| 
Part XI : Epilogue 1990 onwards : Osho talks
about the continuation of his work
Nobody is going to be a successor to me. The very idea of succeeding
was an idea borrowed from the royal families. Just as kings were
succeeded by their eldest sons, it reflected on the tradition
of masters also that somebody would become their successor.
I want to make a complete break. As far as I am concerned, you
are all intimate to me. I can afford the intimacy of all of you,
because there is no question of any succeeding. Nobody is going
to be my successor. I want everybody to be a master unto himself.
To be a successor is a little humiliating. It is against the
dignity of an enlightened man. Neither has he anybody before him
as his predecessor nor has he anybody after him who is his successor.
He is alone, standing like an Everest; no one precedes him, no
one succeeds him.
His aloneness is a message to all who fall in love with him,
that they also have to be alone. In your aloneness you are beautiful,
pure. It does not mean that you have to renounce the world. It
simply means that you don't have to belong to the world. You can
remain in the marketplace, but just be a mirror, a witness, watching
whatever is going on.
But traditionally they never understood that it is against the
freedom of the individual to be a successor. It makes a spiritual
experience almost like a treasury or a kingdom. It is neither.
Nobody can succeed. Everybody has to be on his own, and that independence
and the taste of that independence is so valuable that I want
to bring a new kind of master and a new kind of disciple into
the world. They are intimate in their love, in their trust, but
they are not bound in any way—by any thread, visible or
invisible. The master is himself, the disciple is also himself.
And the function of the master is to prove to the disciple that
to be oneself is the greatest glory in the world, the most splendorous
thing. matzu05
You have often said you will have no successors. But won't all
those who love you be your successors in that we carry you in
our blood and bones and so you are part of us forever?
The concept of the successor is bureaucratic. The very idea of
succession is not the right idea in the world of consciousness.
That's why I have said, I will not have successors. But you are
right in saying that you will carry in your bones and in your
blood my love, my insight. But don't use the word `successor',
rather use the words `you will be me'. Why be so far away, a successor,
when you can be me? Be so empty that I can make a home in you,
that your emptiness can absorb my emptiness, that your heart can
have the same dance as my heart. It is not succession; it is transmission.
The very idea of succession is political. Only one person can
be a successor, so there is bound to be competition, ambition.
There is bound to be a subtle struggle to be closer to the master,
to force others away. It may not be on the surface but, underneath,
the problem will remain in the disciples: "Who is going to
be the successor?"
I destroy the whole conception. Every disciple who has loved has
become one with the master. There is no need of any competition,
nor one successor. It is for everybody who has offered himself
in deep gratitude, who has become one in a certain sense with
the master's presence. There is no need of any competition. Thousands
can have the same experience, millions can have the same experience.
To avoid politics in religion, I have said that I will not have
successors. I want religion to be absolutely devoid of ambition,
competition, being higher than another, putting everybody lower
than oneself. With me you are all equal. And I trust and love
you, that you will prove this equality. In equals there is no
competition; there is a combined effort. You will all carry my
message, but nobody will be higher or lower, nobody will be a
successor. All will be my lovers and they will carry me….
If the disciple loves the master, if there is trust, and trust
founded on experience, he will carry spontaneously the master's
message. There is no need to say anything, he will be his master's
message. nansen02
This always happens: when I say something, I create two groups
of people around me. One group will be exoteric. They will organize,
they will do many things concerned with society, with the world
that is without; they will help preserve whatsoever I am saying.
The other group will be more concerned with the inner world. Sooner
or later the two groups are bound to come in conflict with one
another because their emphasis is different. The inner group,
the esoteric mind, is concerned with something quite different
from the exoteric group. And, ultimately, the outer group will
win, because they can work as a group. The esoteric ones cannot
work as a group; they go on working as individuals. When one individual
is lost, something is lost forever.
This happens with every teacher. Ultimately the outer group becomes
more and more influential; it becomes an establishment. The first
thing an establishment has to do is to kill its own esoteric part,
because the esoteric group is always a disturbance. Because of
"heresy," Christianity has been destroying all that
is esoteric.
And now the pope is at the opposite extreme to Jesus: this is
the ultimate schism between the exoteric and the esoteric. The
pope is more like the priests who crucified Jesus than like Jesus
himself. If Jesus comes again, he will be crucified in Rome this
time—by the Vatican. The Vatican is the exoteric, organizational
part, the establishment.
These are intrinsic problems—they happen, and you cannot
do anything about it. gchall09
Around you a community is created and with it the seeds of establishment.
That's true! Whenever there is communion there will be a community.
It cannot be avoided—and there is no need to avoid it. I
invite it! I have invited you all. I have called you all to be
with me, to share the joy that I have found, to share the truth.
But there is no establishment.
Establishment happens only when the Master is dead. Establishment
is when the community no longer has any center, only a circumference.
A dead community is what an establishment is. I know that whenever
a community is born, sooner or later there will be an establishment,
but that does not mean that the community has to be prevented
from being born. That will be like killing a child because if
the child survives then sooner or later he will have to die—so
better kill him now. Why let him live just to die? Everybody knows
that everybody is going to die; that does not mean that every
child has to be killed. When death comes it is perfectly okay.
The only thing to be remembered is that when the Master is dead,
the community should start dispersing; it should start seeking
and searching for new Masters.
Either the Master will leave many Masters behind him, alive, enlightened…then
the community can still remain a community, it will not become
an establishment. If one enlightened person is there then the
community is still a community; it does not matter who the enlightened
person is.
And I can assure you that I am going to leave many more enlightened
people in my commune than has ever been done before. ultima08
You asked me what I am thinking about these people after I am
gone. I am not even thinking now, when I am here.
I am giving them total freedom. I have not enforced anything on
them that will make me afraid that once I am gone these celibates
are going to create trouble. I have not repressed anything. If
they want to smoke, I tell them to smoke the best cigar possible—don't
go for anything second rate. If you want to love, find out the
best man, the best woman, and go into it as totally as possible.
I am in support of expression and all the so-called religions
were in support of repression. When you repress people you are
certainly afraid that when you are gone there is going to be chaos.
That problem does not exist for me. When I am gone there is going
to be no chaos because chaos was all that I have been training
my people for. My commune is a chaos and yet a very organic chaos,
a very creative chaos, a chaos out of which stars are born. That's
why that kind of question becomes very difficult for me to answer.
I am not giving them any discipline, any rules of conduct. I am
simply teaching them to be aware, alert, to be independent. Take
your responsibility and do whatsoever you want to do. Don't bother
about Moses, or Jesus, or Buddha, or me.
Jesus lived his way; he never bothered about others. If he had
bothered about others; the Jews would never have crucified him.
Buddha never bothered about anybody. I don't accept anybody as
my master or my leader. I am nobody's shadow, nobody's carbon
copy, and that's what I am teaching to my people: Don't be anybody's
carbon copy, including me.
So, alive, dance with me, rejoice with me. When I am gone continue
to dance and rejoice in remembrance of a man who gave you freedom,
who gave you individuality. What else is there to bother about
the future? Wherever I am—somewhere I must be—I will
go on showering my love on my people and I know they will find
ways to respond. But that is something very private; I cannot
reveal it to a non-sannyasin. last123
I would like that what I am doing is not lost. So I am trying
in every possible way to drop all those things which in the past
have been barriers for the revolution to continue and grow. I
don't want anybody to stand between the individual and existence.
No prayer, no priest…you alone are enough to face the sunrise,
you don't need somebody to interpret for you what a beautiful
sunrise it is….
And this is my attitude: you are here, every individual is here,
the whole existence is available. All that you need is just to
be silent and listen to existence. There is no need of any religion,
there is no need of any God, there is no need of any priesthood,
there is no need of any organization.
I trust in the individual categorically. Nobody up to now has
trusted in the individual in such a way.
So all things can be removed. Now all that has been left to you
is a state of meditation which simply means a state of utter silence.
The word meditation makes it look heavier. It is better to call
it just a simple, innocent silence and existence opens all its
beauties to you.
And as it goes on growing you go on growing, and there comes
a moment when you have reached the very peak of your potentiality—you
can call it Buddhahood, enlightenment, bhagwatta, godliness, whatever…it
has no name, so any name will do. last516
|
