Spiritual Dependence - by Osho

My approach to your growth is basically to make you independent of me. Any kind of dependence is slavery, and the spiritual dependence is the worst slavery of all. I have been making every effort to make you aware of your individuality, your freedom, your absolute capacity to grow without any help from anybody. Your growth is something intrinsic to your being. It does not come from outside; it is not an imposition, it is an unfolding.

All the meditation techniques that I have given to you are not dependent on me ― my presence or absence will not make any difference ― they are dependent on you. It is not my presence, but your presence that is needed for them to work. It is not my being here but your being here, your being in the present, your being alert and aware that is going to help.

The whole past of man is, in different ways, a history of exploitation. And even the so-called spiritual people could not resist the temptation to exploit. Out of a hundred masters, ninety-nine percent were trying to impose the idea that, "Without me you cannot grow, no progress is possible. Give me your whole responsibility." But the moment you give your whole responsibility to somebody, unknowingly you are also giving your whole freedom.

And naturally, all those masters had to die one day, but they have left long lines of slaves: Christians, Jews, Hindus, Mohammedans. What are these people? Why should somebody be a Christian? If you can be someone, be a Christ, never be a Christian. Are you absolutely blind to the humiliation when you call yourself a Christian, a follower of someone who died two thousand years ago?

The whole of humanity is following the dead. Is it not weird that the living should follow the dead, that the living should be dominated by the dead, that the living should depend on the dead and their promises that `We will be coming to save you.´?

None of them has come to save you. In fact, nobody can save anybody else; it goes against the foundational truth of freedom and individuality.

As far as I am concerned, I am simply making every effort to make you free from everybody ― including me ― and to just be alone on the path of searching.

We Can Never Come to a Point Where the Future Closes - by Osho

Osho,
When you were talking about the way that different Buddhist masters have been adding their own flavor to Buddha's teaching, I started wondering whether there will be anybody adding a new flavor to your pot. It looks almost impossible to add a new spice to something which already contains all the spices which can be found on this earth.

It seems almost impossible, but one can never predict about the future. The future remains open. What seems inconceivable today, may become conceivable tomorrow.

We can never come to a point where the future closes. That's the whole meaning of existence being eternal.

It may be very difficult because I am not confined to any particular path, to any particular philosophical viewpoint. I am vast enough to contain contradictions, and whatever has happened on the earth as far as the evolution of consciousness is concerned, I have made it part of my own vision of life.

So if you look backwards, everything else will seem a little poorer, even the greatest giants will seem limited. But you are looking to the past, you are not looking to the future -- which is absolutely unpredictable.

Things will go on happening, new things will go on being added. And I am not a pond which is closed; I am more like a river, which goes on flowing, inviting every other river to join.

Whatever I have been giving you will remain uncontaminated, but it will be enriched more and more by the future evolution of man, because it is an open phenomenon.


I am not the last prophet, messiah or savior of a certain tradition.


I am the beginning, not the end, of a totally new approach to life and its problems, inviting everything conceivable, unconceivable, to be my guest.

So you are right. It seems very difficult, but existence is so vast and the possibilities so infinite that you can never say that the full stop has come. It never comes, not even a semicolon comes. Life knows no full stop, no semicolons; it simply goes on and on, and it will continue to add spices of which we are not even aware. And it is good.

It means that I am giving you something living, which will go on growing -- even beyond us it will have its own growth. I am not giving you something dead, as was the convention of the old.

Mohammed says, "I am the last messenger of God. Now there will be no other messenger. And the Koran is the last message. After the Koran there will be no other holy book."

He is not aware that he cannot stop existence with his own death. Many prophets have come and gone.

They have added to the beauty of existence, but nobody should be so arrogant as to say, "I am the last."

The same is the situation with Mahavira. He is the last tirthankara of the Jainas. Now there is not going to be any other tirthankara, nothing can be added to his teachings, nothing can be taken away from his teachings.

But these people were not aware that they are making their vision into a dead thing with their own hands.

That's why Christians are so afraid in case science should discover anything which goes against the Bible, Mohammedans are so afraid in case anybody should say anything that goes beyond the Koran. But these are the enemies of progress, enemies of life.

I am not. I am just a friend, a humble beginning, a living reality with every day new excitement, new ecstasies, new spaces; and capable to absorb them all, not afraid of any progress. If anything is wrong, I am always ready to drop it, always to be on the side of truth.

There are two kinds of people: those who want the truth to be always on their side -- these are the egoists, arrogant. And there is another type of person who always wants to be on the side of truth, whatever the cost; if he has to lose everything, he is ready, but he cannot stop being on the side of truth. These are the humble ones, these are the true holy people of the earth -- and there have been very few.

I like to hear you speak on the meeting of inner man and outer woman. Is the inner man to be found in one of the realms of consciousness and if so, is there a way to provoke his presence so that I might recognize him in situations where I have previously been unaware?

The inner man or the inner woman is not to be found unless you reach to the highest peak; unless you come to the cosmic superconscious you will not be able to recognize it; only at that peak the dualities meet and you can feel the orgasmic experience of the meeting. Slowly, slowly you can become aware of two opposite polarities moving together in harmony, in a dance, but you will not come across it at all on the way, only at the end of the journey.

Looking for my chief characteristic - just looking for it - is proving a great device. It is as though I have always accepted that there are certain "undesirables" in my closet, which at different times I gather some degree of enthusiasm for getting rid of or witnessing more conscientiously. Setting about trying to pinpoint them during the last forty-eight hours, I have found that the actual process of opening the closet and flashing the torch around has, in itself, rendered those skeletons impotent in a way. It is certainly as if merely talking about those skeletons as problems, rather than looking at them, gives substance to something that actually has no life of its own. Osho, am I kidding myself, or is it really that easy?

It is that easy. Many of our problems are just there because we have never looked at them, never focused our eyes on them to figure out what it is.

It is like an ancient story. It was a full moon night and a thief had stolen much jewelry. And of course he was afraid. He was running, and suddenly he heard some steps following him.

It almost always happens -- if you have ever tried running in the dark -- you hear your own footsteps and you feel as if somebody is following you.

And when he looked, he found somebody actually was following him; it was his own shadow. But he was not in a situation to figure out who it was. His problem was somehow to escape out of its clutches. He ran faster, but he heard the follower also running faster. And he went on looking back and he found that it was just behind him. The poor fellow was tired, utterly tired, but could not get rid of his shadow. Exhausted, he fell under a tree where the moonlight did not go and he looked all around and he wondered where the other fellow had gone -- just now he was behind him, so close.

Gathering courage, looking all around, he could not see him anywhere; but then he came out of the shadow of the tree and again he was behind him. But this time he could not be deceived, he turned around and looked at the fellow. It was no one. It was his own shadow.

Many of our problems -- perhaps most of our problems -- are because we have never looked at them face to face, never encountered them; and not looking at them is giving them energy, being afraid of them is giving them energy, always trying to avoid them is giving them energy -- because you are accepting them. Your very acceptance is their existence. Other than your acceptance, they don't exist. So if you open your closets, and take your light, and look at the skeletons, you will find they are dead.

Skeletons cannot do anything, but almost everybody is afraid of skeletons. It is a strange situation. You are not afraid of living people who can do damage to you, who can even kill you -- and they are all hiding a skeleton underneath just skin deep, and they are living people. But if you suddenly come across in a room a poor skeleton who has no life, you become so afraid. What can the skeleton do to you?

In my university I had a friend who was the son of a doctor, and the doctor was the head of the university hospital and also it was part of the medical college. And they had many skeletons for studying purposes. And one day I was saying to his son, "Your father at least must be the one man who is not afraid of skeletons." He said, "Certainly he's not afraid. The whole day he is telling the students about the skeletons, their parts."

And he had a good collection. He used to live in the compound of the hospital. So I said, "Then we have to check whether it is true or not." I asked the son, "Somehow you have to get the key of the room where the skeletons are and in the night we will bring one skeleton out. Just knock on the door, the father comes to open it and we will hide and the skeleton will be standing there and let us see what happens."

The son said, " You will get me into trouble."
I said, "You don't be worried. You simply escape as far as you can. And you can trust me, I will never mention your name if anything happens."
And you will not believe, the man who has been dealing with skeletons for years, when I knocked on his door, he said, "Who is there?"
I said, "Can't you recognize me?"
He opened the door.

I slipped to the side behind a tree; there was a very big bodhi tree there. And he saw the skeleton. And you should have seen the scene, just as if he lost all his nerve. He fell on the earth. And on top fell the skeleton.
His wife came, "What is happening?" Seeing the skeleton on her husband, she screamed and became unconscious.
And the neighbors woke up because of her scream, and everybody was coming there -- but they were all standing far away, seeing the situation. The wife was lying flat, the husband was lying there, and the skeleton was on top of him. And I was hiding behind the tree. And I thought, "Now what to do?" We had not conceived of such a situation. I had just thought that he will freak out. But the situation had become so complex. And his son was looking from far away.

I called to him, "This is not the time to be afraid." Somehow he picked up the skeleton, left those two there -- both were unconscious -- and put the skeleton back in its place. And it took great effort to put it back because it had fallen, so one hand was going this way, one leg was going this way, and we were both trying to fix it.
Somehow we fixed it, by looking at the other skeletons, "You should behave exactly like the other skeletons."
Then we came back to take care of the doctor and his wife, sprinkling water on their faces, and telling them, "There is nobody. You unnecessarily got worried."
The doctor said, "I cannot believe that there is nobody. He was standing in front of me, and he is no one. He's skeleton number seventeen, I know him well; but how he dared to come here? And the door is locked, and I always check the lock because skeletons are skeletons, you can't trust them."
We said, "We have not seen anybody. We had just gone for a walk and we have just come in and we saw you lying down here as if somebody is on top of you and there is nobody. And your wife is on the floor flat. Do something to bring her to consciousness."

So he did whatever he could. Somehow she came to consciousness. And she asked, "Where is he -- the skeleton?"
And the doctor said, "I cannot believe it, because number seventeen is an old skeleton and has never misbehaved, and suddenly it came and knocked on the door and even said, `Can't you recognize me?'" He said, "Now it will be very difficult for me to continue going into that room. I am going to change my department, no more skeletons."

I said, "You have unnecessarily hallucinated after a whole day working with the skeletons . You may have just seen an illusion -- because we were coming, we did not see anybody coming or going, and the key is in your pocket."
So he saw. He said, "The key is in my pocket."
I said, "If you want, we can go and see where number seventeen is. "
He said, "No, I won't allow you to go there. If he has gone out without even opening the door, he can do some harm to you. You need not bother. Tomorrow I am going to change my department."

He changed his department. The vice-chancellor tried hard, saying, "Skeletons don't come out, and you have had such a long experience with skeletons."
He said, "Whatever, but what happened last night, if it happens again I will die. And you have to think about my wife also. She is very delicate and she has had one heart attack already. And if these skeletons start coming in the middle of the night knocking on the door...!"
I have always been puzzled why people are so afraid of skeletons, because they are very poor people -- with no life, they cannot do anything. But there seems to be some unconscious current, "We are also skeletons." Seeing a skeleton, you are seeing yourself without the skin.

And this will be your situation one day. Perhaps the skeleton reminds you of death, it reminds you of your reality which the skin goes on hiding. Otherwise skeletons are very innocent, they have never done any harm to anybody.

I used to sell skeletons from a Mohammedan graveyard because the medical college needed them and they gave a good price for a skeleton. And nobody was ready to bring a skeleton. I had made friends with the guard of the graveyard and arranged that we would split half and half, "Just you dig out some old fellow and I will take him in my car and deliver him to the medical college. "Once when I was taking a skeleton in my car, a policeman stopped the car -- because I was going too fast. He wanted to see my driver's license. I said, "The fellow in the back seat has it." So he looked in the back seat. And he said, "Yes, I have seen it. Everything is okay. Go fast, as fast as you can. I can understand now why you are going so fast, but however fast you go he's sitting just behind you. You cannot escape. But please go." And many times when I bring those skeletons to the medical college, somebody will see -- some professor or some servant. And they will simply just get frozen. Nobody ever asked for a lift in my car, because they knew that a skeleton sits in the back seat. Nobody ever asked. I used to ask professors, "Would you like to come?" "Not in your car." Such a fear, but it must have some roots.And I can see that the first thing is that it reminds you of yourself. This is going to be the situation. We are all simply well-covered skeletons. And this will be the situation when death comes. So it reminds you of death. So nobody opens the cupboards in their unconscious where they have many skeletons, of many kinds.

You yourself have put them there and now you are afraid of them. But the reality is that they are dead; just open the doors, bring light, clean your closets, clean your mind of all the dead luggage that you are filled with -- it is making your life really miserable, a hell.

And nobody except you is responsible. In the first place, you hide things which you should not. It is good to give them expression and release them. So first you hide them, and just remain a hypocrite -- that you are never angry, that you are never hateful, that you are never this, never that; but all that goes on collecting inside. But those are all dead things. They don't have any energy of their own, unless you give them energy. You have the source of energy. Whatever happens in your life needs your energy. If you cut the source of energy and... in other words that's what I call identification; if you don't identify with anything, it immediately becomes dead, it has no energy of its own.

And non-identification is the other side of watchfulness.

Love the beauty of watchfulness and its immense capacity to transform you. Simply watch whatever it is, and you will suddenly see that there is nothing but a dead skeleton, it cannot do anything to you. But you can give energy to it, you can project energy onto it. Then a skeleton which cannot do anything can even kill you, can give you a heart attack; just start escaping from it and you have given it reality, you have given it life.

Give life to things which are beautiful. Don't give life to ugly things. You don't have much time, much energy to waste. With such a small life, with such a small energy source, it is simply stupid to waste it in sadness, in anger, in hatred, in jealousy.
Use it in love, use it in some creative act, use it in friendship, use it in meditation; do something with it which takes you higher. And the higher you go, the more energy sources become available to you.

At the highest point of consciousness, you are almost a god. But that moment we don't allow to happen to us. We go on falling downwards into the darker and darker and darker spaces where we ourselves become almost living dead.
It is in your hands.

A while ago I realized that it is not situations but rather people that I can react to - because if someone I feel good about does something, it doesn't bother me, but if someone I don't like does the same thing, I may think, "what an awful thing to do."
Intellectually I have come to understand that the reason I don't like certain people is simply that they reflect certain characteristics in myself that I would rather not know about.
I was hoping that gradually, deep inside, I would come to accept this rather unpalatable fact, and that my judgments would miraculously disappear without my having to face anything unpleasant in myself. Unfortunately, so far this hasn't happened. I still react strongly to some people, and find it difficult sometimes even to remember to turn my energy into watching myself rather then judging. I have been comforting myself by saying, "nothing to do, just keep watching," but as my watching is so wishy-washy and this is taking so long, I was wondering if you could suggest some trick to help me - preferably a shortcut through the whole process.

There is no trick and there is no shortcut because watchfulness is the shortest way to enlightenment. And the question of tricks does not arise at all. No trick can help you. Tricks are good in playing cards and cheating people, but you cannot cheat existence, you cannot deceive life.

If you want to go a longer way, that can be found; because you can be shown some unnecessary, non-essential things and the path becomes longer.
Religions have done that. They have made the path very long, so that it cannot be achieved in one life, many lives are needed. It was a strategy of the priests to deceive people because if it is said that it can be achieved right now, then the question is why are you not achieving it, perhaps you don't want it, perhaps you want to wait a little, perhaps you want to finish some other jobs first, perhaps you think that enlightenment should be the last thing in life. And the trivia, the mundane things of life, keep you engaged.

But there may be a few people who may try and still will not get it. Then the priest will be in trouble because he himself is as far away as you are. To be a priest is just a profession for him, he is not a seeker. And you may start asking him, "Why is it not happening?" And he cannot really answer you relevantly because he does not know himself what it is, what can prevent it, what can help it.

So the easiest way for him is to say, "It is such a long way. It will happen but in several lives. So don't be in a hurry, it is not something that you can manage now. Go on working, go on praying; when the time is ripe in some life it will happen." This was just a shelter for the priest.

Watchfulness is the shortest way. It does not need lives to attain it. It needs not length of time but intensity of longing, the way you feel thirst; when you feel thirsty for truth -- as if it is a question of life and death -- you put your whole energy to this moment and the door is bound to open.
And remember never to think of tricks because you cannot get anywhere through tricks as far as reality is concerned.

The simple truth is that watchfulness is the shortest possible way. It cannot be made shorter.

What is expected of you in watchfulness... just try to see, nothing is expected. You already watch things, you know what watchfulness is. You watch a football match, you watch a movie, you watch the television. You know what watchfulness is, there is no need to tell you; just the same watchfulness has to be applied to the screen of the mind. Close your eyes and let your mind function as a screen of a movie or a television, and whatever passes on the mind you simply remain watchful, doing nothing, not even judging.

And this is the only miracle I know of, that as your watchfulness becomes more and more stable, the screen becomes empty. Soon the watcher is there but there is nothing to be watched, the screen is completely empty.

And when the watcher is left alone, it starts watching itself -- because that is its nature, to watch.

And to watch oneself is the greatest happening in anyone's life. Everything else happens through it -- blissfulness, silence, peace, ecstasy, and finally going beyond even all these experiences and just remaining in a pure isness.

Those who have attained that pure isness have fulfilled the mission of human life.

Gratefulness vs Friendliness - by Osho

Gratefulness
Be grateful to everyone, because everybody is creating a space for you to be transformed - even those who think they are obstructing you, even those whom you think are enemies. Your friends, your enemies, good people and bad people, favorable circumstances, unfavorable circumstances - all together they are creating the context in which you can be transformed and become a buddha. Be grateful to all. To those who have helped, to those who have hindered, to those who have been indifferent. Be grateful to all, because all together they are creating the context in which buddhas are born, in which you can become a buddha.


Friendliness
Friendship is a relationship. You can be in relationship with a few people. Friendliness is a quality not a relationship. It has nothing to do with anybody else; it is basically your inner quality. You can be friendly even when you are alone. You cannot be in friendship when you are alone - the other is needed - but friendliness is a kind of fragrance. A flower opens in the jungle; nobody passes by - still it is fragrant. It does not matter whether anybody comes to know of it or not, it is its quality. Nobody may ever come to know about it, but that does not matter. The flower is rejoicing.

Friendship can exist only between one man and another man or at the most between a man and an animal - a horse, a dog. But friendliness can exist even with a rock, with a river, with a mountain, with a cloud, with a far-away star. Friendliness is unlimited because it is not dependent on the other; it is absolutely your own flowering.

So, be friendly, just friendly to all that exists. And in that friendliness you will find all that is worth finding. In friendliness you will find the ultimate friend

The Continuous Rebellion - By Osho

Osho,
What is your notion of rebellion and of a rebel?

My notion about the rebel and rebellion is very simple: a man who does not live like a robot conditioned by the past.

Religion, society, culture... anything that is of yesterday does not in any way interfere in his way of life, in his style of life.

He lives individually - not as a cog in the wheel, but as an organic unity. His life is not decided by anybody else, but by his own intelligence. The very fragrance of his life is that of freedom - not only that he lives in freedom, he allows everybody else also to live in freedom. He does not allow anybody to interfere in his life; neither does he interfere in anybody else's life. To him, life is so sacred - and freedom is the ultimate value - that he can sacrifice everything for it: respectability, status, even life itself.

Freedom, to him, is what God used to be to the so-called religious people in the past.

Freedom is his God.

Men have lived down the ages like sheep, as part of a crowd, following its traditions, conventions - following the old scriptures and old disciplines. But that way of life was anti-individual; if you are a Christian you cannot be an individual; if you are a Hindu you cannot be an individual.

A rebel is one who lives totally according to his own light, and risks everything else for his ultimate value of freedom.

The rebel is the contemporary person. The mobs are not contemporary.

Hindus believe in scriptures which are five or ten thousand years old. Such is also the case with other religions too the dead are dominating the living.

The rebel rebels against the dead, takes his life in his own hands. He is not afraid of being alone; on the contrary, he enjoys his aloneness as one of the most precious treasures. The crowd gives you security, safety - at the cost of your soul. It enslaves you. It gives you guidelines on how to live: what to do, what not to do.

All over the world, every religion has given something like the ten commandments - and these were given by people who had no idea how the future is going to be, how man's consciousness in the future is going to be. It is as if a small child were to write your whole life's story, not knowing at all what youth means, not knowing at all what old age means, not knowing at all what death is.

All the religions are primitive, crude - and they have been shaping your life. Naturally the whole world is full of misery: you are not allowed to be yourself.


Every culture wants you to be just a carbon copy, never your original face.

The rebel is one who lives according to his own light, moves according to his own intelligence. He creates his path by walking on it, he does not follow the crowd on the superhighway.

His life is dangerous - but a life that is not dangerous is not life at all. He accepts the challenge of the unknown. He does not meet the unknown that is coming in the future, prepared by the past. That creates the whole anguish of humanity; the past prepares you, and the future is never going to be the past. Your yesterday is never going to be your tomorrow.

But up to now this is how man has lived: your yesterdays prepare you for your tomorrows. The very preparation becomes a hindrance. You cannot breathe freely, you cannot love freely, you cannot dance freely - the past has crippled you in every possible way.


The burden of the past is so heavy that everybody is crushed under it.

The rebel simply says good-bye to the past.

It is a constant process; hence, to be a rebel means to be continuously in rebellion - because each moment is going to become past; every day is going to become past. It is not that the past is already in the graveyard - you are moving through it every moment. Hence, the rebel has to learn a new art: the art of dying to each moment that has passed, so that he can live freely in the new moment that has come.

A rebel is a continuous process of rebellion; he is not static. And that is where I make a distinction between the revolutionary and the rebel.

The revolutionary is also conditioned by the past. He may not be conditioned by Jesus Christ or Gautam Buddha, but he is conditioned by Karl Marx or Mao Zedong or Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini... it does not matter who conditions him. The revolutionary has his own holy bible - Das Kapital; his holy land - the Soviet Union; his own mecca - in the Kremlin... and just like any other religious person, he is not living according to his own consciousness. He is living according to a conscience created by others.

Hence, the revolutionary is nothing but a reactionary. He may be against a certain society, but he is always for another society. He may be against one culture, but he is immediately ready for another culture. He only goes on moving from one prison into another prison - from Christianity to communism; from one religion to another religion - from Hinduism to Christianity. He changes his prisons.

The rebel simply moves out of the past and never allows the past to dominate him. It is a constant, continuous process. The whole life of the rebel is a fire that burns. To the very last breath he is fresh, he is young. He will not respond to any situation according to his past experience; he will respond to every situation according to his present consciousness.


To be a rebel, to me, is the only way to be religious, and the so-called religions are not religions at all.

They have destroyed humanity completely, enslaved human beings, chained their souls; so on the surface it seems that you are free, but deep inside you, religions have created a certain conscience which goes on dominating you.

It is almost like one great scientist, Delgado.... He has found that in the human brain there are seven hundred centers. Those centers are connected with your whole body, the whole system. There is a center for your sex, there is a center for your intelligence, and for everything in your life. If at a particular center an electrode is implanted in the brain, a very strange phenomenon happens. He displayed it for the first time in Spain.

He put an electrode in the brain of the strongest bull - a remote control was in his pocket - and he stood in a field, waved a red flag, and the bull rushed madly towards him.

That was the most dangerous bull in the whole of Spain, and thousands of people had gathered to see. They were looking at the phenomenon... their breathing stopped - their eyes were not blinking.... The bull was approaching closer and closer, and they were afraid that Delgado was going to be dead within a second. But he had in his pocket this small remote controller.... Just when the bull was one foot away, he pushed a button in his pocket - nobody saw it - and the bull stopped as if suddenly frozen, like a statue.

Since then, Delgado has experimented on many animals, and on man too; and his conclusion is that what he is doing with electrodes, religions have been doing by conditioning. From its very childhood you condition a child; you go on repeating, repeating a certain idea which becomes settled near his center of intelligence, and it goes on goading the center to do something or not to do something.

Delgado's experiment can prove dangerous to humanity. It can be used by the politicians. Just when the child is born, in the hospitals, a small electrode needs to be pushed into his skull near the intelligence center, and a central controlling system will take care that nobody becomes a revolutionary, nobody becomes a rebel.

You will be surprised to know that inside your skull there is no sensitivity, so you will never be aware whether you have something implanted in your head or not. And a remote controller can manage... from Moscow even the whole Soviet Union can be managed. Religions have been doing the same in a crude manner.

A rebel is one who throws away the whole past because he wants to live his own life according to his own longings, according to his own nature - not according to some Gautam Buddha, or according to some Jesus Christ, or Moses.


The rebel is the only hope for the future of humanity.

The rebel will destroy all religions, all nations, all races - because they are all rotten, past, hindering the progress of human evolution. They are not allowing anybody to come to his full flowering: they don't want human beings on the earth - they want sheep.

Jesus continuously says, "I am your shepherd, and you are my sheep...." And I have always wondered that not even a single man stood up and said, "What kind of nonsense are you talking? If we are sheep, then you are also a sheep; and if you are a shepherd, then we are also shepherds."

Not only his contemporaries... but for two thousand years NO Christian has raised the question that it is such an insult to humanity, such a great humiliation to call human beings sheep and to call himself the shepherd, the savior.

"I have come to save you"... and he could not save himself. And still almost half of humanity is hoping that he will be coming back to save them. You cannot save yourself; the only begotten son of God, Jesus Christ, is needed. And he had promised to his people, "I will be coming soon, in your own lifetime"... and two thousand years have passed - many lifetimes have passed - and there seems to be no sign, no indication....

But all the religions have done the same in different ways. Krishna says in the Gita that whenever there will be misery, whenever there will be anguish, whenever there will be need, "I will be coming again and again." Five thousand years have passed, and he has not been seen even once - never mind "again and again."

These people, howsoever beautiful their statements may be, were not respectful to humanity. A rebel respects you, respects life, has a deep reverence for everything that grows, thrives, breathes. He does not put himself above you, holier than you, higher than you; he is just one amongst you. Only one thing he can claim: that he is more courageous than you are. He cannot save you - only your courage can save you. He cannot lead you - only your own guts can lead you to the fulfillment of your life.

Rebellion is a style of life. To me, it is the only religion which is authentic. Because if you live according to your own light you may go astray many times, and you may fall many times; but each fall, each going astray will make you wiser, more intelligent, more understanding, more human. There is no other way of learning than by making mistakes. Just don't make the same mistake again.


There is no God, except your own consciousness.

There is no need for any pope, or for Ayatollah Khomeini, or for any shankaracharya, to be mediators between you and God. These are the greatest criminals in the world, because they are exploiting your helplessness.

Just a few days ago, the pope declared a new sin: that one should not confess directly to God; you have to confess through the priest. Confessing directly to God, communicating directly with God, is a new sin. Strange... you can see clearly that this is not religion, this is business - because if people start confessing directly to God, then who is going to confess to the priest and pay the fine? The priest becomes useless, the pope becomes useless.

All the priests are pretending that they are mediators between you and the ultimate source of life. They know nothing of the ultimate source of life. Only you are capable of knowing your source of life. But your source of life is also the ultimate source of life - because we are not separate. No man is an island; we are a vast continent underneath. Perhaps on the surface you look like an island - and there are many islands - but deep down in the ocean, you meet. You are part of one earth, one continent. The same is true about consciousness.

But one has to be free from churches, from temples, from mosques, from synagogues. One has to be just oneself, and take the challenge of life wherever it leads. You are the only guide.

You are your own master.

Osho,
Do you think your teaching is a radical one?

I do not have any teaching. My life is that of a rebel. I do not have a doctrine, a philosophy, a theology to teach you. I have only my own experience of rebellion to share, to infect you with rebelliousness. And when you are a rebel you will not be a copy of me; you will be an unique phenomenon in yourself.

All Buddhists are trying to be carbon copies of Gautam Buddha. He has a teaching: If you follow this certain discipline, you will become just like me. All Christians are carbon copies - the original is Jesus Christ.

I don't have any teaching, any doctrine, any discipline to give to you. My whole effort is to wake you up. It is not a teaching - it is just cold water thrown into your eyes. And when you wake up you will not find that you are like me - a carbon copy of me. You will be just yourself - neither Christian, nor Hindu, nor Mohammedan... an unique flower. There are not two persons alike - how can there be so many Christians? How can there be so many Buddhists? And the whole of history is a proof of what I am saying.

For twenty-five centuries, millions of people in the East have tried the discipline and the teaching of Gautam Buddha - but not a single one has been able to become a Gautam Buddha. Nature does not allow two persons to be the same. Nature is not an assembly line where cars are produced... so you can see hundreds and thousands of Fords coming off the assembly line - the same, exactly the same. Nature is very creative, very innovative. It always creates a new man. It has created millions and millions of people, but never two people the same. You cannot find even two leaves on a tree just exactly the same, or two pebbles on the seashore just exactly the same. Each has his own individuality.


I don't have a teaching.

But whatever I have experienced, it is a living phenomenon I share with you - not words, not theories, not hypotheses. I can give you as much closeness as you need; just as when you bring an unlit candle close to a candle which is burning there is a point where suddenly the fire jumps from the lit candle to the unlit candle. The lit candle loses nothing, and there has not been a transfer of any teaching, but a transfer of fire.

I would like to say that I don't have any teaching, but I have great fire in my heart, and whoever comes close to me becomes aflame.

These people here are not my followers. They are just friends who are sharing in an experience which can burn all that is false in them, and can purify that which is their essential individuality, their authentic potential. This is an alchemical school, a school of mystery. I am not a teacher; I don't have any ideas, concepts... but I have a life to share, I have a love to share, and to those who are ready, I am ready to give all that I have - and in no way will they be enslaved.

The closer they come to me, the more they understand me, the more they will be themselves: that is the miracle.

I don't believe that walking on water is a miracle - it is sheer stupidity. The real miracle is to wake you up, to bring the message of freedom to you - freedom from all fetters. And I do not replace your imprisonment with new fetters and new chains; I simply leave you in the open sky. I fly with you a little while so that you can gather courage: there is no need to be afraid - you also have wings, just like I have wings. You have not used them; you have never been told that you have wings.

So this is a place where I make every effort that you become aware of your wings, encourage you, push you into the infinite sky which belongs to you. This is a totally different place - it is not a church, it is not a temple, not a synagogue. I am not your savior, and I am not the messenger of any God. A messenger is just a postman and nothing else.

I don't have a message to give to you, but I have a fire to impart to you. And if this fire is not radical, then nothing else can be radical in the whole world.

Euthanasia and Death Penalty - by Osho

Euthanasia
Everybody should be given the fundamental right that after a certain age, when he has lived enough and does not want to go on dragging unnecessarily.... Because tomorrow will be again just a repetition; he has lost all curiosity about tomorrow. He has every right to leave the body. It is his fundamental right.

It is his life. If he does not want to continue, nobody should prevent him. In fact, every hospital should have a special ward where people who want to die can enter one month before, can relax, enjoy all the things that they have been thinking about their whole life but could not manage ― the music, the literature...if they wanted to paint or sculpt....

And the doctors should take care to teach them how to relax. Up to now, death has been almost ugly. Man has been a victim, but it is our fault. Death can be made a celebration; you just have to learn how to welcome it, relaxed, peaceful. And in one month´s time, people, friends, can come to see them and meet together. Every hospital should have special facilities ― more facilities for those who are going to die than for those who are going to live. Let them live for one month at least like emperors, so they can leave life with no grudge, with no complaint but only with deep gratitude, thankfulness

Death Penalty
The death penalty is a crime committed by the society against a single individual, who is helpless. I cannot call it a penalty, it is a crime.

And you can understand why it is committed: it is a revenge. Society is taking revenge because the man did not follow the rules of the society; the society is ready to kill him. But nobody bothers that when somebody murders it shows that man is psychologically sick. Rather than sending him to imprisonment or to be executed, he should be sent into a nursing home where he can be taken care of ― physically, psychologically, spiritually. He is sick. He needs all the compassion of the society; there is no question of penalty, punishment.

Is a Harmonious World Possible? - By Osho

The yearning for a utopia is basically the yearning for harmony in the individual and in the society. The harmony has never existed; there has always been a chaos.

Society has been divided into different cultures, different religions, different nations – and all based on superstitions. None of the divisions are valid. But these divisions show that man is divided within himself: these are the projections of his own inner conflict. He is not one within, that's why he could not create one society, one humanity outside.

The cause is not outside. The outside is only the reflection of the inner man.


Man has developed from the animals.


This is profoundly supported by modern psychoanalysis, particularly Carl Gustav Jung's school, because in the collective unconscious of man there are memories which belong to animalhood.

If man is taken deep into hypnosis, first he enters the unconscious mind, which is just the repressed part of this life. If he is hypnotized even more deeply, then he enters into the collective unconscious, which has memories of being animals. People start screaming -- in that stage they cannot speak a language. They start moaning or crying, but language is impossible; they can shout, but in an animal way. And in the collective unconscious state, if they are allowed to move or they are told to move, they move on all fours -- they don't stand up.

In the collective unconscious there are certainly remnants that suggest that they have been sometime in some animal body. And different people come from different animal bodies. That may be the cause of such a difference in individuals. And sometimes you can see a similarity -- somebody behaves like a dog, somebody behaves like a fox, somebody behaves like a lion.

And there is great support in folklore, in ancient parables like Aesop's Fables, or Panchtantra in India -- which is the most ancient -- in which all the stories are about animals, but are very significant for human beings and represent certain human types.

And man still carries much of the animal's instinct – his anger, his hatred, his jealousy, his possessiveness, his cunningness. All that has been condemned in man seems to belong to a very deep-rooted unconscious. And the whole work of spiritual alchemy is how to get rid of the animal past.

Without getting rid of the animal past, man will remain divided. The animal past and his humanity cannot exist as one, because humanity has just the opposite qualities.


So all that man can do is become a hypocrite.


As far as formal behavior is concerned, he follows the ideals of humanity – of love and of truth, of freedom, of non-possessiveness, compassion. But it remains only a very thin layer, and at any moment the hidden animal can come up; any accident can bring it up. And whether it comes up or not, the inner consciousness is divided.

This divided consciousness has been creating the yearning and the question: How to become a harmonious whole as far as the individual is concerned? And the same is true about the whole society: How can we make the society a harmonious whole – where there is no war, no conflict – no classes, no divisions of color, caste, religion, nation?

Because of people like Thomas Moore, who wrote the book Utopia, the name became synonymous with all idealistic goals – but they have not grasped the real problem. That's why it seems their idea of a utopia is never going to happen. If you think of society as becoming an ideal society, a paradise, it seems to be impossible: There are so many conflicts, and there seems to be no way to harmonize them.


Every religion wants to conquer the whole world, not to be harmonized.


Every nation wants to conquer the whole world, not to be harmonized.

Every culture wants to spread all over the world and to destroy all other cultures, not to bring a harmony between them.

So utopia became synonymous with something which is simply imaginary. And there are dreamers – the very word "utopia" also means "that which is never going to happen." But still man goes on thinking in those terms again and again. There seems to be some deep-rooted urge.... But his thinking is about the symptoms – that's why it seems to be never going to happen. He is not looking at the causes. The causes are individuals.

Utopia is possible. A harmonious human society is possible, should be possible, because it will be the best opportunity for everyone to grow, the best opportunity for everyone to be himself. The richest possibilities will be available to everyone. So it seems that the way it is, society is absolutely stupid.

The utopians are not dreamers, but your so-called realists who condemn utopians are stupid. But both are agreed on one point – that something has to be done in the society.

Prince Kropotkin, Bakunin, and their followers would like all the governments to be dissolved – as if it is in their hands, as if you simply say so and the governments will dissolve. These are the anarchists, who are the best utopians. Reading them, it seems that whatever they are saying is significant. But they have no means to materialize it, and they have no idea how it is going to happen. And there is Karl Marx, Engels, and Lenin – the Marxists, the communists, and different schools of socialism, connected with different dreamers. Even George Bernard Shaw had his own idea of socialism, and he had a small group called the Fabian Society. He was propagating a kind of socialist world, totally different from the communist world that exists today.

There are fascists who think that it is a question of more control and more government power; just the opposite pole of anarchists, who want no government – all the source of corruption is government.

And there are people, the fascists, who want all power in the hands of dictators. They say that It is because of the democratic idea that the society is falling apart, because in democracy the lowest denominator becomes the ruler. He decides who is going to rule; and he is the most ignorant one, he has no understanding. The mob decides how the society should be. So according to the fascist, democracy is only mobocracy, it is not democracy – there is no democracy possible.

According to the communists, the whole problem is simply the class division between the poor and the rich. They think that if all government power goes into the hands of the poor and they have a dictatorship of the proletariat – when all classes have disappeared, and the society has become equal – then soon there will be no need of any state.


They are all concerned with the society. And that is where their failure lies.


As I see it, utopia is not something that is not going to happen, it is something that is possible, but we should go to the causes, not to the symptoms. And the causes are in the individuals, not in the society.

For example, in seventy years, the communist revolution in Soviet Russia was not able to dissolve the dictatorship. Lenin was thinking that ten or fifteen years at the most would be enough, because by that time we would have equalized everybody, distributed wealth equally – then there would be no need for a government.

But after fifteen years they found that the moment you remove the enforced state, people are going to become again unequal. There will be again rich people and there will be again poor people, because there is something in people which makes them rich or poor. So you have to keep them in almost a concentration camp if you want them to remain equal. But this is a strange kind of equality because it destroys all freedom, all individuality.

And the basic idea was that the individual will be given equal opportunity. His needs should be fulfilled equally. He will have everything equal to everybody else. He will share it.

But the ultimate outcome is just the opposite. They have almost destroyed the individual to whom they were trying to give equality, and freedom, and everything good that should be given to individuals. The very individual is removed. They have become afraid of the individual; and the reason is that they are still not aware that however long the enforced state lasts – seventy or seven hundred years – it will not make any difference.

The moment you remove control, there will be a few people who know how to be rich, and there will be a few people who know how to be poor. And they will simply start the whole thing again.

In the beginning they tried... because Karl Marx's idea was that there should be no marriage in communism. And he was very factual about it: that marriage was born because of individual property. His logic was correct. There was a time when there was no marriage. People lived in tribes, and just as animals make love, people made love.

The problem started only when a few people who were more cunning, more clever, more powerful, had managed some property. Now they wanted that their property, after their death, should go to their own children. It is a natural desire that if a person works his whole life and gathers property, land, or creates a kingdom, it should go to his children.

In a subtle way, through the children, because they are his blood, he will be still ruling, he will be still possessing. It is a way to find some substitute for immortality, because the continuity will be there: "I will not be there, but my child will be there – who will represent me, who will be my blood and my bones and my marrow. And then his child will be there and there will be a continuity. So in a subtle sense, I will have immortality. I cannot live forever, so this is a substitute way."

That's why marriage was created; otherwise it was easier for man not to have any marriage, because marriage was simply a responsibility – of children, of a wife. When the woman is pregnant, then you have to feed her.... And there was no need to take all that responsibility. The woman was taking the whole responsibility.

But the man wanted some immortality, and that his property should be possessed by his own blood. And the woman wanted some protection – she was vulnerable. While she was pregnant, she could not work, she could not go hunting; she had to depend on somebody.

So it was in the interest of both to have a contract that they would remain together, would not betray in any sense, because the whole thing was to keep the blood pure.

So Marx's idea was that when communism comes, and property becomes collective, marriage becomes meaningless because its basic reason is removed – now you don't have any private property. Your son will not have anything as an inheritance.

In fact, just as you cannot have private property, you cannot have a private woman; that too is property. And you cannot have a private son or daughter, because that too is private property. So with the disappearance of private property, marriage will disappear.

So after the revolution, for two or three years, in Russia they tried it, but it was impossible. Private property had disappeared, but people were not ready to drop marriage. And even the government found that if marriage disappears, the whole responsibility falls on the government – of the children, of the woman.... So why take an unnecessary responsibility? – and it is not a small thing. It is better to let marriage continue.

So they reversed the policy; they forgot all about Karl Marx, because just within three years they found that this was going to create difficulty, and people were not willing.

People were not willing to drop private property either – it was forcibly taken away from them. Almost one million people were killed – for small private properties. Somebody had a small piece of land, a few acres, and because everything was going to be nationalized....

Although the people were poor, still they wanted to cling to their property. At least they had something; and now even that was going to be taken out of their hands. They were hoping to get something more – that's why they had had the revolution, and fought for it. Now what they had was going to be taken out of their hands. It was going to become government property, it was going to be nationalized....

And for small things – somebody may have had just a few hens, or a cow, and he was not willing... because that was all that he had. A small house... and he was not willing for it to be nationalized.

These poor people – one million people were killed to make the whole country aware that nationalization had to happen. Even if you had only a cow and you didn't give it to the government, you were finished.

And the government was thinking that people would be willing to separate... but this is how the merely theoretical and logical people have always failed to understand man. They have never looked into his psychology.

This was true, that marriage was created after private property came into being – marriage followed it. Logically, as private property is dissolved, marriage should disappear. But they don't understand the human mind. As property was taken away, people became even more possessive of each other because nothing was left. Their land has gone, their animals have gone, their houses have gone. Now they don't want to lose their wife or their husband or their children. This is too much.

Logic is one thing... and unless we try to understand man more psychologically and less logically, we are always going to commit mistakes. Marx was proved wrong.

When everything was taken away people were clinging to each other more, more than before, because now that was their only possession: a woman, a husband, children.... And it was such a gap in their life; their whole property had gone and now their wife was also to be nationalized. They could not conceive the idea because their mind and their tradition said, "That is prostitution." Their children had to be nationalized – they had not fought the revolution for this.

So finally the government had to reverse the policy; otherwise in their constitution.... In the first constitution they had declared that now there shall be no marriage; and the question of divorce did not arise. Just within three years they had to change it.

And in Russia then marriage was stricter than anywhere else. Divorce was more difficult than anywhere else, because the government did not want unnecessary changes. That creates paperwork and more bureaucracy. So the government wants people to remain together, not to unnecessarily change partners. And divorce creates law cases about the children – who should have them, the father or mother; it is unnecessary.

The government thinks of efficiency – less bureaucracy, less paperwork – and people are creating unnecessary paperwork, so it is very difficult to get a divorce.

And as time passed, they found that there was no way to keep people equal without force. But what kind of a utopia is it which is kept by force? And because the communist party has all the force, a new kind of division has come into being, a new class of the bureaucrats: those who have power, and those who don't have any power.

It is very difficult to become a member, to obtain membership of the communist party in Russia, because that is entering into the power elite. The communist party has made many other groups – first you have to be a member of those groups, and you have to be checked in every way. When they find that you are really reliable, absolutely reliable, trustworthy, then you may enter into the communist party. And the party is not increasing its membership because that means dividing power.

The party wants to remain as small as possible so that the power is in a few hands. There is now a powerful class. For seventy years the same group were ruling the country, and the whole country was powerless.

The people were never so powerless under a capitalist regime or under a feudal regime. Under the czars they were never so powerless. It was possible for a poor man, if he was intelligent enough, to become rich. Now it is not so easy. You may be intelligent, but it is not so easy to enter from the powerless class into the class which holds power. The distance between the two classes is far more than it was before.

There is always mobility in a capitalist society because there are not only poor people and rich people, there is a big middle class, and the middle class is continuously moving. A few people of the middle class are moving into the super-rich, and more people are moving into the poor class. A few poor people are moving into the middle class; a few rich people are falling into the middle class, or may even fall into the poor class... there is mobility.

In a communist society there is an absolutely static state. Classes are now completely cut off from each other.

They were going to create a classless society, and they have created the strictest society with static classes.


It is almost a repetition of Hinduism.


What Manu did five thousand years ago, communists did in Russia. Manu made Hindu society into four classes. There is no mobility. You are born a brahmin, that is the only way to be a brahmin. And that is the highest society, the topmost class. Then number two is the warriors, the kings – the chhatriyas. But you are born in that caste, it is not a question that you can move. Then third is the class of the vaishyas, the business people; you are born in it. And the fourth is the sudras, the untouchables.

All are born into their caste. That's why, until Christianity started converting so many Hindus, particularly the sudras, who were ready, very willing to become Christians, because at least they would be touchable.... Amongst Hindus, sudras are untouchable, and there is no way to get out of the structure.

For your whole life you have to remain the same as your forefathers remained for five thousand years. For five thousand years there has been a stratified society. If somebody is a shoemaker, his family has been making shoes for five thousand years. He cannot do any other work, he cannot enter into any other profession. That is not allowed.

Hindus were not a converting religion, because the great question was, if you convert somebody, in what class are you going to put the person? Christianity is a converting religion because it has no classification; you simply become a Christian. If Catholics convert you, you become a Catholic; if Protestants convert you, you become a Protestant.

But in Hinduism you cannot be converted, for the simple reason: Where will you be put? Brahmins won't allow you, and you would not like to be put with the sudras, the untouchables. So then what is the point of coming to a religion where you will not be even touched? Even your shadow will be untouchable. And a brahmin has to take a bath if the shadow of a sudra falls on him. The sudra has not touched him, but his shadow is also untouchable.

Being the ancientmost religion, still Hinduism has not been spreading; it has been shrinking. Buddhism spread all over Asia, and it is only twenty-five centuries old. Hinduism is at least ten thousand years old, or more, but it could not spread, for the simple reason that birth is decisive. You can be a Hindu only by birth, just as you can be a Jew only by birth – and these are the two most ancient religions.


These are really the two basic religions.


Christianity and Mohammedanism are offshoots of Judaism; and Jainism and Buddhism are offshoots of Hinduism. Jainism and Buddhism are both the rebellion of the second class – the chhatriyas, the warriors – because they had the powers. They were the kings, they were the soldiers, they had the power – and yet the brahmin was on top of them. So naturally, sooner or later they were going to revolt, and finally they did revolt. Gautam Buddha and Mahavira are both from the second class. They wanted to be first class, they had the power, and the brahmins had nothing: Why should they be the highest class? So it was a rebellion.

But it was a strange thing that although these two religions got out of the Hindu fold, only Buddhism could spread all over Asia. Jainism could not spread out of India. Buddhism managed to spread out of India: from India it disappeared, but it took over the whole of Asia. And the reason was that it was through Gautam Buddha's very compassionate mind that he allowed anybody to enter into Buddhism.

Jainas, although they had also rebelled against the brahmins, remained of the same mind – that they are higher than the other two classes. They wanted to be higher than brahmins too, but they never started converting anybody, because who would they convert? Brahmins will not be ready to be converted – they are already higher than everybody. Only sudras can be converted because they will be raised on the evaluation scale. But Jainas – Mahavira and his group – were not so compassionate as to take them in.

So Jainism is not a complete culture – it has to depend on Hinduism for everything – it has remained only a philosophy. No Jaina can make shoes – some Hindu sudra has to make the shoes. No Jaina can clean the toilets – some sudra has to do that work.

Although they rebelled against brahmins, their rebellion was just against the superiority of the brahmins, and they wanted themselves to be higher than the brahmins. But they were also not in favor of the lower classes being taken higher.

And the ultimate result was that Jainas have remained a very small religion, confined in numbers. And because they left Hinduism, rather than rising higher than brahmins, they even fell from the second category. Because they left Hinduism, they were no longer chhatriyas. They were no longer considered to be warriors, and they could not be because of their nonviolence. They had to drop the idea of fighting, so the only way was to become business people.

Lower you can go – nobody prevents you – so they had to go from the second class to the third class, and they all became business people. So the rebellion failed very badly. Jainas wanted to become higher than the first class; the outcome of their revolution was that they went from the second class to the third class.

And they are absolutely dependent on Hindus. For their manual work they need workers – they cannot work. And because they became business people, slowly, slowly the Hindu vaishyas, the Hindu business people, and the Jaina business people came closer. Even marriages started happening between them.

By and by they even had to ask brahmins to do their worship work – and they had money to pay for it. So brahmins worshipped for the Jainas – who are against brahminism, against Hinduism; but they had to use Hindus for everything.

Their shoes are made by the sudras; their toilets are cleaned by the sudras. Their properties have to be protected by the chhatriyas, because they cannot take the sword in their hands. They cannot kill, so they cannot fight, they cannot go to war; they have their security force in the warrior race. And finally their priests – the brahmins came in from the back door as their priests.

Manu tried this immobile society – which is still the same – five thousand years ago. That too was a kind of utopia, because he was thinking in terms of there being no class struggle this way.

The class struggle can be dropped in two ways. Either there should be no classes; then there will be no class struggle.... That's what communism is doing, but it has failed because a new class has appeared. The other way is that the classes should be so stratified that there is no question of one person moving into another class. No struggle will be there, so there will be no competition. The brahmin will remain a brahmin. He will remain on the top, whether he is poor or rich does not matter. The businessman will remain a businessman. Just because he is rich he cannot become a brahmin, he cannot purchase the caste. He cannot rise; he will remain third class, however rich he is. The sudras will remain sudras: they have to do all the dirty work and they cannot move from there.

This was also a utopia. The idea was that if the classes are completely static, there is not going to be any struggle, competition. In a way Manu succeeded more than Marx, because for five thousand years his idea has remained in practice, and in India the Hindu society has never been in a class struggle. The poor are there, the rich are there, but that is not the real problem for the Hindu. His real problem is those four classes, which are absolutely static. But that is very dangerous because you prevent people from moving in a direction where they can find their potential fulfilled. A sudra may prove to be a great warrior, but he will never be allowed. A brahmin may prove a great industrialist, but he cannot lower himself.

So it saved the society from class struggle, but it destroyed the individual and his potential completely. The genius was ruined. In just the same way it is happening in communism: the individual is destroyed, his genius is ruined. He cannot move upwards even if he has the capacity.


There have been attempts all over the world to make a harmonious human society, but all have failed for the simple reason that nobody has bothered why it is not naturally harmonious.


It is not harmonious because each individual inside is divided, and his divisions are projected onto the society. And unless we dissolve the individual's inner divisions, there is no possibility of really realizing a utopia and creating a harmonious society in the world.

So the only way for a utopia is that your consciousness should grow more, and your unconsciousness should grow less, so finally a moment comes in your life when there is nothing left which is unconscious: you are simply a pure consciousness. Then there is no division.

And this kind of person, who has just consciousness and nothing opposed to it, can become the very brick in creating a society which has no divisions. In other words, only a society which is enlightened enough can fulfill the demand of being harmonious – a society of enlightened people, a society of great meditators who have dropped their divisions.

Instead of thinking in terms of revolution and changing the society, its structure, we should think more of meditation and changing the individual. That is the only possible way that some day we can drop all divisions in the society. But first they have to be dropped in the individual – and they can be dropped there.

It is almost like the fourfold division as Manu conceived the society. You have the conscious, you have the unconscious, you have the collective unconscious, and you have the cosmic unconscious. These are the four divisions within you; as you go deeper you go into darker spaces. Manu also divided society in four. The most conscious part is the brahmin – he makes up the topmost, the wisest part. But he starts with the society.

When Manu first divided the society, somebody may have been a wise man, but it is not necessary that his sons and daughters will also be wise, that generation after generation the wise man will create only wise people – that is a stupid idea. So the first division may have been very accurate. He may have sorted out people correctly: the conscious people on the top, then less conscious people, then more unconscious people, then absolutely unconscious people.

And if Manu calls absolutely unconscious people "sudras," untouchables, there is nothing wrong in it; philosophically it is absolutely right. But practically he went wrong because he did not think that it would not always happen that the unconscious people would produce unconscious people.

It happened that all the enlightened people came from the second class – that is from the warriors – not from the brahmins, which were the topmost class. It is very strange. Even Hindu incarnations – Rama and Krishna – they all belonged to the second class; they were not brahmins. Buddha and Mahavira – they were not brahmins.

So the brahmin class has not produced a single enlightened person, because they became very self-satisfied. They were on the top – what more do you need? Everybody was going to touch their feet; even the king had to touch their feet. They were the purest people, so there was no urge to find more; it was enough. It was very satisfying and gratifying to their egos.

Why did it happen to the chhatriyas, the second class? My understanding is, because they were second class, there was an immense urge for them to surpass the brahmins, and the only way they could find to surpass the brahmins was to become enlightened. Then only could they surpass the brahmins; otherwise they could not.

The brahmins are the most learned scholars. The chhatriyas had to attain something which is higher than learning and scholarship. They had to attain something which is not given by birth, so brahmins cannot claim it. Just by birth nobody can claim enlightenment.

And it only happened in the second class because it is part of human psychology that the closer you are to the highest class the more competitiveness is within you. The more distant you are the less hope you have that you can manage to compete with the brahmin. The businessman cannot think he can manage to compete. The sudra of course cannot even imagine or dream that he can manage anything. He is not allowed even to read; he is not allowed to be educated. He is kept completely enslaved in his unconsciousness, so there is no question of a sudra becoming enlightened.

The businessman has another competition, and that is of money. That is a horizontal competition amongst businessmen. He is trying to compete to have more money, and he knows he cannot compete with the warriors: a businessman is not a soldier. And he cannot compete with the priest because a businessman is not a scholar.

And the brahmins kept a complete hold on all the great ancient scriptures and literature. They were only to give those books to their children, to their descendants. And for thousands of years those books were not printed, although printing started in China three thousand years ago, and it could have come to India without any difficulty. People must have been aware – they were constantly coming and going to China. If Buddhism could spread all over China, it is impossible that they could not have brought back the mechanism and understanding to print.

But brahmins were against printing. They were even against printing their scriptures when the Britishers came – three hundred years ago – and took over India from the Mohammedans. It was against their will that the scriptures were printed, because they were afraid that once they are printed, they become public property. Then anybody can read them, and anybody can become a scholar. They wanted to keep them to themselves, so there were only handwritten copies which were kept as a family tradition: so each family has its own handwritten copy of certain scriptures. The brahmins monopolized it.

The chhatriyas, the second class, tried – and that was a great effort – to become enlightened to surpass the brahmins. But it is very significant to understand that by becoming enlightened they became divisionless, their being became one. And certainly they became higher than any human being who was divided. There was no question about their superiority.

So even brahmins would come to the enlightened people without bothering that they came from the second class. So brahmins have touched the feet of non-brahmins – which would have been impossible. But once the non-brahmin has become enlightened then the brahmin knows that what he knows is only parrot-like. What this man knows is not parrot-like. He is not a scholar, he is really a knower. So hundreds of brahmins were disciples of Buddha, hundreds of brahmins were disciples of Mahavira.


The world can come to a harmony if meditation is spread far and wide, and people are brought to one consciousness within themselves. This will be a totally different dimension to work with.


Up to now it was revolution. The point was society, its structure. It has failed again and again in different ways. Now it should be the individual – and not revolution, but meditation, transformation.

And it is not so difficult as people think. They may waste six years in getting a master's degree in a university; and they will not think that this is wasting too much time for just a degree which means nothing.

It is only a question of understanding the value of meditation. Then it is easily possible for millions of people to become undivided within themselves. And they will be the first group of humanity to become harmonious. And their harmoniousness, their beauty, their compassion, their love – all their qualities – are bound to resound around the world.


My effort is to make meditation almost a science so it is not something to do with religion.


So anybody can practice it – whether he is a Hindu or a Christian or a Jew or a Mohammedan, it doesn't matter. What his religion is, is irrelevant; he can still meditate. He may not even believe in any religion, he may be an atheist; still he can meditate.

Meditation has to become almost like a wildfire. Then there is some hope. And people are ready: they have been thirsting for something that changes the whole flavor of the society. It is ugly as it is, it is disgusting. It is at the most, tolerable. Somehow people have been tolerating it. But to tolerate is not a very joyful thing.

It should be ecstatic.
It should be enjoyable.
It should bring a dance to people's hearts.

And once these divisions within a person disappear, he can see so clearly about everything. It is not a question of his being knowledgeable, it is a question of his clarity. He can look at every dimension, every direction with such clearness, with such deep sensitivity, perceptiveness, that he may not be knowledgeable but his clarity will give you answers which knowledge cannot give.

This is one of the most important things – the idea of utopia – which has been following man like a shadow for thousands of years. But somehow it got mixed up with the changing of society; the individual never got looked at.

Nobody has paid much attention to the individual – and that is the root cause of all the problems. But because the individual seems to be so small and the society seems so big, people think that we can change society, and then the individuals will change.

This is not going to be so – because "society" is only a word; there are only individuals, there is no society. The society has no soul – you cannot change anything in it.


You can change only the individual, howsoever small he appears.


And once you know the science of how to change the individual, it is applicable to all the individuals everywhere.

And my feeling is that one day we are going to attain a society which will be harmonious, which will be far better than all the ideas that utopians have been producing for thousands of years.

The reality will be far more beautiful.

Freedom and Democracy - By Osho

Freedom
Freedom from is ordinary, mundane. Man has always tried to be free from things. It is not creative. It is the negative aspect of freedom.

Freedom for is creativity. You have a certain vision that you would like to materialize and you want freedom for it.

Freedom from is always from the past, and freedom for is always for the future.

Freedom for is a spiritual dimension because you are moving into the unknown and perhaps, one day, into the unknowable. It will give you wings


Democracy
They define democracy as the government of the people, for the people, by the people. It is none of these things. It is neither by the people, nor of the people, nor for the people.

The people who have been holding power down the centuries have always been able to persuade people that whatever is being done, is done for their sake. And the people have believed it because they have been trained to believe.

It is a conspiracy between religion and state to exploit humanity.

The religion goes on preaching belief and destroys the intelligence of people to question, makes them retarded. And the state goes on exploiting them in every possible way ― still managing to keep the people´s support, because the people have been trained to believe, not to question. Any kind of government ― it may be monarchy, it may be aristocracy, it may be democracy, it may be any kind of government.... Just the names change but deep down the reality remains the same.

Courage - by Osho

In the beginning there is no big difference between the coward and the courageous person. Both have fear. The difference is, the coward listens to his fears and follows them. The courageous person puts them aside and goes ahead. The fears are there, he knows them, but the courageous person goes into the unknown in spite of all the fears. Courage does not mean fearlessness, but going into the unknown in spite of all the fears.

When you go into the uncharted sea, like Columbus did, there is fear, immense fear, because one never knows what is going to happen and you are leaving the shore of safety. You were perfectly okay, in a way; only one thing was missing - adventure. Going into the unknown gives you a thrill. The heart starts pulsating; again you are alive, fully alive. Every fiber of your being is alive because you have accepted the challenge of the unknown.

To accept the challenge of the unknown is courage. The fears are there, but if you go on accepting the challenge again and again, slowly, slowly those fears disappear. The joy that the unknown brings, the great ecstasy that starts happening with the unknown, makes you strong enough, gives you a certain integrity, makes your intelligence sharp. You start feeling that life is not just a boredom. Life is an adventure. Slowly, slowly fears disappear and you go on seeking and searching for new adventures.

Courage is risking the known for the unknown, the familiar for the unfamiliar, the comfortable for the uncomfortable arduous pilgrimage to some unknown destination. One never knows whether one will be able to make it or not. It is a gambling, but only the gamblers know what life is.

Who Am I? - By Osho

"Who am I?" has no answer to it; it is unanswerable. Your mind will supply many answers. Your mind will say, "You are the essence of life. You are the eternal soul. You are divine," and so on and so forth. All those answers have to be rejected: NETI NETI - one has to go on saying, "Neither this nor that."

When you have denied all the possible answers that the mind can supply and devise, when the question remains absolutely unanswerable, a miracle happens: suddenly the question also disappears. When all the answers have been rejected, the question has no props, no supports inside to stand on any more. It simply flops, it collapses, it disappears.

When the question also has disappeared, then you know. But that knowing is not an answer: it is an existential experience.

Life Satisfaction - By Osho

Without finding your center, there is no satisfaction possible. You can go on searching and you will find many things in life, but nothing is going to satisfy. Just a moment´s illusion when a desire is fulfilled. For a moment you feel good, but only for a moment. As one desire disappears, ten desires arise in its place. Again the whole turmoil starts, again the whole trip. And it is a non-ending process.

Only with finding your center does that process stop, that wheel moves no more. Coming home to your center, all desiring disappears - you are utterly satisfied, and forever. It is not a momentary satisfaction. It is contentment, absolute contentment. Coming home inside yourself satisfies, really satisfies.

Everything else in life is promises, but only false promises. The goods are never delivered. Money promises that if you have it you will be helped. But people go on becoming richer and richer and happiness never arrives. It is always there like the horizon - very elusive. Relationships give you the idea that everything will be good now and you will live in happiness forever, but it never happens.

Only with finding your center, satisfaction happens.

Giving - By Osho

Love is innocent when there is no motive in it. Love is innocent when it is nothing but a sharing of your energy. You have too much, so you share... you want to share.

And whosoever shares with you, you feel grateful to him or her, because you were like a cloud - too full of rainwater - and somebody helped you to unburden. Or you were like a flower, full of fragrance, and the wind came and unloaded you. Or you had a song to sing, and somebody listened attentively... so attentively that he allowed you space to sing it. So to whomsoever helps you to overflow in love, feel grateful.

Imbibe that spirit of sharing, let that become your very style of life: to be capable of giving without any idea of getting, to be capable of giving without any conditions attached to it, to be capable of giving just out of your abundance.

Responsibility - By Osho

You don´t understand even the meaning of the word responsibility. The society has been so cunning. It has destroyed our most beautiful words, given them distorted meanings. Ordinarily in your dictionaries "responsibility" means duty, doing things the way you are expected to do them by your parents, by your teachers, by your priests, by your politicians, by somebody else.

Your responsibility is to fulfill the demands made upon you by your elders and your society. If you act accordingly, you are a responsible person; if you act on your own ― individually ― then you are an irresponsible person. And your fear is: in acting spontaneously, here and now, there is a danger ― you may start acting individually. What will happen to your responsibility?

The fact is that "responsibility", the very word, has to be broken into two words. It means "response ability". And response is possible only if you are spontaneous, here and now. Response means that your attention, your awareness, your consciousness, is totally here and now, in the present. So whatever happens, you respond with your whole being. It is not a question of being in tune with somebody else, some holy scripture, or some holy idiot. It simply means to be in tune with the present moment.

This ability to respond is responsibility

Healing - By Osho

Love is the most healing force in the world; nothing goes deeper than love. It heals not only the body, not only the mind, but also the soul. If one can love then all one´s wounds disappear. Then one becomes whole - and to be whole is to be holy.

Unless one is whole one is not holy. The physical health is a superficial phenomenon. It can happen through medicine, it can happen through science. But the innermost core of one´s being can be healed only through love. Those who know the secret of love know the greatest secret of life. Then there is no misery for them, no old age, no death. Of course the body will become old and the body will die, but love reveals to you the truth that you are not the body. You are pure consciousness, you have no birth, no death. And to live in that pure consciousness is to live in tune with life. Bliss is a by-product of living in tune with life.

Awareness - by Osho

Right awareness means not only awareness - because awareness can become a strain - right awareness means awareness without any strain, relaxed. One can try to be aware but can create tension on the way, and that tension will destroy the whole work. So these two things have to be remembered: awareness with no strain, with no tension.

Awareness is a flowering of relaxation. Wherever you feel any tension in the body, relax that part. If your whole body is relaxed, your awareness will grow faster. Just watch, just see, make no effort, do not strive; an effortless awareness. In the beginning it looks very paradoxical - effortlessness and awareness - but once you start working on it, slowly slowly the knack is learned. It is a knack. And once you have learned the knack, once you have known even a single moment of awareness without tension, you are on the right track; you will never be the same person again.

Just relax and let things be as they are. A very very passive awareness - that is the meaning of meditation. If sometimes you forget watching, perfectly good! When you remember, you watch again. When you forget, you forget. This is relaxation, this is accepting life as it comes. Then great joy arises out of it. You are never tired and you are never distracted because nothing can distract you.

Trust - by Osho

If you can trust, something or other will always happen and will help your growth. You will be provided for. Whatsoever is needed at a particular time will be given to you, never before it. You get it only when you need it, and there is not even a single moment´s delay. When you need it you get it, immediately, instantly! That´s the beauty of trust. By and by you learn the ways of how existence goes on providing for you, how existence goes on caring about you. You are not living in an indifferent existence. It does not ignore you. You are unnecessarily worried; all is provided for. Once you have learnt the knack of trust, all worry disappears.

Enlightenment - By Osho

Enlightenment is a simple realization that everything is as it should be.

That is the definition of enlightenment: everything is as it should be, everything is utterly perfect as it is. That feeling...and you are suddenly at home. Nothing is being missed. You are part, an organic part of this tremendous, beautiful whole. You are relaxed in it, surrendered in it. You don´t exist separately ― all separation has disappeared.

A great rejoicing happens, because with the ego disappearing there is no worry left, with the ego disappearing there is no anguish left, with the ego disappearing there is no possibility of death any more. This is what enlightenment is. It is the understanding that all is good, that all is beautiful ― and it is beautiful as it is. Everything is in tremendous harmony, in accord.

Heaven & Hell - By Osho

Hell and heaven are within you, both gates are within you.
When you are behaving unconsciously there is the gate of hell; when you become alert and conscious, there is the gate of heaven.

Accept Yourself - By Osho

A rose flower is a rose flower, there is no question of its being something else. And the lotus is a lotus. Neither does the rose ever try to become a lotus, nor does the lotus ever try to become a rose. Hence they are not neurotics. They don´t need the psychiatrist, they don´t need any psychoanalysis. The rose is healthy because the rose simply lives its reality.

And so it is with the whole existence except man. Only man has ideals and shoulds. ‘You should be this and that’ ― then you are divided against your own is. Should and is are enemies.

And you cannot be anything other than you are. Let it sink deep into your heart: you can only be that which you are, never anything else. Once this truth sinks deep, that ‘I can only be myself’ all ideals disappear. They are discarded automatically. And when there is no ideal, reality is encountered. Then your eyes are herenow, then you are present to what you are. The division, the split, has disappeared. You are one.

Infallibility - By Osho

Perfectionism is a neurotic idea. Infallibility is good for stupid Polack popes but not for intelligent people. An intelligent person will understand that life is an adventure, a constant exploration through trial and error. That´s its very joy, its very juice!

I don´t want you to be perfect. I want you to be just as perfectly imperfect as possible. Rejoice in your imperfections! Rejoice in your very ordinariness! Beware of so-called "His Holinesses"―they are all "His Phoninesses." If you like such big words like "His Holiness" then make a title such as "His Very Ordinariness"―HVO, not HH! I preach ordinariness. I make no claims for any miracles; I am a simple man. And I would like you also to be very simple so that you can get rid of these two polarities: that of guilt and that of hypocrisy. Exactly in the middle is sanity.

Political Leaders - By Osho

The basic desire to be a leader arises in people who are suffering from an inferiority complex. It does not matter whether they move into the political world or into the religious world; the will-to-power is an absolute indication that the man feels himself inferior to others and he wants to prove to the world that it is not so.

It is not only a question of proving to the world; through the world he wants to prove it to himself too, that he is not inferior to anybody. The only way mind can manage it is to make everybody inferior to you.

Suffering - by Osho

If you don´t escape, if you allow the suffering to be there, if you are ready to face it, if you are not trying somehow to forget it, then you are different. Suffering is there but just around you; it is not in the center, it is on the periphery. It is impossible for suffering to be in the center; it is not in the nature of things. It is always on the periphery and you are the center.

So when you allow it to happen, you don´t escape, you don´t run, you are not in a panic, suddenly you become aware that suffering is there on the periphery as if happening to someone else, not to you, and you are looking at it. A subtle joy spreads all over your being because you have realized one of the basic truths of life, that you are bliss and not suffering.

True Love - by Osho

Love is not something permanent, eternal. Remember, what poets say is not true. Don´t take their criterion, that the true love is eternal, and untrue love is momentary - no! Just the opposite is the case. The true love is very momentary - but what a moment!... such that one can lose the whole of eternity for it, can risk the whole of eternity for it. Who wants that moment to be permanent? And why should permanency be valued so much?... because life is change, flow; only death is permanent.

God - by Osho

I don´t see that there is any God who created the world. I certainly experience a quality of godliness in existence, but it is a quality, not a person. It is more like love, more like silence, more like joy ― less like a person. You are never going to meet God and say hello to him, how are you? I have been looking for you for thousands of years; where have you been hiding?

God is not a person but only a presence.

And when I say "presence," be very attentive, because you can go on listening according to your own conditioning. You can even make "presence" something objective ― you have again fallen into the same trap. God is a presence at the innermost core of your being: it is your own presence. It is not a meeting with somebody else.

Anger - by Osho

When you are angry with someone and you throw your anger on him, you are creating a chain reaction. Now he too will be angry. This may continue for lives and you will go on being enemies. How can you end it? There is only one possibility. You can end it only in meditation, nowhere else, because in meditation you are not angry with someone: you are simply angry.

This difference is basic. You are not angry with someone. You are simply angry and the anger is released into the cosmos. You are not hateful towards anyone. If hate comes, you are simply hateful and the hate is thrown out. In meditation, emotions are not addressed. They are unaddressed. They move into the cosmos, and the cosmos purifies everything.

It is just like a dirty river falling into the ocean: the ocean will purify it. Whenever your anger, your hate, your sexuality, moves into the cosmos, into the ocean - it purifies it. If a dirty river falls into another river, then the other river also becomes dirty. When you are angry with someone, you are throwing your dirt at him. Then he will also throw his at you and this will become a mutual dirtying process.

In meditation you are throwing yourself into the cosmos to be purified. All the energy that you throw is purified in the cosmos. The cosmos is so vast and so great an ocean, you cannot make it dirty. In meditation we are not related with persons. In meditation we are related directly to the cosmos.

The Religions -- Their Fundamental Mistake - by Osho

Osho,
Are you against all the religions? What is their most fundamental mistake?

Yes, I am against all the so-called religions because they are not religions at all. I am for religion but not for the religions.

The true religion can only be one, just like science. You don't have a Mohammedan physics, a Hindu physics, a Christian physics; that would be nonsense. But that's what the religions have done -- they have made the whole earth a madhouse.

If science is one, then why should the science of the inner not be one, too?

Science explores the objective world and religion explores the subjective world. Their work is the same, just their direction and dimension are different.

In a more enlightened age there will be no such thing as religion, there will be only two sciences: objective science and subjective science. Objective science deals with things, subjective science deals with being.

That's why I say I am against the religions but not against religion. But that religion is still in its birth pangs. All the old religions will do everything in their power to kill it, to destroy it -- because the birth of a science of consciousness will be the death of all these so-called religions which have been exploiting humanity for thousands of years.

What will happen to their churches, synagogues, temples? What will happen to their priesthood, their popes, their imams, their shankaracharyas, their rabbis? It is big business. And these people are not going to easily allow the true religion to be born.

But the time has come in human history when the grip of the old religions is loosening.

Man is only formally paying respect to Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, but basically anybody who has any intelligence is no longer interested in all that rubbish. He may go to the synagogue and to the church and to the mosque for other reasons, but those reasons are not religious; those reasons are social. It pays to be seen in the synagogue; it is respectable, and there is no harm. It is just like joining the rotary club or the lions club. These religions are old clubs which have a religious jargon around them, but look a little deeper and you will find they are all hocus-pocus with no substance inside.

I am for religion, but that religion will not be a repetition of any religion that you are acquainted with.

This religion will be a rebellion against all these religions. It will not carry their work further; it will stop their work completely and start a new work -- the real transformation of man.

You ask me: What is the most fundamental error of all these religions? There are many errors and they are all fundamental, but first I would like to talk about the most fundamental. The most fundamental error of all the religions is that none of them was courageous enough to accept that there are things which we don't know. They all pretended to know everything, they all pretended to know all, that they were all omniscient.

Why did this happen? -- because if you accept that you are ignorant about something then doubt arises in the minds of your followers. If you are ignorant about something, who knows? -- you may be ignorant about other things also. What is the guarantee? To make it foolproof, they have all pretended, without exception, that they are omniscient.


The most beautiful thing about science is that it does not pretend to be omniscient.


Science does not pretend to be omniscient; it accepts its human limits. It knows how much it knows, and it knows that there is much more to know. And the greatest scientists know of something even deeper. The known, they know the boundaries of; the knowable they will know sooner or later -- they are on the way.

But only the greatest scientists like Albert Einstein will be aware of the third category, the unknowable, which will never be known. Nothing can be done about it because the ultimate mystery cannot be reduced to knowledge.

We are part of existence -- how can we know existence's ultimate mystery?

We have come very late; there was nobody present as an eyewitness. And there is no way for us to separate ourselves completely from existence and become just an observer. We live, we breathe, we exist with existence -- we cannot separate ourselves from it. The moment we are separate, we are dead. And without being separate, just a watcher, with no involvement, with no attachment, you cannot know the ultimate mystery; hence it is impossible. There will remain something always unknowable. Yes, it can be felt, but it cannot be known. Perhaps it can be experienced in different ways -- not like knowledge.

You fall in love -- can you say you know love? It seems to be a totally different phenomenon. You feel it. If you try to know it, perhaps it will evaporate in your hands. You cannot reduce it to knowing. You cannot make it an object of knowledge because it is not a mind phenomenon. It is something to do with your heart. Yes, your heartbeats know it, but that is a totally different kind of knowledge: the intellect is incapable of approaching the heartbeats.

But there is something more than heart in you -- your being, your life source. lust as you know through the mind, which is the most superficial part of your individuality, you know something from your heart -- which is deeper than the mind. The mind cannot go into it, it is too deep for it. But behind the heart, still deeper, is your being, your very life source. That life source also has a way of knowing.


When mind knows, we call it knowledge.
When heart knows, we call it love.
And when being knows, we call it meditation.


But all three speak different languages, which are not translatable into each other. And the deeper you go, the more difficult it becomes to translate, because at the very center of your being there is nothing but silence. Now, how to translate silence into sound? The moment you translate silence into sound you have destroyed it. Even music cannot translate it. Perhaps music comes closest, but still it is sound.

Poetry does not come quite as close as music, because words, howsoever beautiful, are still words. They don't have life in them, they are dead. How can you translate life into something dead? Yes, perhaps between the words you may have a glimpse here and there -- but it is between the words, between the lines, not in the words, not in the lines.

This is the most fundamental error of all religions: that they have deceived humanity by blatantly posing as if they know all.

But every day they have been exposed and their knowledge has been exposed; hence, they have been fighting with any progress of knowledge.

If Galileo finds that the earth moves around the sun, the pope is angry. The pope is infallible; he is only a representative of Jesus, but he is infallible. What to say about Jesus -- he is the only begotten son of God, and what to say about God.... But in the Bible -- which is a book descended from heaven, written by God -- the sun goes around the earth.

Now, Galileo creates a problem. If Galileo is right, then God is wrong; God's only begotten son is wrong, the only begotten son's representatives for these two thousand years -- all the popes who are infallible -- are wrong. Just a single man, Galileo, destroys the whole pretension. The whole hypocrisy he exposes. His mouth has to be shut. He was old, dying, on his deathbed, but he was forced, almost dragged, to the court of the pope to ask for an apology.

And the pope demanded: "You change it in your book, because the holy book cannot be wrong. You are a mere human being; you can be wrong; but jesus Christ cannot be wrong, God Himself cannot be wrong, hundreds of infallible popes cannot be wrong.... You are standing against God, His son, and His representatives. You simply change it!"

Galileo must have been a man with an immense sense of humor -- which I count to be one of the great qualities of a religious man. Only idiots are serious; they are bound to be serious. To be able to laugh you need a little intelligence.

It is said that an Englishman laughs twice when he hears a joke: once, just to be nice to the fellow who is telling the joke, out of etiquette, a mannerism; and second, in the middle of the night when he gets the meaning of the joke. The German laughs only once, just to show that he has understood it. The Jew never laughs; he simply says, "In the first place you are telling it all wrong...."

You need a little intelligence, and Galileo must have been intelligent. He was one of the greatest scientists of the world, but he must be counted as one of the most religious persons also. He said, "Of course God cannot be wrong, Jesus cannot be wrong, all the infallible popes cannot be wrong, but poor Galileo can always be wrong. There is no problem about it -- i will change it in my book. But one thing you should remember: the earth will still go around the sun. About that I cannot do anything; it does not follow my orders. As far as my book is concerned I will change it, but in the note I will have to write this:'The earth does not follow my orders, it still goes around the sun.'"


Each step of science, religion was against.


The earth is flat, according to the Bible, not round. When Columbus started thinking of going on a trip with the idea that the earth is round, his arithmetic was simple: "If I continue journeying directly, one day I am bound to come back to the same point from where I started... the whole circle." But everybody was against it.

The pope called Columbus and told him, "Don't be foolish! The Bible says it clearly: it is flat. Soon you will reach the edge of this flat earth and you will fall from there. And do you know where you will fall? Heaven is above, and you cannot fall upwards -- or can you? You will fall downwards into hell. So don't go on this journey and don't persuade other people to go on this journey."

Columbus insisted that he was going; he went on the journey and opened the doors of the new world. We owe so much to Columbus that we are not aware of The world that we know was brought to light by Columbus. If he had listened to the pope, the infallible pope, who was talking just nonsense -- but his nonsense was very holy, religious....

All the religions of the world are bound to pretend that whatsoever there is, they know it. And they know it exactly as it is; it cannot be otherwise.

Jainas say their tirthankara, their prophet, their messiah is omniscient. He knows everything -- past, present and future, so whatsoever he says is the absolute truth. Buddha has joked about Mahavira, the Jaina messiah. They were contemporaries twenty-five centuries ago. Mahavira was getting old, but Buddha was young and was still capable of joking and laughing. He was still young and alive -- he was not yet established.

Once you become an established religion, then you have your vested interests. Mahavira had an established religion thousands of years old, perhaps the oldest religion of the world -- because Hindus say, and say rightly, that they have the oldest book in the world, the Rig Veda. Certainly it is now scientifically proved that the Rig Veda is the oldest scripture that has survived. But in the Rig Veda, the first Jaina messiah is mentioned; that is proof enough that the Jaina messiah has preceded the Rig Veda. And he is mentioned: his name is Rishabhadeva.

He is mentioned with a respect that it is impossible to have towards a contemporary. It is just human weakness, but it is very difficult to be respectful towards somebody who is contemporary and alive, just like you. It is easy to be respectful to somebody who has died long ago. The way the Rig Veda remembers Rishabhadeva is so respectful that it seems that he must have been dead for at least a thousand years, not less that that, so Jainism is a long-established religion.

Buddhism was just starting with Buddha. He could afford to joke and laugh, so he jokes against Mahavira and his omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. He says, "I have seen Mahavira standing before a house begging" -- because Mahavira lived naked and used to beg just with his hands. Buddha says, "I have seen him standing before a house which was empty. There was nobody in the house -- and yet this man, Jainas say, is a knower, not only of the present, but of the past and the future."

Buddha says, "I saw Mahavira walking just ahead of me, and he stepped on a dog's tail. It was early morning and it was not yet light. Only when the dog jumped, barking, did Mahavira come to know that he had stepped on his tail. This man is omniscient, and he does not know that a dog is sleeping right in his way, and he is going to step on his tail."


But the same happened with Buddha when he became established.


After three hundred years, when his sayings and statements were collected for the first time, the disciples made it absolutely clear that "everything written here is absolutely true, and it is going to remain true forever."

Now, in those statements there are so many idiotic things which may have been meaningful twenty-five centuries ago but today they are not meaningful because so much has happened in twenty-five centuries. Buddha had no idea of Karl Marx, he had no idea of Sigmund Freud... so what he has written or stated is bound to be based only on the knowledge which was available at that time.

"A man is poor, because in his past life he has committed bad actions." Now, after Marx, you cannot say that. "A man is rich because he has committed good actions in his past life." Now, after Marx, you cannot say that. And I don't think Buddha had any idea that there was going to be a Karl Marx, although his disciples say that whatsoever he said is going to remain true forever -- another way of saying that he is omniscient.

This was a good consolation for the poor, that if they did good works, in their future lives they also would be rich. It was a joy for the rich too: "We are rich because we have done good works in our past life." And they know perfectly well what good works they are doing right now... and their riches are increasing every day; their past life is finished with long ago and yet their riches go on increasing. The poor people go on becoming poorer and the rich go on becoming richer.

But in India no revolution has ever been thought about; there is no question of its happening -- and India has lived in poverty such as no other country has lived. India has lived longer in slavery than any other country of the world. But slavery, poverty, suffering -- everything has to be accepted because it is your doing. You cannot revolt against it. Against whom are you going to revolt? The only way is to do something to balance your bad actions with good actions. The very idea of revolution has never happened to the Indian mind. If slavery comes, you have to accept it.

The Hindus know all the answers. They say, "Without God's will nothing happens. So if you are a slave...." And for two thousand years India has been in slavery. It is a miracle that such a big country has remained in slavery for two thousand years. And the people who invaded India were small barbarian tribes; they were nothing compared to India. They could have been simply crushed by the crowd, there was no need even to take sword in hand.

But anybody -- Hunas, Moguls, Turks, Mohammedans, Britishers -- anybody who was ambitious and wanted to invade India was always welcome. It was ready -- obliged that you came from so far away, and you took so much trouble! The simple reason was that the Hindus know the answer: it is God's will; nothing happens without God's will, so this slavery is God's will. And a man like Mahatma Gandhi -- one would think that a man like Gandhi would show a little more intelligence, but no. If you are a Hindu you cannot show more intelligence than you are supposed to.

In Bihar, one of the provinces of India -- the poorest province -- there was a great earthquake. It was already poor; every year it suffers from floods. And then this earthquake... thousands died. And what did Gandhi say? Gandhi said, "Bihar is suffering because of its bad actions." In the twentieth century? -- an earthquake? -- and the whole population of Bihar?

It was understandable that you had been explaining to single individuals that they were suffering because of their bad karmas, but the whole state suffering because of its bad karmas...! As if all these people in their past life were also in this same state, and they all committed such bad karmas that the earthquake happened. And the whole of the rest of India did not suffer from the earthquake because they had done good karmas in their past life. Strange!

It is even more strange because Bihar is the birthplace of Mahavira, of Gautam Buddha, of Makhkhali Gosal, of Ajit Keshkambal -- great teachers and great prophets -- and Bihar is suffering because it has committed bad karmas! In India no other state has given birth to so many prophets, philosophers, thinkers. And what wrong could Bihar have done? But Hinduism knows everything.

I want you to remember that the basic mistake that all the religions have committed is that they have not been courageous enough to accept that there are limits to their knowing


They have not been able to say on any point, "We don't know."


They have been so arrogant that they go on saying they know, and they go on creating new fictions of knowledge.

That's where the true religion will be different, fundamentally different.

Yes, once in a while there have been single individuals who had the quality of true religion; for example, Bodhidharma. One of the most loveable human beings, he went to China fourteen hundred years ago. He remained for nine years in China and a following gathered around him. But he was not a man belonging to the stupidity of the so-called religions.

Formally he was a Buddhist monk, and China was already converted to Buddhism. Thousands of Buddhist monks had already reached China before Bodhidharma, and when they heard Bodhidharma was coming, they rejoiced, because Bodhidharma was almost equal to Buddha. His name had reached them long before he came. Even the king of China, the great Emperor Wu, came to receive Bodhidharma on the boundary of China and India.

Wu was the medium to transform the whole of China into Buddhism, to convert it from Confucius to Gautam Buddha. He had put all his forces and all his treasures into the hands of Buddhist monks, and he was a great emperor. When he met Bodhidharma he asked, "I have been waiting to see you. I am old, and I am fortunate that you have come after all; all these years we have been waiting. I want to ask a few questions."

The first question he asked was: "I have devoted all my treasures, my armies, my bureaucracy -- everything that I have -- to convert this vast land to Buddhism, and I have made thousands of temples for Buddha." He had made one temple to Buddha in which there were ten thousand statues of Buddha; the whole mountain was carved. Because ten thousand Buddhas had to be carved, the whole mountain was finished -- carved into Buddhist statues, so the whole mountain became a temple. He asked, "What will be my benefit in the other world?"

That's what the other monks were telling him, "You have done so much to serve Gautam Buddha that perhaps when you reach the other world, he himself will be standing there to welcome you. And you have earned so much virtue that an eternity of pleasures is yours."

Bodhidharma said, "All that you have done is absolutely meaningless. You have not even started on the journey, you have not taken even the first step. You will fall into the seventh hell -- take my word for it.

The Emperor Wu could not believe it: "I have done so much, and this man says'You will fall into the seventh hell'!"

Bodhidharma laughed and he said, "Whatsoever you have done is out of greed, and anything done out of greed cannot make you religious. You have renounced so many riches, but you have not renounced them unconditionally. You are bargaining; it is a business. You are purchasing in the other world. You are putting your bank balance from this world into the other world, transferring it. You are cunning: because this world is momentary -- tomorrow you may die -- and these other monks have been telling you the other world is eternal.... So what are you doing?giving momentary treasures to gain eternal treasures? Really a good deal! Whom are you trying to deceive?"

When Bodhidharma spoke to Wu in this way, before all the monks and the generals and the lesser kings who had come with Wu and his whole court, Wu was angry. Nobody had spoken in this way to him before. He said to Bodhidharma, "is this the way for a religious person to talk?"

Bodhidharma said, "Yes, this is the only way a religious person talks; all other ways are of people who want to cheat you. These monks here have been cheating you; they have been making promises to you. You don't know anything about what happens after death; nor do they, but they have been pretending that they

Wu asked, "Who are you to speak with such authority?"

And do you know what Bodhidharma said? He said, "I don't know. That is one point that I don't know. I have been into myself, I have gone to the very center of my being and come out as ignorant as before. I do not know." Now this I call courage.

No religion has been courageous enough to say, "We know this much, and that much we don't know; perhaps in the future we may know. And beyond that there is a space which is going to remain unknowable forever."

If these religions had been that humble, the world would have been totally different. Humanity would not have been in such a mess; there would not have been so much anguish. All around the world everybody is full of anguish. What to say about hell -- we are already living in hell here.


What more suffering can there be in hell?


And the people responsible for it are your so-called religious people. They still go on pretending, playing the same game. After three hundred years of science continually demolishing their territory, continually destroying their so-called knowledge, bringing forth new facts, new realities, still the pope is infallible, still the shankaracharya is infallible!

In Jaipur there was a Hindu conference and one of the shankaracharyas.... There are four shankaracharyas in India and they are equivalent to the pope; each one ruling one direction -- for the four directions, four shankaracharyas. One of the shankaracharyas belonged to Jaipur, he was born in Jaipur. He was basically an astrologer, a great scholar, so when one shankaracharya died, he was chosen to be the shankaracharya of Jaganath Puri.

I had known him before he was a shankaracharya and this conference was the first time that I had met him since he had become the shankaracharya. I asked him, "Now you must have become infallible. And I know you perfectly well -- before you were not. Can you tell me on what date, at what time you became infallible?"

He said, "Don't ask inconvenient questions in front of others. Now I am a shankaracharya and I am supposed to be infallible."

I said, "Supposed to be?"

He said, "That is for your information. If you ask me in public, I am infallible."

Now a polack has become pope. Have you ever heard of any polack becoming infallible? But one pope, a polack, has become infallible. How far has this world to fall? Now there is nowhere to fall. After the polack dies -- because popes die very quickly, for the simple reason that by the time they become popes they are almost dead. It takes such a long time to reach the Vatican, that if they survive a few years that is enough. Now after this pope whom are you going to choose? Can you find anybody else? I think Oregon will be good. After Poland, Oregon will be the right place. You can find far superior idiots here, but they will also become infallible once they become the pope.

A true religion will have this humbleness of accepting that only a few things are known, much more is unknown, and something will always remain unknowable.

That something is the target of the whole religious search.

You cannot make it an object of knowledge, but you can experience it, you can drink of it, you can have the taste of it -- it is existential.

The scientist remains separate from the object he is studying. He is always separate from the object; hence knowledge is possible, because the knower is different from the known. But the religious person is moving into his subjectivity, where the knower and the known are one.

When the knower and the known are one there is no possibility of knowledge. Yes, you can dance it, but you cannot say it.

It may be in the walk, the way you walk; it may be in your eyes, the way you see; it may be in your touch, the way you touch -- but it cannot be put into words.

Words are absolutely impotent as far as religion is concerned. And all these so-called religions are full of words. I call it all crap!

This is the fundamental mistake. But there are other mistakes too, worth remembering. For example: every religion is egoistic. Although every religion teaches the followers to drop the ego, to be egoless, to be humble, the religion itself is not humble, it is very arrogant.

Jesus says, "Be humble, be meek," but have you ever thought -- Jesus himself is not humble, not meek, not at all. What more arrogance and what more egotism can there be? -- he declares himself to be the only begotten son of God! You cannot declare yourself to be another son of God -- not even a cousin, because God has no brothers. You cannot have any relationship with God: that one relationship is closed, Jesus has closed the door.

He is the messiah and he has come to redeem the world. Nobody seems to be redeemed, and two thousand years have passed. He himself died in suffering on the cross -- whom is he going to redeem? But the idea that "I am going to redeem you, come follow me".... This has been one of the most important factors in destroying humanity -- because all religions claim that they are the only right religion, and all other religions are wrong. They have been continually fighting, killing each other, destroying each other.

Just the other day I saw a panel on the TV. One rabbi, one Protestant priest and one Catholic monk were discussing me. And they came to the conclusion... the rabbi suggested, "It is time now -- we should make an effort to have a dialogue with this man." I could not believe it -- a rabbi talking to the Catholic priest, suggesting that a dialogue is needed. Why? There were so many rabbis in Jesus' time, why wasn't a dialogue needed with Jesus? Or was the crucifixion the dialogue?

And this idiot Catholic agrees. He does not even say, "You, being a rabbi, do you believe in dialogue? Then what happened with Jesus? Was the crucifixion a dialogue?" No, he does not ask that. Nor does the rabbi wonder what he himself is saying. Jesus was a Jew -- it would have been perfectly right for the rabbis to have a dialogue with a Jew. If he has gone astray, bring the Jew back on the right path; or perhaps he is right, then you come to his path. But was the crucifixion the dialogue? It was not even a monologue!

But now they are all established. The Catholic, the Protestant and the rabbi have no trouble because now they are part of the vested business. And they all know that they are doing the same things, they are in the same business. Jesus was a trouble; perhaps a dialogue was not possible. It is not possible with me either, but the reasons are different.

With Jesus the dialogue was not possible because he was the messiah, but who were you? A dialogue is possible only amongst equals. He is the son of God. Who are you? -- son-in-law? You have to be a somebody, otherwise what dialogue? No, it was not possible because Jesus was so egoistic that the rabbis knew perfectly well a dialogue was not possible. Once or twice they had approached him.

Once a rabbi asked Jesus, "On what authority are you speaking?"

He said, "On my own authority -- and remember, before Abraham was, I am." Abraham was the forefather, the ancientmost; and Jesus says, "Before Abraham was, I am. What more authority do you want?" Now this man is saying, "Blessed are the meek," but he himself is not meek; "Blessed are the poor, blessed are the humble.... n But what is the reason? Why are they blessed? "... because they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven."

A strange argument! Here you lose; there you gain a thousandfold. But what do you gain? -- the same things. Here you are poor, there you will be rich. Here you are a beggar, there you will be a king. But what is the qualitative difference? -- just here, and there -- two different spaces. And these people are trying to be meek and humble and poor for one simple reason: to inherit the kingdom of God. Now this man is provoking and exploiting your greed. All the religions have been doing that.

A dialogue with me is also impossible, but for different reasons.

First: I don't know myself -- about that no discussion is possible -- and that is the most fundamental thing to be discussed. What dialogue is possible? Either you have been within or you haven't.

If you have been within, then just looking into your eyes is enough -- that's the dialogue. If you have not been within, then too just looking in your eyes is enough. The dialogue is finished before it begins.

With me a dialogue is impossible because I am not a scholar. I cannot quote scriptures, I always misquote them. But who cares? -- because I don't pay any respect to those scriptures. I don't believe them to be holy. They are just religious fictions, so misquoting from religious fictions is not a problem at all. In fact I have never read them carefully. I have gone through them, here and there just looking -- and even then I have found so much garbage.

So what dialogue is possible with me, on what points? There needs to be a certain agreement, and there is no agreement possible because I say there is no God. Now what dialogue is possible? You will have to prove God; then the dialogue can begin. Or bring God to the witness box; then we can discuss whether He is truly a God or just a phony American.

I don't believe that there is any heaven or hell. What dialogue is possible? Yes, in other religions you can have dialogues because these are the points of agreement. A Mohammedan, a Christian, a Hindu, a Jew -- they can discuss God. One point is certain, that God is. Now, the question is only about His form, attributes, qualities -- but the basic thing is agreed. They all agree on heaven and hell. Now, it may be that somebody believes in seven hells, somebody believes in five, somebody believes in three. This is only a question of numbers, not so very important. With me what kind of dialogue is possible?

When I heard the panel, I started wondering that if a dialogue has to happen, how is it going to start? From where? There is not a single point of agreement, because all those religions are pseudo, they are not true religions; otherwise there would have been some possibility.

With Bodhidharma I can have a dialogue. He says, "I do not know who I am." That's enough agreement. Now we can hold each other's hand and go for a morning walk. Now there is no need to say anything more: all is said.

After nine years, when Bodhidharma was returning to India, he gathered four of his chief disciples and he asked them, "Condense religion into a single statement so that I can know whether you have understood me or not."

The first one said, "Compassion is religion. That is Buddha's basic message: compassion."

Bodhidharma said, "You have my bones, but nothing else."

The second disciple said, "Meditation. To be silent, to be so utterly silent that not a single thought moves inside you: that is the essence of religion."

Bodhidharma said, "You have my flesh, but nothing more; because in what you are saying, you are only repeating my words. In your eyes I don't see the silence; on your face I don't see the depth that silence brings."

The third one said, "It cannot be said. It is inexpressible."

Bodhidharma said, "You have my marrow. But if it cannot be said, why have you used even these words? You have already said it. Even in saying'It cannot be said, it cannot be expressed,' you are saying something about it; hence I say you have only the marrow."

He turned towards the fourth. There were tears in the disciple's eyes and he fell at Bodhidharma's feet. Bodhidharma shook him and asked him again and again, "What is religion?" But only tears of joy... his hands holding his feet in gratitude. The disciple never spoke a single word, not even that it cannot be said, it is inexpressible.

Bodhidharma hugged him and said, "You have me. Now I can go in peace because I am leaving something of me behind."

Now with these rabbis, Catholic priests, Protestant priests, what dialogue is possible? Two thousand years have passed and the rabbis have not apologized yet for crucifying Jesus. He may have been an egoist, he may have been wrong, he may have been teaching something faulty, but nobody has the right to crucify the man -- he had not harmed anybody. All that was needed was a gentlemanly argument, but they were not competent enough to argue with him.

Crucifixion is not an argument. You can cut off my head -- that is not an argument. That does not mean that I am wrong and you are right. In fact, cutting off my head simply proves that you were incapable of arguing your point. It is always the weak who become angry. It is always the weak who want to convert you at the point of a sword. After two thousand years and still... I wonder that not a single rabbi has apologized. Why should they? They think they were right then and they are right now.

I wonder what kind of Catholic is this monk and what kind of Protestant is this priest who are sitting with the rabbi and discussing me. They should talk first about themselves, about why they are sitting together.

All these people have been egoists. Now, rabbis go on teaching people to be humble but they cannot give an apology. That is impossible. They have not even mentioned the name of Jesus in their scriptures, in their books. You will not find any mention of Jesus, his crucifixion or the birth of Christianity in Jewish sources, no: "It is not even worth mentioning." But the same is the situation of other religions. Mohammed says, "I am the only messenger of God. One God, one messenger and one holy book, the Koran -- if you believe in these three things, that's enough, you are saved."

That brings me to the second point, that all these religions have been against doubt. They have been really afraid of doubt.

Only an impotent intellect can be afraid of doubt; otherwise doubt is a challenge, an opportunity to enquire.

They have all killed doubt and they have all forced on everybody's mind the idea that if you doubt you will fall into hell and you will suffer for eternity. Never doubt. Belief is the in thing; faith, total faith -- not even partial faith will do, but total faith. What are you asking from human beings?something absolutely inhuman. A man -- how can he believe totally? And even if he tries to believe totally, it means doubt is there; otherwise against what is he fighting? Against what is he trying to believe totally?

There is doubt, and doubt is not destroyed by believing.
Doubt is destroyed by experiencing.
They say, believe!
I say, explore.
They say, don't doubt!
I say, doubt to the very end, till you arrive, and know and feel and experience.

Then there is no need to repress doubt, it evaporates by itself Then there is no need for you to believe. You don't believe in the sun, you don't believe in the moon -- why do you believe in God? You don't need to believe in ordinary facts because they are there. But they are not ultimate truth.

A rose flower is there in the morning; in the evening it is gone. Still you "believe" in it but you don't need to; you know it, there is no question of doubt. This "belief" in a rose flower is a simple belief, not against doubt. Just so that you don't get confused between a simple belief and a complicated belief, I have a different word for it: it is trust.

You trust a rose flower. It blooms, it releases its fragrance, and it is gone. By the evening you will not find it; its petals have fallen and the wind has taken them away. But it was not an eternal truth; you know it as a fact. And you know again there will be roses, again there will be fragrance. You need not believe; you simply know from experience, because yesterday also there were roses and they disappeared. Today again they appeared -- and tomorrow nature is going to follow its course.

Why believe in God? Neither yesterday did you have any experience of God, nor today -- and what certainty is there about tomorrow? From where can you get certainty for tomorrow? -- because yesterday was empty, today is empty, and tomorrow is only an empty hope, hoping against hope. But that's what all these religions have been teaching: destroy doubt.

The moment you destroy doubt you have destroyed something of immense value in man, because it is doubt which is going to help man to enquire and find. You have cut the very root of enquiry; now there will be no enquiry.

That's why, in the whole world, there is rarely, once in a while, a person who has the feel of the eternal, who has breathed the eternal, who has found the pulse of the eternal -- but very rarely. And who is responsible? All your rabbis and all your popes and all your shankaracharyas and all your imams -- they are responsible because they have cut the very root of enquiry.

In Japan they grow a strange tree. There are, in existence, three-hundred or four-hundred-year-old trees, five inches tall. Four hundred years old! If you look at the tree, it is so ancient but such a pygmy of a tree -- five inches tall. And they think it is an art! What they have been doing is to go on cutting the roots. The earthen pot in which the tree is has no bottom, so once in a while they take up the pot and cut the roots. When you cut the roots the tree cannot grow up. It grows old but it never grows up. It becomes older and older, but you have destroyed it. It may have become a big tree, because mostly those trees are bo trees.

Japan is a Buddhist country, and Gautam Buddha became enlightened under a bo tree. The bo tree is called a bo tree in English too, because under it Gautam Siddartha became a Buddha, attained bodhi, enlightenment. The full name is bodhi tree, but in ordinary use it is enough to call it a bo tree. So all those trees are bo trees. Now no Buddha can sit under these bo trees. You have stopped who knows how many Buddhas from becoming Buddhas by cutting these bo trees.

The tree under which Buddha became enlightened was so big that one thousand bullock carts could rest underneath it. It was so big. It is still alive -- not the same tree of course, but a branch of the same tree. Mohammedans destroyed the tree. They could not tolerate that a tree exists underneath which somebody reached such heights. They burned the tree, they completely destroyed the tree.

But one of the emperors of India, Ashoka, had sent one branch of the tree as a present to Ceylon with his own daughter, Sanghamitra, who had become a sannyasin. Sanghamitra carried a branch of the bo tree to Ceylon, and from that bo tree a branch has been brought back again and put in the place where Buddha had become enlightened. It is part of the same tree, but the third generation.

But what these people in Japan are doing shows something significant: it is what religions have done with man. They have been cutting your roots so you don't grow up -- you only grow old.

And the first root they cut is doubt; then enquiry stops.

The second root they cut turns you against your own nature, condemns your nature. Obviously when your nature is condemned, how can you help your nature to flow, grow and take its own course like a river? No, they don't allow you to be like a river, moving zigzag.

All the religions have turned you into railway trains, running on rails, running from one station to another -- and mostly just shunting, not going anywhere but still on rails. Those rails they call discipline, control, self-control.

Religions have done so much harm that it is almost incalculable -- their pot of sins is full, overflowing. It just needs to be thrown into the Pacific, five miles deep, so deep that nobody can find it again and start again the same idiotic process.

The small number of people in the world who are intelligent should get rid of all that their religions have done to them without their knowing. They should become completely clean of Jewishness, of Hinduism, of Christianity, of Jainism, of Buddhism. They should be completely clean -- just to be human is enough.

Accept yourself.
Respect yourself Allow your nature to take its own course. Don't force, don't repress.
Doubt -- because doubt is not a sin, it is the sign of your intelligence. Doubt and go on enquiring until you find.
One thing I can say: whosoever enquires, finds. It is absolutely certain; it has never been otherwise.
Nobody has come empty-handed from an authentic enquiry.