Osho,
After your three years of silence, has your work changed?
“This speaking is totally different from the speaking that was there three and a half years ago. I was speaking to people who were listening through the head. I was arguing, I was rationalizing, I was doing everything to convince their heads. Now there is no need of that. I have got people with whom I can talk heart to heart. My words don’t pass their heads. There is no scrutiny in their heads when they hear my words. My words simply penetrate directly into their hearts.”
Osho, The Last Testament, Talk #20 – Everything Is Love
You have been speaking on almost all the religions before you went into silence, was there a certain reason for it?
“I would have loved not to be associated in any way with the word religion.
“The whole history of religion simply stinks. It is ugly, and it shows the degradation of man, his inhumanity, and all that is evil. And this is not about any one single religion, it is the same story repeated by all the religions of the world: man exploiting man in the name of God. I still feel uneasy being associated with the word religion. But there are a few problems: in life sometimes one has to choose things that one hates.
“In my youth I was known in the university as an atheist, irreligious, against all moral systems. That was my stand, and that is still my stand. I have not changed even an inch; my position is exactly the same. But being known as an atheist, irreligious, amoral, became a problem. It was difficult to communicate with people, almost impossible to bridge any kind of relationship with people….
“The moment people heard that I am an atheist, irreligious, amoral, they were completely closed. That I don’t believe in any God, that I don’t believe in any heaven and hell was enough for them to withdraw from me. Even very educated people – because I was a professor in the university, and I was surrounded by hundreds of professors, research scholars, intelligent, educated people – simply avoided me because they had no courage to defend what they believed; they had no argument for themselves.”
Osho, The Last Testament, Talk #20 – Everything Is Love
Were you looking for a way to reach intelligent people?
“I became aware that, strangely, the people who were interested in the search for truth had got involved in religions. Because they thought me irreligious, I could not commune with them; and they were the people who would be really interested to know. They were the people who would be ready to travel with me to unknown spaces. But they were already involved in some religion, in some sect, in some philosophy; and just their thinking of me as irreligious, atheistic, became a barrier. And those were the people that I had to seek out….
“Then it was obvious to me that I would have to play the game of being religious; there was no other way. Only then could I find people who were authentic seekers.
“I hate the word religion, I have always hated it, but I had to talk about religion. But what I was talking about under the cover of religion was not the same as people understood by religion. Now, this was simply a strategy. I was using their words – God, religion, liberation, moksha – and I was giving them my meaning. In this way I could start finding people; and people started coming to me….
“And now thousands started gathering around me because I was speaking on Krishna. Now, what have I to do with Krishna? What has he done for me? What relationship have I got with Jesus?…
“I simply thought, ‘Use their words, use their language, use their scriptures.’”
Osho, From Personality to Individuality, Talk #14 – The Only Hope: The Enlightenment of Humanity
After thousands of people started coming to you, did you change your strategy?
“As my message became more and more clear, proportionately I slowly dropped their language.
“After my years of giving sannyas, I gave this three-year period of silence, a gap when anybody who wanted to leave me, could leave because I don’t want to interfere in anybody’s life.
“If I can enhance, good. If I cannot enhance you and your being, then it is better that you move away from me. The people who were with me just because they enjoyed my discourses could not stand silence: they have left”
Osho, From Personality to Individuality, Talk #14 – The Only Hope: The Enlightenment of Humanity
Did the people who left not understand your real message?
“I was silent to sort out those people who were hanging around my words, who were enchanted by my words, who loved my voice, who loved the way I speak, I argue. But that is not my basic function. I speak to help you to be silent. I say something so that you can go beyond words.
“I use words to help you to go into wordlessness. It is just like having a thorn in the foot, with another thorn you pull it out. Your mind is full of birds, so many and so much chattering, yakketty-yak, yakketty-yak. It goes on and on.
“But then, people became intoxicated with my words. That was not my purpose. I continuously insisted, ‘Don’t be concerned with my words; be concerned with my silences, the gaps between the words, the gaps between the lines.’
“Three years I remained silent. Those few remained hanging around for a few months. Some managed to hang around for one or two years. Three years was too much; by and by they all left me thinking that I was going to remain silent forever. The day I saw that all those people who were interested in my words but not in silence had left, it was time to speak.”
Osho, The Last Testament, Vol. 1, Talk #20 – Everything Is Love
After your silence you seem so different: dancing, laughing and celebrating with your people.
“I had to wait for you to behave humanly. I was waiting for my people, because only they will understand that to be human is the highest value there is.
“I was talking to the Christians, to the Hindus, to the Mohammedans, to the Jainas, to the Buddhists, and it was a difficult job. I could not behave humanly with them. They wanted me to be their messiah, their prophet, their messenger.…
“And now I will be speaking directly to you.
“There will be no Jesus between me and you, no Buddha between me and you, just a pure communion. Only then can I reach to your heart; otherwise, I can reach only to your mind – and mind has no function in bringing you blissfulness, ecstasy, enlightenment. Mind can give you better technology, but it cannot give you the New Man….
“Now I can be human to you. I always wanted to be an authentic human being. There was never a desire to be a prophet, a messiah, an avatar, a godman. To me, all these words are four-letter words. I wanted just to be simple, ordinary – the way I am. I wanted to expose my heart to you without thinking what is going to be the consequence. This was possible only when I had found my own people, who can understand.”
Osho, From the False to the Truth, Talk #33 – You Are My Fellow Travellers
What is it that people need to understand?
“The way to understand me is to always remember that I am insisting – from every corner, in every possible way – only on a single target, and that is your innermost being. Whatever I may have said… never be too much concerned with what is said. Be concerned about what it indicates.
“I want you to drop all games – worldly games, spiritual games, games that the whole of humanity has played up to now.
“These games keep you retarded. These games hinder you from growing into consciousness, into your own ultimate flowering. I want to cut away all this rubbish that prevents you.
“I want to leave you alone, absolutely alone, so that you cannot take anybody’s help, so you cannot cling to any prophet, so that you cannot think that Gautam Buddha is going to save you.
“Left alone – utterly alone – you are bound to find your innermost center.
“There is no way, nowhere to go, no advisor, no teacher, no master.
“It seems hard, it seems harsh, but I am doing it because I love you, and the people who have not done it have not loved you at all. They loved themselves and they loved to have a big crowd around themselves – the bigger the crowd, the more they feel nourished in their egos.
“That’s why I called even enlightenment the last game. The sooner you drop it, the better.
“Why not just simply be? Why unnecessarily hurry here and there? You are what existence wants you to be.
“Just relax.”
No master? So many people see themselves as disciples of you, their master.
“Only one thing I have kept secret, just one leaf. Buddha declared before his death that he would be coming again after twenty-five centuries, and that his name would be Maitreya. Maitreya means the friend. Buddhas don’t come back; no enlightened person ever comes back, so it is just a way of saying….
“What he was saying is of tremendous importance. It has nothing to do with his coming back; he cannot come back.
“What he meant was that the ancient relationship between the master and the disciple would become irrelevant in twenty-five centuries. It was his clarity of perception – he was not predicting anything – just his clarity to see that as things are changing, as they have changed in the past and as they go on changing, it would take at least twenty-five centuries for the master and disciple relationship to become out of date. Then the enlightened master will be only the friend.
“I had always wanted not to be a master to anybody. But people want a master, they want to be disciples; hence, I played the role. It is time that I should say to you that now many of you are ready to accept me as the friend. Those who are in tune with me continuously, without any break, are the only real friends.”
Osho, The Last Testament, Vol. 3, Talk #25 – Religion, Religiousness, and Religio
If we can accept you as our friend, is worship any part of this?
“The mystics have been, for thousands of years, talking about it, visualizing it, but unfortunately people worship the mystics but don’t allow the mystic to transform them. Worshipping is really a way of escaping from transformation; it is saying, in other words, ‘You are right, but it is not time for me yet. I respect you, I worship you, and I will remember what you are saying; but I cannot act accordingly right now. I am just an ordinary human being, you are a great realized soul – the distance is vast.’
“Worshipping the mystics is not real respect. It is a strategy of the mind to avoid seeing the finger that is pointing towards the moon.
“Man is very cunning. He can crucify somebody to get rid of him, he can worship somebody to get rid of him. Crucifixion and worshipping are not different because the basic purpose is the same: ‘Just leave me alone; your stupid utopia is good, I don’t have any argument against it, but you are a special being, and I am just an ordinary creature.’”
Osho, The Transmission of the Lamp, Talk #35 – Worship May Be a Worse Crucifixion
If worship is no longer relevant, how would you like to be remembered?
“I would simply like to be forgiven and forgotten. There is no need to remember me. The need is to remember yourself! People have remembered Gautam Buddha and Jesus Christ and Confucius and Krishna. That does not help. So what I would like: forget me completely, and forgive me too – because it will be difficult to forget me. That’s why I am asking you to forgive me for giving you the trouble.
“Remember yourself.”
Osho, The Transmission of the Lamp, Talk #29 – Just Like Ripe Fruit
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