--twenty-five centuries back--he has become a hard bone.

    Small things became difficult.

    He used to sleep only on the right side. He did not use a pillow; he used his hand as a pillow. The pillow was, for him, a luxury.

    I told him, "The poor pillow is not a luxury, and it is sheer torture to keep your hand the whole night under your head. And do you think to lie down on the right side is right, and the left is wrong? As far as I am concerned, this is my basic fundamental, that I synthesize both the sides."

    He was eating only one time per day and he wanted, without saying a word, that I should do it also. He used to beg his food. He asked me, "Where is my begging bowl?"

    This evening exactly at six o'clock when I was taking my jacuzzi, he became very much disturbed--"Jacuzzi?" Taking a bath twice a day was again a luxury.

    I said, "You have fulfilled your prophecy that you will be coming back. Four days are enough--I say goodbye to you! And now you need not wander around the earth; you just disappear in the ultimate blue sky.

    "You have seen for four days that I am doing the work that you wanted to do, and I am doing it according to the times and the needs. I am not in any way ready to be dictated to. I am a free individual. Out of my freedom and love I have received you as a guest, but don't try to become a host."

    These four days I have been having a headache. I had not known it for thirty years, I had completely forgotten what it means to have a headache. Everything was impossible. He is so accustomed to his way, and that way is no longer relevant.

    So now I make a far greater historical statement, that I am just myself.

    You can continue to call me The Buddha, but it has nothing to do with Gautam the Buddha or Maitreya the Buddha. I am a buddha in my own right. The word `buddha' simply means the awakened one.

    It will be a great difficulty for poor Anando, because now I declare that my name should be Shree Rajneesh Zorba The Buddha.

    I have to offer an apology to Katue Ishida, the seeress in an ancient Shinto shrine in Japan. I tried my hardest to accommodate a twenty-five centuries old, out-of-date individuality, but I am not ready to be in a self torture.

    And Anando has to see me afterwards, to release the second story...because that makes me absolutely free from any kind of tradition. I used to think that Gautam Buddha is an individual--and that is true, he is. But even against his desire a tradition has arisen in Tibet, in China, in Japan, in Sri Lanka, and I don't want to struggle with these idiots. I want to work with my own people on my own authority. nomind05

    Today, it is not only to come and sit silently for a few minutes, but also to dance because I have declared myself Zorba The Buddha, which has been my basic approach to all human problems. This evening is far more significant than the evening four days

    before. nomind05

    My Beloved Ones,

    Geeta had to inform Katue Ishida, the seeress and the prophetess of one of the most ancient shrines of the Shinto religion in Japan. Geeta was a little concerned that she would be disturbed and shocked, but on the contrary, Ishida was immensely happy.

    She said, "I have not only prophesied that Gautam Buddha would be entering your master's being; I have also prophesied that, just as Buddha himself changed his name four times, your master would also do the same."

    She said, "My only concern is your master's health and his work. It does not matter whether Buddha remains in his being or not."

    I am immensely grateful to Ishida for understanding the situation with clarity.

    Yes, it is true Gautam Buddha changed his name four times. And as I remember it, it was not worthy of him to do that. My change has taken me higher.

    I found Buddha too old and too much fixed in his approach to life. Finally I dropped all concern with anyone. I have chosen my own name: Zorba the Buddha.

    It has meaning, it is not just a name. It is my whole philosia; it is my whole vision, in which the lowest will meet with the highest, in which materialism and spiritualism will not be two separate and antagonistic things. That division has killed human spirit immensely. It has made man a battlefield, and I want man to be a dance, a harmony, a balance.

    But Gautam Buddha's changing of names is a little unworthy of him.

    I have no concern to protect anybody; now I am going to be simply stating the truth. Whether it hurts, wounds, or heals, depends on you....

    Katue Ishida is neither Buddhist nor has she any connection with me. She seems to be a woman of immense understanding, love, and search for a man who has arrived home. She is poor, because she has lived along the lines of non-possessiveness. That's why she has been delayed; now she is collecting money to come here to pay her respects.

    Geeta could not believe it. She was thinking that Ishida would be disturbed that her prophecy did not come true, or failed on the way. But an authentic seeker is not concerned with individuals. She told Geeta, "Don't feel worried and concerned. With every change your master has reached a higher stage."

    This series of talks I would like to be dedicated with love and blessings to Katue Ishida.

    Just because of her prophecy about me she has suddenly become a world-famous name. Now the news media are approaching to her to ask about the prophecy--on what grounds, and all kinds of questions. She has lived silently in a shrine deep in the forest, but just a single prophecy has brought her into the light. She needs to be brought into the light, she may be helpful in solving many problems that man is encountering. nomind06

    These five days have been of immense significance. It can be said that almost never in the history of man has such a phenomenon happened....

    I would have never told you, but due to Katue Ishida. a woman who has not known me,

    has just seen my picture and my eyes, and a woman who is a well-known seer and prophetess but rarely speaks. Very rarely people come to her ancient Shinto temple in the

    forest to ask questions, about their destinies, their future. And most of the time she remains silent; she speaks only when she feels, "Now existence is taking possession of me. I am not speaking, I am only allowing the existence to speak through me."

    My Japanese translator, Geeta, has been informing her of everything that has happened in these five tremendously meaningful days. Because of her prophecy that Gautam Buddha has taken possession of my body as a vehicle, I had to admit the truth. But I had also expressed to her that my individuality and Gautam Buddha's individuality are twenty-five centuries apart. He was an individualist--I am a greater individualist. I can be the host, but the guest has to remember that he is not my master.

    I have never accepted anybody as my master. It has taken me very long to find out myself, but I am immensely happy that I don't have even to say a `thank you' to anyone. The search has been absolutely alone, tremendously dangerous.

    And there are opinions in which I am bound to differ from Gautam Buddha. Four days he stayed with me, and saw clearly that there is no possibility of any compromise.

    Compromise always leads you away from the truth. Truth cannot be a compromise-- either you know it or you don't.

    Geeta informed Ishida, and she was very much afraid: how will the woman feel? But the woman proved to be of tremendous power. She said, "It does not matter. I love your master and I absolutely agree to whatsoever has happened." And then she suddenly started crying.

    Geeta asked her, "Why are you crying?"

    She said, "There are no words. For the first time...continuously, for five days, I have been speaking about your master, and I know nothing of him. I have not read his books, I have just seen his eyes, and a door within me has opened and almost like a flood I have been speaking. This is for the first time in my whole life..." She is in a hurry to come.

    But the seven weeks' fire, the long night of the soul proved to be a blessing in disguise. It has purified me completely. And these five days of Gautam Buddha as Maitreya Buddha-

    -that was his prophecy, that "My name after twenty-five centuries when I come back again, will be Maitreya the Buddha."

    The Friend--Maitreya means "the friend."

    It was significant on his part. He was saying, the world of the gurus has ended. The world of the masters and disciples will not be relevant anymore. The master can function only in the capacity of a loving friend. And the disciple has not to be a disciple, has not to surrender to anybody, he has just to listen to the Friend. It is up to him to decide what to do or not. No discipline can be given, no dictation can be given.

    In the world of religion this is the beginning of democracy; otherwise, all religions have been dictatorial, fascist, fundamentalist.

    I would like you to remember because you have been the witness of all these seven weeks and five days--seven weeks of a constantly deepening darkness, and these five days of the rising sun, of the morning glories, of the birds singing. Again a new beginning, not only in my individuality but also in the individualities of those who have taken the risk to be fellow-travelers with me. nomind07

    At the end of January 1989, Katue Ishida visits:

    Ishida is here, sitting. She has come from Japan, from a Shinto temple. I will make her my ambassador in Japan--I have my ambassadors all over the world. Soon I will appoint an ambassador to the Soviet Union. fire01

    Long discourses: Osho emphasises urgency; he has not long to live

    At this time, Osho is giving very long discourses, up to four hours in length. The silences between his words lengthen. Leading the meditation, he emphasizes 'urgency'.

    Now the sutra. The sutra is long and the night is short. I hope that I will be able to

    finish it before sunrise! yaku04

    Nivedano. (Drumbeat) (Gibberish)

    Nivedano. (Drumbeat)

    Be silent. Close your eyes and feel your body to be completely frozen. This is the right moment to go inwards.

    Gather all your energy, your total consciousness, and rush towards your center of being-- with an urgency as if this moment is going to be the last moment of your life. Unless such urgency is there, nobody gets to the center of his being.

    Faster and faster... Deeper and deeper...

    It all depends on your intensity. The distance is not big.

    As you start coming closer to your center, a great silence descends over you, almost like soft rain falling. The coolness you can feel.

    A little closer, and you start being surrounded by a great peace, what mystics have called the peace beyond understanding.

    Just one step more, and you are at the center.

    Suddenly you feel drunk with the divine. A great ecstasy arises in you; you become luminous, all darkness disappears. You are no more. You suddenly realize your original face.

    In the East we have used Gautam Buddha's face as the original face of everyone. It is only symbolic. You are encountering Gautam Buddha, not from the outside but from his innermost source. You have become his very heart.

    Just remember one thing, and that is witnessing. That constitutes Buddha's whole being. Call it awareness, call it total consciousness, call it what Buddha used to call sammasati, right remembering, but witnessing is the most important word out of all these.

    Just be a witness that you are not the body. Be a witness that you are not the mind. And finally, be a witness that you are only a witness, nothing else.

    At this moment you enter into the secretmost part of your center.

    This is the beginning of a long pilgrimage, of disappearing into the cosmos. This is the door opening into the cosmos. We are one with the whole.

    Just go on witnessing, and everything becomes deeper, deeper, deeper... To make the witnessing more clear to you,

    Nivedano... (Drumbeat) Relax.

    Let go. But go on being a witness.

    As your witnessing becomes more and more clear, you start melting like ice in the ocean. Gautama the Buddha Auditorium is turning into an ocean of consciousness. Ten thousand buddhas have melted into one consciousness, universal consciousness, eternal consciousness, immortal consciousness, consciousness beyond birth and death.

    This is your authentic being.

    What has disappeared was only a personality. Now, only the essential, existential, experiential has remained. And this existential consciousness is not only yours, it belongs to the cosmos. You are just dewdrops who have fallen from the lotus leaf into the ocean.

    Rejoice in it.

    You are the most fortunate people in the world. At this moment, when everybody is concerned with trivia, you are exploring the most majestic, the most splendorous experience; the most divine, sacred space you are entering in.

    Collect all these experiences--this blissfulness, this witnessing, this silence... This is it. Get hold of it. And persuade the buddha to come with you.

    He is your nature, he is your dharma, he is your ultimate secret. Bring him with you.

    These are the three steps of enlightenment: First, the buddha will come behind you as a presence. You will feel it, it will surround you, it is an energy field; it will change your whole behavior, it will give you a new sense of direction in life. It will give you a new morality, of your own, a spontaneity in existence. It will give you a love for life, a cheerfulness you have not known, and courage. The moment you know you are eternal, all weakness disappears, all inferiority disappears.

    On the second step, the buddha comes in front of you--you become the shadow.

    On the third step, your shadow withers away. You are no more, only the buddha remains. He is your eternity, he is your truth, he is your beauty, he is your godliness.

    Nivedano... (Drumbeat)

    Come back. But come back with the same grace, with the same silence, with the same peacefulness. And sit down for a few seconds just to remember the path you have followed inwards. It is a golden path.

    The center that you have reached, it is not only your center, it is the center of the whole existence.

    At the center we all meet. The birds, the trees, the rivers, the mountains, everyone at the center meets. We are different on the circumference but we are one at the center.

    And to know this oneness is enlightenment.

    This evening has been beautiful on its own, but your intensity, your search, your inward journey, has made it a magical evening--an evening of transformation, of metamorphosis. gdead07

    The Buddha Auditorium suddenly has become a lake of consciousness; personalities have disappeared, there is not even a single ripple in the lake.

    Collect as much oceanic experience as possible. You have to bring the buddha back with you. You have to live the buddha in your everyday experience. nomind01

    Sit for a few moments just to recollect the golden path that you have traveled just now.

    And in your day-to-day life remember as much as possible--without creating any tension and anxiety, in a relaxed and restful way--that your every act becomes the act of one who is awakened, of one who has tasted his innermost being.

    I want thousands of buddhas around the world, and not a single Buddhist.

    I teach you the buddha, but not Buddhism. I hate all `isms', all religions. My love is for your eternity, your immortal being.

    I have called that immortal being within you, _"Mehre Mehbub"--_My Love, My Friend, My Beloved One. nomind10

    Meditation heralds the beginning of your buddhahood. Without meditation, you cannot taste anything of religion. You can believe, but belief is always of the ignorant.

    I want you to understand absolutely: Never believe in anything. Experiment. Take the belief as a hypothesis but never as a certainty. Unless you experience, no belief can help you.

    Can belief in water quench your thirst? Can belief in God herald the dawn? No belief system is of any help. You have to go inwards, alone, as deep as possible.

    Meditation is the very essence of all religions. Everything else is mere commentary. 1seed04

    On 7 January 1989, Osho changes his name to Shree Rajneesh, and indicates he has not long to live

    I am living for only my people, whose hearts have melted with me. These few breaths that are left to be here on the earth,

    I have to devote to my own people,

    with the hope that they will use this opportunity to become aflame with joy and blissfulness,

    to find their roots in eternity, immortality... to become in their own right

    one with the cosmos, dancing with the stars

    and the flowers and the rivers and the oceans. nomind12

    Osho mentions his private life

    I have never felt my age. I still feel like a child. As I close my eyes I don't see any difference in my innocence, in my mischievousness. I am the only rascal saint in the whole world.

    I sometimes wonder whether I am aging or not. My beard has become white, but it is not because of my age. It is due to the courtesy of President Ronald Reagan's poison. One of the symptoms of the poison thallium that he has given to me is that it turns your hair white. It would have turned ten years later, but he helped me, he saved ten years. He has given me a beautiful beard. The whole credit goes to him!

    When I look into the mirror, into my eyes, I see the same eyes I have always seen from my very childhood. I close my eyes, I look inside, and I am the same--just ageless.

    That's why I go on forgetting how long I have been speaking to you. Last night, it was really too much! I have a watch, but I don't want to offend you so I don't look at it.

    Looking at a watch means I am tired of you. I am never tired.

    On the way back, Anando and Avesh said that "This was the record!" christ04

    Anando comes to wake me up at 3:30 in the afternoon. It is a difficult task, to wake somebody who is awake. So poor Anando, as she opens the door I say, "Hello, Anando." She has never had a chance to wake me up to now. Just hiding behind my blanket, I say, "Hello, Anando!"

    Just the other day she was asking, "It is strange--I open the door so silently and you are hiding in your blanket and you immediately respond."

    Amrito knows that it is absolutely impossible for me to sleep. He tries every possible medicine and he brings all kinds of compact disks which create sleep, and the whole night I have to listen! But I am not at all tired. In the morning when I wake up from my whole night of awakening, I have lost the very sense of time.

    That's why last night I went on and on. I would have gone on and on, just I remembered Sardar Gurudayal Singh; otherwise there was no question. Only in the car, Anando told me, "You know it is 11:05!"

    I said, "My God, that is a record! If I had not remembered Sardar Gurudayal Singh, last night was going to be a marathon discourse. Only early in the morning when sun was rising, I would have allowed you to go for breakfast! Some day it is going to

    happen. fire07

    I myself cannot sleep at all--the whole night, not a wink....

    That is my situation.

    My personal physician, Amrito, has managed a CD player that plays music continuously the whole night so that I can at least enjoy music. Otherwise I am just lying down. For thirty years I have not slept--but do you see my eyes tired or anything?

    My own understanding is that sleep is a habit. It is not a necessity, it is a habit. For millions of years man remained in dark caves in the night with no fire, no light. There was no other alternative than to fall asleep. Those millions of years the habit has become so deeply rooted that we go on sleeping.

    But my own understanding is that I have not slept for thirty years, not dreamt for thirty years--and it has not in any way disturbed anything in me. The whole sleep is a silent meditation, and with beautiful music in the background, the whole night is such a blissful, such an ecstatic experience! christ02

    The man of enlightenment concentrates all the energy into one center. All other centers are no more moving wheels, they are stopped, just as a wheel stops moving. But if he wants, the man of enlightenment can bring the energy down. He can bring it to the sixth center and he can see far and wide with clarity. That will not be possible at the seventh center.

    The seventh center is beyond everything. You simply are no more. At the sixth, again you are. The energy comes, the circle, the wheel starts moving. You can bring it down to the fifth....

    I have to bring it down to the fifth every day when I am talking to you. Without the throat, I cannot talk. But when I stop talking the energy goes back to the seventh. christ08

    Just now, as I was getting ready to come here, taking my bath, the cuckoos in my garden were really going cuckoo! But I wondered that every cuckoo has its own song to sing. I could make out clearly how many cuckoos there were. Their song was different, their sound was different.

    Existence takes care of variety. celebr03

    Controversy with Buddhists

    Friends, The supreme commanding body of Indian Buddhists, Mahabodhi Sabha, has come with a very angry statement in the press against me. I used to think that Mahabodhi Sabha consists of wise people. I was absolutely wrong--it consists of otherwise guys!...

    The Mahabodhi Society is saying that I am making statements as if I am the reincarnation of Gautam the Buddha. I have never said a single word about reincarnation. I have simply said that he wanted to use my body--unfortunately I allowed him, but fortunately I was able to persuade him and to say goodbye to him.

    Now as far as I am concerned the story is closed. If the Mahabodhi Society wants, it can file a court case against Gautam Buddha! Why did he knock on my doors?

    It is not my fault. To be angry at me simply shows your stupidity. If you were really lovers of Gautam Buddha, you would have come here and investigated the case. No one entered these gates to inquire! You could have phoned and inquired, "What is the situation?" But no inquiry has been made at all.

    And you are not even up-to-date about the event. That guy you think so much of is no longer here! Next time, if he comes here he will be kicked out, I promise you--to your heart's content!...

    But I am not claiming to be a reincarnation. I am not claiming anything except that the wandering soul of Gautam Buddha has visited me for four days.

    Tathagat, who is the in-charge of this commune--please write underneath "Gautam the Buddha Auditorium," in brackets: "In the memory of his visitation for four days to this commune." Before it and after it, it is none of my concern. nomind10

    Ishida phoned from Japan to say that I should not take any notice of these people; it is the fate of the giants and the geniuses to be condemned by the little man. She must have been feeling wounded that Buddhists can behave in such a way. She has issued to the Japanese newspapers and magazines a statement, that "It is I who have prophesied. If Indian Buddhists are angry, they should be angry at me." And she has informed that she will be coming here soon to encounter the press, and to encounter the so-called Buddhists. A woman of tremendous courage. nomind11

    The Republican Party of India and the Dalit organization--both are organizations of the neo-Buddhists--have made a similar resolution to the government of India, that action should be taken against me because I have been comparing myself with Buddha.

    In the first place, I have never compared myself with Buddha. I have always said definitively that he is life-negative, and I am absolutely life-affirmative. There is no possibility of any comparison.

    He is a bullock cart, and you want it to be compared with my Rolls Royce? Of course, the basic principle of a bullock cart is the same--the four wheels--but still you cannot compare it with a Rolls Royce.

    These organizations have told the government that their religious feelings are very much hurt. poetry02

    Friends, I have never laughed in my life as much as I have laughed this last week. Every day something hilarious happens.

    Today I have received a message from the Dalit Elevation Republic Party, that I have to prove my sanity by a certificate from a psychologist. Only then are they ready to discuss matters with me.

    Under my guidance, almost one hundred psychologists are working, and hundreds more come and go to learn meditation here. Whom should I ask for the certificate?...

    There are hundreds of psychoanalysts, psychologists, therapists, believers in other different schools of psychology, who have been here under me to learn meditation-- because psychology itself has come to understand that it is incomplete. Without attaining a silent mind, all that you can do is analyze dreams. And analyzing dreams is not going to give you the essential being of the person.

    Right now there are dozens of psychoanalysts, therapists present in this meeting--they have come from far away, well educated, trained, certified to practice psychoanalysis. But psychoanalysis itself is dying, because it has not cured a single person in the whole world. Twenty years of psychoanalysis...

    It is strange, because the East has been working on the inner world of man, and they did not develop a psychology. They did not bother about analyzing dreams, because they knew this is just treating the symptoms, and treating the symptoms does not cure the disease.

    The disease is deeper than the mind, and unless you give man a clear perception of his being, of his eternal soul, nothing can help humanity. Only an experience of the eternity, the immortality of consciousness gives man wholeness--and I call this the only holiness also.

    If these people whom I have been trying to help all my life... I have been in support of the oppressed, the suppressed, but they don't understand. Neither have they read any book of mine, nor have they ever come to listen to me.

    I have six hundred and fifty books--perhaps nobody in the whole world has written six hundred and fifty books--translated into thirty-four languages of the world. And this uneducated, uncultured Dalit organization has some nerve to ask me that I should produce a certificate from a psychologist concerning my sanity.

    England's greatest psychoanalyst, Ronnie Laing, has written just a few days ago. He has been sending his own patients, whom he could not cure in fourteen or sixteen years of work, to learn meditation. He wanted to come to be here for a few days. He wants to learn meditation--because mind is not enough; one needs something more of the eternity of existence....

    And if these people want to know, they can come to the ashram office. There are at least one thousand letters that were written to the American government when I was arrested there, from all kinds of prominent people around the world, condemning the criminal step of Ronald Reagan: arresting a man without any reason, without any arrest warrant. They had no evidence at all against me.

    I never go out of my room. I am not concerned with anybody's morality and religion and civilization.

    According to me, all these things have not yet happened. Man has yet to wait. Man is still living in the darkness of the barbarious past. 1seed04

    Controversy with Hindus

    Osho comments on topical issues which illustrate the hypocrisy of orthodox religions, who accuse him of being a danger to their morality.

    The Shankaracharya of Puri--I'm an old, intimate enemy of his--asked the Indian government that the ancient sati pratha should be legalized! For centuries Hinduism has been forcing women, when their husbands die, to jump into the funeral pyres, alive, to be burned and die.

    This is called sati.

    Calling a woman sati because she has jumped into the funeral pyre of her husband is saying that she has attained the truth. If this is true, then why has not a single man in the whole of history jumped into the funeral pyre of his wife? Such an easy way to become one with truth! At least the Shankaracharya of Puri should commit sati. That would make his name history, the only man in the whole of history. And he is such an idiot, he can do

    it! It is good that he should; otherwise, he has no right to ask the government.

    Hindus have been torturing women for centuries. If somebody, out of love, jumps into the funeral pyre--whether it is man or woman does not matter, if it comes out of love--then I have tremendous respect for it. But it was not coming out of love, it was being forced....

    And this fellow, the Shankaracharya of Puri, was speaking on the occasion where a six- year-old girl--in fact it is illegal for her even to be married--was burned on the funeral

    pyre of her husband. Nor was she of an age to be married. Their marriage was invalid, illegal, unconstitutional and this murder is supported by the Shankaracharya of Puri.

    On this occasion he was asking the government to make sati pratha legal. I am asking the Indian government to make it a law that every shankaracharya should commit sati first.

    There are eight shankaracharyas in India. Only after that should any woman commit suicide and it should always be out of love, not because of a ritual. quant11

    I have received a letter from the Shankaracharya of Puri saying that he wants a debate with me. I am perfectly willing, but on what grounds is he going to debate with me? He has said that if a woman is burned alive, becomes a sati, then in Hyderabad rains will come. Now on what grounds can we discuss it? The only way is that the Shankaracharya should become a sati in Hyderabad! And if rains come, I will accept that he was right. If rains don't come, everybody will know that he was wrong.

    He thinks in terms of scriptures, not in terms of real life. He thinks that he can discuss with me because in the Hindu scriptures the idea is that a woman whose husband has died has to jump into his funeral pyre. To him, it proves that sati pratha is right. To me, it proves that the scripture has to be thrown into the fire! On what grounds can we

    discuss? cuckoo08

    Untouchables, who are not allowed to enter Hindu temples, have been demonstrating at the Nath Dwara temple for the right to enter

    Also the shankaracharya goes on insisting that the untouchables need not go to temples because they are God's only beloved people. If the beloved ones cannot enter into a temple, either God is wrong, or his love is a fallacy, a strategy. At least the Shankaracharya who is saying it, who is himself the head of one of the biggest and most ancient temples, with hundreds of priests there, should lead the harijans, the untouchables, into his temple first....

    The government has arrested those two hundred harijans who were trying to enter the Nath Dwara temple. The government's act is absolutely unconstitutional. The constitution gives equality to everybody as a birthright. If the government wanted to be legal and constitutional, then the people who were preventing the entry of harijans, like the Shankaracharya and the priests of Nath Dwara, they should be arrested. But what an irony! Those poor two hundred harijans have been arrested to protect the vested interests of the higher, richer Hindu society.

    I am simply amazed that harijans go on remaining part of the Hindu society. For ten thousand years at least they have been exploited; they are the most exploited and oppressed part of humanity. They should get out of Hinduism, there is no need of any

    `ism'. They don't have to be Hindus. It is so undignified that the Hindu scriptures deny them the right even to read the scriptures; the Hindu scriptures forbid them to worship in the temples; they are even forbidden to touch Hindus. Not even their shadow should touch any Hindu; otherwise the Hindu has to take a bath to cleanse himself.

    And still those poor people go on remaining part of Hindu society. It seems to be a certain conspiracy between the Hindu priests and the government, that the priests are out protecting their temples and the harijans, who were trying...what harm could they have done? Just worshipping in the temple...and if a Hindu temple is not allowing a certain section of society, then certainly that section should separate itself from such humiliation. bolt03

    Controversy with Jainas

    Just now one of the most organized Jaina sects, terapanth, is bombarded--particularly the head of the sect, Acharya Tulsi--with exposures upon exposures, almost in a chain.

    Two disciples of Acharya Tulsi left the fold and exposed all the perversion, the sexual exploitation in the name of religion. Acharya Tulsi has more than seventeen hundred monks and double that number of nuns. It is a vast community of monks and nuns, and the exposures from these two--and since then others have joined--reveal all kinds of perverted practices, homosexuality, heterosexuality, and the nuns are being treated almost like prostitutes. The monks are either heterosexual, exploiting the nuns, or many of them are homosexual. And they all have taken the vow of celibacy!

    Acharya Tulsi tried, through the government, to have the book banned. But the publisher was very insistent, and he was ready to go to the court against the government. Seeing the situation, that to be in the court would mean more exposures, more dirt, Acharya Tulsi stopped the action. The books have been released.

    One of these monks, Satish Kumar, had come to me when he left Acharya Tulsi's camp, thinking that I have been always against Acharya Tulsi and his whole philosophy. But I told him, "It does not matter, I will not exploit the situation, because to me it is not a question of Acharya Tulsi. That's how for centuries we have been treating symptoms, and we never go deep to the roots."

    Acharya Tulsi is not at fault. Neither are his monks and nuns at fault. The fault is centuries old--as long as celibacy has been preached there has been sexual perversion.

    I would like Acharya Tulsi to gather courage and come into the open, rather than trying to hide. It is not his fault, it is the fault of the society that imposes on their monks and nuns unnatural things like celibacy.

    I will support Acharya Tulsi. I am always ready for any unpopular challenge! But he has to gather courage. Of course he will lose his respect, but it is better to lose your respect than to lose the truth....

    It is good that Acharya Tulsi is exposed, but I don't think it is his fault. He was ordained when he was only fourteen years old. Now what does a fourteen-year-old understand about celibacy?...

    I want to challenge on this occasion the medical association of India to investigate the case of Tulsi and his followers. And that will be very definitive--because it will be the same with your shankaracharyas, your bishops and your popes.

    Once and for all it has to be decided that fighting with sex is self-destructive. Use the sexual energy in a multi-dimensional way. Everything is created by the same energy. It is not only for reproduction, it is also for the creation of music, painting, poetry....

    I am absolutely with Acharya Tulsi. He should come out and expose the whole tradition: "It is not our fault. We have been forced to be unnatural, and the outcome is perversion." Rather than taking it personally, he should make it a point to indicate to the whole of humanity that being unnatural is almost equal to being unreligious. The only way to religion is to be more and more natural. nomind06

    Controversy with Christians

    The man who has written the book is very rare, because he himself is a Christian but without any prejudice. He has been almost a witness while writing the book. He rates me above Jesus--his conclusions on every point are in my favor, against Jesus--and he himself is a Christian....

    But Peter Priskil has shown such honesty in comparison that at first I felt perhaps he is not a Christian, because he goes on condemning Jesus when comparing him with me, and goes on praising me.

    I liked his tremendous honesty, love of truth, his capacity to put his mind aside--his whole programming of being a Christian. He has not allowed it to come between me and Jesus. His unconscious would have liked to have put Jesus above me. That's why I say it is a rare phenomenon that he has not listened to the unconscious. He has been perfectly conscious, without any prejudice; he has been absolutely just.

    But I want Peter Priskil to know that I don't like to be compared with anybody. yaku02

    He writes in his book a few very revealing facts about why in Germany the whole news media is creating rumors and lies about me. And that's what people read, that's what people believe....

    This man writes that all the magazines that go on propagating against me in Germany are owned by the Christians, Catholics or Protestants. So they cut out anything that will strike a sympathetic note in people's minds. They just go on creating antagonism; on any point, they invent something. And it is very easy to invent lies. fire06

    Just a few days ago, the editor of Illustrated Weekly wrote an article about me in which he said a few significant things. He is not a religious person, neither does he believe in any spirituality. But in our commune, what he saw and felt he could say was his closest experience of spirituality.

    Somebody from England wrote a very angry letter to him which was published. The man said, "What has happened to you? Either you have been bribed or you have been hypnotized." Looking at his letter, it became something more important...Because if anybody says any lies about me, if anybody is against me, nobody will say to him, "You have been bribed by the enemies of Shree Rajneesh." And nobody will say or even conceive that, "You have been hypnotized by the people who are against Shree Rajneesh."

    Many people have told me, "We want to come, we want to understand. But then people start saying, `You are being hypnotized. If you are not saying anything against Shree Rajneesh then certainly you are being hypnotized.'" hari27

    Prem Hasya has been on a world tour with a project of creating the atmosphere amongst scientists, artists, painters, musicians, for a World Academy--which belongs to no race, to no religion, to no nation, and whose concern is absolutely the whole world.

    Just today she is back, and she reported to me that she had gone to see the chief editor of the German newspaper, Die Welt. The journalist who had taken her was immensely interested in the project and wanted to write a detailed article about it. He could see the potential of a World Academy of Creative Science, Art and Consciousness as a defense against those who are preparing to destroy the whole world in nuclear warfare.

    But the journalist, of course, wanted to ask the permission of the chief editor. Coming out of the chief editor's office he told Hasya that the man had thumped the table and shouted, "I am a Christian and I will protect the Fatherland!" when the journalist had said he wanted to write a positive article about Osho.

    What kind of Christianity is this? Thumping on the table is showing your immense violence. It does not indicate any relationship with Jesus, who said, "Love your enemies...even love your neighbors." Unfortunately he forgot to say, "Love your tables." They are absolutely innocent. Thumping the table and calling himself a Christian is

    contradictory. Either start learning drum-beating or be a Christian. To be a Christian. in

    its essence, it is a message of love.

    And unfortunately his famous newspaper is called Die Welt; in English it means "The World." And exactly for that purpose Hasya had gone there--to save the world from the

    destructive politicians all around, all over the world. Right now there are five nations with nuclear weapons; by the end of this century there will be twenty-five members in the nuclear club. Every day the possibility to save the world becomes less and less. He should resign immediately from his newspaper. He does not deserve to be the chief of a newspaper called "The World."

    And he also seems stupid in saying, "I will protect my Fatherland." Only German stupidity calls their country "Fatherland." The whole world calls their country "Motherland," because every child is born out of the mother, not out of the father! The earth is our mother--that seems to be a more symbolic and sensible proclamation than to call one's country the fatherland. It is male chauvinistic. He is neither a Christian nor a gentleman, and he is the chief editor of the famous German newspaper, "The World."

    I am going to send Hasya again: go directly to the chief editor, and if he hits the table, hit on his head! He is fast asleep, he needs to be awakened.

    These are the people who are going to destroy the world. He talks about protecting his fatherland and the whole purpose of the World Academy is to bring you to your senses that now nations are out of date--it is either the whole of humanity or no

    humanity. cuckoo13

    Just the other day I received a letter from a man who works for Time magazine in America. He has asked two questions--one is important for you. He says, "Your effort is to save humanity; then why have you spoken against Jesus?"

    In the first place, I am not making any effort to save anyone. And I have spoken against Jesus because he was giving consolations to people..."I will save you." That is the most dangerous and poisonous statement. It makes you relaxed--you need not worry, you simply believe in Jesus and he will save you. On the last day of judgment, Jesus will sort out his sheep and tell God, "These are my people." They will enter into paradise, and the remaining humanity will fall into the abysmal darkness of hell for eternity. I am against such consolations.

    And the man seems to be a Jesus freak. He cannot even understand what question he is asking. Who is saved by Jesus? He could not save himself, and at the last moment on the cross he became utterly disillusioned. Very few people have lived in such deep illusions as Jesus Christ, because he believed he is the only begotten son of God....

    This man from Time magazine says to me, "You have come to save humanity. " Who

    gave him that idea? I don't want to save anybody. It is your business, why should I interfere in your life? even if the interference is for the good. I can explain my own experiences, I can indicate possible ways, but I am not going to save anybody. You have to walk the path alone, without any illusions.

    Yes, certainly if I find someone just on the borderline, I will push him. I am lazy, but that much I can do. mani08

    Just the other day I received, from the same insane Catholic man from the staff of Time magazine, another question: "You teach love, you teach compassion; then why did the people of Oregon in America become enemies to you?" I don't ordinarily reply to people if I see that they are basically insane, and the question shows insanity absolutely clearly. If he were intelligent enough, first he should have asked, "Jesus has also preached love, has preached compassion, has preached forgiveness--then why was he crucified by the Jews?" If his question were relevant and had not come from a Catholic prejudice, he would have seen the contradiction. And certainly the people of Oregon have not crucified me yet. mani12

    There is now a new profession arising in the West of deprogrammers. And many of my sannyasins have been forced...just now one sannyasin is back from Canada. The parents had called her with great love, saying, "Come here and visit because we have not seen you for so long." And when the sannyasin reached there, it was a totally different matter. They had two deprogrammers arranged and they started talking against me and telling her that I have brainwashed her. "You are living in a trance, in hypnosis, and we are here to take you out of your trance." But the reality is, they are brainwashing you!

    I don't wash such dirty things. Only Christians do such dirty things: they are brainwashing you and forcing you back again into the old program.

    They call themselves "deprogrammers." That is a wrong word they are using for themselves; they are _re_programmers. What has been thrown out by meditation, they are forcing back into your head.

    You will be facing this, many of you, when you go back home. Parents have been known even to abduct their children--who are young people, adults, and keep them physically imprisoned in houses with deprogrammers who continuously harass them. And there is a certain stage when you become very weak. If you are not allowed to sleep for three days, on the fourth day you will become very vulnerable. If somebody says: "God is," you don't have enough strength to say no. Perhaps in this weakness...God is born out of weakness, out of fear, out of dread, and they have created all the dread and fear and weakness and now they say, "God is. If you pray, everything will be alright."

    These are reprogrammers. As far as I am concerned I have no interest in your mind at all, or in your brain. My concern is far more ultimate. It is beyond the mind. My function is to clean the space of no-mind.

    Those deprogrammers or reprogrammers have not even heard about the no-mind. They are ordinary psychoanalysts turned into deprogrammers. But they can do harm if you listen to them, so I have to tell you because I received the letter from the Canadian sannyasin. She said, "I have been treated very badly. I am still shaking. All the old stuff that has been dropped they have again forced into the mind."

    So if you come across any deprogrammer, remember this. Rather than them deprogramming you, you should deprogram them! Never answer their questions.

    Whenever they ask you, answer with another question. If they ask you, "Is there God?"-- you ask them, "Have you any proof? Give me the proof. I want absolute evidence of God. And if you cannot prove his existence, don't speak nonsense. Have you been to hell?

    Then how are you back?--because from the Christian hell nobody comes back, it is eternal. Do you know anything about hell?" If they say no then ask them: "Do you know anything about heaven? Have you seen Socrates in heaven? Have you seen Gautam Buddha in heaven?--because these people did not believe in God." fire03

    Just today I have received all the literature from the American Atheist Society. They have suffered immensely--you will not believe it--just as our commune suffered in America.

    Again, behind the government was the Christian church.

    The woman who founded the Atheist Society has been jailed nineteen times without any reason--and the American Constitution gives the freedom to choose your religion or not to choose. It is your personal affair, the state cannot interfere in it.

    Her house has been burnt down by an American government agency, the CIA. Her whole library has been destroyed. She has been beaten for no reason at all. She had to escape to Hawaii just to save her life.

    Slowly slowly, more and more atheists started gathering, and finally they founded the Atheist Society of America. In their literature they also mention my name. They quote me as calling Jesus a nutcase....

    My suggestion to the Atheist Society of America is to call your society the Agnostic Society of America. Agnostic means one who is searching for the truth; he is on the way, he is a seeker. He is not a believer. He does not believe in theism, he does not believe in atheism--because both are believers and both are wrong. All believers are ignorant. In what they believe does not matter. You believe in God, somebody believes in no

    God. yaku03

    In his book, In God's Name, David Yallop exposes the corruption of the Vatican. He tells how Pope John Paul--the pope before this Polack pope--had ordered an investigation of the Vatican Bank after reports that it was involved in money laundering.

    The pope had also made it clear that under his direction the church would approve of birth control.

    Suddenly, after these two radical moves, thirty-three days after being made pope, this healthy man died of a heart attack. His personal notes, will, and medicine bottles mysteriously disappeared. Before the cause of death could be confirmed, his body was embalmed, a process which makes it impossible to detect the presence of poison. Many people feel he was murdered....

    As far as I can see, he was certainly murdered because he was going against the criminal bank, and against the criminal attitude of the Christians--they go on being against

    abortion, against birth control pills, against any kind of method that can prevent the population explosion.

    This is not a unique case. 1seed03

    The pope runs a bank in the Vatican. The Vatican is an independent sovereign state-- although it is only eight square miles--and the Italian government has issued a warrant against the manager of the bank, because the bank is doing only one thing: it is turning all Italian mafia money into white money. That is its only source of income. Otherwise from where...?

    The pope goes on getting the money and wasting it. Now he is going for a tour to America; estimated expenses will be twenty million dollars. When he went to Australia his expenses were more than Queen Elizabeth, who had visited just before him. All this money is heroin money.

    Now rather than allowing the Italian government to arrest the man...they cannot enter into another country; they have to wait for whenever the manager comes out. The manager was only a bishop, but the pope has raised him into an archbishop, because he has been doing such good work! pilgr18

    Just the other day I received the information that this (present) pope in his four years of office has made more than two thousand people saints. It is a certificate. He goes on giving certificates to all kinds of people who can donate money. Now the Catholic church owns the biggest bank in the world--the Bank of America. The Catholic church owns the greatest amount of land in the world--more than any other country. zenman11

    I am against America, Christianity, I am against President Ronald Reagan, not because of personal hurts that they have done to me and to my commune. I am against them because Ronald Reagan made a tremendous wound in the whole intelligentsia of the world by trying to burn all Charles Darwin's books--in every library, in every college, in every school, in every university--because it teaches evolution, and Christianity teaches creation. fire01

    Just today I have received a letter from England. The English postal department has started small advertisements on their envelopes; it costs fifty thousand pounds per advertisement. And this advertisement is really strange. It says, "Jesus is alive." I have told my secretary to write to the person: "Please inform us of his address, or at least his phone number. You have been idiots to do this advertisement--this simply means that he is not alive, because five billion people are alive and nobody is advertising that, `I am alive.' Unless Jesus is dead there is no point in advertising." yaahoo01

    At the end of January, a group of students from a local Christian seminary attend one discourse, and their questions are addressed throughout the series_: Christianity, The Greatest Poison and Zen, The Antidote to all Poisons._

    Just a few days ago there were twenty-one Christian missionaries here. They have been at a seminary for seven years in Poona. Poona is one of the centers for creating missionaries for the whole of Asia.

    For seven years they were not allowed by their principal even to come close to the ashram. That day when their course was finished, and they were ready to leave to their places, they did not miss at least one chance to hear me. And they have come here, but they must have been very much puzzled. I could see it on their faces: their seven years of seminary training was erased within three hours!

    To one sannyasin they said, "Everything seems to be good, but your master is taking only the negative side of religion and condemning it. There are many beautiful things that religion has done to humanity, and he is not taking them."

    Now I am going to talk about "all the beautiful things that religion has done to humanity." christ03

    Friends, First I have to answer the Christian monks who have sent many questions. Only twenty-one have come here, but now the whole seminary is agog and talking only about what I have said.

    They have sent a monk here today asking for the video; the whole seminary wants to see it. I am sending it with Prasad, and he has to inform them that this is only the beginning. I have been speaking continually since then, answering their questions. If they have any more questions, he should collect them. He should not enter into any dialogue, he should only collect the questions. I am going to answer them. christ05

    The whole seminary, which consists of five hundred missionaries being trained, and must be at least one hundred professors to teach them, was agog with only one thing: they wanted to hear what I have said. One student came here the next day, saying, "The whole seminary is talking about only one thing--so you bring the tape or the video." And I sent Prasad, because he had already been to the seminary to talk to them, to explain my philosophy to them, so he was acquainted with the authorities there. He went there but the authorities said, "We don't have equipment and it will take time to arrange for equipment, so we cannot do it."

    Prasad said, "Don't be worried about the equipment. I will bring all the equipment with me."

    Then they changed immediately. They said, "But first, permission from higher authorities is needed." It was not needed before. Now the permission from higher authorities is needed!

    The next day he went again and asked, "Has permission been granted?" They said, "We are waiting." And finally they phoned: "You don't have to come here. We hope that within two and a half weeks permission will be obtained."

    I don't think permission will be obtained. It is just a delaying process; after another two and a half weeks...and who are the higher authorities? They live there in the campus! It takes two and a half weeks to reach their bungalow? And they go every day to the office. fire05

    Friends, you must have enjoyed the ten God-oriented people on the Gateless Gate, shouting pathologically, "Jesus is the only savior."

    We used to have a motto in the commune in America: Moses earns, Jesus saves, Bhagwan spends. It is just utter stupidity--saving, earning. I have never saved and never earned. I simply spend. When others are earning and saving, why bother?

    But you will enjoy such processions more and more, because there are more idiots in the world than you can think of. Sooner or later they all have to come in processions.

    I don't move out of my room, and the whole world is concerned about me. Anando goes on bringing news from all over the world--such immense concern about a single man who has nothing to be afraid of. This proves that even nuclear weapons are weaker before the words of a man who has arrived at the ultimate home. What are they afraid of?

    And they find excuses which make them just a laughingstock....

    People's feelings are hurt. This is so sick, so pathological.

    But you will have many such circuses coming here. Enjoy them, laugh and dance. And they all had long faces, sad. Anando was there; she told me that the man who was the leader, who was shouting, simply needed a girlfriend. It is just repressed sexuality, which becomes all kinds of perversions; Christianity is one of those perversions. gdead06

    Controversy about Communism

    A Russian TV crew are visiting, who are very positive; their film later receives wide popularity in the Soviet Union. On 30th January, Osho begins a new discourse series, Communism and Zen Fire, Zen Wind

    You have seen the Soviet crew which was here from Soviet television. There have been all kinds of television crews, all kinds of journalists from all over the world, but it is only the Soviet crew who went with tears in their eyes. They loved you; they loved your commune so much, so deeply. They have gone with the promise that when they have their holidays for ten days in June, they are not going anywhere else. They are going to come here for ten days to live in the commune as sannyasins, meditating, doing groups.

    You can see the difference. When the American journalist comes, he starts looking immediately to find something sensational. If he cannot find it, he creates and invents it, because America is interested only in sensationalism. These people behaved in a totally different way. This was for the first time that a Russian crew has come. When you were doing your meditations, dancing, they forgot all about photographing. They dropped their cameras and started dancing! They loved the sannyasins.

    Their questions were absolutely non-sensational. Significant, meaningful, but not sensational--utterly concerned with human welfare. And Anando told me that they had tears in their eyes when they left the gate; they did not want to go. They wanted to stay for the whole series, but their office from Delhi called them, saying, "You come back, there are other assignments."

    They will be back in June for ten days, to have more experience of what you have. They want to taste it. They want to be insiders, not outsiders.

    And this is the state of the whole Soviet Union: the people have become like children. No church, no programming, no God, no prayer--they have become so innocent that meditation will go deep down in them, faster than in any other country. fire04

    My concern is absolutely impartial. I have been interested in communism from my very childhood. The Soviet crew has been to my library, and they were amazed to see the communist literature there--perhaps there is no book that is missing from my library. And they were amazed to see that I have signed and dated each book before 1950. I was absolutely concerned to know about communism, everything. For three years, 1948, 1949, and 1950, I had collected all the literature possible. And I stopped at 1950. I have not read anything after 1950 about communism, for or against.

    It is very strange...I go on forgetting small things. I cannot count up to five--after the third finger I start hesitating, whether it is fourth or third. But in these forty years I have not forgotten a single name of the communist revolutionaries. Small details are so vivid before me, because that was my first entry into the intellectual world. It got deeply rooted in me. But I never became a member of a communist party, because I could see something was missing.

    It is a grand plan for humanity, but something central is missing: it has no soul, it is a corpse.

    Because nothing new was happening, I stopped reading. And nothing new has happened since then, except Gorbachev. So I am talking about Gorbachev.

    First I was deeply interested in communism, but finding that it is a corpse I became interested in anarchism--that was also a Russian phenomenon--Prince Kropotkin, Bakunin, Leo Tolstoy. All three were anarchists: no state, no government in the world. But I saw the point that they have a beautiful dream but with this criminal humanity, with

    this stupid mass, if there is no government and no court and no police there will be simply chaos, not anarchism.

    I have been always very scientific in my approach, either outside or inside. Communism can be the base. Then spiritualism has to be its growth, to provide what is missing. Once a society is given equal opportunity--to be unequal, to be unique--and once that society becomes interested in meditation and spiritual growth, then there is a possibility of anarchism. That will be the very final stage, when there is nobody who is interested in committing crime. Only then can the state be removed, not before it. Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Leo Tolstoy are perfectly right, but not relevant now. First communism has to be aided by spirituality. fire04

    What would you do if you went to the Soviet Union?

    A revolution!

    It has been too long since the Soviet Union has seen revolution. Of course, my revolution will be of spirituality. I want the Soviet Union to add something more to its dignity: meditation. Just economic equality is not enough--a spiritual equality is needed.

    Just being a body is so poor. I want the Soviet Union to become richer--not only richer in objects but richer in consciousness, in enlightenment. I want the Soviet Union also to have awakened people like Gautam Buddha, or Lao Tzu, or Chuang Tzu.

    I would like to introduce Zen to the Soviet Union. That is my revolution. fire01

    I am a spiritual communist, and Comrade Gorbachev is a socialist.

    Socialism is a compromise, a compromise with capitalism. Communism is a totally revolutionary step. The closer I have been looking at Gorbachev and his statements, the sadder I am feeling. He is not a revolutionary; he is a reactionary, he is going backwards.

    Just today Anando has given me a small summary of his books. Just a few sentences I heard, and I told her, "Close it"--because he is talking about bringing private property back into the Soviet Union, and with private property capitalism comes in. He is saying that the communist motto was, "Each according to his need"--and what is his motto? "Each according to his work."

    But that's exactly the motto of capitalism: each according to his work....

    I am in absolute favor of communism because I think it is the foundation for spiritual growth. But I am against socialism. It is a compromise with capitalism, and when you compromise with capitalism, capitalism will drown you....

    Gorbachev is calling what he is doing a revolution. I say, absolutely no! If you want to be really a revolutionary, the only way is bring spiritualism to your country, not capitalism.

    That is going backwards in time, and destroying the whole effort of seventy years, and destroying the whole sacrifice of millions of people who died.

    I am a spiritual communist--a spiritual terrorist! And I don't care either for George Bush or Comrade Gorbachev. His books have come into my hand just today--they are ugly. He is sabotaging his own people! And he has taken all the power into his hands, so there is no possibility. fire04

    Friends, First, a little bit of news.

    The first failure of Comrade Gorbachev: The central committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has declared that Gorbachev's first act of reform, to eradicate alcoholism, has failed. The party declared that Gorbachev's radical changes have not yet been achieved; on the contrary, the sale of illicit liquor has grown, state liquor revenues have fallen, and the masses have been constantly complaining about long queues to buy vodka.

    Second: Over the past year Comrade Gorbachev has allowed the following symbols of capitalism to do business in Russia: Coca-Cola, MacDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Fast Food Pizza.

    This is all junk that America wants to pour on the very innocent people of the Soviet Union.

    Third: Just today he has allowed the world's largest advertising agency, Saachi and Saachi, to begin advertising campaigns in Russia for western goods. Saachi's, who are advertising agents for Margaret Thatcher, said they would also like a contract "to polish Gorbachev's image, although he does not really need it at the moment."

    On the one hand, he is saying that Russia's economy is failing, and on the other hand, he is giving contracts to advertising companies to advertise western goods in Russia. Do you see the contradiction? fire07

    Osho explains why he supports Stalin for consolidating the Soviet Union under communism, although he used violence as a means to this end. Many people are shocked, including Italian radical, Majid. Osho inspires him to start a real revolutionary party.

    I cannot help feeling shocked at the idea that since people have to die anyway, there is no harm in them dying by the thousands to preserve communism. What is it that horrifies me about this?

    It is not only you, there may be a few more who have been shocked. Majid is sitting there--he must be shocked, and other Italians, because they have a political prejudice in their mind. They think they are radicals, and they don't understand even the ABC of radicalism....

    It was worth it. And when I said anyway you have to die, I could immediately feel that you became very shocked. But still I repeat: Anyway you have to die. Don't die against revolution. If you have to die, die for revolution. Don't die for the status quo; if you have to die, die for rebellion....

    My effort here is to bring you to a space of no-mind. And from no-mind, function--then you function directly, looking at the situation. Whatever is right immediately arises in you, and you do it. Neither is it a question of morality nor is it a question of religion; it is a question of immediate response to a situation. And immediate response comes only through meditation.

    I shock your mind on purpose, and I go on finding ways. I will not leave anyone!...

    But when I talk about Stalin, don't get worried. I have nothing to be concerned with Stalin. He is not my disciple, you are! And you are on your own--in spite of me. I am trying every possible way to throw you out, but you still go on coming.

    You know perfectly well that my words should not be taken at face value. They are strategies and devices. The whole problem is how to shock you and shatter your mind completely so you can enter into the inner room and see with your own eyes your vast sky. fire05

    Majid belongs to a radical party in Italy. The head of that radical party wanted to come to me and discuss with me how things should to be done. Of course Majid was the mediator; he had persuaded the man to come to me. But I saw an interview he had given to a journalist, in which the journalist asks, "We hear that you are going to Poona. Are you interested in the philosophy, in the ideology of Osho?"

    And he said, "I have nothing to do with his philosophy or with his meditations or with his ideology. My sole concern is that if he can give me ten thousand sannyasins in Italy to become members of the Radical Party, I will go and kiss his feet."

    When I saw that interview, I could see that the man is bogus. And I informed Majid that "I don't want to see that man. His whole interest is that I should tell sannyasins in Italy to join the party."

    It is not a radical party, Majid; it is not revolutionary. And you can see it, even though you are not so clear about things....

    I refused. I said, "Don't bring him here because he is not a revolutionary. He simply wants to have a great ego, become more powerful." Perhaps he hopes to become the prime minister of Italy.

    I don't prevent my sannyasins. They are free to join anything, but I would always remind them: join something out of your meditativeness, out of your clarity. I am not in any way preventing anybody. Your freedom is absolutely sacred to me. I will not interfere--even if

    you are going wrong, I will not interfere. I will tell you that you are going wrong, but you are free to go.

    Now I could not tell my people to belong to the Radical Party. It is not a radical party. Majid, I would like you to create a real, authentic revolutionary party. *

    And I would like you to create a revolutionary party on your own. Why be a second-hand man in that Radical Party? Be the leader of a revolutionary party and I will support you!

    And more and more Italians are going to come; just all that we need is more spaghetti! fire06

    *Note: in March The International Scientific Revolutionary Party is instigated by Sw Majid, in Italy

    Controversy with Mohammedans

    Author Salman Rushdie mentions in one of his books the fact that Mohammed had edited some verses from his Koran. Ayatollah Khomeini issues a death warrant against him, his publisher, printer, and agent. In connection with this, several people have been killed by fanatical Mohammedans. Rajiv Gandhi bans Rushdie's book.

    Friends, I have been telling you that God has been the greatest poison to humanity and its evolution towards ultimate peaks of consciousness. Ayatollah Khomeini has supported what I have been telling to you, by declaring a death sentence on Salman Rushdie and three others for simply publishing a factual statement. No law of any country supports it. No constitution in the world supports it. But this has been the attitude of the priests all down history.

    A second ayatollah--ayatollah simply means a religious leader--not Khomeini, but another ayatollah, and there are two thousand ayatollahs in Iran, has come up with a better support to my argument. Now he has declared that if Salman Rushdie's head is presented to him, he is going to give two point six million dollars if the person who presents it happens to be an Iranian. If it is a non-Iranian, then one million dollars.

    From every Mohammedan country, including Pakistan, death squads have moved into England to kill those four people--and if not four, at least Salman Rushdie for writing the novel--and to bring his head to Iran.

    Now this will show you why I have been condemning all God-oriented religions, because finally the God-oriented religion is in the hands of the priests. God does not exist, the priest exists. And the priest does not know any civilization, any culture. Murdering a man is not an argument, it is really accepting defeat. A cultured society needs dialogue. If you have something against Rushdie, you have every right to say it and criticize him--that is human. If you feel he is wrong, you have all the freedom to criticize him.

    But religions don't believe in dialogues, they believe in murder, in the sword--that is their argument. To me, it is their defeat.

    These people have been keeping the world retarded. A few people from India, and from other countries who have condemned Ayatollah Khomeini and the other ayatollah, have been receiving anonymous phone calls, that they will be killed also.

    Here in India, one of my friends, Madhu Mehta, made a statement condemning Ayatollah Khomeini. He is a man of immense intelligence, culture, education....

    Madhu Mehta has received an anonymous phone call that he also will be killed and that anybody who says anything against Ayatollah Khomeini will be murdered. Are we living in the twentieth century, or some thousand years back where only killing and murder was the argument?--whoever kills, whoever wins in killing is the right person.

    It is very easy to kill a Gautam Buddha. Any idiot can do it, in fact, only an idiot can do it. But that does not prove that the idiot's idea of religiousness is correct, nor does the death of a Gautam Buddha prove that his philosophy is wrong. In fact, it just does the opposite. It proves that the unconscious and retarded humanity, for which all the religions are responsible, have a tremendous poverty of philosophy, of argument, of a cultural and civilized dialogue. And it goes back, as far back you can see....

    You have to understand deeply. My whole work here is to make you declare freedom and total independence from all prisons--religious, national, racial. Only that is going to give you a life of celebration. Your freedom will give you the space to dance, to sing, to celebrate. My vision of religiousness is that of sheer celebration, a tremendous joy in life, in love, in creative actions. This is my manifesto, the Manifesto of Zen.

    Unless humanity is taken out of their prison cells--we are living in the dark ages--every vested interest is going to be against me, it is going to be against you. Every manifesto of freedom will be crushed....

    Meditation is a rebellion, perhaps the most fundamental rebellion against all fictions, against all lies, and against all those who are living on those fictions and lies. celebr05

    Just today one man has asked the government of India, "Just as you have banned Salman Rushdie's book, why don't you ban Osho's books which are far more dangerous?" It is true, they are far more dangerous. Rushdie has not done anything, and is unnecessarily being harassed. If you harass me that will be absolutely right, because I am stating things against every religion.

    But to ask the government to ban my books is to accept defeat. Why can't you argue with me? Why can't you bring a dialogue into existence? If you think your religious ideology is right, I am ready for any challenge to discuss it. Why are you afraid? In a cultured society, in a democratic nation it is against the constitution to take away anybody's freedom of speech. I am ready to confront anybody--Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian,

    Jaina, Buddhist. Whoever they are, I am ready to confront them, but because they don't have any way to answer my questions they immediately take the course of asking the government.

    The Indian government is secular, it has no way to defend any religion or anybody's religious feelings. And it is barbarous to ask the government; it simply shows you are primitive and you don't know how to behave in a civilized way. celebr07

    The Koran is one of the most strange books, because it has not been written in a continuity--one verse today, one verse ten days after. because Mohammed was

    uneducated. He did not write it himself. He used to dictate whenever he found something worth dictating. So-called holy scriptures are written by self-styled prophets and messiahs--and they are called "holy"! I don't see anything holy in them.

    So many Mohammedan friends have asked me, "You have spoken on many religions, why don't you speak on the Koran?"

    I said, "Do you want me to be murdered?" I have something else to do meanwhile. Finally, when I think that it is time for me to leave the body, I will speak on the Koran. And I will manage to have one of my sannyasins kill me and get 2.6 million dollars for my work! While my work is incomplete, I am not going to speak on holy scriptures, because they are the most primitive kind of literature. celebr05

    All these religions are gathering their whole energy--the last flare-up of life before they disappear forever with their God, with their priests, with their monks, with their churches, with their holy scriptures. That day will be the greatest day in the history of man. Man will become free.

    Hence I say that the days for celebration are coming closer. Get ready! celebr07

    Positive response to Osho around the world

    An Australian film crew visit, who are among the very few journalists ever to participate in meditations and programs in the ashram, which they enjoy very much. The resulting film The Spiritual Terrorist is very positive, and well received in Australia, and networked around the world.

    Friends, First, I am going to answer a few questions from the Australian TV crew. They have been here for almost one month. When they had come, they were very serious people, as Australians are supposed to be. But this morning they filmed me, and they have completely changed. They were smiling and laughing and enjoying.

    Ecstasy is contagious. It is dangerous to enter this gateless gate! But they are very nice people and very perfectionist. They have been doing a film on the commune, its lifestyle, its philosophical approach to existence. And of course, on me, the spiritual terrorist

    behind the commune!--or in other words, the center of this cyclone which is going to grow every day bigger and bigger and is going to envelop the whole earth.

    When they go back to their homes, their wives will be absolutely surprised--whatever happened to these guys? The very air of the commune changes personalities. Your joy, your laughter, your blissfulness, your silence, touches the very heart of anyone who is alive.

    This morning I saw, these people are not dead. They are really alive! So now I can trust that their film and their program for television is going to be a real shock to the whole of Australia. If they can create the shock, I am coming! fire05

    One of the most famous spiritualists of Europe, Francis Israel Regardie, a famous occult magician who was regarded as a great magus and scholar of the Golden Dawn Society, stated just prior to his death: "If I were to choose in what form I would come back in terms of reincarnation, I would like to continue the great work until I become a Rajneesh."

    Just today I received his book, and I could not believe what kind of spiritualist this fellow Francis Israel Regardie was....

    This man Francis Israel Regardie knows nothing of spirituality. But in the West it is very easy to befool people, because the West has no understanding of the inner world. So any idiot can manage to deceive them--occultism, esotericism, spiritualism, just big words without any experience supporting them.

    Because if this man was really spiritual, he would not. at the point of death he wants a

    reincarnation! But he has a condition also: "I would like to continue the work until I become a Rajneesh." I was alive, he was alive, he could have come here. Rather than having the courage and guts to come here, he is thinking of becoming a Rajneesh after death--if there is a reincarnation. That is a big if!

    He could have come here. Thousands of people come and go every day, and ten thousand people remain around me continuously. And I am not a leader, and I am not a priest, and I am not teaching any philosophy or any doctrine. I am simply helping them to enter inwards--how to turn your eyes inwards so you can see yourself. Once you have seen it, you are the buddha.

    Then there is no birth, no death. You have gone beyond the circle of birth and death....

    This man Regardie must have been a hocus-pocus. At least I hope that he does not become a Rajneesh! He can have reincarnation as whatever he wants. He can become a buffalo, he can become a donkey, there are so many species available--just please don't think about me! If you had courage, then. at the moment of death you talked about me; in

    your whole life you never talked about me. Such chickens! Talking about occultism,

    spiritualism...I have been here, he could have come. I could have turned him into a meditator.

    And if your meditation starts blossoming you will not have any other birth in the body. You will simply disappear, like incense disappearing into the blue sky, or fragrance of roses disappearing into the blue sky. You will become part of the cosmos. fire01

    Just a few days ago, one of the most intellectual and experienced journalists of India, M.V.Kamath, wrote a review of my two books, The Rebellious Spirit and The New Man. In his review he said a few things that perhaps he himself was not aware of...the unconscious is very deep, and nine times bigger than your conscious. He said that I am the greatest intellectual giant of the second part of the twentieth century. And at the same time, in the next sentence he said that if I were not always surrounded by controversy I would have more admirers in the world than I have today.

    My secretary has written to him saying, "Can you give a single name of any intellectual giant in the whole history of man who was not surrounded by all kinds of controversies while he was alive?" A little part he sees--that which comes to his conscious mind--but something unconscious erupts. Secondly, he has said in his statement that I do not have to be heard or seen: I am a master of words; just reading me is enough. He was thinking that he was praising me, calling me a master of words, telling his readers that "there are so many statements in his writings which are quotable and I feel a little jealous and think I would like to have written them."

    My secretary wrote to him, "You have never seen Osho, you have never heard him. You seem to be an intelligent person; on what grounds are you saying that just reading him is enough? I have listened to him, I have listened to him speaking, and I can assure you that the spoken word has a life of its own, it is still warm. The printed word is dead. If you are so much influenced by the printed word, come at least once, on our invitation--Bombay is not far away from here, just a fifteen minute flight--and see the difference between the spoken word and the printed word."

    You can also hear the spoken word on the radio or from the tape recorder, but if you see me speaking then something more is added to it. Then your two senses are working, your ears and your eyes. Ears are not that sensitive; eyes have eighty percent of the sensitivity, and the remaining four senses have only twenty percent. To see is a totally different thing.

    Seeing a master means feeling his presence, looking into his eyes, watching his grace. That is not possible from the written word. And if you are influenced so much by the written word that you declare the man as the greatest intellectual giant, it seems to be absolutely necessary that you should listen to him, you should at least see him

    once. satyam27

    Osho's books have sold over a half million, and are on the bestseller nonfiction lists of Italy, Japan, and South Korea.

    You can see me: I live in such a calculated way that all that I do is speak to you. I have saved all my breath just to give you a sense of the eternal and an experience of the ultimate. And mostly I am asleep. You cannot find a more lazy man in the world.

    Just today my secretary, Hasya, was saying, "I am sending the information to The Guinness Book of Records that my master has four hundred books to his name." And she was asking me other things also. I wanted to tell her, but I thought it was better not to say, that the miracle is that this man sleeps almost twenty hours a day and has managed four hundred books...And he is the laziest man in the world--about that you can be certain; nobody can compete with me. You can send a challenge, to see if there is anybody. hari16

    You will be surprised to know that my books are being taught in the Zen monasteries. Zen masters have written letters to me: "Perhaps now Zen will exist in India, in its original place. It is disappearing from Japan because people are more interested in technology, in science." zenman11

    Just today, Hasya was telling me about some Korean master, Su. He is going to come soon. He has disciples. Lani has just come from Korea. In the Korean language they have published more than thirty-five books of mine. Hundreds of people are interested in coming. They were not even aware where I am, and whether I am still alive or some past master. chit20

    One Japanese newspaper just wrote an article about me and wondered what is the matter: why are Indians coming to Japan to learn technology, particularly the latest discoveries in electronics? Japan has become now the most sophisticated technological country, the richest country in the world; even America is poorer now. Japan is four times richer than America, and it is four times smaller than America. So what Japan has done is a miracle. After the destruction of the second world war, suddenly a tremendous outburst of energy.

    So Indians are going to Tokyo, and the article mentions that the Japanese are going to Poona. You are all coming from Western countries or from Eastern countries which have become rich enough. From Japan, Taiwan...soon people from Korea will be

    here. zenman02

    There was an article a few months ago in a German magazine, asking, "What is happening? German young people simply go to Poona and then they are never seen again." It is only because of the difficulties created by the barriers of nations that you cannot stay more than three months, more than six months at the most, so you have to go and come back again. If these barriers disappear, Poona is going to become a country in itself. But it will be a foreign country to India; it will in itself be one of the most cosmopolitan worlds. zenman02

    The intelligent young people have understood. My sannyasins...the greatest number are Germans, the second Japanese, the third Italians. These were the three countries together with Adolf Hitler. It is not a coincidence, it is simply intelligence. They have understood

    that they are living in a mad society; it is better to get out of it, find some place where no such stupid ideas are maintained.

    Their coming to me is coming to a saner place, where no distinctions are maintained. Nobody is superior, nobody is inferior. yaku03

    Osho's Artwork

    Throughout his life, Osho has signed the books he collected in his extensive library. To many of these signatures, he adds beautiful designs in colour. Japanese sannyasins photograph, enlarge, and silkscreen many of these, and an exhibition of them in Japan has great success. A further exhibition is shown in Germany.

    Beloved Osho, I cannot put it into words how much I am always touched by the beauty of Your expressions--in Your words, Your gestures and now especially in Your paintings.

    What exactly happens, when You are sitting in front of an empty paper? Is there still an urge for artistic creativity when one is enlightened? Could You please tell us about Zen and art and creativity?

    Zen prevents you from nothing. It opens everything that is potential in you. If you have a potentiality of being a painter, Zen will open it--you may not have been aware of it. If there is a potentiality for poetry, Zen will open that potentiality, and for the first time you will start thinking in poetry, not in prose.

    The same is true about music or dance, or scientific exploration. Any kind of original experiences, Zen allows you. It is not preventive of anything. It is affirmative, the most affirmative experience in life. It simply makes you aware of all that is hidden in you, of all that you have never looked at. It not only makes you aware, it helps you to explore that potentiality.

    Zen is not a dry, desertlike experience, it is very juicy, a beautiful garden--a spring in your life where flowers suddenly start opening up. One never knows what is going to happen to him when he becomes aware. It is not a decision on your part, it is not a choice. It is a choiceless, simple experience--you start moving into a certain direction. Suddenly that direction becomes so full of life, so attractive that you can devote everything to it.

    Zen is a very creative experience; it is not like other religions. All the religions are non- creative. In fact, the so-called saints don't do anything. They are not great poets, they are not great dancers, they are not great musicians. But the real and authentic saints, who are very few among the so-called saints...

    Zen is an authentic religious experience. Its authenticity is in its opening of creativeness in human beings. Zen masters have never killed anyone. They have not forced anyone to their path; on the contrary, you have to go to them. And it has been very difficult to be accepted; the masters have been very choosy. Unless you show an immense desire and longing, they will not initiate you; the question of conversion does not arise.

    You have to go to the well, the well does not come to you. The well does not even invite you, it is simply there, available. zenman11

    Osho’s discourses

    God is Dead: Now Zen is the Only Living Truth

    In February 1989, Osho introduces a new series: God is Dead: Now Zen is the Only Living Truth

    Friends, a new series of talks begins today: God Is Dead, Now Zen Is the Only Living Truth. The series is dedicated to Friedrich Nietzsche, who was the first man in the history of mankind to declare, "God is dead, therefore man is free."...

    It is meditation that fulfills your inner being and takes away the vacuum that used to be filled by a great lie, God. And many lies have grown around him....

    Drop the lies and make some effort to go inwards to find the truth. That is the whole science of Zen. That's why I have entitled the series, "God Is Dead, Now Zen Is the Only Living Truth." If God is dead and you don't come close to the experience of Zen, you will become insane. Your sanity depends now only on Zen, that is the only way to find the truth. Then you are absolutely related with existence, and you are no longer a puppet, you are a master.

    I say unto you, that what I am teaching you is authentic existentialism, and what in the West is thought to be existentialism is only accidentalism. I am teaching you how to come in contact with existence, how to find out where you are connected, wired with existence. From where are you getting your life moment to moment? Where is your intelligence coming from? If existence is unintelligent, how can you be intelligent?

    Where will you get it from?...

    Zen is the method to go beyond mind. So we will be discussing God and Zen together. God has to be negated, and Zen has to be planted deep in your being. The lie has to be destroyed and the truth has to be revealed. That's why I have chosen God and Zen together. God is a lie, Zen is a truth....

    It is absolutely necessary that God should be dead. But I want you to know my understanding. It was good of Friedrich Nietzsche to declare God dead. I declare that he has never been born. It is a created fiction, an invention, not a discovery. Do you understand the difference between invention and discovery? A discovery is about truth, an invention is manufactured by you. It is man-manufactured fiction....

    So I want to destroy all your belief systems, all your theologies, all your religions. I want to open all your wounds so they can be healed. The real medicine is not a belief system; the real medicine is meditation. Do you know that both the words come from the same root: medicine and meditation? Medicine heals the body, meditation heals your soul. But their function is the same, healing. gdead01

    Religiousness without God simply means feeling yourself one with the whole universe. gdead05

    Existence has multidimensional intelligence. We are only one section of this vast universe. Don't think for a single moment that I am putting existence in place of God. No! God does not exist, existence exists. That's why we call it existence. gdead04

    But enlightenment happens in silence. That's why my whole effort here is to make you as silent as possible. Then you don't need even a (Zen master) Seigen. Sitting anywhere--in your room, under a tree, in the garden, by the side of the river, anywhere--if your silence deepens, existence itself gives you the initiation into buddhahood. And when it comes directly from existence itself, it has a far greater beauty than when it comes through a master.

    I teach you immediate, sudden enlightenment. The meditation that you are practicing is just preparing you for that great silence in which existence will become a flame inside you....

    Just as flowers arise from the earth and go back to the earth for eternal rest, you come from existence and you return to existence if you have an easy heart. Then you will not be coming again into the imprisonment of a body. You will simply go back to the very source you have come from, to eternal rest.

    That eternal rest is nirvana, that eternal rest is moksha, that eternal rest is liberation, that eternal rest is samadhi, truth, enlightenment--different names for the same experience. You have come back home, and you have come back home dancing, with no regret, with no complaint, with easy hearts, peacefully and silently to disappear. This is the most exquisite experience, when you are on the verge of disappearing with an easy and relaxed heart, a simple and pure let-go. gdead02

    You have to be a buddha; only that experience of the ultimate height and the ultimate depth will bring you home. The very source from where you have come is also the goal where you are going.

    And I am immensely happy with you. You are doing so well, with such honesty that any master would have been proud of you.

    God is dead, and Zen is the only living truth. gdead03

    I Celebrate Myself: God is No Where, Life is Now Here

    In mid-February 1989, Osho begins a new series: I Celebrate Myself: God is No Where, Life is Now Here

    Good evening. And good news...!

    This evening we are starting a new series of talks: I Celebrate Myself: God is No where, Life is Now Here

    The statement of Friedrich Nietzsche that God is dead, is only symbolic because God has never been in the first place--not even born. How can he be dead? But it was a tremendously powerful symbol to declare that God is dead....

    Hence, I celebrate myself and I celebrate you.

    Friedrich Nietzsche's statement also includes another part: "God is dead, therefore man is free." God was the slavery of man, he was the bondage. He was the prison that did not allow humanity to rise to its ultimate heights. He was keeping the whole of humanity reduced to subhuman beings, sinners. His death is a great moment to celebrate....

    I have chosen this title, I Celebrate Myself from one of the most important poets of America, Walt Whitman. celebr01

    In the three hundred years of America, there have not been many men who can be compared to the great mystics of the world. Only one man, a poet, comes very close to the mystics, Walt Whitman. One of his beautiful songs is: I Celebrate Myself. America has not paid much attention to Walt Whitman, but he is the only one in the three hundred years of America's life who has reached the highest peak possible.

    When he says, "I celebrate myself," he is saying everything about love. "And if you can rejoice in my celebration, you are welcome. If you can be my guest, I invite you to celebrate." Love celebrates, it is not a responsibility at all. chit30

    I love the pagan.

    I want the world back in the hands of the pagans.

    All the religions have destroyed the pagans because they were the people without any judgment, without any God, without any morality--just simple, innocent, flowing with nature, in a deep let-go. So whatever was spontaneous they were doing, whatever was coming from their nature they were following. There was no question of guilt, there was no situation like a no-win situation.

    The pagan was always victorious. Whatever he was doing or not doing, he had his dignity, his honor. I want you to be pagans, that is the first step to being a buddha. I have chosen Zorba as an example of a pagan, and that is the very foundation. On that foundation you can make a shrine for the buddha. But without the foundation, the buddha is hanging in the air like a balloon. You can worship it, but you cannot be nourished by it unless your roots are deep into the earth. Your branches cannot grow into the sky, you cannot touch the stars without deep roots in the earth. First you have to be very earthly, earthbound, then only will you start growing towards the stars.

    Without roots in the earth you become simply a star gazer, you don't grow towards stars. You simply look at the buddha, you worship, you pray. But neither is worship going to help nor is prayer going to help. What is going to help is a real foundation, and that real foundation is to be without God, to be without scriptures, to be without discipline, to be without any commandments. Be a free man, don't be a spiritually enslaved person....

    People cannot accept themselves because they cannot accept others as they are. I have never judged in my life. I have loved all kinds of people; just their uniqueness makes them more loveable. And because I have loved all kinds of people without discrimination, I have no way of feeling guilt, I have no way of rejecting myself. I have loved myself immensely....

    Don't postpone. Don't ask me how long it is going to take--it depends on you. If you are miserable and feeling caught in a no-win situation, then why carry it? If I could drop it, why can you not drop? I am not a messiah, or a prophet, or an incarnation of God. I don't have any miracle powers with me, I am just as human as you are. If I could do it, who is preventing you? celebr03

    I celebrate myself, and I hope soon the day will come you will be celebrating yourself. And when thousands and thousands of people around the earth are celebrating, singing, dancing, ecstatic, drunk with the divine, there is no possibility of any global suicide. With such festivity and with such laughter, with such sanity and health, with such naturalness and spontaneity, how can there be a war?

    The third world war is not going to happen! I predict it! It is not going to happen, because of you, because of my people around the earth! They are the only hope. Only millions of buddhas are capable of creating the atmosphere for peace, for love, for compassion, for celebration.

    Life is not given to you to murder, to destroy. Life has been given to you to create, and to rejoice, and to celebrate...

    I want you to live intensely, totally, because only those who live intensely and totally are transformed. Only they know what is the ultimate secret of life. celebr04

    I am trying in every possible way to make you nonserious, non-tense. Laugh, dance, sing, celebrate, because these are the people who will find immense power arising in themselves which is dormant. These are the people who will have power but will not harm anybody with their power. Their power will be a blessing to the world. It will not be the power that destroys, it will be the power that creates. These will be the creators.

    And these will be the people who know. These will be the people who have disappeared in joy, in dance, and are no more. Only a consciousness, a pure consciousness remains. That pure consciousness we have called the awakened consciousness, the enlightened consciousness; we have called it samadhi or satori...Gautam Buddha is just a name, representative of this ultimate blossoming. celebr07

    The Zen Manifesto: Freedom from Oneself

    On 20 February 1989, Osho begins a new series: The Zen Manifesto: Freedom from Oneself

    Friends, It is time, ripe time for a Zen manifesto.

    The Western intelligentsia have become acquainted with Zen, have also fallen in love with Zen, but they are still trying to approach Zen from the mind. They have not yet come to the understanding that Zen has nothing to do with mind.

    Its tremendous job is to get you out of the prison of mind. It is not an intellectual philosophy; it is not a philosophy at all. Nor is it a religion, because it has no fictions and no lies, no consolations. It is a lion's roar. And the greatest thing that Zen has brought into the world is freedom from oneself. zenman01

    The whole of the Western intelligentsia has become immensely interested in Zen, but their interest remains intellectual. They have written great books, and we will be discussing in this manifesto almost everyone who has written books on Zen.

    My effort is to make you really clear that all these intellectuals may have written very beautiful books...I appreciate their scholarship, I appreciate their articulateness of expression, but they are not men of Zen, to say nothing of masters of Zen. Hence this manifesto is absolutely needed to make the whole world clear that Zen is not a mind affair. It is a no-mind space....

    I call Zen essentially freedom from oneself. You have heard about other freedoms, but freedom from oneself is the ultimate freedom--not to be, and allow the existence to

    express itself in all its spontaneity and grandeur. But it is existence, not you, not me. It is life itself dancing, not you, not me.

    That is the Zen Manifesto: freedom from oneself.

    And only Zen has refined, in these twenty-five centuries, methods, devices to make you aware that you are not, that you are only arbitrary, just an idea.

    As you go beyond the mind, even the idea of "I am" disappears. When the "I" also disappears and you start feeling a deep involvement in existence, with no boundaries, then only has Zen blossomed in you. In fact, that is the state, the space of the awakened consciousness. But it has no "I" at the center, no atman, no self.

    To make it clear to you... Socrates says, "Know thyself." Gautam Buddha says, "Know-- just know, and you will not find thyself." Enter deeper into your awareness, and the deeper you go, your self starts melting. Perhaps that is the reason why none of the religions except Zen have tried meditation--because meditation will destroy God, will destroy the ego, will destroy the self. It will leave you in absolute nothingness. It is just the mind which makes you afraid about nothingness....

    This is only possible to experience by falling deeper, beyond the mind, to the very depth of your being, to the very source of life from where your life is flowing. Suddenly you realize the image of yourself was arbitrary. You are imageless, you are infinite. You were living in a cage. The moment you realize your sources are infinite, suddenly the cage disappears and you can open your wings into the blue sky and disappear. This disappearance is anatta, this disappearance is freedom from oneself. But this is possible not through intellect, it is possible only through meditation. Zen is another name for meditation...

    Once you know meditation, you don't have to follow anybody. You have your own eyes open, and you have your light just ahead of you showing the path, and all that is right and all that is good happens choicelessly. It is not that you are doing it, you cannot do otherwise....

    The Zen Manifesto is absolutely needed, because all old religions are falling apart, and before they fall apart and humanity goes completely bananas, Zen has to be spread wide around the whole earth. Before the old house falls down, you have to create a new house.

    And this time don't commit the same mistake. You have been living in a house which was not there; hence you were suffering rain, winter, sun, because the house was only an imagination. This time really enter into your original home, not into any man-made temple, any man-made religion. Enter into your own existence. Why be continuously a carbon copy?

    This time is very valuable. You are born in a very fortunate moment, when the old has lost its validity, its proof, when the old is simply hanging around you because you are not

    courageous enough to get out of the prison. Otherwise the doors are open--in fact, there have never been any doors, because the house you are living in is completely imaginary. Your gods are imaginary, your priests are imaginary, your holy scriptures are imaginary.

    This time don't commit the same mistake. This time humanity has to take a quantum leap from the old rotten lies to the fresh, eternally fresh truth.

    This is the Manifesto of Zen. zenman01

    I offer you resurrection.

    But in resurrection you will not be Christians, you will not be Hindus, you will not be Mohammedans.

    In resurrection you will be men of Zen.

    Hence the Zen Manifesto. The world needs it immediately, urgently. zenman02

    Let this be the declaration of the Zen Manifesto:

    You are enough unto yourself.

    You are the whole universe. zenman04

    Zazen is Zen. Sitting silently, doing nothing, an explosion comes to you. Your own nature blossoms, your buddhahood comes to its ultimate peak. zenman04

    Name-change to Osho

    From 22 February 1989, Osho is sick for six weeks.

    On 27 February, the disciples of Rajneesh collectively decided to call him Osho Rajneesh. Osho is a term derived from ancient Japanese, and was first used by Eka, to address his master, Bodhidharma. `Osho' means "with great respect, love and gratitude" as well as "synchronicity" and "harmony." `Sho' means "multidimensional expansion of consciousness" and "existence showering from all directions."

    Osho is a very honorable word. There are many respectful words, but the sweetness of Osho, the love, the respect, the gratitude, all are together in it. It is just like Christians using `reverend', but that is no comparison to it. Just the very sound of Osho--even if we don't understand Japanese, the very sound is very sweet. hyaku09

    William James has given this word, `oceanic' to the world. The ocean has always been there, but once in a while a man of insight gives it a totally new dimension. He is the first man to use the word `oceanic' in the sense of vastness, infinity, eternity, immortality. It is always there; waves upon waves go on coming. Just as in the ordinary ocean, so in the ocean of consciousness: waves upon waves, unending joy, unending dawns, unending celebration....

    And remember...I am not going to be here forever, so don't escape from the ocean. invita16

    Osho’s last discourse series: The Zen Manifesto

    From 2-10 April 1989, Osho continues what is to be his last series of discourses.

    Friends, It has been a long awaiting, but that is the very essence of Zen--to wait, to wait for nothing.

    There is no God, there is no ultimate meaning. Life is all there is.

    Those who have found, have found nothing but that there is nothing to be found.

    Zen is the ultimate manifesto of non-finding, of rejoicing without any reason, of laughing and loving and dancing without any cause....

    I said to you that you have to wait long for me, but it is part of the game.

    Zen accepts both the presence and the absence, life and death--all the contradictions. Zen is vast enough to contain all contradictions.

    Perhaps Zen is the only way that contains contradictions, and that does not disallow anything. It rejoices in everything without any conditions. It accepts everything as it is without making any demands on it. It has no commandments, "Thou shalt," or "Thou shalt not. "

    Zen knows nothing about commandments.

    Zen knows only a vast life which contains all kinds of contradictions in a deep harmony. The night is in harmony with the day, and life is in harmony with death, and the earth is harmony with the sky. The presence is in harmony with the absence. This immense harmony, this synchronicity is the essential Manifesto of Zen. This is the only way of life which respects and loves, and denies nothing, condemns nothing....

    Zen is a declaration of the organic unity of all contradictions of life. And because existence accepts everything, who are you to choose? Who are you to judge? Zen knows no judgment. Nobody is a sinner and nobody is a saint. Both are playing a game of their choice, and both will receive their rewards accordingly.

    If you have done something wrong, something wrong will happen to you. If you have been blissful to others, existence will be blissful to you...a simple arithmetic. Zen does not believe in complexities, it is a very simple acceptance of the totality that surrounds us.

    These days I have been away from you, but I was aware of you, as you were aware of me. I heard your sound of joy, I heard your songs...and I was waiting for the right day to come. zenman03

    About Reincarnation

    Osho gives his unique insight on the process of reincarnation.

    I heard You say that we sometimes carry other people's wounds. What does this mean? Is another person's wound simply their thought pattern that we adopt? If we can so easily accept someone else's wound then why is it so difficult to accept our own buddhahood?

    It is a very complicated question, but if you are ready to understand I am willing to answer. Everybody is carrying other people's wounds. In the first place, you are living in a sick society where people are angry, full of hate, enjoy to hurt--that is the superficial level which can be understood easily. But there are subtle levels, there are so-called religious saints who are creating feelings of guilt in you, who are condemning you to be a sinner. They are giving you an idea which will create misery around you....

    According to me, the whole foundation of life has to be changed. People should be sympathetic only when there is pleasure and joy and rejoicing, because by your sympathy you are nourishing. Nourish people's joy, don't nourish their sadness and their misery. Be compassionate when they are miserable. Make it clear that this misery is chosen by yourself.

    On a deeper level. perhaps the questioner has not asked me to go that deep, but the

    answer will remain incomplete if I don't go deep enough.

    The very idea of reincarnation, which has arisen in all the Eastern religions, is that the self goes on moving from one body to another body, from one life to another life. This idea does not exist in the religions that have arisen out of Judaism, Christianity and

    Mohammedanism. But now even psychiatrists are finding that it seems to be true. People can remember their past lives; the idea of reincarnation is gaining ground.

    But I want to say one thing to you: the whole idea of reincarnation is a misconception. It is true that when a person dies his being becomes part of the whole. Whether he was a sinner or a saint does not matter, but he had also something called the mind, the memory. In the past the information was not available to explain memory as a bundle of thoughts and thought waves, but now it is easier.

    And that's where, on many points, I find Gautam Buddha far ahead of his time. He is the only man who would have agreed with my explanation. He has given hints, but he could not provide any evidence for it; there was nothing available to say. He has said that when a person dies, his memory travels into a new womb--not the self. And we now can understand it, that when you are dying, you will leave memories all around in the air.

    And if you have been miserable, all your miseries will find some location; they will enter into some other memory system. Either they will enter totally into a single womb--that's how somebody remembers one's past. It is not your past; it was somebody else's mind that you have inherited.

    Most people don't remember because they have not got the whole lump, the whole heritage of a single individual's memory system. They may have got fragments from here and there, and those fragments create your misery system. All those people who have died on the earth have died in misery. Very few people have died in joy. Very few people have died with the realization of no-mind. They don't leave a trace behind. They don't burden anybody else with their memory. They simply disperse into the universe. They don't have any mind and they don't have any memory system. They have already dissolved it in their meditations. That's why the enlightened person is never born.

    But the unenlightened people go on throwing out, with every death, all kinds of misery patterns. Just as riches attract more riches, misery attracts more misery. If you are miserable, then from miles, misery will travel to you--you are the right vehicle. And this is a very invisible phenomenon, like radio waves. They are traveling around you; you don't hear them. Once you have the right instrument to receive them, immediately they become available. Even before the radio was there, they were traveling by your side.

    There is no incarnation, but misery incarnates. Wounds of millions of people are moving around you, just in search of somebody who is willing to be miserable. Of course, the blissful does not leave any trace. The man of awakening dies the way a bird moves into the sky, without making a track or a path. The sky remains empty. Blissfulness moves without making any trace. That's why you don't get any inheritance from the buddhas; they simply disappear. And all kinds of idiots and retarded people go on reincarnating in their memories and it becomes every day thicker and thicker.

    Today, perhaps, it has come to the point to be understood and to be dissolved; otherwise it is too thick to allow you to live, to allow you to laugh.

    Your own consciousness has no wounds.

    Your own consciousness knows nothing of misery.

    Your own consciousness is innocent, utterly blissful. To bring you in touch with your own consciousness, every effort is being made to detract you from the mind. The mind contains all your misery, all your wounds. And it goes on creating wounds in such a way that, unless you are aware, you will not even find how it creates them....

    All our miseries are so superficial--and most fundamentally, they are all borrowed.

    And everybody is giving his misery to everybody else he comes in contact with. People are talking continuously about their miseries, about their troubles, about their conflicts. Have you ever heard anybody talking about his joyous moments? About his dances and songs? About his silences and blissfulness? No, nobody talks about these things. People go on sharing all their wounds, and whenever you are talking about your misery to somebody, without your knowing, you are transferring a miserable pattern. The person may be thinking that he is only listening to you, but he is also catching the vibe of misery, the wounds.

    When I said that you carry other people's wounds, my statement meant that your own consciousness has no wounds. If everybody becomes alert, meditative, there will be no wounds in the world. They will simply disappear. They will not find any house, any shelter. This is possible. If it is possible for me, it is possible for everybody.

    And in your question you also ask why "we can so easily accept someone else's wound," and why it is "so difficult to accept our own buddhahood."

    You can accept somebody's wounds because you also have wounds. You understand the language of wounds, miseries, sufferings. zenman05

    From what I heard You say last night about reincarnation, I understand that even individuality is superficial. Reincarnation was a consolation for me, that "my essence" or "soul" would continue. But now I understand that nothing of me will continue.

    In witnessing, do we all "plug in" to the same witnessing energy? Don't I even have my own witness?

    The ultimate truth hurts very much.

    Finally, everything is gone, including me and you. What remains is a pure consciousness. It is not that you are plugged into it, you are no more.

    The dispersion is so intimate and so ultimate that first your personality has to disappear, then your individuality has to disappear, then what remains is pure existence. It makes

    one feel a little worried and concerned, because you don't know the experience of not being.

    Just think for a moment. Before this life you were not. Was there any trouble? Any

    anxiety?

    After this life you will not be again. What is the fear? There will be silence and peace, in the same space where anxiety, tensions and anguishes flourished. They all will have melted just the way a dewdrop disappears into the ocean.

    Hence, Zen does not teach you self-realization. Self-realization is a much lower goal. Zen teaches you the ultimate: no-self realization, or realizing that disappearing into the whole is the final peace.

    Your very being is an anxiety. At whatever level you are, some anxiety will remain. You are anxiety, and if you want anxiety to disappear, you have to be ready to disappear yourself. zenman06

    Evolution is not something discovered by Charles Darwin. Evolution is an Eastern concept discovered by the mystics--and in the East they have really gone deeper. Charles Darwin is only superficial; he thought that man has come from the monkeys, and he was laughed at all over the world. The idea looks strange. but the mystic's idea does not look

    strange. He does not say that man has come from the monkeys; he says that the essence of consciousness has passed through many forms, and it has passed through the forms of monkeys too.

    According to me, not every man has come to be a man from being a monkey; different people have traveled different lines of evolution. All are coming from different animals, and that is one of the reasons why they are so unequal. A man who is coming from monkeys is bound to carry some traits, some characteristics, of the monkeys. Another man coming from horses will have different characteristics.

    There are millions of animals in the world, and every person has moved through different forms. It is not a highway, with the whole of humanity coming from the same source. If that were the case, all people would have been equal. Somebody is a genius, somebody is a born idiot--certainly they are coming from different sources.

    Gautam Buddha himself remembers his past lives: in one life, he says, he was an elephant, and after the life of the elephant he was born as a man....

    People are coming from different sources for different reasons. The theory of reincarnation is basically a more scientific approach to evolution than that of Charles Darwin. It is well known that different animals have different characters....

    A person who is coming from the body of an elephant into the body of a man will have a tremendous memory. In the same way, all the animals have their own special talents. I am

    saying this for the first time--that every human being has come from a different animal. Charles Darwin's idea that all have come from the monkeys is wrong. If it was so, then all will show the same characteristics--which is not so.

    A dog can be born as a human being, or may go through a few other life-forms--may become a lion, may become a deer and then come as a human being....

    Charles Darwin's idea is right, but not in the details; in the details he has not been able to work it out. I agree with him on this essential point that man has evolved out of animals, but I don't agree with him that all human beings have evolved from the same animal-- monkey, ape, or chimpanzee. Human beings have come from all different directions. It is a gathering of all kinds of animals, and if you watch people you can find from where each person is coming. Just a little watchfulness is needed, alertness, and you can feel that this man seems to be related to a certain species. tahui18

    Osho gives advice about the Commune

    On 6 April, Osho sets up the inner circle of 21 disciples who will take care of practical administration of the commune. Osho does not discuss it in discourse, but he does give advice about the commune.

    You cannot avoid a tradition; it is beyond your hands. Once you are dead, what people will be doing you cannot prevent. Rather than leaving it in the hands of the ignorant, it is better you should give the right guidelines. hari30

    Sarjano has written a letter in which he feels afraid that "perhaps the ghost of Rajneeshpuram will take possession of this commune also."...

    A commune gives certain responsibilities and certain freedoms. A commune is not necessarily destructive of the individual. In fact, that is the very purpose of the commune: to preserve the individual, his integrity.

    A commune is not an organization, but when thousands of people are involved, somebody has to cook, and somebody has to watch on the door, and somebody has to do small things. There are people who start thinking that even doing these things is destroying their freedom. This is sheer nonsense.

    A certain responsibility is not against freedom; in fact, freedom can only exist with responsible people. Somebody has to take care of the gardens, otherwise there will be no flowers.

    Sarjano's trouble may be the trouble of a few other sannyasins. It has to be made clear that a commune is not dictatorial, but it is not democratic either. It gives respect to the individual. With the respect it gives the responsibility also, that you have to be aware not to trespass on anybody, and that you have to contribute to the commune.

    If you are taking from the well of the commune, you have to contribute something-- whatever you can do.

    When you are working with friends there should be no discussion about anything, only dialogues. There should be no need to impose anything on anybody. When intelligent people are there, they can see the reason themselves. They are not to be forced.

    But there are a few people who think licentiousness is freedom. Sarjano, that is your attitude.

    Licentiousness is not freedom.

    We are sitting here--nobody is forcing you to be silent. It is according to your intelligence that you are silent, and this gives your individuality a tremendous grace....

    Your silence is not democratic--you have not been asked to vote to be silent. It is not dictatorial--you have not been told that you have to be silent. This is the beauty and dignity of your silence: it is arising out of you. It is not imposed from outside; it is coming from within. And when something comes from within, it has a beauty and a grace, and a tremendous aliveness. This is not the silence of a graveyard; this is the silence of a garden. It is not dead; it is throbbing with life.

    Sarjano, Zen teaches revolution in a graceful way. In the name of revolution much ugliness has happened in the world. Zen wants you to understand the implications of the inner revolution, and you have to go on your own way. Zen simply makes it clear that there is nothing to be found, that there is no truth which is hidden--it is only your eyes which are closed.

    Do you see the shift? All other mystery schools in the world have been teaching that the truth is hidden. If it is only a way of saying it, it can be forgiven. But the reality is, truth is not hidden. Truth is all over the place, only our eyes are closed....

    It is a miracle that thousands of people can live here without any conflict, without any fight, without any violence. The whole world can live with such peace and silence if freedom is not misunderstood as licentiousness.

    Freedom is a greater responsibility, it gives you dignity and pride. It makes you aware that you are living in a meaningful way. There is no other meaning to be found...

    The whole effort of Zen is to bring you to your own consciousness, and then there is no need of any scripture, and there is no need of any guide. You have your own light and you can live accordingly, intensely, joyfully, dancingly. zenman04

    This commune has to be a commune of understanding, awareness, looking into one's own mind patterns and remembering that they are not yours. You are simply the watcher, and the watcher is outside the mind.

    I teach you the watcher.

    The only way to get out of misery patterns, whether ancient or new, is witnessing. I say it is the only way, because nobody has escaped from the mind without becoming a witness. Just witness, and suddenly you will start laughing at your own misery. All our miseries are so superficial--and most fundamentally, they are all borrowed. zenman05

    And we are here only to learn that which cannot be destroyed even by death--the immortal, the eternal.

    It is only a question of remembrance, a forgotten language remembered again.

    And keep on remembering all the day along. Act the way a conscious person acts. Doing ordinary things: chopping wood or carrying water from the well, do it as if the buddha is doing it himself.

    And what I am saying to you is not a philosophical statement, it is the experience of thousands of buddhas.

    To find the essential in you is the Manifesto of Zen. zenman04

    We are going to create new campuses around in the pyramid shape for meditators. Even people who live inside a pyramid find it very rejuvenating. The scientists could not believe it; they themselves found that they were more alive inside the pyramid than they were outside. Something happens; just the shape of the pyramid is the thing.

    Those pyramids were created by Egyptian mystics from very ancient scriptures from the continent, Atlantis, that drowned either by natural catastrophe or by man's stupidity. But in Alexandria in Egypt, they had saved everything worthwhile from the lost continents of Lemuria and Atlantis. The library of Alexandria was so big--perhaps the biggest library in the world. The Mohammedan, Khalif Omar, burned it down....

    It had all the maps of the pyramids, and the reasoning why that particular shape is rejuvenating.

    Pyramids can be called authentic creativity, but our so-called painters and our so-called musicians have no understanding of meditation. So it is just being busy without business, just doing something because the society does not accept you sitting silently....

    So if your creativity comes out of your silence, out of your Zen, out of your meditations, then it is authentic, original. If it comes only as an occupation because you are feeling lost and there is nothing to do--a long holiday, so you start doing something. That is not

    coming out of your silences, it is coming out of your crazy mind....

    Anything that arises from your silences has a beauty, a truthfulness, an authenticity. And that which arises out of the mind is only a carbon copy. Howsoever beautiful it may appear to the ignorant, it cannot be called a creative phenomenon....

    If you don't have to do anything, that is the greatest moment just to be. Don't do anything. Be silent. Do only when things are necessary to be done. So much nonsense will be cut out and you will have much more energy to explore the inner. zenman10

    I have been asked again and again why I declare people enlightened only when they die. This is simply to keep the peace of the commune. If I declare somebody to be enlightened, you will kill him. You will not be able to tolerate that this man has become enlightened. You will find a thousand faults in him, you will condemn him, and you will be very jealous.

    I have made it a point that I will declare people enlightened only when you cannot be jealous, and you cannot quarrel, because they are already gone.

    And when I leave the world, I will leave a note about the people who are enlightened, but in deep secrecy. The note will remain with Nirvano, so whenever somebody out of the list dies, declare it.

    Declaring anybody enlightened while he is alive is certainly going to create great trouble for the man who is declared enlightened. Now he will feel very much embarrassed smoking cigarettes. And what to do with the girlfriends? Enlightened, and you have a girlfriend?

    Only Sardar Gurudayal Singh is an exception.

    But ordinarily you will feel very much in difficulty, drinking wine, going to the pub-- even just ordinary beer. And particularly my Germans, what will they do without beer? For Germans I will have to make an exception.

    I don't want you to be embarrassed. It is good that you are trying to be enlightened. On the way enjoy everything, and I will declare you enlightened when you are completely at rest in the grave. Nobody can disturb you--no beer, no cigarettes, no girlfriends, nothing. At the most you can toss and turn inside there. If you want, I can put some chewing-gum in every grave, so whenever you feel too much upset, just start chewing gum! yaku04

    It's easy here, where miracles happen before breakfast and then never stop, but how to make it work the same way in everyday life and in society?

    If it has really happened to you, the question will not arise. If you have imagined it, only then will the question arise.

    Here, it is easy to imagine before breakfast that you are enlightened. Here, there are so many enlightened people, so it is very easy. Nobody is against enlightenment, everybody is supportive; it is easy to imagine.

    The test, the fire test, will be out there in the society. If your enlightenment disappears, it has never happened. If it has happened, no society, no culture can destroy it. It is such a force, such an eternal life, nobody can even touch it, so don't be worried about society.

    Just let your enlightenment be a reality, not an imagination.

    Once it is a reality you are no more, only enlightenment is--a flame, a fire which cannot be put out, put off. You can be killed, but your enlightenment cannot be killed. You can be crucified and poisoned, but your enlightenment remains a witness even on the cross.

    And when there are thousands of enlightened people, the society will not have the courage. Where are you going to have so many crosses? If enlightenment becomes a great phenomenon around the earth, then no enlightened man or master is in danger. He can have his life unhindered, unhampered, uncrippled by the society.

    The society could manage to kill Socrates, because Socrates was alone. The society could crucify Jesus because he was alone.

    I am not teaching any cult here, any creed. I want you to taste the very life source. Then nobody can take it away. zenman09

    Osho emphasizes Zen and meditation

    I heard You say that our energy is based in the `hara', and that it is expressed through the different chakras in the body.

    Traditional Zen seems to emphasize Zazen as the way to come in touch with that energy, whereas You have allowed, even encouraged, Your disciples to have more freedom to explore the various avenues of expression.

    I am not a traditional man at all. I am untraditional in every possible way. I am not confined to any technique.

    Zen is confined, in a way, to Zazen. Zazen means just sitting and doing nothing. It is perfectly right, but my experience of the modern man is that the most difficult thing for him is just sitting and doing nothing. If you ask him to go to the moon, he can go. If you ask him to go to Everest, he can go. But just sitting? That is the most difficult thing.

    Finally, you will have to come to the point.

    I have nothing to do with tradition. My Zen is absolutely untraditional. First, I make you jump and shout and scream, and do all kinds of gibberish. Then finally, tired, you can sit for a few moments....

    I am dealing with the contemporary man, who is the most restless being that has ever evolved on the earth. But people do become silent; you just have to allow them to throw out their madness, insanity, then they themselves become silent. They start waiting for the moment when I will say, "Be silent." They become tired of their gibberish. They also become aware that this gibberish is there....

    You have to be total, otherwise things remain inside you. You have to empty your continuous gibberish that goes on inside, "Yakkety-yak, yakkety-yak. " Don't do it

    partially. Don't be bothered about being seen, because nobody is looking at you; everybody is in his own insanity. This is a good time for you to say and do anything which ordinarily you will not say....

    The contemporary man is the most restless man. And I am dealing with the contemporary man, not the dead of the past. I have to devise ways and methods so that you can become silent. Finally, that is the goal--Zazen. But before that you have to throw out many things. Perhaps in the past when man was much more natural, unrepressed...

    If it is possible for a single man, it is possible for the whole of humanity. We have just to throw out all the garbage that comes up in our minds, in our dreams. And it affects our actions, our attitudes, our miseries, our angers, our despair. It is better to throw it before it affects your actions.

    And that is the whole psychology behind meditation: emptying you, creating a nothingness in you. Out of that nothingness blossoms the ultimate joy, the ultimate bliss. zenman08

    When energy goes inward it turns into thoughts, feelings, emotions, and when energy goes outward it turns into relationships with beings and nature. But when energy does not move inward or outward, it is just there pulsating, vibrating. Then it is one with the existence, one with the whole. Is this Zazen?

    Exactly. When the energy is just there--not going anywhere, just pulsating at the original source, just radiating its light there, blossoming like a lotus, neither going out nor going in--it is simply here and now.

    When I say go inward, I am simply saying don't go on moving in the head.

    The whole society forces your energy to move in the head. All education consists of the basic technique of how to pulsate the energy only in the head--how to make you a great mathematician, how to make you a great physician. All the education in the world consists of taking the energy into the head.

    Zen asks you to come out of the head and go to the basic source--from where the educational system around the world has been taking the energy, putting it into the head, and turning it into thoughts, images, and creating thinking. It has its uses. It is not that Zen is not aware of the uses of energy in the head, but if all the energy is used in the head, you will never become aware of your eternity. You may become a very great thinker and philosopher, but you will never know, as an experience, what life is. You will never know as an experience, what it is to be one with the whole.

    When the energy is just at the center, pulsating... When it is not moving anywhere, neither in the head nor in the heart, but it is at the very source from where the heart takes it, the head takes it...pulsating at the very source--that is the very meaning of Zazen.

    Zazen means just sitting at the very source, not moving anywhere. A tremendous force arises, a transformation of energy into light and love, into greater life, into compassion, into creativity. It can take many forms, but first you have to learn how to be at the source. Then the source will decide where your potential is. You can relax at the source, and it will take you to your very potential. It does not mean that you have to stop thinking forever, it simply means you should be aware and alert and capable of moving into the source. When you need the head you can move the energy into the head, and when you need to love, you can move the energy into the heart.

    But you need not think twenty-four hours. When you are not thinking you have to relax back into your center--that keeps the Zen man constantly content, alert, joyful. A blissfulness surrounds him; it is not an act, it is simply radiation.

    Zazen is the strategy of Zen. Literally it means just sitting. Sitting where? Sitting at the very source. And once in a while, if you go on sitting in the source, you can manage all mental activities without any disturbance, you can manage all heart activities without any difficulty. And still, whenever you have time, you need not unnecessarily think, you need not unnecessarily feel, you can just be.

    Just being is Zazen.

    And if you can just be--only for a few minutes in twenty-four hours--that is enough to keep you alert of your buddhahood. zenman11

    Zen is your very nature; there is no way of throwing it away. All that you can do with Zen is two things: you can remember, or you can forget. This is the only possibility. If you forget your nature, your buddhahood...this is the only sin in the world of Zen: forgetfulness.

    Gautam Buddha's last words on the earth have to be remembered: sammasati. Sammasati means right remembrance. His whole life is condensed into a single word, remembrance, as if on dying, he is condensing all his teachings, all his scriptures into a single word.

    Nobody has uttered a more significant word when dying. His last message, his whole

    message: sammasati, remember. And when you remember, there is no way to throw your consciousness away.

    Zen is not a meditation. Zen is exactly sammasati--remembrance of your ultimateness, remembrance of your immortality, remembrance of your divineness, of your sacredness. Remembering it, and rejoicing it, and dancing out of joy that you are rooted, so deeply rooted in existence that there is no way for you to be worried, to be concerned.

    Existence is within you and without you--it is one whole. zenman04

    Zen has taken a few steps, but hesitantly. I tell you, whether you want it or not, you are a buddha, you are not going to become a buddha. It is your very essentiality. And once this is recognized, the whole life becomes sacred, nothing is denied. This is the new man I want to introduce into the world--the new buddha. This manifesto is for the new buddhas. zenman04

    Osho’s Last Discourse

    On 10 April 1989, Osho gives his last discourse. This is the first talk of a pre-scheduled series entitled 'The Awakening of the Buddha'. Later Osho requests that this talk be included in the book The Zen Manifesto.

    In answer to a question, Osho explains how his Zen differs from the arduous practices in some contemporary Zen monasteries.

    Gerta Ital was the first Western woman to enter a Zen monastery in Japan and work with an enlightened master. She wrote two books which give the impression of a hard and lonely path. Being with You is much more joyful and playful.

    The traditional Zen is hard. It takes twenty to thirty years of constant meditation, withdrawing from everywhere all your energy and devoting it only to meditation.

    That tradition comes from Gautam Buddha himself. He had to find his enlightenment after twelve years of hard work.

    I am changing it completely from the traditional Zen, because I don't see that the contemporary man can devote twenty or thirty years to meditation only. If Zen remains that hard, it will disappear from the world. It has already disappeared from China, it is disappearing from Japan, and it disappeared from India long ago. It remained in India for only five hundred years after Gautam Buddha. In the sixth century it reached China, remained there for only a few centuries, and moved to Japan. And now it is almost extinct from both China and Japan.

    You will be surprised to know that my books are being taught in the Zen monasteries. Zen masters have written letters to me: "Perhaps now Zen will exist in India, in its original place. It is disappearing from Japan because people are more interested in technology, in science."

    That is the situation in India too. Very few people are interested in the inner exploration. Here you can find a few people from every country, but these are so few compared to the five billion human beings on the earth. Ten thousand is not a great number.

    Zen has to be transformed in a way that the contemporary man can be interested in it. It has to be easy, relaxed, it has not to be hard. That old traditional type is no longer possible, nor is it needed. Once it has been explored, once a single man has become enlightened, the path becomes easy. You don't have to discover electricity again and again. Once discovered you start using it--you don't have to be great scientists.

    The man who discovered electricity worked on it for almost twenty years. Three hundred disciples started with him and nobody remained because it took so long; everybody became exhausted. But the original scientist continued....

    Now, you don't have to work for thirty years to know about electricity. Nor do you have to work thirty years for the Zen experience.

    The awakening of the buddha is a very easy and relaxed phenomenon. Now that so many people have awakened, the path has become clear-cut; it is no longer hard and arduous. You can playfully enter inside and joyously experience the awakening of awareness. It is not as far away as it was for Gautam Buddha.

    For Gautam Buddha it was an absolute unknown. He was searching for it like a blind man, knowing nothing about where he was going. But he was a man of tremendous courage, who for twelve years went on searching, exploring every method available in his time. all the teachers who were talking about philosophy and yoga. He went from one

    teacher to another, and every teacher finally said to him, "I can tell you only this much. More than this I don't know myself." Finally, he remained alone, and he dropped all yoga disciplines....

    But in that ordinariness, when he had dropped everything--just being tired and exhausted-

    -that fullmoon night when the five disciples left him, he slept under the bodhi tree, completely free from this world and completely free from the very search for that world. For the first time he was utterly relaxed: no desire to find anything, no desire to become anything. And in that moment of non-desiring, he suddenly awakened and became a buddha. Buddhahood came to him in a relaxed state.

    You don't have to work for twelve years, you can just start from the relaxed state. It was the last point in Gautam Buddha's journey. It can be the first point in your journey....

    Enlightenment is such a transformation that you are a totally different person. The old person dies away, and a totally new awareness, a fresh bliss, a flowering, a spring which has never been there...

    It took twelve years for Gautam Buddha. It need not take even twelve minutes for you. It is simply an art, to relax into yourself. In the traditional Zen they are still doing whatever Buddha did in his ignorance, and finally they drop it.

    I am telling you, why not drop it right now? You can relax this very moment! And in that relaxation you will find the light, the awareness, the awakening.

    What has happened to Gerta Ital, is not necessarily an introduction to Zen. She has been in the company of old and traditional Zen masters. I understand Zen to be a very simple, innocent, joyful method. There is nothing ascetic in it, nothing life-negative--no need to renounce the world, no need to become a monk, no need to enter a monastery. You have to enter into yourself. That can be done anywhere.

    We are doing it in the simplest way possible. And only if Zen becomes as simple as I am trying to make it, can the contemporary man be interested in it. Otherwise he has so much to do--so many things to do, so many paths to explore, so many things to distract him.

    Zen has to become such a small playful thing, that while you are going to sleep--just before that--within five minutes you can enter into yourself, and you can remain at the very center of your being the whole night. Your whole night can become a peaceful, silent awareness. Sleep will be in the body, but underneath it there will be a current of light from the evening till the morning.

    And once you know that even in sleep a certain awareness can be present inside you, then the whole day, doing all kinds of things, you can remain alert, conscious. Buddhahood has to be a very normal, ordinary, simple and human affair. zenman11

    Zen masters know how to live and also know how to die. They take neither life seriously nor death seriously. Seriousness is a sick way of looking at existence. A man of perfection will love to live, and will love to die. His life will be a dance, and his death will be a song. There will be no distinction between life and death. zenman11

    Our search is for the immeasurable. The measurable can be left to the scientists. The mystics are concerned with the immeasurable. zenman11

    It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.

    Put the lights on! I love to see my people laughing. I am absolutely against seriousness, but unfortunately I have to discuss serious things. But it is good to make you first serious, then laughter comes more easily. Then it gives a great relaxation. zenman01

    Last meditation at the end of discourse

    It is time, Nivedano... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish)

    Nivedano... (Drumbeat)

    Be silent... Close your eyes...and feel yourself completely frozen. This is the right moment to enter inwards.

    Gather all your energy, your total consciousness, and rush towards the inner center with deep intensity and urgency.

    The center is just two inches below the navel, inside the body. Faster...and faster... Deeper...and deeper...

    As you come closer to the center of being, a great silence descends over you, and inside a peace, a blissfulness, a light that fills your whole interior. This is your original being.

    This is your buddha.

    At this moment, witness that you are not the body, not the mind, not the heart, but just the pure witnessing self, the pure consciousness. This is your buddhahood, your hidden nature, your meeting with the universe. These are your roots.

    Relax...

    Nivedano... (Drumbeat) Relax...and just be a silent witness.

    You start melting like ice in the ocean. Gautama the Buddha Auditorium becomes an oceanic field of consciousness. You are no longer separate--this is your oneness with existence.

    To be one with existence is to be a buddha, it is your very nature. It is not a question of searching and finding, you are it, right now.

    Gather all the flowers, the fragrance, the flame and the fire, the immeasurable, and bring it with you as you come back.

    Nivedano... (Drumbeat)

    Come back peacefully, silently, as a buddha.

    Just for a few seconds close your eyes and remember the path and the source you have found, and the buddha nature that you have experienced.

    This moment you are the most blessed people on the earth. Remembering yourself as a buddha is the most precious experience, because it is your eternity, it is your immortality.

    It is not you, it is your very existence. You are one with the stars and the trees and the sky and the ocean. You are no longer separate.

    The last word of Buddha was, sammasati.

    Remember that you are a buddha--sammasati. zenman11

    On the evening of 10th Osho tells Anando that as he finished the discourse, his energy completely changed. He explains that in the same way one enters the world through nine months in the womb, nine months before dying the energy again enters an incubatory period for death.

    Notes about Osho until

    he leaves his body 19 Jan 1990

    19 May: in a General Meeting in Buddha Hall it is announced that Osho will not speak publicly again.

    23 May: Announcement of message from Osho: he will come to darshan in the evenings. When he arrives everyone can celebrate with him. This is followed by a period of silent meditation, after which Osho leaves. A video of one of Osho's discourses is then shown. Osho also says that the Buddhafield energy is at a new and higher level.

    June: Multiversity formed: the Centre for Transformation, Mystery School, Osho School of Creative Arts, Osho School of Martial Arts; Osho gives message about wearing white robes for darshan with him.

    July: Gurupurnima Festival of Full Moon begins: Osho comes out for 7 minutes. This is the first appearance of the White Robe Brotherhood.

    Three-day meditation camps on the second weekend of each month start, under Zareen's supervision.

    Osho answers written questions from journalist Pritish Nandy which are read to him by Satya Vedant (last615)

    August: Osho School of Music starts; Osho Global Connections starts; Osho dictates letter to Literaturnaya Gazeta (Russian paper); An electronic rooster, which emits a very

    loud 'cock-a-doodle-doo" every hour on the hour was sent to Osho as a gift, and he enjoys it so much he wants them installed in the ashram as an awareness device.

    18 August: Message from Osho via Anando at the evening video: "Few have understood my words"

    20 August: announcement that Osho will be coming out every evening from tomorrow; Osho tells Anando of a vision of blue light Aum sign. According to tradition, this vision intimates that the person will soon leave their body.

    1. August: message from Osho that the poisoning in Oklahoma jail has weakened him but he will be coming to the evening meeting, which is the highlight of whole day for the commune.
    2. August: Osho talks to Anando about the mystical gathering of energy into white robes. Maroon robes are to be worn in future for meditations and groups; black robes with white belt to be worn by group leaders during groups and sessions.
    3. August: Anando announces about the 4 layers of energy, and about keeping the absolute silence during darshan with Osho.
    4. August: announcement that maroon robes are to be worn by everyone in the ashram during work hours as well as for meditations.

    31 August: Osho moves into his new Chuang Tzu bedroom, which is lined with marble and lit by a large chandelier. The one-way floor to ceiling windows overlook the garden and newly landscaped white marble waterfall and rock pools.

    September: Osho is sick for two weeks, he continues to have dental sessions nearly every day. He is not well. The dentist, Dr Modi, makes a statement regarding Osho being radiated.

    12 September: Osho drops 'Rajneesh' from his name, and will from now on be known simply as 'Osho'

    14 September: Osho moves back to his former bedroom, and the Chuang Tzu bedroom is used for Mystic Rose and No-Mind groups. The new glass walkway which has been built for Osho to take walks in the garden, will be used for Vipassana and Zazen-type groups. Several new groups are developed including a Women's Liberation Group, and the Neo-Zen group run by Avirbhava, whose new title of 'high priestess' is announced before darshan.

    October: all the buildings in the Commune are painted black.

    5 October: Osho creates "Born Again" group: one hour playing like a child, followed by one hour silent sitting.

    15 October: the mantra salute Yaa-Hoo! which is shouted before darshan is now changed to "O-sho!"

    17 October: Osho sends a message that the commune is to be called a Multiversity Campus

    22 October: Announcement that "Osho" can be used as a mantra

    November: Osho begins the "Stop exercises to create silence": Osho dances with hands and stops suddenly with hands raised; everyone to stop with hands raised also.

    17 November: Osho gives instructions about when he leaves his body; he asks for a group to be formed to translate his Hindi books into English; Osho says "Nobody will be my successor; the Inner Circle will be the successor." He gives further instructions on how the Inner Circle will function.

    23 November: Men's Liberation group created

    1. November: there is a message from Osho that people buy and read his books. From now on the reading of Osho's books will become an integral part of the groundwork for all ashram groups.
    2. November: Tan-san, the Japanese woman enlightened master, visits the ashram in order to give Osho healing energy as, she indicates, the world needs his continuing presence in the body. During darshan Osho showers her with rose petals.

    1 December: Rev Ryoju Kikuchi, Japanese enlightened master, visits

    Throughout December, Osho repeatedly comments, to his attendants, on the silent meditation during darshan: "the silence is becoming so solid you can almost touch it."

    5 December: Osho creates new group "Osho Reminding Yourself the Forgotten Language of Talking to Your Body", and gives instructions for the first group

    9 December: Nirvano (Osho's long-time companion, also known as Gudiya and Vivek) leaves her body. Osho arranges a memorial for her: "Nirvano, who died an untimely death". This is placed on the new Osho House building.

    12 December: Osho comments on the Birthday celebration: "The celebration went really well. It was the best celebration ever."

    16 December: Osho requests a photo session with Videha and Veeresh, who have both been very active in helping Osho's work in Europe. Swami Veeresh is a long-time sannyasin therapist, and the founder of Humaniversity in Holland. Swami Videha has translated into Italian and published many of Osho's books, which have been widely distributed in Italy and become best sellers in the non-fiction category of books. These photos are published in Osho Times International

    24 December: The Sunday Mail, UK, prints an article about Cardinal Ratzinger and the Vatican being partly responsible for expulsion of Osho from the USA.

    16 January 1990: Osho's last darshan in Buddha Hall which includes dancing followed by silent meditation. Osho has had severe pains in his arms for some time and will not move his arms in future, but everyone should continue to celebrate and dance when he arrives.

    Osho sends a message that during darshan someone is using black magic against him, Osho could defend himself, but since the attacker would thus be harmed, Osho will not do so. Steps are taken to discover who is involved, without success.

    1. January: Dr Amrito announces Osho's message that Osho will only come and namaste from now on, "Now your meditation is going to go deeper than ever."
    2. January: Osho remains in his room during darshan, but sends a message that his presence would be felt as if he was there.
    3. January: Osho leaves his body at 5:00 pm. Dr Amrito makes the announcement after people have gathered for evening darshan. Before dying, Osho calls Jayesh and tells him, "I leave you my dream." He also says, "Anando will be my medium." Osho requests the same format of death celebration which he set up for sannyasins: His body is brought into the Hall for ten minutes celebration, then carried in procession to the nearby burning ghats, where the celebration continues through the night.

    21 January: Osho's ashes are brought to his samadhi, which is in the Chuang Tzu auditorium, which was renovated into a bedroom for him, and then used for groups. Now the samadhi room is used for silent meditations. The inscription over his ashes says:

    Osho Never Born Never Died

    Only visited this planet earth between 1931 - 1990

    See all posts