| 
Part VII : New Phase: Osho Speaks His Own Truth*
In mid December 1980 Osho announces a new phase: he will state
his own truth. This he does in a new series, Philosophia Ultima,
commentaries on Mandukya and Isa Upanishads.
*Note: Osho introduced this new phase before going into silence,
and continued it when he commenced speaking three years later.
I don't agree with Jesus Christ. I have tried my best to agree
with Jesus, with Buddha, with Patanjali, with Mahavira, with Lao
Tzu. Now my new phase of work starts. I am fed up with agreeing,
tired of it! So now I will simply say the truth. Enough is enough!
ultima07
It is a long story. The moment I became capable of seeing I
started talking about truth as it is—naked. But nobody was
ready even to listen to it. I was puzzled: I had found the original
face, I had seen it, I wanted to share with those who were searching
for it, but they were not ready to listen to it.
For a few years I struggled hard, but then I saw that they were
not wrong, I was wrong. They could not digest truth raw and naked;
when you have been eating cooked food for many many lives you
cannot digest raw food. I was wrong, they were not wrong.
Then I started cooking things! Then I started saying things
which they could digest. I became less and less concerned about
truth and more and more concerned about the people who were to
digest it; I had to see how much they could digest. And I had
to prepare the food in such a way that it was sweet, not bitter,
that it tasted good, it looked good. Whether it was nutritious
or not, that was secondary. Who bothers whether Deeksha's cakes
are nutritious or not? whether the ice cream is going to make
you healthy or ill? Who bothers about these things? It tastes
good. It may destroy you finally…
And I was amazed—when I started serving cooked food people
became very much interested and excited. That was a device: that's
how I have been able to hook you all! Otherwise I was sitting
on the riverbank day in, day out—not a single fish! Once
I started serving cooked food—cooked according to your desires,
not according to your needs…. I didn't need to think at
all about the truth in the beginning days, I forgot all about
it. I stopped going to the river—the fish started coming
to me on their own, walking long distances.
So don't be too bothered about what I have said in my earlier
works. I have said many things which I don't mean! What I am saying
today is closer to truth than what I said yesterday, and every
day it will become closer and closer to the truth. Before I am
gone I will again have told you the naked truth.
I had to take such a long route because there was no other way;
I had to be very indirect. The moment I became enlightened I started
telling people that there is no God—and they were shocked!
Then I cooked it. I said, "There is God, but God is not a
person, only a presence." This is cooked food. I am simply
saying there is no God. But now it tastes sweet—no person,
only a presence.
But what else can you do? If people are foolish you have to
be careful with them….
I wanted to say the naked truth from the very beginning, but to
whom to say it? I had to drop that. For a few years I tried my
hardest, but all the doors remained closed; nobody was even ready
to listen. Then I changed the whole strategy, I became a little
more diplomatic. Then whatsoever I wanted to say I started saying
through Mahavira, through Buddha, through Zarathustra, through
Lao Tzu, through Jesus…. I continued to say things but I
was using other people's names. And Christians became very much
interested when I said the same things in the name of Jesus! Whatsoever
I said in the name of Jesus is simply my own; it has nothing to
do with Jesus at all. And if I meet Jesus there is going to be
a great argument. They all must be waiting for me—let this
guy come!—because I have been telling things in the name
of Buddha which he never meant…but Buddhists became very
happy.
Fools are fools! The earth is so full of them.
I started saying things in the name of Mahavira which are absolutely
the opposite of what he said—because if I had to live with
Mahavira in the same room, either I would leave or he would leave!
We could not have tolerated each other. First, his smell…because
he never used to take a bath. He was against taking baths because
when you pour so much water on your body, so many small germs
in the water die; that is violence. So he never took a bath….
One thing is certain: I could not have tolerated him in the
same room. And he would not tolerate me either. He would simply
go mad seeing my air-conditioned room my Rolls-Royce—he
would simply go mad!
He was an ascetic. According to me he was a masochist—now
this is raw food!—he was torturing himself, he enjoyed torturing
himself. And I am not a masochist or a sadist; neither do I want
to torture myself nor do I want to torture anybody else. He was
both, a sadomasochist: he was torturing himself and teaching people
to torture themselves.
But I have spoken on Mahavira. I had to play with words to manage
my meaning in his words. It was a difficult task but I did it,
and the Jainas were very happy.
The same I have done with Krishna. I think my commentary on
Krishna is the biggest in the whole of history. Lokman Tilak's
commentary on Krishna, his Gita, was thought to be the biggest—it
must be more than one thousand pages. But my commentary is twelve
times bigger. And I don't agree with Krishna really! Whatsoever
I have said—the words are his, the meanings are mine.
But this can be done very easily with the saints who are dead.
What can they do? And when we meet later on somewhere—if
that meeting ever happens—then I can simply apologize; there
is no problem in it. And I hope they will understand—because
they themselves had done the same thing, and I am doing the same
thing. There is no problem in it.
So one thing: whenever you want to try to understand me, don't
bring in what I have said in the past; that is not going to help.
The latest has to be taken into account. And when tomorrow I say
something, that will be even better. Before I enter into my grave,
my last statement will be just the naked truth.
But I had to take this long route for the simple reason that—whom
to get hold of, with whom to share your experience? With whom?
There are Hindus, there are Mohammedans, there are Christians,
there are Buddhists, there are Sikhs, there are Parsis…not
a single human being is available, all are already divided. The
only way is to catch the Christians through Jesus and the Jews
through Moses and the Hindus through Krishna. Once they are with
me then they will be able to understand.
And now I have found my people so I don't care much. Now I can
start giving you my original experience…. ultima15
What I am doing here is pure Zen. I am helping you to get rid
of your mind.
Mind has many characteristics, many aspects. And each religion
has chosen one aspect of the mind and made much fuss about it,
has dragged that aspect to its ultimate, logical conclusion. This
is something to be very deeply understood because it is fundamental
for the understanding of the Zen approach….
Zen is a transcendence of the mind. It does not develop any
aspect of the mind, it takes you beyond the mind. And the only
way to go beyond the mind is to enter into life hero and now.
You are not to be a sado-masochist, you are not to be an escapist,
you are not to be a fanatic, you are not to be a phony, a 'holier
than thou', an egoist, you just have to be ordinary, utterly ordinary,
in tune with life, harmonious with life….
Zen is not a religion—drop that idea. Zen is not a church—drop
that idea. Zen is a totally different approach. It is life; it
is synonymous with life. It is living life with such intensity
that your ego disappears in it, is burnt out, that you dissolve
into life, that you are consumed by the fire of life. And only
then can you know what a beautiful existence has been given to
you as a gift. It is a sheer joy then, each moment…Each
moment then is paradise. Paradise is now or never. zzzzz01
The gods of the past are dead. And they cannot be revived again.
They have become irrelevant to human consciousness; they were
created by a very immature mind. Man has come of age. He needs
a different vision of the gods, he needs a different kind of religion.
He needs to be freed from his yesterdays, because only then can
the tomorrow become possible. The old has to die for the new to
be. revol01
You ask: Why did You stop reading in 1980 and how do You stay
informed on world events?
I don't read any more. Otherwise I was perhaps the most educated
man in the whole world. My own personal library was one hundred
fifty thousand volumes, of immense JUSTIFY">I don't read
any more. Otherwise I was perhaps the most educated man in the
whole world. My own personal library was one hundred fifty thousand
volumes, of immense value, and I was reading continuously.
But then I began to speak my own truth and all those books started
seeming rubbish. Slowly slowly they became meaningless. Once in
a while one book may turn out to have some significance, but five
years before (in 1980) I stopped reading. It was too much.
You read one hundred books and one book sometimes turns out
to be of any meaning. And that too is not going to increase my
consciousness, my being.
So for five years I have not read anything—no newspaper,
no radio, no television. Once in a while if my sannyasins see
a film which they feel has something significant, then I see it.
But very rarely. last304
|
