The first question:
Osho,
I was brought up as a Catholic, so how come Jesus is a stranger to me?
Jesus is always a stranger. It does not matter whether you were brought up as a Catholic or a Protestant, a Hindu or a Mohammedan. The very being of Jesus is that of a stranger because he is an outsider. He lives on a different plane, he lives in a different dimension. He lives in godliness, you live in the world. He talks a different language; he talks about things that you have not even dreamt of. You cannot trust him. You cannot even understand him; he is incomprehensible. You may have been brought up as a Catholic and that means from your childhood you have been taught things about Jesus. Those are simply words; you have not been introduced to Jesus because that introduction is possible only through meditation – not through any kind of teaching, not through the Catholic catechism. It is all rubbish. In fact, rather than helping you to become acquainted with Jesus, it becomes a barrier: you become knowledgeable. You know many things about Jesus without knowing Jesus. The more you know about him, the less you think that you need to know him. By and by you become satisfied; you start feeling that you already know him without knowing him at all. That’s what the Christian teachings do – the more you have been taught, the more you become familiar, the more it breeds contempt.
So, sometimes it happens that one who has not been brought up as a Christian may have fresher eyes to see Jesus because his mind will be uncluttered. He will not know anything, he will look through innocence. He will not be conditioned, he will look empty. He will approach Jesus without any prejudice for or against. And you can know Jesus only when you are nude, naked – naked of all beliefs, naked of all prejudices, when you approach him without any preoccupation, when your mind is utterly silent. In fact the Catholic upbringing has done just the opposite. All religions are doing that, it is nothing special to the Catholic Church. Hindus destroy the possibility of knowing Krishna, Buddhists destroy the possibility of knowing Buddha – because knowledge becomes more important than knowing, and knowledge is secondhand. Only knowing can help. And remember, let me repeat it again: Jesus is a stranger. He may be standing by your side, but he is not there, he is somewhere else. You may be standing in front of Jesus, but you are not there, you are somewhere else. You and Jesus never meet because the planes are so different. You never crisscross – you cannot. Unless you become something like Jesus, there is no possibility. To become like Jesus needs great meditation, needs great intelligence – not a Catholic upbringing, not a Sunday religion, not foolish dogmas and creeds. Great intelligence, sensitivity, awareness…
People are fast asleep. Somebody is asleep as a Christian and somebody is asleep as a Hindu. That doesn’t matter – sleep is sleep. A Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan – if all the three get drunk, will there be any distinction, differentiation between their drunkenness? The Hindu will behave as foolishly as the Mohammedan; the Mohammedan will behave as stupidly as the Christian. Once they are drunk, they are drunk. People are asleep. It makes no difference what kind of theology you have used as a pillow for your sleep. Whether the pillow is white, green, blue or red does not matter. Once you fall asleep, you fall asleep; the pillow becomes immaterial. Whether you are sleeping on the Bible, on the Gita, on the Koran does not make any difference; you are using a pillow. Somebody is using the Bible as the pillow, somebody else is using the Koran as the pillow. You are snoring over your scriptures. Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, and Krishna remain strangers. They do not belong to this world, that’s why Hindus call them avatars. Avatar means one who has come from beyond, descended from the beyond, like a ray of light descends into darkness. It comes from the transcendental world, from the world of turiya – the fourth.
Jesus looks like you, but he is not like you. Don’t be deceived by the appearance. He is here on earth and not of it. He moves in the same world, the same marketplace, the same people; he rubs shoulders with you, holds your hand, looks into your eyes, but he does not belong to this world. He belongs to the other shore. He has risen, he has risen in God. You can also rise and only by rising will you be able to understand him, befriend him; otherwise he will remain an outsider. Jesus is a lotus. You are still the mud. There cannot be any dialogue between the lotus and the mud – although the lotus is born out of the mud, although the mud is carrying many more lotuses than have become manifest. Many unmanifested lotuses are there in the mud, but the mud and the lotus are so different – strangers to each other. That is the situation. If you want to understand the lotus you will have to become a lotus. Only a lotus can have a dialogue with a lotus.
Never become a Christian. If you want to become something, become a christ. Never become a Buddhist. If you want to become something, become a buddha; otherwise you will remain unaware of the reality of Jesus. And because people feel uneasy – uneasy because they cannot comprehend Jesus – they create theories. Rather than transforming themselves, they load Jesus with theories, theories which can help them make him comprehensible. No theory can make him comprehensible. All theology is false. But there are only two ways: either you wrap theories around Jesus which you can understand… In that way you feel that you have understood him, but you have understood only the theories that you have wrapped around him. He remains there, absolutely far away, distant. He is not even touched by your theories. You can weave and spin beautiful philosophies around him. You will be able to understand that philosophy – it is woven by you – it is your creation, rather, it is your invention. But Jesus, who is just standing there hidden behind your philosophies, is still an outsider. In fact your philosophies, your theories, have made him more of an outsider than he was. With those theories, a Wall of China has come between you and him.
If you are a Christian, you will never understand Jesus. Your very Christianity will be an obstruction, a hindrance. How can you understand Jesus when you are a Christian? Impossible! What does it mean to be a Christian? – it means that you have certain ideas about Christ. You are clinging to certain theories; those theories become more important than Christ himself. Naturally, because you can understand those theories and you cannot understand Christ. So those theories become more and more important. You can discard Jesus, but you cannot discard your theories. That’s why there are so many Christianities – the Christianity of the Catholic, the Christianity of the Protestant, and the Christianity of many other sects. They all go on fighting, they are always at each other’s throats – and they are all followers of Jesus. So where is the conflict?
The conflict is not between their Jesuses, because Jesus is one. The conflict is between their theories, and they cling to the theory. They can discard Jesus very easily – Jesus is discarded, but they cannot discard their theory. Their theory is more important; it is their invention. Jesus has become secondary. No, you cannot understand Christ if you are a Christian or a Catholic. You can understand Christ only if you are a nobody. I am not saying that you can understand Christ if you are a Hindu. When you are a nobody, when you drop all the curtains and you start moving in that reality called christ without any preoccupied mind – empty, clean, clear, no smoke around you; just a clarity and the freshness that clarity brings, and the vitality that clarity brings – and you start approaching Jesus, with no idea of who he is, there will be a meeting. Only if you are a nobody can you meet with Christ or Buddha or Krishna. These are different names for the same state of consciousness. It is the fourth state of consciousness. Theories belong to the third state of consciousness and Jesus, Buddha, belong to the fourth state. You will have to drop many things before you can feel Jesus.

The second question:
Osho,
India is such a sacred country – the heart of spiritualism. I don't understand all the crude remarks that they write about you in magazines. Why is India so ignorant in recognizing you?
If they recognize me, then I will not be of much worth. They don’t recognize me because I have something important to deliver to you. The recognition is not possible; it has never been possible. Christ was not recognized by the Jews, Buddha was not recognized by the Hindus – how can they recognize me? Recognition comes from the past, and I am herenow. Recognition means that I should behave in a pattern that they recognize. If I walk naked, then Digamber Jainas will recognize me because they have the idea that an enlightened person walks naked. They cannot recognize me with clothes on – those clothes are a barrier. Buddhists will recognize me only if I look like Buddha. I don’t look like Buddha and I am not sorry that I don’t. I am happy that I look only like me and I don’t look like anybody else. If you look like somebody else, you are a carbon copy. Carbon copies can be recognized because they tally with some original. I cannot be recognized because I myself am an original; it does not tally with anybody. The Christian will come and he will start thinking in terms of Christ. He will start looking for Christ in me and he will not find him. That is obvious. The Buddhist starts looking for the Buddha and he cannot find him. Because I am me – and the recognition of me, if you are searching for it in some past pattern, structure, is impossible. You can recognize me only as me. To see me as me, you will need to become unprejudiced. To be a Hindu is to be prejudiced. To be an Indian is to be prejudiced.
So you ask: “India is such a sacred country…” First, never be befooled by such slogans. No country is sacred, no country has ever been sacred. It is only rarely that one individual in millions becomes sacred – countries are not sacred. Just because Buddha was in India, has India become sacred? Does that mean because Albert Einstein was born in Germany, Germany has become mathematical? Does that mean that if some country has produced a great painter, the country has become artistic? It does not mean anything. No country can be artistic because it has given birth to a Picasso, and no country can be a musical country because a Wagner or a Mozart was born there. No country can be sacred because a Buddha or a Mahavira was born there. Jesus was not born in India. Mohammed was not born in India. Zarathustra was not born in India. Lao Tzu was not born in India. Sacred people have been coming to the world in different places. Places have nothing to do with it – places are just places. Buddha was born in India, but only one in a million. And what about the million fools? If you judge by numbers, then every country is a foolish country because it produces millions of fools and rarely a buddha.
No country is sacred. No geography is sacred. No history is sacred. That quality of sacredness happens only to individuals, because a country has no soul to become holy. A country has no individuality, only individuals have souls. Meditation happens in a soul, not in a country. Meditation happens in an individuality, not in a collectivity, not in a society. Remember it. Although every country tries to prove itself the best in some way or other, it is part of the game of the ego. Every country thinks: “I am incomparable.” You can go to any country and every country thinks deep inside that it is higher than others, holier than others, more moral than others, this and that. This is part of our egoistic mind which is being projected in the name of the country – sometimes in the name of religion. Every religion thinks, “This is the highest religion there is – my religion. My religion has to be the highest because it is my religion. I am the greatest person in the world – how can it be otherwise?”

I have heard about a professor of philosophy who was head of the department of philosophy at the University of Paris. One day he declared: “I am the greatest man in the world.”
His disciples, his students, were a little puzzled because he was a poor professor. First, he was a professor, and a professor of philosophy – the poorest. They could not believe it, but they had always thought that he was a little eccentric, otherwise why should one go and study philosophy? He was a little crazy, but that day they thought he had gone completely out of his mind. What was he saying – that he was the greatest man in the world?
One student, just jokingly, stood up and said, “Sir, can you prove it? We need proof and we can expect proof from a man like you – a logician, a professor. Have you got any proof for your statement?”
The professor said, “Yes, I have brought it.” He had brought a map of the world. He fixed the map of the world on the blackboard. They could not understand what he was going to do with the map. By and by they came to understand.
First he said, “I will ask one question: which is the greatest country in the world?”
They were all French, so naturally they said, “France.”
He said, “So now, the whole world can be dropped; we can concentrate on France. If I can prove that I am the greatest Frenchman, I will be proving that I am the greatest man in the world.”
Still they were not certain what he was going to do.
Then he asked, “Which is the greatest city in France?” Naturally, it is Paris, they were all Parisians. Now they started suspecting that there was something in it.
He said, “Paris! I am the greatest man in Paris. If I can prove this, then my first statement will be proved.” Then he asked, “Which is the greatest place in the city of Paris?”
Naturally, it is the university – the seat of learning, the seat of wisdom, knowledge. Now it was clear to everybody that they were trapped.
He asked, “Which is the greatest department and the greatest subject in the university? It is philosophy. You are all students of philosophy, so naturally it is philosophy.”
He asked, “Who is head of the department of philosophy? – I am the greatest man in the world.”

That’s how we go on vicariously, indirectly, proving that we are the greatest. So our country is the most sacred, our country is the bravest, our country is the most intelligent, our country is the most aesthetic, and all kind of things are being claimed. Everybody else is a barbarian, uncivilized. Everybody else is the link between monkey and man. We are men and everybody else is a link. It is not only Adolf Hitler’s logic, it is the logic of everybody. Unless this logic is thrown to the dogs, Adolf Hitlers will go on coming. They use this logic. They say that our race is the Nordic race, the Aryans, the purest blood… These statements are all nonsense. What do you mean by pure blood? Everybody’s blood is pure – unless you mix something in it, everybody’s blood is pure. What do you mean by pure blood? What do you mean by a pure race? All races have been mixing and man has grown by the races mixing together. The crossbreed is the stronger breed because it has more complexity. Growth is from the simple to the complex. What do you mean by calling a race “pure”? But these are just egoistic ideas. It appeals, it appeals to people. It gives them great nourishment; it becomes food for their egos. No country is sacred. Yes, there have been individuals, but only few and far between – a Buddha, a Christ, a Zarathustra, a Mohammed – they can be counted on one’s fingers. These are sacred people. But they have been coming to every part and place of the world, they have been coming to every place in geography. Never be trapped by such slogans. These slogans are dangerous, poisonous.
You say: “India is such a sacred country…” It is not, because no country is. And you say: “…the heart of spiritualism.” All nonsense! You cannot find a more materialistic country in the world than India. But you will have to look with open eyes. You will be surprised how this idea that India is the heart of spiritualism is not allowing you to see the reality.
Another sannyasin has written, “Osho, I am freaking out that the move to Gujarat is postponed.” Why is she freaking out? – because she says: “In Pune it is so difficult to walk on the streets. People look at you with such lustful eyes. One feels embarrassed. They come on bikes and motorbikes and hit you. They will not lose an opportunity to touch a woman’s body. They are crude and ugly.” I can understand the sannyasin’s letter to me.
You call these people: “…the heart of spiritualism”? They are the most sexually obsessed people in the world. Of course, they are against sex, but that does not make them non-sexual, that makes them sex-obsessed. Their whole mind is sex-obsessed. They are thinking of sex continuously – and they are against it. Because they are against it, they cannot fulfill it; because they cannot fulfill it, it goes on accumulating and it drives them crazy and perverted. Now, this is ugly. If you love a woman, to hold her hand has a beauty, to caress her body has a beauty. But a woman just walking on the road and you hit her…? It is perversion! It is… Love has gone into a very poisoned and ill state of affairs. It is pathological. It is uncivilized, uncultured. But this goes on happening.
These people are against materialism. But don’t just listen to their words, watch their lives and you will find them more materialistic than anybody else. Indians are so obsessed with money; money seems to be their god. No other country worships money, but in India it is worshipped. They have a special day in the year when they worship notes and rupees – that day is coming closer – Diwali. No country in the world has ever worshipped rupees and money, yet they worship it. This is not just symbolic, this is very indicative. They cling to money like anything. It is very difficult for them to be non-greedy, to leave a single paise is impossible. That’s why, if somebody renounces a little bit of money, he is thought to be a great man. That too is materialism.
Why? If somebody has renounced money, what is the point in it? Why should he be praised? But he is praised like anything, the whole country will talk about him. He will be thought to be a great man – he has renounced money. Money must be the greatest value. One becomes great if one renounces money. If people were really spiritual, renouncing money would just mean that somebody has renounced his mistake, that’s all. There is nothing great in it. Somebody has found that money is valueless, so he has renounced it. But there is nothing to be praised in it; he has corrected his error. He was thinking that two and two are five, now he has come to understand that two and two are four. You don’t go declaring that he has become a buddha because now he knows two and two are four. Before, he was stupid; now he is normal. But in India, if you renounce money, it is worshipped because people know how much they are clinging to money. And you call India the heart of spiritualism? This is what Indians have been teaching the whole world. Don’t be deceived – this is just advertising. They go on claiming all over the world that they are the heart, that they have the greatest secrets of spirituality. They go on exploiting in the name of spirituality. They can deceive people, and they can deceive only because people are no longer materialistic, particularly in the West.
Let me explain it. In the West there is material affluence. People have much more money, better houses, bigger cars, better bank balances, that is true – but people are not materialistic. They have a lot of material wealth, but that does not mean that they are materialistic. In the East, people are poor, but that does not mean that they are spiritual. Poverty has nothing to do with spirituality. In fact, you can become aware that material wealth has nothing in it only when you have it, not before.
Psychologists talk about three layers or planes of desires and needs – they call it the hierarchy of needs. The first they call physiological needs, the second psychological needs, the third spiritual needs. This idea of the hierarchy of needs is very important. The first and basic needs are physiological – food, sex, shelter. If food is not available, you cannot think of poetry. If food is not available, you cannot think of music – a higher need. If sex is not available, you cannot think of love. Love is a higher need; it comes only when sex has become very satisfied, not before it. When you have food, the right shelter, clothes, warmth, and you are not constantly starving yourself and not constantly afraid of tomorrow – tomorrow is coming and you may again be hungry and you may not get bread and butter – then you start thinking of something else: music, poetry, literature, painting. When sexual needs are fulfilled, love arises; it cannot arise if sexual needs are not fulfilled. In India, sexual needs are not fulfilled, that’s why people are not loving – notwithstanding what they pretend. People are not loving because their basic need is not fulfilled; they are sexually starved.
Because the need for food is not fulfilled – thousands of people die every year because of starvation, and those who are not dying are undernourished – they cannot have higher needs, they cannot think of beauty and they cannot think of the stars. They cannot see dewdrops on the grass in the morning and they cannot see the sun rising – that is not possible. The body needs to be completely satisfied. When the body is satisfied, it starts moving into new dimensions; it thinks of higher things, it dreams of higher things.
The second stage is of psychological needs: love, music, art, painting, poetry, sculpture. If your need for love is not fulfilled, prayer never arises. That is the third, the highest need. Sex fulfilled – love arises; love fulfilled – prayer arises. When physiological needs are fulfilled, you start singing and dancing. When the need to dance is fulfilled, the need to meditate arises. When you have heard the outer music, you want to hear the inner music. When you have known the poetry that is created by words, then you want to know the poetry that is wordless, the poetry that arises in silence. Those are spiritual needs. There is no way to jump over them. What I am talking about here is the highest need. So it is not accidental that people from the West are coming to me and the people of India go on condemning me; it is just natural. I don’t take any offense from it; it is natural, it is how it should be. I am talking of the third need – the spiritual need – and people in India are not even fulfilling their first need. There is no meeting between me and them. I am a stranger here, an outsider. They need food first, they don’t need God at all. God does not make sense. They can’t be interested in music. How can they be interested in music? How can they see the beauty of a solitary tree standing all alone in the field? It is impossible. They are preoccupied with the needs of their bodies. So whatsoever I say is completely incomprehensible to them. They take revenge. They go on criticizing. In criticizing me, they think they have solved the problem; they are deceiving themselves. They don’t want to see the problem. They don’t want to see that a country can be spiritual only when it is settled as far as materialism is concerned.
Spirituality is a higher stage of materialism.
It is the same search. First you have to seek in matter, and then you have to seek in the mind. When you don’t find it in matter, you start seeking in the mind, but matter has to be searched completely, only then can you rise to the mind. When you search in the mind and you don’t find it – and you have searched the whole realm of the mind – you start searching in the soul. That’s how it is. Because I call a spade a spade, people don’t like it. How can they like it? If I say that India is sexually obsessed – how can they like it? They like Vivekananda because he says, “You are the greatest country in the world. You are the most spiritual country in the world. You are the source of all spirituality. You are the source of all wisdom. You are the source which is going to lead the whole world.” They feel very good. They can’t feel good with me. With Vivekananda they feel good. Vivekananda becomes a hero because he satisfies their egos. Just because he satisfies their egos, I declare that he is not enlightened because no enlightened man will ever satisfy anybody’s ego. To satisfy anybody’s ego, is really inimical, it is poisoning him. I say things as they are. I say it is one of the most barbarous countries – ugly, materialistic, money-oriented, sex-obsessed. I don’t deny that Buddha has been here, Mahavira has been here. They were spiritual people, but they don’t make the whole country spiritual.
If I am here – remember – some day, after a few centuries, Pune will claim that Pune is spiritual because of me. I have nothing to do with Pune and Pune has nothing to do with me. Just the same was the case with Buddha. India had nothing to do with him. He was alone and solitary, and people were criticizing him as cruelly as they are criticizing me. They have always done that. They were throwing stones at Mahavira, they are throwing stones at me. They have always done that. Not only here, they have done that everywhere in the world. Whenever somebody brings light into the darkness, people feel offended because his presence becomes a very embarrassing phenomenon – he reminds you of your darkness, he reminds you of your ugliness.
Haven’t you heard about the woman who was against mirrors? Whenever she would come across a mirror, she would immediately throw a stone at it and break it. Why was she so very much against mirrors? This was her logic: mirrors are against me and whenever I come before a mirror, the mirror shows that I am ugly. She was ugly, but she was very much offended by the mirror because the mirror showed her as ugly. She was throwing the responsibility onto the mirror. That has always been so. Buddha is a mirror; he reflects whatsoever you are. If you are ugly, he reflects you as ugly. If you are materialistic, he reflects you as materialistic. He simply reflects without changing, without coloring – he simply reflects that which is. Naturally people feel offended because their ugliness and all kinds of darknesses, snakes and scorpions which are moving inside their beings, are reflected. They want to throw a stone at the mirror. If the mirror is not there, they will be at ease again. Hence, they crucified Jesus and they killed Socrates. This has been their attitude everywhere and always.
You ask me: “India is such a sacred country – the heart of spiritualism. I don’t understand all the crude remarks that they write about you in magazines.” They are very understandable. There is nothing special about them. If they didn’t write those crude remarks about me, that would not be right.
Lao Tzu has said: “When I talk about Tao, there are very few who understand it. Those who understand become silent. There are many who feel offended – they become angry. And there are more of the angry people.” Lao Tzu says: “If people don’t become angry, what I am saying is not the truth.”

A mystic used to stay with me. He was a really beautiful old man, very strange, very eccentric, but always to the point. He used to deliver talks all over the country. He had something to give. Whenever people applauded, he would become very angry. He would say: “Stop! Don’t applaud because whenever you applaud, I think I must have said something wrong. If you can understand it, it must be wrong. When you don’t understand, only then is there a possibility that some truth has been said. If you become angry, then certainly some truth has been said, some stone has been thrown into your sleep and you have become disturbed. Your dreams are disturbed. You are ready to take revenge.”

Because I am saying the truth, because I am being the truth, it is very natural.
“I don’t understand all the crude remarks that they write in magazines about you.” They should be writing more and more. The more people will be coming to me, the angrier they will become, because the more dangerous I will be to them. More and more people will be coming; they are on the way. There will be thousands, many thousands of sannyasins around here. They will become very angry because they will become afraid, more afraid that what I am saying is becoming powerful. They will try everything to destroy what I am saying. They will try in every way to destroy me. That is natural, there is nothing unexpected in it. You have to be ready for it; you have to be ready to accept all this. You need not feel offended, this is the way they are showing their respect toward me. When they threw stones at Buddha, they were showing their respect. That was their way of recognizing that someone dangerous was present. When they crucified Jesus, that was their respect – their way of respecting a man who had brought truth to them. When they poisoned Socrates, that was their humble homage. So this is going to happen and it is going to happen more and more. You have to accept it without any anger.
“Why is India so ignorant in recognizing you?” Because India is very knowledgeable; India thinks it knows already. Every pan wallah, every chai wallah knows what truth is. They can quote the Gita and the Vedas, they are like parrots. India is a country of pundits, parrots. They go on repeating mechanically. If they think they know, how can they recognize me? I am saying things which go against their parrot-like knowledge. I go on saying things which are against their so-called knowledge. I am trying to give truth new words because the old words have become rotten, because the old words have been used so long that they have lost their intensity. They have lost their life, they have become like a dirty currency note. When a note comes from the mint it is fresh, clean; when it moves through hands – from one hand to another – it starts becoming dirty. Words are also currency. Currency means they go on moving, they are like a current – from one mouth to another mouth, the word goes on moving down the centuries. It becomes very dirty. The Vedas have become dirty, so has the Bible.
I am trying to renew; I am trying to give new words to old truths, new bottles for the old wine. They cannot recognize the bottle, they don’t know anything about the wine – they have never tasted it. They only know about the old bottle. When they see the new bottle they become angry: “This can’t be the truth.” The truth has to be in the old bottle. The old bottle is rotten, maybe broken, and the wine has flowed out. It may be just an empty bottle, and they don’t know anything about the wine, they only know about the bottle. So if I give a new bottle, they cannot recognize it. Only those who have tasted wine will recognize me, not otherwise.
You will recognize me because you are tasting with me. You are a part of the feast that I am, you are celebrating with me. The more you taste, the more you will know that what I am saying is exactly what Jesus, or Buddha, or Krishna said. But first you will have to taste me, then that recognition will come. They are too occupied with Krishna’s words and Buddha’s words. Those words are like bottles. Those people cannot come here, they are very, very scared, frightened. Maybe they have somewhere, deep down a suspicion: “Maybe there is truth…?” And if they come close, they may be converted. That fear, that unconscious fear is there. They go on talking against me and they don’t know anything about me. They go on writing against me and they have never come here. They never listen, they never look into my eyes, never come close. They go on circulating rumors and they feed upon each other’s rumors. It is a mutual arrangement. Somebody writes one article in a magazine, somebody else reads it, writes another – basing himself on that article. It goes on and on in this way. And of course, they have much material; they have been reflecting each other. Nobody comes to me. But that’s how they have always done it. They are afraid to come. In fact, they criticize me just to protect themselves. That criticism helps them because then they think, “Now there is no need.”
But more and more people will be coming to me. Thirsty people, seekers who have nothing to do with Christianity or Hinduism or Mohammedanism, will be coming to me. I am here only for the seekers not for the mob. What the mob says is irrelevant. I am here for those who are ready to be transformed and transfigured. I only want to be for them. I don’t want to waste a single minute on anybody else. Those people are there around the world – many at this moment because this moment is critical in the history of man, in the history of human consciousness. A great jump! Either man dies or man becomes new – that is the only choice. The old man cannot continue. The old man has arranged his suicide; he is ready to commit global suicide. Either the old mind wins and there will be a global suicide and humanity will disappear from the earth, or the new mind will be born – that’s what the effort here is – and humanity will take a new direction. The new man will be born. The new man will not be Indian, not be German, not be Chinese. The new man will not be Christian, not be Hindu, not be Mohammedan. The new man will not be black, will not be white. The new man will not be man, will not be woman. The new man will be a totally different kind of being, with no adjectives around him. A purity, a primal innocence. My work is to give birth to that new man.
If only a few can be transformed, they will become the heralds. Only a few seeds… If they can grow into the new man, they will create the new humanity. My whole interest is with them and in them. I want to invest my whole energy into those few people who are ready to slip out of the old skin and become new. The Indians cannot recognize me, the Christians cannot recognize me, the Hindus cannot recognize me. To recognize me they will have to come out of their preoccupations.

Two keen football fans, up in London for a big match, decided to spend the evening at a Soho strip club. The first act was a very voluptuous blonde who went through her whole routine while the whole audience stared open-mouthed. As the curtain came down and the applause rang out, one of the two fans said, “Phooey!”
His companion was surprised, but said nothing. The second act was even more breathtaking but again, when the curtain came down, the first man said, “Phooey!”
This went on all through the show – however beautiful and exotic the girls were, after each act the first man said, “Phooey!”
Finally the second man could stand it no longer.
“What’s the matter with you?” he said. “These are some of the most attractive and sexy girls I’ve ever seen – and all you can say is ‘Phooey?’”
“I’m not thinking about the girls,” replied the friend. “I’m thinking about my wife!”

Now this is his preoccupation. He is not looking at those girls, he is thinking of his wife. He is not saying “Phooey!” to these girls. He is saying again and again “Phooey!” to his wife. A preoccupied mind never sees that which it is confronting, never sees that which is. It goes on comparing. When an Indian comes, he is not listening to what I am saying, he is comparing in his head – whether it corresponds with the Vedas, whether it follows the Gita, is in harmony with this or that. He is continuously working inside his mind, comparing, judging, condemning, criticizing – and he goes on missing. He looks as if he is here, he is not. It is not only a question of Indians. Anybody who has come with a fixed mind will have the same difficulty.
Ramanandas’s old mother is here. Just the other day, somebody said that she went to mass at the church. Here, Jesus is being made alive. Here, we are living Jesus again, moving with Jesus again; here, Jesus is again not a history but a presence. But Ramanandas’s mother had to go to church, to mass, to listen to some stupid priest there. The preoccupied mind! My Christ is not her Christ. My Christ is alien. She wants the Christ who is sold in the church, she wants the old bottle. She must have felt good there because this must be a strange world to her. These orange people – what are they doing here? There, with the same kind of people, with the same kind of mind, she must have felt good; she must have felt relaxed, at home. This is how it happens with the preoccupied mind.

The Christian visitor to Jerusalem asked his Israeli host to show him the Wailing Wall. Arriving at the sacred spot, the visitor put on his hat, stood close to the wall, and said, “Thank you, Lord, for all the blessings you have bestowed upon me during my life.” Then he turned to his Israeli friend and said, “Is that nice?”
“That’s nice,” said the Israeli smiling.
The Christian then turned back to the wall and said, “Please, Lord, keep my family and friends in health and prosperity. Is that nice?”
“That’s nice.”
“And persuade the Israelis to see the error of their ways and to hand back to the Arab nations the land taken from them in the recent conflicts, so that there may be peace in the Middle East. Is that nice?”
The Israeli said, “You’re talking to a wall.”

The third question:
Osho,
I am very interested in the “miracles” of Jesus, especially his healings and his resurrection. He has also said that others could do the same. Is this possible? If so, how? And is it necessary for the physical body to die before one learns how to manifest and demanifest at will?

I have rebirther friends who have developed some “powers”: teleportation, astral double, transforming one's body form and functions. Is it dangerous for them to be developing these “powers” before being fully realized? They say it's easy. You just have to believe you can do it.

How does one protect oneself from negative group thought forms? For example: “Don't drink the water or you'll get amoebas” or “Everyone gets sick in Pune.” It seems to be true. I had not been sick for two years before coming here, and had learned to heal myself. Yet here I feel the group conscious or unconscious negativity weighing me down. I too am sick and I don't like it very much.

What I don't like is feeling the effect of the group mind and unable to maintain my space. Please discuss. It has always seemed to me that beliefs are more contagious than “germs” or “infections.”
The question is from Mantra. A few things… First: Mantra must be very, very afraid of death – that’s why the interest in resurrection. It has nothing to do with Jesus and his resurrection, it has something to do with your deep fear of death. The interest “…in the ‘miracles’ of Jesus, especially his healings and his resurrection”… Mantra must be very afraid of death and illness. This interest arises because of that fear, otherwise who bothers? If you are not afraid of death, who bothers about resurrection? It is fear. In fact, if it is absolutely proved that there had been no resurrection in Jesus’ life, ninety-nine percent of Christians will drop being Christian because what is the point? They have been hanging around this person with the idea that he knows the secret of resurrecting himself, and he will somehow impart his secrets and keys to them. Or maybe, if he does not show the art, at least he can do the miracles for them; he can save them. It is fear of death.
If it is absolutely proved that Jesus never did any healing miracles, you will not find many Christians in the world; they will disappear. They are not interested in Jesus at all. Their whole interest is in how to protect themselves from illness, and finally, from death. Rather than thinking of resurrection and healing miracles, go deep inside yourself and look into your fear of death. There is no resurrection, but if you go deep into your fear of death, it disappears – and with the fear of death, death too disappears. Then you know you are eternal life. There is no resurrection. Resurrection is possible only if first you die! You never die. Nobody has ever died. Death is a myth. The word myth comes from a Sanskrit root, mithya. Mithya means false. Death is a falsity. Death has never happened – is never going to happen. It cannot happen: life is eternal, only forms change. You die here, your flame disappears in this body and it becomes embodied in some other body, you are born in some other womb. And so on and so forth. Even when there is no longer any birth, you disappear into existence. But life lives. When I am saying life lives, I don’t mean Mantra lives, no. Mantra is a form. You are a form. The form is not eternal. The form is going down the drain. Even while you are alive you will change your form a thousand and one times. If somebody brings a picture of you – of the first day when you were born – will you be able to recognize that this is your picture? One day that was your form. Now you are seventy years old, you cannot recognize it. But maybe the first day’s picture can have some resemblance.
But what about when you were in your mother’s womb? If a picture could have been taken on the first day you entered your mother’s womb, would you be able to recognize that small cell? It will not have your face, it will not have your nose, it will not have any visible mark; it will just be a small life cell. It was you. During those nine months your form goes on changing, changing, changing; your whole life form goes on changing. Form is a flux. You never die. Form dies every day. But the problem arises because you have become too identified with the form. You think, “I am the form.” You think, “I am this body.” The fear of death arises. You need not learn the art of resurrection. You have simply to learn that death does not exist; there is no need to resurrect because you cannot die in the first place. Rather than being intrigued by Jesus’ miracles, perform a miracle; go into yourself. That is the only miracle. Go into your fear of death, go deeper into it and see where it is, what it is. Watch it. Don’t rationalize and don’t bring theories borrowed from the outside to console yourself. Don’t say that the soul is eternal, no; you don’t know yet. I am saying it is eternal, but that is not your knowledge. Don’t make it your consolation.
You have to go trembling, you have to go with fear, you have to descend the staircase of death. You have to go to the very end. You have to see the whole possibility of death – what it is. In that very seeing, you will be surprised that you are not it. You are not the body, you are not even the mind. You are just pure life energy, you are a witness. In that witnessing is the real miracle.
You say: “I am very interested in the ‘miracles’ of Jesus, especially his healings and his resurrection.” You are not interested in Jesus at all. If you are interested in his miracles of healing and resurrection; it is a wrong kind of interest. And because of that, Jesus’ religion died very early. It really was a miscarriage. Buddha still lives far more penetratingly in human consciousness because he never did anything like miracles. So only the people who were really interested in inquiry came to him. Jesus attracted the wrong people; the wrong people came around him and Christianity made its base on his miracles. I don’t think that he ever did any miracles. He did miracles which were far-penetrating, but they were totally different from what you have heard. Yes, he healed the eyes, but not the physical eyes; he healed the inner eyes. Yes, he made people listen who were deaf, but that has nothing to do with your physical deafness. All are deaf, and all are blind. He touched people’s eyes and their ears, and opened them. And all are dead! – because you are identified with the body, which is death. You are identified with the form, which is death. Yes, he helped many people to come out of death. That is the meaning of the story of Lazarus. He called forth Lazarus, “Come out!” On the ordinary plane it seems that he called him from his grave. On the higher plane it means that he called him from his body – the body is your grave. He made him aware that he is consciousness, not the body. That is the real miracle. But somehow the followers of Jesus got mixed up. That’s why I say again and again he was not as fortunate as Buddha because he didn’t have the right kind of following – and much depends on followers. A single wrong follower and he can destroy, can change the whole story; he can interpret the whole story in a wrong way.
When Buddha died, his disciples gathered together to write down whatsoever he had said. Now there were millions of stories because everybody was relating in his own way. How to decide? All these people were eye witnesses, and they were very cultured and sophisticated. They were saying different things, contradicting each other. It was decided that only those few disciples who had become enlightened in Buddha’s days should be listened to. Even one of his most intimate followers, Ananda, was not allowed because he had not yet become enlightened. He was Buddha’s most intimate disciple. He lived with him for forty years, day in, day out, year in, year out. Not for a single day was he away from Buddha. For forty years, he slept in Buddha’s room. He took every care of Buddha. He should be relied upon. Whatsoever he has said should be the most authentic because he had listened to everything that Buddha said in those forty years after his enlightenment. Not a single word had he missed, and he was very sophisticated, cultured – had a beautiful memory, one of the most miraculous memories. He could repeat things word by word. But even he was not allowed. He cried, he wept, he said, “What are you doing? I was the most intimate. You people have lived for a few days with Buddha – somebody for a few months; I have lived for forty years. Not only during the day, but at night too. We had many conversations which nobody has ever heard. I know much more than anybody else!”
They said: “That’s true, but you are not enlightened yet. You can be dangerous. Your unenlightened mind can pollute the whole message. You may put something into it, you may delete something from it and it would be unconscious. It is not that you would be doing it; it would happen automatically because of your unconsciousness. And because of your unconsciousness you may emphasize something that looks more important. You may forget something, or may not emphasize something which was more important, or would have been more important if you were enlightened. The emphasis will be different. You will underline different things than an enlightened person would. You cannot be allowed.”
Five hundred disciples who had become enlightened in Buddha’s days – whose enlightenment was declared by Buddha himself – only they were allowed. Buddhist scriptures are the most authentic. Ananda was sitting outside the door crying. After twenty-four hours, he was allowed. What happened? In those twenty-four hours, for the first time, the last barrier that had remained in him was broken. That was a barrier that had persisted for forty-two years. He was a cousin-brother of Buddha, and an elder cousin-brother. When he had come to be initiated by Buddha – he was the elder and, in India, traditionally the elder brother can command the younger brother – he said to Buddha, “Before I am initiated by you, let me command you three things. I am your elder brother. Once I am initiated, I will be a disciple, then whatsoever you say I will have to follow. But I am not yet your disciple, I am your elder brother. Promise me these three things, then initiate me.”
Buddha said, “What are those three things?”
He said, “First: I will live with you twenty-four hours a day for ever. You will not be able to say ‘Ananda, go somewhere, or do something.’ I will follow you like a shadow. Promise?”
Buddha promised. Of course when an elder brother asks such a thing, how could he deny him? He said, “Okay. What is your second?”
He said, “If I bring somebody inside, even in the middle of night, you will have to give them an appointment – you cannot say no to me. I will have the sole right. Anybody, if I feel that he needs you, and needs you immediately… I will have the sole right. I will make the decision.”
Buddha said, “Okay. What is your third?”
He said, “My third is that whatsoever I ask, you will have to answer. You cannot postpone it, you cannot say, ‘Later on’ or ‘After some days.’ You will have to answer immediately.”
Buddha promised these three things. Ananda became his disciple, but that ego remained: “I am the elder brother, I am the closest, I am the only one who sleeps in Buddha’s room. I am the only one who can ask any question and Buddha has to answer.” That ego remained; otherwise he was surrendered, but that ego remained.
When the conference of monks did not allow him in, it was so painful to him, it was so wounding… It hurt, and he cried and wept outside. He became aware that because of this small ego, subtle ego, many more had come to Buddha and become enlightened, and he hadn’t. In that awareness, that ego melted. And you will be surprised that when Ananda became enlightened, the whole conference inside – five hundred monks – immediately felt it. It had opened the door: “Ananda is no longer the same person. Bring him in.”
Jesus was not so fortunate. His disciples were in a sense ordinary. Not a single one was enlightened, so whatsoever they wrote was from the unenlightened standpoint. So the real meanings got lost and unreal meanings got imposed. The miracle of giving eyes to a spiritually blind man became a miracle of giving eyes to a blind man. Healing a person from the illness called “this world” became an ordinary healing of a person from tuberculosis or something like that. Making a person really alive for the first time – and he was dead up to now – became an ordinary miracle of giving life to a dead man. Don’t be interested wrongly. Your interest is wrong.
Second: “He has also said that others could do the same. Is this possible? If so, how? And is it necessary for the physical body to die before one learns how to manifest and de-manifest at will?” Will is the source of the ego. Let it be understood deeply. All is possible if the will is dissolved into God’s will. All is possible – with no conditions. But if you want to do it at will, you will become more and more egoistic. That’s what happens… People who can do a few things of no significance become very egoistic because they can do them. All these so-called siddhis and their miraculous powers just enhance your ego and are against spiritual growth. Beware of them. These things can be done. The mind has great powers, but to use the powers of the mind is to prevent yourself from going higher than the mind. You will get stuck there. A few people are stuck in the world – there are also many powers in the world. A politician has great power, a man who has money has great power. A few people are lost in worldly powers; those powers belong to the body level. A few people are lost in mental powers. You can have clairvoyance, telepathy, mind reading – things like that. But you will be lost, you will never move beyond it. Get out of the world and get out of the mind too.
Whenever you develop something, it becomes difficult to drop it. Yes! When you become spiritual, all the powers become available to you – of the body, of the mind. But then who uses them? It is so stupid to use them. It is so meaningless, it is so childish. These mind powers can be developed. There are two ways: you develop imagination or you develop will, then you can develop these powers. These are the two ways – both are dangerous. If you develop the power of imagination, it is a double-edged sword. For example, that’s what has happened to Mantra. She says she was not ill for two years, as she was powerful enough. Then what happened? She came here and she heard these things. Imagination can work both ways; it can make you healthy, it can make you ill. If your imagination gets the idea “I am healthy,” you will feel healthy. If the imagination gets the idea “I am ill,” you will become ill. Beware of imagination, it is dangerous because it carries the opposite in it. Or, there is some possibility to develop will – that is developing your ego. That is far more dangerous than imagination because the more the ego becomes crystallized, the less is the possibility to go beyond it. You will be confined.
Imagination is like this:

The team that wins the Football League Cup usually has quite a celebration afterward. The morning after such a night, one member of the winning team woke to find himself in a hospital bed, heavily bandaged, with one of his team mates sitting beside him.
“What happened?” he asked groggily.
“Well, it was at the reception last night – don’t you remember?” said his mate. “After your seventeenth or eighteenth pint, you went over to the window and said you were going to fly round the hotel and land on the roof.”
“Why on earth didn’t you try and stop me?” said the man in the bed.
“Last night I thought you could do it!” replied his friend.

He must have drunk at least sixteen pints himself. Imagination can create many things. You can live in the imagination and in your imagination you will feel that it is happening. And it happens too! If there is no doubt inside you, imagination is a great force. It can create a dream almost as real as is possible. That’s what is happening to people on LSD.
Karl Marx has said, “Religion is the opiate of the people.” Timothy Leary says, “Opium is the religion of the people.” I say to you that religion is religion, opium is opium! Neither religion is opium, nor is opium religion. That’s what you are enjoying when you are on an acid trip. You are full of imagination – there is no bondage to your imagination. You live in a totally separate reality, the reality that Castaneda talks about; it is out of drugs. In the East people have done it for a long time. In the Vedas they talk about soma – it was their LSD. Down the ages in the East, people have tried all kinds of things – marijuana, opium, mushrooms and others. Now in the West, the idea is catching hold of people’s imagination. Beware of imagination. Imagination cannot help, it can only give you beautiful dreams, but they are dreams. When they are there, they look very real. When they are gone, you are lost in darkness. You can create those imaginings without drugs, too. You can create them through certain breathing exercises because breathing can change your inner chemistry. Through certain yoga exercises, you can change your inner chemistry. Through fasting, you can change your chemistry. But by changing your chemistry, you are not changing your soul. Or you can create great friction. Through friction, ego is created, will is created. You can start fighting with something.
For example, a man decides that he will not sleep for one year. Now there is going to be great friction. Every night he will have to fight hard. After a few nights, even in the day it will be difficult for him – there will be a continuous fight. If he goes on and on fighting, it is a friction, a struggle. If he goes on keeping himself alert, a moment comes when the body surrenders. He can be awake and sleep will no longer come. With this, he will become very willful. Now he can do many things. He can say to somebody, “You will die tomorrow!” Just his assertion will have so much will, it will go like a dagger and kill the man. Or, he can be helpful also. Somebody is ill, and he can say, “You are cured!” When he is saying that you are cured, he is total; there is no doubt in him. Because there is no doubt in him, he creates a pulsation in the other person of trust, of no doubt that he will be cured. This man can be helpful, can be dangerous – to others. But to himself he is always dangerous. To others it is possibly helpful or dangerous. But to himself he is always dangerous because now he is caught in the will. The will has become very strong – now he cannot get out of it, now he cannot surrender it. Now there is much investment in it too. He has worked for it for so long, how can he surrender it? There is always a possibility when you have power to misuse it.
Power corrupts, not only political power, but the so-called psychic power also corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. So this is my suggestion to you: rather than thinking of resurrection, powers, miracles, will – think, meditate more about what this life is. Go into it, otherwise you will be moving in a wrong direction. You will be gathering junk and you will be throwing away real diamonds.
Meditate on this small anecdote:

A young American entered a railway compartment on a British Rail train, to discover that all the seats were occupied, including one on which was seated a small Pekinese dog. To its owner, a middle-aged lady wearing a large flowered hat, he said politely, “Excuse me, Ma’am, but may I sit down?” She said nothing, but merely sniffed and turned over the pages of her Illustrated London News.
Again he asked, “Excuse me, Ma’am, but may I have this seat please?” And again she ignored him.
For a third time, the young American said, “Ma’am, would you please remove your dog so that I may sit down?”
And for the third time the snooty matron utterly ignored him, so he opened a window, picked up the dog, hurled it out and then sat down on the empty seat.
There was a stunned silence, and then an Englishman sitting opposite said, “You know, you Yanks are the strangest people. You drive on the wrong side of the road, you eat with your fork in the wrong hand, and now you have just thrown the wrong bitch out of the window.”
Enough for today.

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