Beloved Osho,
Do you think your teaching is a radical one?
Giulia, 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 a 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 dont 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… a 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 dont 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.
Giulia, I would like to say that I dont 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 dont 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 dont 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 dont 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.
Osho, The Rebellious Spirit, Ch 11, Q 2<style>.footer-ad{display: none !important;}</style>