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Part IX : World Tour - Osho returns to Bombay, and answers questions
about his Sannyas Movement
On 19 June 1986, Osho flies from Uruguay to Jamaica, where he
has a two-week visa, but the following morning the police tell
him to leave by that evening. On 20 June, Osho flies to Lisbon
where he stays quietly in rented villa for few weeks. Police surround
his villa, and on 30 July, Osho flies to Bombay.
On 30th July, Osho arrives in Bombay, and stays in Swami Suraj
Prakash's house at Juhu Beach. The following day, Osho begins
daily press interviews, gives discourses in Hindi, and in English.
Hundreds of sannyasins come from around the world to be with him.
Osho answers questions about his sannyas movement
You have been granting interviews to journalists. Is there any
particular reason for this?
It makes no difference to me whether I talk to my sannyasins or
to the journalists, because finally the word will reach to my
sannyasins. Through the journalists, it will reach to others also.
There are many people who would like to listen to me but cannot
come for many reasons. Their orthodox mind, their traditional
thinking, lies that they have heard about me… through journalism
it is possible to reach even these people. Journalism is simply
a means and I use all the means possible to spread the fragrance
that has happened to me.
I have chosen particularly journalists because even if I do
not talk to them they go on writing about me all kinds of stupidities,
lies… it is better they should talk with me, have a clear
conception about me. It is their duty to their readers that the
truth is conveyed and lies are not spread. I respect journalism
tremendously because it is one of the greatest means to protect
the individual, his freedom of expression, his individuality,
against the powerful vested interests.
I am alone against the vested interests—they have immense
power, but if the news media is with me to convey the truth to
the masses—a single individual can be more powerful than
a government.
And I have seen this happen in America. The news media has the
credit that the American government could not murder me….
I respect news media. But I would like to say that Indian journalism
is not yet of that great quality. It is third rate. Without asking
me they go on saying things that I have never said.
This is the reason why I am giving these interviews. last614
You are asking if I can speak, can bring my message to the people
in such a way that it becomes more acceptable, that it becomes
more usual. It cannot become—at least, as long as I am alive,
it cannot become usual. You have so many usual doctrines, usual
religions, usual ideologies. My approach is going to remain unusual,
because the usual approaches have all failed. Something unusual
has to be tried.
I know you love me and you want my message to reach people,
but your love is blind. You don't see the implications of what
you are saying. You are saying, "Can't your message be more
acceptable?" That means I will have to compromise. I will
have to think of the blind people all around me and adjust to
their ideas. It is betraying the truth. Every compromise is a
betrayal.
My message will remain universal even if I am the only person
who trusts in it, because its universality does not mean numbers
of followers. Its universality means that it is the foundational
doctrine of existence. And I cannot conceive how it can be more
acceptable.
The only way is to knock on as many doors as possible, to shout
from rooftops hoping that somebody may not be deaf, somebody may
not be blind. But I cannot compromise on any point, because it
is not a business.
Who am I to compromise on behalf of truth? And a truth compromised
becomes untruth. A truth is absolutely uncompromising.
But that has been always the case. All the masters in the past
had to face it. They are always ahead of their time. It seems
to be something in the very nature of life, that the people who
are going to be decisive about human consciousness will always
come ahead of their time—because it takes one hundred years,
two hundred years for people to understand them. If they come
in their own time, then by the time people have understood them,
they will be out of date. They have to be ahead of their time
so that by the time human mind, human consciousness reaches the
point where they can be understood, their message will be available.
So the greatest work for sannyasins is to keep the message pure,
unpolluted by you or by others—and wait.
The future is bound to be more receptive, more welcoming. We may
not be here but we can manage to change the consciousness for
centuries to come.
And my interest is not only in this humanity; my interest is
in humanity as such.
Keep the message pure, twenty-four carat gold. And soon those
people will be coming for whom you have made a temple—although
it is sad when you are making the temple; nobody comes. And when
people start coming, you will not be here. But one has to understand
one thing: we are part of a flowing river of consciousness.
You may not be here in this form, you may be here in another
form, but keep it in mind never to ask such a question that I
should be more acceptable, more respectable, more in agreement
with the masses. I cannot be.
And it is not stubbornness on my part. It is just that truth cannot
compromise. It has never done it; it would be the greatest sin.
sermon12
Many contemporaries and enlightened ones—Raman Maharshi,
Meher Baba, George Gurdjieff and J. Krishnamurti—have worked
with people, but people get more offended by you than by anybody
else. Osho, where does your technique differ from that of other
enlightened ones?
The question is very fundamental.
It arises in many people's minds, and it needs a very deep insight
into the workings of different masters.
We will take each of the masters named in the question separately.
Raman Maharshi is a mystic of the highest quality, but a master
of the lowest quality. And you have to understand that to be a
mystic is one thing; to be a master is totally different.
Out of a thousand mystics, perhaps one is a master….
Raman Maharshi remained in his cave in the mountains of Arunachal
his whole life, unconcerned with the world. He simply tired of
it. Naturally, nobody is against him….
Meher Baba is not finished with the world in the same sense as
Raman Maharshi. But he is interested only in your spiritual growth—as
if spiritual growth is something separate from the whole structure
of society, religion, education, past, all the traditions, conventions….
Secondly, Meher Baba remained silent his whole life; he never
spoke. All that is written in the name of Meher Baba is written
by his secretary. Now, there is no way to know whether the secretary
is writing from his own mind….
The third man on your list is George Gurdjieff. He is the most
unique master the world has ever seen, but his uniqueness created
a distance between him and the normal humanity. All his methods
were valid methods, but the journey was long and he made it even
longer by the way he propounded it….
Naturally he was surrounded by only a very small group of people.
And he was also not interested in any social revolution….
And the fourth man, J. Krishnamurti, could have been a danger,
could have been crucified—he had a far higher intelligence
than any Jesus Christ, and far more intellectual genius than any
Socrates—but because of a certain obsession, he became very
much against organization. He was against all organizations.
Naturally you would think that if he was against all organizations
then all organizations would have been annoyed by him. But this
was not the case, because he never created any organization of
his own.
A single individual for ninety years continuously went around
the world. Who cares?…
Governments are against me because I am against them.
Religions are against me because I am against religions.
Political leaders are annoyed with me because I say they are mediocre,
because I say only psychologically sick people become interested
in power politics. People who suffer from an inferiority complex
are the people who seek power, prime ministership, presidency.
These people need to be in psychiatric hospitals, and they are
running the world.
I am against all religions because I am for religiousness, and
religions are barriers to creating a humanity with a quality of
religiousness.
A Christian is not needed, nor a Hindu, nor a Mohammedan. These
are the barriers to religious progress.
What is needed is truthfulness, sincerity, silence, lovingness…a
life of joy, playfulness…a life of deep search, inquiry
into one's consciousness. And these qualities have nothing to
do with Christianity or Judaism or Jainism or Buddhism.
Meditation is needed, but meditation is nobody's monopoly.
Naturally, all religions are against me, annoyed. Because I am
the first man in the whole of history who is saying that religions
are the barriers preventing humanity from becoming religious.
They are not the vehicles of God, they are the enemies of God.
Popes and Ayatollah Khomeinis and shankaracharyas—these
are not the representatives of God; they may be representatives
of the devil. Because these are the people who have divided humanity,
and who for centuries have been continuously creating conflicts,
bloodshed, wars, crusades, jihad, holy war, and all kinds of nonsense.
In the name of religion, these people are oppressing humanity.
I am against nations because I don't see any need for there to
be nations. Why can't the whole planet earth be one single humanity?—which
would be saner, more scientific, more easily controllable.
Right now things are such that you can only say we are living
in an insane world….
I don't want any nations in the world.
The world is one single humanity.
I don't want religions in the world….
And we can make this world really a Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve
will not have to go back to the Garden of Eden. And one day you
will hear a knock on the door—God wants to come in! Because
you have managed to create a far better garden than his old one.
But we can keep that garden too, as a museum piece.
Naturally, Raman Maharshi, Meher Baba, Gurdjieff, Krishnamurti
belong to a different category.
I belong to my own category. There is no category to which I can
belong; I have to create my category.
Naturally they are all against me because I am going to take away
all their powers, all their conspiracies against humanity. Naturally,
they are together against me.
And they are a little puzzled: what to do with a single man? It
looks awkward to them also. All the governments of the world,
all the religions of the world have to decide against a single
individual. Certainly that single individual must have something
significant; otherwise there would be no need of so much fear,
paranoia.
I am for man's spiritual growth, but I understand spiritual growth
in its whole context. It is not something separate, one dimensional;
it is a multi-dimensional phenomenon. It needs a revolution in
society. It needs a revolution in society's economic, political
structures; it needs a tremendous and radical change in everything
that has been dominating us up to now.
We have to create a discontinuity with the past.
Only then a new man—a really spiritual man, a man of cosmic
dimensions—can be born.
I am certainly blessed because I am the first who is opposed by
all. This situation has never happened before, and will never
happen again.
And you are also blessed because you are fellow travelers with
a man who is not just an old dead saint, a goody-goody.
I want you to be the very salt of the earth.
Too many goody-goody saints have created so much diabetes.
We need a different kind of saintliness.
I have called that different kind of saint Zorba the Buddha. sermon01
You seem to be fulfilling two roles: an outer one in which you
provoke and expose the structure of our society, and a more intimate
one in which you encourage your disciples towards the ultimate.
Existence consists of both: the inner and the outer.
Unfortunately, for centuries the inner and the outer have been
thought to be opposed to each other. They are not.
The teaching which proposes that the inner and the outer are opposed
has caused a tremendous tension in man—because man is a
miniature existence, a miniature cosmos. Whatever exists in man
also exists on a wider scale in existence, and vice-versa. If
man can be understood in his totality, you have understood the
whole.
The function of the master is to bring the inner and outer into
a harmony.
To create opposition between them is poisoning you. They are not
opposed, they are one—two sides of the same coin, you cannot
even separate them. Can you separate the inner from the outer?
If they can be separated then what will you call the inner? What
will you call the outer? Of what? Both are part of a coherent
whole. But mankind has suffered tremendously because of the division.
My function is to destroy the division completely, and to create
a synchronicity in man's outer life and his inner life.
The work is tremendously complicated and great…
Whenever the harmony is not there, you are sick. The healthier
you are, the more harmonious. Disease can be defined as a conflict
between the outer and the inner; they have fallen apart, they
are not moving together. The harmony is broken. The function of
the physician is to bring the harmony back, to bring the music
back, to make your life an orchestra.
The master is a physician—not of your ordinary diseases
but of your existential conflicts.
That's why I have been fighting on two fronts. I have to fight
the old traditions, old religions, old orthodoxies, because they
will not allow you ever to be healthy and whole. They will cripple
you. The more crippled you are the greater saint you become. So
on one hand, I have to fight with any kind of thinking or theology
which divides you.
Secondly, I have to work on the growth of your inner being.
Both are part of the same process: how to make you a whole man,
how to destroy all the rubbish that is preventing you from becoming
whole—that is the negative part; and the positive part is
how to make you aflame with meditation, with silence, with love,
with joy, with peace. That is the positive part of my teaching.
With my positive part there is no problem; I could have gone around
the world teaching people meditation, peace, love, silence—and
nobody would have opposed me.
But I would not have been of any help to anybody, because who
is going to destroy all that rubbish? And the rubbish has to be
destroyed first, it is blocking the way. It is your whole conditioning.
You have been programmed from your very childhood with absolute
lies, but they have been repeated so often that you have forgotten
that they are lies.
That's the whole secret of advertisement: just go on repeating.
On the radio, on the television, in the films, in the newspapers,
on the walls, everywhere, go on repeating.
In the old days it was thought that wherever there is a demand
the supply happens on its own accord. Now, that is not the rule.
The rule is, if you have something to supply, create the demand.
Go on hammering in people's minds certain words so that they forget
completely that they have been listening to it on the radio, on
the television, in the films, in the newspaper, and they start
believing it. Listening continually to something, they start purchasing
it—any soap, any toothpaste, any cigarette. You can sell
anything….
For centuries man has been sold beliefs, dogmas, creeds which
are absolutely untrue, which have no evidence except in your ambition,
except in your laziness. You don't want to do anything, and you
want to reach to heaven….
So my work begins with negativity—I have to destroy every
program that has been given to you. By whom, it does not matter—whether
it is Catholic or Protestant does not matter; I have to deprogram
you so you are clean and unburdened. Your doors and your windows
are opened.
And then the second part, the essential part, is to teach you
how to enter within. Because you know very well how to go out;
for many lives you have been going out and out and out. You are
accustomed to it. You don't think when you go to your office,
"Now turn left, now turn right, now turn…. " When
you come home you don't think in this way. Simply, mechanically,
like a robot you go on every day coming home, every day going
to the office.
The outer journey is your habit.
But the inner world is a new world where you have not even looked,
where you have never taken a single step. So I have to teach you
how, slowly, you can step inwards….
Once the negative part is complete—and it depends on your
intelligence, it can be complete within a second. If you can see
that all that you have is borrowed, and if you have courage to
decide that, "I will not carry anything borrowed; I take
the decision to find out something for myself, my own truth"….
What is the point of knowing all that has been written about love
and never being in love? You may collect a whole library on love—beautiful
poetries, dramas, novels—but it is all pointless; you don't
know what love is. You have never loved. A single moment of love
is more valuable than your whole library.
The same is true about everything that is valuable. A single insight
into yourself is more valuable than all your scriptures. A single
glimpse of your consciousness and you have entered the real temple—which
is not made of bricks and marble, but which already exists in
you; it is made of consciousness itself. It is a flame, an eternal
flame which has been burning since eternity. It needs no fuel.
It is waiting for you to see it because by seeing it, your eyes
for the first time will have something—the joy, the light,
the song, the beauty, the ecstasy.
And it is not that when you enter in, your outer will be forgotten.
As you enter in, your outer starts radiating the inner—in
your gestures, the way you see, the way you talk, the authority
behind your words. Even your touch, even your presence, even your
silence will be a message.
The inner and the outer are parts of one reality.
First you have to cleanse the outer, which has been distorted
by centuries. It is fortunate that nobody can distort your inner
reality; nobody can enter there except you. You cannot even invite
your lover, your friend. Except you, you cannot take anyone there.
It is fortunate; otherwise everything would have been spoiled
in you and recovery would have been impossible.
Only the outer side is covered with dust of all kinds; a small
understanding can make you free of it. But that is an essential
part—the negative part—to know the false as false,
because the moment you know it is false, it drops, it disappears.
And after that the inner journey is very light, very simple. upan02
In one of Your latest letters to the therapists Hasya said that
You abandoned the outer sannyas in favor of the inner sannyas.
Would you please say more about it?
I have been working hard to abandon everything that is outer,
so that only the inner remains for you to explode.
Otherwise the man's mind is a very immature mind. It starts clinging
with outer symbols. That has happened to all the religions of
the world. They all started well, but they all went astray. And
the reason was that the outer was emphasized so much that people
completely forgot the inner. To fulfill the outer was such life-absorbing
task that there was no space left even to remember about your
inward journey which is basically the meaning of religiousness.
I want my people to understand it clearly. Neither your clothes,
nor your outer disciplines nor anything that has been given to
you by tradition and you have accepted it just on belief, is going
to help. The only thing that can create a revolution in you is
going beyond the mind into the world of consciousness. Except
that, nothing is religious. But to begin with and with a world
which is too much obsessed with outer things, I had to start sannyas
also with outer things. Change your cloths into orange, wear a
Mala, meditate, but the emphasis was only on meditation.
But I found that people can change their clothes very easily but
they cannot change their minds. They can wear the Mala, but they
cannot move into their consciousness. And because they are in
orange cloths, wearing a Mala, having a new name, they start believing
that they have become a sannyasin.
Sannyas is not so cheap. Hence it is time and you are mature enough
that beginning phase is over. If you like the orange color, the
red color, perfectly good—it cannot do any harm, but it
is not a help either. If you love the Mala, if you love the locket
with my picture on it, it is simply your ornament, but it has
nothing to do with religion. So now I reduce religion to its absolute
essentiality. And that is meditation. If you are meditating and
if you are reaching higher and higher into your consciousness,
thoughts are left far behind. You experience that your body is
just outside you, your mind is just outside you and you are standing
in the middle, the center of the cyclone, in utter silence, in
absolute beauty, in great light, in utter fulfillment. Except
the process of meditation, everything is non-essential.
I don't want my people to be lost into non-essentials. In the
beginning it was necessary. Now years of listening to me, understanding
me, you are in a position to be freed from all outer bondage.
And you can for the first time be really a sannyasin only if you
are moving inwards. last613
What do you foresee as the future of your sannyas movement? Do
you see it as prospering, even when you're not here?
Sannyas movement is not mine. It is not yours. It was here when
I was not here. It will be here when I will not be here.
Sannyas movement simply means the movement of the seekers of truth.
They have always been here.
Of course, they have been always tortured by the ignorant masses:
killed, murdered, crucified, or worshipped….
There have always been a line of seekers of truth… I call
it sannyas. It is eternal. It is sanatan. It has nothing to do
with me.
Millions of people have contributed to it. I have also contributed
my own share. It will go on becoming more and more richer. When
I am gone there will be more and more people coming and making
it richer. The old sannyas was serious. I have contributed to
it a sense of humor. The old sannyas was sad. I have contributed
to it singing, dancing, laughing… I have made it more human.
The old sannyas was somehow life-negative. I have made it life-affirmative.
But it is the same sannyas. It is the same search. I have made
it more rich. I have made it more grounded in the world because
my whole teaching is `be in the world, but don't be of the world.'
There is no need to renounce the world. Only cowards renounce
it. Live in the world, experience it. It is a school. You cannot
grow in the Himalayas. You can only grow in the world.
Each step is an examination. Each step you are passing through
a test. Life is an opportunity.
I will be gone. That does not mean that the sannyas movement will
be gone. It does not belong to anybody.
Just as science does not belong to Albert Einstein. Why the search
for truth should belong to somebody? To Gautam Buddha? To J Krishnamurti?
Or to me? Or to you?
Just as science goes on growing and every scientific genius goes
on contributing to it and the Ganges goes on becoming bigger and
wider—oceanic; in the same way the inner world needs a science.
The objective world has a science. The inner world needs a science
and I call sannyas the science of the inner world. It has been
growing but because it goes against humanities attachments, ignorance,
superstitions, so-called religions, churches, priests, popes,
shankaracharyas… these are the enemies of the inner search
because the inner search needs no organization.
Sannyas movement is not an organization: that is why I call it
`movement'. It is individual. People join. I had started alone
and then people started coming and joining me and slowly, slowly
the caravan became bigger and bigger. But it is not an organization.
I am nobody's leader. Nobody has to follow me. I am grateful that
you have allowed me to share my bliss, my love, my ecstasy. I
am grateful to you. Nobody is my follower, nobody is lower. There
is no hierarchy. It is not a religion. It is pure religiousness.
The very essence. Not a flower, but only a fragrance. You cannot
catch hold of it.
You can have the experience of it, you can be surrounded by the
perfume, but you cannot catch hold of it.
Religions are like dead flowers you can find in Bibles, in Gitas…
When they were put in the Bible they were living, they were fragrant,
but now it is only a corpse. All holy books are corpses, dead
flowers and nothing else.
Truth, the living truth, has to be discovered by each individual
by himself. Nobody can give it to you.
Yes, somebody who has achieved it can transpire a thirst in you,
a tremendous desire for it. I cannot give you the truth, but I
can give you the desire for it.
I cannot give you the truth, but I can show you the moon…
please don't get attached to my finger which is indicating the
moon. This finger will disappear. The moon will remain and the
search will continue.
As long as there is a single human being on the earth the flowers
of sannyas will go on blossoming. last614
What is the function and the importance of all head-quarters
for You in Europe? And how will it impart Your spiritual guidance?
Doesn't it imply organization and structure again?
The world head-quarters has nothing to do with organization, structure.
In fact, to avoid organizations and structures, the world head-quarters
is being created. I receive thousands of letters, it is impossible
for me to answer them all. It is even impossible for me even to
read them all. And I will be a wandering mystic onwards, because
no country has the courage to let me settle there, even my own
country where I was born wants me to fulfill certain conditions.
I have never fulfilled conditions imposed upon me by anyone.
So for me the only course remains to wander around the earth.
And in a way perhaps this is what existence wants me. Because
in this way, I will be able to reach more people than in any other
way. In this way I will be available to almost every sannyasin
around the world than in any other way….
The world head quarters has nothing to do with any organization.
It is simply my secretariat. That's why I have given it a name
`Rajneesh Foundation International World Headquarters of Bhagwan
Shree Rajneesh'.
It has nothing to do with anybody else. It is my personal secretariat
where all the correspondence from the world can reach, from where
people can find where am I, in which country's jail. Otherwise
millions of sannyasins around the world were in a difficulty,
they could not keep track of me….
The world headquarters will be publishing my books, will be
releasing my tapes, videotapes, will be doing every kind of work.
But it has no domination over anybody. All communes of the world
are independent. All centers of the world are absolutely free.
They are under nobody's guidance. My sannyasins are directly related
to me. The world head-quarters will simply function so that you
can have a connection with me. Otherwise you don't have any place
to whom to ask where I am, what is happening to me. The world
head-quarters is not in any way a power over any sannyasin, over
any other sannyas centers, ashramas, communes. It has nothing
to do that. It is my secretariat. And its function is to convey
to me messages of importance and to convey to the sannyasins my
messages of any importance to anybody. It is not an organization.
It is not a structure. It is simply a functional office. last613
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