The first question:
Osho,
Never belonged, never been on the “inside,” never felt “at one” with another.
Why such a loner all my life?
Madhura, life is a mystery, but you can reduce it to a problem. And once you make a mystery a problem you will be in difficulty because there can be no solution to it. A mystery remains a mystery, it is insoluble – that’s why it is called a mystery.
Life is not a problem: this is one of the most basic mistakes we all go on committing – we immediately put a question mark on it. And if you put a question mark on a mystery, you will be searching for the answer your whole life and you will not find it. Naturally it brings great frustration.
My observation is that you are a born meditator. Rather than making it a problem, rejoice! Not to belong is one of the greatest experiences in life. To be utterly an outsider, never feeling a part of anything, is a great experience of transcendence.

An American finally decided to go and see a Sufi master. For many years he had been hearing about him and he had fallen in deep love with his words, his message. When he entered the master’s room he was surprised – it was an utterly empty room. The master was sitting on the floor; there was no furniture at all. The American could not conceive of a living space without any furniture. He immediately asked, “Where is your furniture, sir?”
The old Sufi laughed and said, “And where is yours?”
The American said, “I cannot come carrying furniture! I am a tourist here.”
And the old man said, “So am I. I am just a tourist too. I am here for only a few days and then I will be gone, just as you will be gone.”

This world is just a pilgrimage – of great significance, but not a place to belong to, not a place to become part of. Remain a lotus leaf, as Kabir says.
This is one of the calamities that has happened to the human mind: we make a problem out of everything. Don’t call yourself a “loner.” This should be something of immense joy to you. You are using the wrong word because the very word connotes some condemnation. You are alone, and the word alone has great beauty. You are not even lonely. To be lonely means you are in need of the other; to be alone means you are utterly rooted in yourself, centered in yourself. You are enough unto yourself. You have not yet accepted this gift of existence, hence you are suffering unnecessarily. And this is my observation: millions of people go on suffering unnecessarily.
Look at it from another perspective. I am not giving you an answer, I never give any answers. I simply give you new perspectives to see, new angles. Think of yourself as a born meditator who is capable of being alone, who is strong enough to be alone, who is so centered and rooted that the other is not needed at all. Yes, one can relate with the other, but it never becomes a relationship. To relate is perfectly good. Two persons who are both alone can relate, two persons who are both alone cannot be in a relationship.
Relationship is the need of those who cannot be alone. Two lonely people fall into a relationship. Two alone people relate, communicate, commune, and yet they remain alone. Their aloneness remains uncontaminated; their aloneness remains virgin, pure. They are like peaks, Himalayan peaks, high in the sky above the clouds. No two peaks ever meet, yet there is a kind of communion, through the wind and through the rain and through the rivers and through the sun and through the stars. Yes, there is a communion; much dialogue goes on. They whisper to each other, but their aloneness remains absolute, they never compromise. Be like an alone peak high in the sky. Why should you hanker to belong? You are not a thing. Things belong.
You say, “Never belonged, never been on the inside…” There is no need. To be an insider in this world is to get lost. A worldly person is an insider; a buddha is bound to remain an outsider. All buddha’s are outsiders. Even if they are in the crowd, they are alone. Even if they are in the marketplace, they are not there. Even if they relate, they remain separate. There is a kind of subtle distance that is always there. And that distance is freedom, that distance is great joy, that distance is your own space.
And you call yourself a loner. You must be comparing yourself with others: “They are having so many relationships, they are having love affairs. They belong to each other, they are insiders – and I am a loner. Why?” You must be creating anguish unnecessarily. My approach is always: whatsoever existence has given to you must be a subtle necessity of your soul, otherwise it would not have been given in the first place.
Think of aloneness more. Celebrate aloneness, celebrate your pure space, and great song will arise in your heart. And it will be a song of awareness, it will be a song of meditation. It will be a song of an alone bird calling in the distance. Not calling to somebody in particular, but just calling because its heart is full and it wants to call, because the cloud is full and wants to rain, because the flower is full, the petals open and the fragrance is released – unaddressed. Let your aloneness become a dance. And Madhura is a dancer. I am utterly happy with you, Madhura. If you stop creating problems for yourself. I don’t see that there are any real problems.
The only problem is, people go on creating problems. Problems are never solved, they are only dissolved. I am giving you a perspective, a vision. Dissolve your problem. Accept it as a gift of existence and live it with great gratitude. You will be surprised: what a precious gift, and you have not even appreciated it yet; what a precious gift, and it is lying there in your heart, unappreciated. Dance your aloneness, sing your aloneness, live your aloneness.
And I am not saying don’t love. In fact, only a person who is capable of being alone is capable of love. Lonely persons cannot love. Their need is so much that they cling – how can they love? Lonely persons cannot love, they can only exploit. Lonely persons pretend to love; deep down they want to get love. They don’t have it to give, they have nothing to give. Only a person who knows how to be alone and joyous is so full of love that he can share it. He can share it with strangers.
And all are strangers, remember. Your husband, your wife, your children, all are strangers. Never forget it. You don’t know your husband, you don’t know your wife. You don’t even know your child; the child that you have carried in your womb for nine months is a stranger.
This whole life is a strange land. We come from some unknown source: suddenly we are here, and suddenly one day we are gone, back to the original source. This is a few days’ journey – make it as joyous as possible. But we do just the opposite, we make it as miserable as possible. We put our whole energies into making it more and more miserable.

The second question:
Osho,
What is creativity? Does it correspond more to the path of awareness or more to the path of love? Or is it a child of both?
Creativity is when you are not because creativity is the fragrance of the creator. It is the presence of God in you. Creativity belongs to the creator, not to you. No man can ever be creative. Yes, man can compose, construct, but he can never be a creator.
When man disappears, when man becomes utterly absent, a new kind of presence enters his being – the presence of God. Then there is creativity. When godliness is inside you the light that starts falling around you is creativity. The climate that arises around you because of the presence of God within you is creativity.
It has nothing to do with awareness or love, although the creative person is both; the creative person is aware, the creative person is loving. But the creative person is neither a meditator nor a lover – loving yes, but there is no lover; meditative yes, but there is no meditator.
And when there is nobody inside you, that very nobodiness brings creativity. Like a spring, it wells up, you become full of it. Whatsoever you touch becomes gold. It is not your touch, remember; the miracle is always God’s. It has nothing to do with the path of love or with the path of awareness. The path of love and the path of awareness bring you to godliness because they help you to disappear.
When godliness is there, then creativity is simply a consequence of its presence, just its presence. You can attain to its presence through love or awareness, it doesn’t matter. How you annihilate yourself is irrelevant; the only thing is that you should be annihilated, that you should not be. Do it through love, that will do. How you commit suicide, with what kind of poison, does not matter. Whether you jump from a cliff, or you lie down in front of a railway train; whether you shoot yourself, or you hang yourself, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you should have committed suicide of the ego. Through love, through awareness, through Yoga, through Tantra, Taoism, Zen, Sufism, Hasidism – it doesn’t matter; these are all different ways of committing suicide. I don’t mean physical suicide, I mean metaphysical. Once you are not there, all that is left is godliness.
You ask me, “Does it correspond more to the path of awareness or more to the path of love? Or is it a child of both?” It has nothing to do with the path. Creativity is possible only when the goal is achieved, it is a by-product of the goal. And don’t start thinking in terms of crossbreeding, crossbreeding is dangerous. You are thinking, “Or is it a child of both?”
Just the other day I was reading…

A farmer was very fond of crossbreeding. First he crossed a chicken with a goose and got a “choose.” Then he crossed a pheasant with an eagle and got a “pheagle.” Then he crossed a road with a bicycle and got killed.

Beware of crossbreeding. If you feel at home with love, it will do. Or if you feel at home with awareness, it will do. Just remember one thing: manage somehow to disappear.
There are people who need not even go on any path – love or meditation. Just sheer intelligence is enough, just seeing the point is enough. Just seeing, “How can ‘I’ be? I cannot exist alone, separate. I cannot exist as an island; I am continuously connected with the whole. I am breathing from every pore of my body; if even for a few seconds my breathing stops, I will be no more.”
You are continuously eating, drinking. What are you eating? – the universe, that’s what you are eating. What are you breathing? – the universe, that’s what you are breathing. What are you drinking? – the universe, that’s what you are drinking. Continuously, the universe is coming in and going out. You are just a passage. The breath comes in, refreshes you, rejuvenates you, goes out, then another breath comes in. We are in a continuous relationship with existence. In fact, to say it is a relationship is not right – we are one with existence.
If one is really intelligent, then neither love nor meditation, just intelligence, is enough. Just see the point that we are one with existence – hence nobody is separate – and the ego is gone. And the ego going is the coming of godliness. In fact, godliness is always there; just because of the ego you cannot see it. And to see yourself as divine, as part of this immense existence, is the beginning of creativity.
And it is not only the mystics of the world who experience this. Of course, you can ask Kabir or Eckhart, you can ask Farid or Mansoor, you can ask Lieh Tzu or Rinzai. You can ask different kinds of mystics, born in different times, to different races, in different countries, unaware of each other’s existence, and they will all say one thing: “The moment I disappeared, godliness came in. Or maybe it was already there; just my presence was not allowing it to express itself, to become manifest. I was obstructing the way.” But it is not only the mystics who experience this: even the poets, the musicians, the painters, have a few glimpses of it – only glimpses of course, then they fall back into the ordinary world. They rise to the sacred for only a few moments.
Whenever Rabindranath would have a visitation, would have creativity arising in him, he would not eat, he would not drink, he would not sleep for days together. He would lock himself in his room, he would not come out. He would come out only when the glimpse had disappeared.
And those who saw him coming out, after three, four days of remaining in some other world, all noted one fact: he looked so different, so fragile, so unearthly, so light; as if not made of matter, so subtle, nothing gross in him; his eyes so clear and so deep and his whole being so transparent. But after a few hours he would be back again, settled in the gross body; would be his old self again.
People used to ask him, “What happens when you shut yourself in?”
He would say, “I shut myself in, I lock myself in, so that nobody can disturb me because I am here no more. Any disturbance can be a very shattering experience. I am so fragile that I do not like to be disturbed. Even a little sound is enough to bring me back to earth, and those moments are when I am flying high, when great poetry arises in me.”
That’s how Gitanjali was born, the main book for which he got the Nobel Prize. Many, many people have been given the Nobel Prize, and I have seen almost all the books for which a Nobel Prize has been given, but there is no comparison with Rabindranath’s Gitanjali. Gitanjali means “offering of songs.” It has some totally different quality, not of this world. It echoes something of the Upanishads. It has some reflections of Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu. But Rabindranath was not a mystic, he was only a poet.
A poet is someone who becomes a mystic once in a while, who enters the world of the mystic once in a while, but comes back because he is not yet capable of remaining there forever. He cannot abide there, he can only visit. The poet is very close to the mystic.
These three words have to be remembered: scientist, poet, mystic. The scientist is the farthest from the mystic because he lives with gross matter, he works with gross matter. The poet is closer to the mystic. The scientist functions from the head, the poet from the heart, and the mystic lives in the being. When you are in the being, creativity is simply your nature.
You ask me, “What is creativity?” For the mystic, his very existence is creativity. He walks and that is creativity. He talks and that is creativity. He remains silent and that is creativity. Buddha sitting in silence is far more creative than Rabindranath writing poetry, far more creative than Picasso doing his painting, far more creative than Moore working on his sculptures – just by sitting silently.
So creativity has nothing to do with creating something, creativity is simply the presence of God. Those who are fortunate enough to come in contact with a buddha’s silence will be transformed; they will know what creativity is. The buddha has not done a thing and miracles have happened. He has not uttered a word and the message has been heard. He has not moved, but he has transformed you. He has not even touched you, but you are no longer the same.
At the ultimate peak of being a mystic, creativity is just a climate. Lower than that is the poet; creativity then brings great songs, sculpture, architecture, poetry, music, painting. And even the scientist, the lowest in this categorization – lowest because he works with the lowest form of existence, matter – even the scientist, when he is creative, has a few glimpses like the mystic. For example, Albert Einstein has said many times, “All my insights happened when I was not working at all, when I was not, in fact. All my great insights came to me from some unknown source.”
The great scientist Eddington said, “When I started working as a scientist I used to think of the world as matter, as only matter. But the more deeply I went into it, the more things started happening to me which were incomprehensible in terms of science, mathematics, calculation, measurement. And now I can say that those few things revealed something to me: that the world resembles a thought more than a thing.”
All the great scientists – I am not talking about the technicians, they are lower than the scientists. They are the fourth category, the last, the sudras, the untouchables. I am not talking about the technician. The technician has no flight, no insight, no visitation from the beyond. He simply knows how to do a certain thing, he is an adept in “how-to-ism.” He turns everything into a method. The technician is not a scientist.
The scientist is someone who still reaches the peaks of the mystic, but very rarely. The poet is a visitor there more often and the mystic remains there. For the mystic, creativity is a climate, for the poet it is great activity, and for the scientist even more so – it is the materialization of something which is immaterial; a great amount of work. It took almost twenty years for Albert Einstein to formulate the theory of relativity – a great amount of work. The insight happens in a split second, but then you have to work it out, you have to prove it through experimentation.
The poet needs no proofs; you never ask him for proof. The scientist is asked for proofs, experimental proofs, and the experiments may take years. Sometimes it has happened that the insight is there but the experimentation has taken years and years. A few of Albert Einstein’s theories are still not yet proved by experimentation. They are just theories, with every possibility of being proved true, but with no way to prove them this way or that, for or against. Still now, no experiment is possible.
For example, Albert Einstein said that time is a relative phenomenon such that if a passenger leaves the earth on a spaceship at the speed of light – the speed of light is immense, almost inconceivable: one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second – if a spaceship leaves the earth at that speed, then the person who is in that spaceship will never age because at that speed time stops. If he is young, twenty-five years old, he will remain twenty-five years old. Even if he comes back after twenty-five years, all his friends on earth will be fifty years old, but he will be twenty-five.
Now this is simply a theory, an insight. We have not yet been able to devise a spaceship which can move at that speed. Scientists say that it seems right theoretically – but only theoretically. How did Einstein arrive at this theory? There was no possibility of experimentation, obviously. It was not the conclusion of an experiment; you cannot do any experiment. There is no spaceship which moves at such a speed. In fact there are difficulties, and it may never be possible to make such a spaceship.
The most difficult thing is: whenever something moves at that speed it turns into light. At that speed, the heat is so much that no spaceship can move at that speed: the heat will burn it up. Just the friction – at one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second – the very friction will be enough, and the spaceship and the passengers will all be reduced to light, they will burn up. But maybe someday we can find something which does not burn up, which remains intact, and the passenger can move at that speed.
But other scientists think that Einstein was right: at that speed, time stops. And if time stops you cannot age, so it is theoretically possible that a man could leave on a spaceship and when he comes back his children would be older than him, and even his grandchildren could be older than him. If he came back after eighty years, all his children would be gone, his children’s children would be older than him, and he will have remained at exactly the same age, with no change, with no difference, as if not a single moment has passed.
Now this is pure theory; they call it “pure physics.” How did Einstein arrive at it? It was an insight, it was a mystical experience. Albert Einstein had a few mystical experiences; other theories of his were conceived in the same way. Slowly, slowly, they have been proved right by experiments. Maybe this one is right too.
Even the scientist comes to truth only when he is not. The poet comes to beauty when he is not, and the mystic comes to godliness when he is not. The scientist can only be approximately true because the moments are very rare and very fleeting. The poet is on firmer ground, he can be a bit more sure because the moments come often. But the mystic is absolutely certain, hence his declarations.
The Upanishads say, “Aham brahmasmi – I am God.” al-Hillaj Mansoor declares, “Ana’l haq – I am the truth.” These are not conclusions, they are not arrived at through thought processes. They are intuitions, experiences of the ultimate revelation. Mansoor had become one with truth; he was no longer separate.
So creativity has three layers. The ultimate is the mystic, he lives in a climate of creativity. The poet, once in a while, brings some treasures from the beyond. The scientist also brings something precious to the world, but very rarely, whenever he can visit the ultimate. But – mystic, scientist or poet – one thing is certain, whatsoever comes into this world comes from the beyond.
To bring the beyond is creativity; to bring the beyond into the known is creativity. To help godliness to be manifested in some form is creativity.

The third question:
Osho,
What is history?
History is time, hence all that is really significant is not included in it because all that is really significant is beyond time.
Buddha’s enlightenment under the bodhi tree is not a historical fact; there is no way to prove that it really happened. It is such an interior experience that you have to take it on trust. Buddha says it happened. You can believe it, you can disbelieve it. If you disbelieve it, there is no way for Buddha to prove it. If you disbelieve it, you only prevent your own enlightenment, that’s all. If you trust Buddha, a door opens for you. In trusting, you can hope that if it happened to Buddha it can happen to you too. Belief and disbelief have nothing to do with Buddha’s experience, but they have something to do with you and your future.
History cannot prove that something happened that morning; history has no record of it. It happened beyond time, hence history cannot record it. It is unrepeatable and history only records that which is repeatable. History is nothing but the record of repetitious human stupidity. History is the record of all that is stupid in the human mind. Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Nadir Shah, Alexander, Adolf Hitler, these people are repeatable; Buddhas are not repeatable, a Buddha happens only once.
Tamerlane will have many, many, incarnations, sometimes as Adolf Hitler, sometimes as Ivan the Terrible, sometimes as Josef Stalin and sometimes as Mao Zedong; he will have many incarnations. Buddha will never come again. He has gone beyond, gone to the further shore. Jesus will not come again; Jesus cannot be repeated. These people are unique.
History takes no note of the unique; history only takes note of the common, the average; and the average is the lowest. History is nothing but a vicious circle. It is a wheel, it goes on revolving, the same spokes keep on coming up, again and again and again.
Just the other day I was reading a parable by James Thurber, The Last Flower. Meditate over it…
World War XII, as everybody knows, brought about the collapse of civilization. Towns, cities and villages disappeared from the earth. All the groves and forests were destroyed, and all the gardens, and all the works of art. Men, women and children became lower than the lowest animals. Discouraged and disillusioned, dogs deserted their fallen masters. Emboldened by the pitiful condition of the former lords of the earth, rabbits descended upon them.
Books, paintings and music disappeared from the earth, and human beings just sat around, doing nothing. Years and years went by. Even the few generals who were left forgot what the last war had decided. Boys and girls grew up to stare at each other blankly, for love had passed from the earth.
One day a young girl who had never seen a flower chanced to come upon the last one in the world. She told the other human beings that the last flower was dying. The only one who paid any attention to her was a young man she found wandering about. Together the young man and the girl nurtured the flower and it began to live again. One day a bee visited the flower, and a hummingbird. Before long there were two flowers, and then four, and then a great many. Groves and forests flourished again.
The young girl began to take an interest in how she looked. The young man discovered that touching the girl was pleasurable. Love was reborn into the world. Their children grew up strong and healthy, and learned to run and laugh. Dogs came out of their exile. The young man discovered, by putting one stone upon another, how to build a shelter. Pretty soon everybody was building shelters. Towns, cities and villages sprang up. Song came back into the world, and troubadours and jugglers and tailors and cobblers and painters and poets and sculptors and wheelwrights and soldiers and lieutenants and captains and generals and major-generals and liberators. Some people went to one place to live, and some to another.
Before long, those who went to live in the valleys wished they had gone to live in the hills, and those who had gone to live in the hills wished they had gone to live in the valleys.
The liberators, under the guidance of God, set fire to the discontent, so presently the world was at war again. This time the destruction was so complete that nothing at all was left in the world – except one man, and one woman, and one flower.
But that’s enough, that will do – that one flower will do. Again everything will come back. History is a wheel; it is a vicious circle, it goes on revolving in the same rut. Many, many, times man has become very civilized, and many, many, times all civilization has disappeared from the earth.
This is not the first time we have discovered science. Ancient records tell something else, a totally different story, that the great continent of Atlantis was drowned not by a natural calamity, but by an atomic explosion. Particularly in Hindu scriptures, great proof is available that by then man had discovered all the technology that we have now; ours was not discovery, it was rediscovery. The great war known as Mahabharata had almost all the weapons that we have now, and these ancient Indian scriptures have stories about airplanes, atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs and similar things.
Now we are again coming to a point where total destruction could happen. But a flower will be left, and that will do, and again the whole story will begin from ABC. Many times it has happened. This is not the first world that we are living in: many worlds have come and gone, many civilizations have appeared and disappeared. Many civilizations have reached the same peak of affluence, technology, know-how as us. History is repetition.
One has to learn how to get out of history and out of time. One has to learn how to get out of this wheel. One has to learn how to slip out of the very process of time. And that’s what meditation is all about.
The greatest contribution of the East to the world is nothing but meditation because it teaches you how to get out of the mind. Mind is time, and time is history. When you get out of the mind you get out of history and out of time. And when you are out of the mind, time and history, where are you? – you are in the whole, in the cosmic. You are in that orgasmic, organic unity called God.
God is not part of history, God runs parallel to history. Hence, those who want to know God will have to unlearn history. History has made you Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, Indians, Germans, Chinese. History has conditioned you. History has given you particular minds, ideas, ideologies. You have to get out of all that. History has to be forgotten. History is the past and the past is heavy. And if the past is in the mind too much, you will go on repeating it in the future. What else can you do? The past goes on repeating itself through you. Get out of it!
Don’t ask “What is history?” Ask how to get out of it; how not to be a Hindu because that is being part of a certain history. Ask how not to be a Christian. Ask how not to be an Indian, an American. Ask how to just be, without any adjective. And that’s my whole effort here: to help you to get out of the bondage of the past.
A sannyasin is one who drops the bondage of history. He says, “I am simply a part of the whole. I am not part of human history, I am part of cosmic eternity.” And becoming part of cosmic eternity, you are freed from all bondage and from all misery. More and more people are needed in the world who are free of history, free of the past. Only then can we create a new world where wars can cease, where more and more people can bloom in love, where more and more people can become lotuses of celebration.
Enough of history. It should be stopped. There is no need to go on teaching the students all that nonsense and garbage, but we go on telling them more and more about the past. And the more we tell them about the past, the more they become conditioned by it, and naturally they will repeat it. There is no need to tell them about the past; the past is the past, gone is gone. They need something totally different: they need to be introduced to the present. They need to be made aware of this moment. They need a taste of now, not of then. They need to drink something from here, not from there.
It will be a great blessing to the world if history simply disappears from schools, colleges, universities and if rather than teaching history, we teach how to get out of time, how to cease being a mind, how to become a no-mind. Because the no-mind is the door to godliness.
God has no history, history has no God in it.

The fourth question:
Osho,
Do you think it is possible to be honest, intelligent, religious, and yet be in politics?
It is impossible. It is absolutely impossible, categorically impossible. If you are intelligent, why should you be in politics? It is for the stupid, for the mediocre.
The intelligent person will have much more important things to do. The intelligent person will not be interested in dominating others. His whole interest will be in knowing himself. To dominate the other is a way of escaping from one’s own inner meaninglessness, inner emptiness, inner hollowness. It is an escape from oneself. The intelligent person is not an escapist.
Politics is an escape, a great escape. It keeps you so occupied, day in, day out, that you cannot find even a few minutes for yourself. Even when you sleep you think politics; it continues in your dreams. To be a politician is a twenty-four hour job. You cannot relax because if you relax you will be left behind. It is tooth-and-nail struggle, it is cut-throat competition. It is pure violence.
Why should an intelligent person be in politics? And how can an honest person ever be in politics? Honesty does not pay in politics. And even if sometimes a politician is honest, he is honest only if it pays, not for honesty’s sake. The proverb “honesty is the best policy” must have been invented by a politician. Even honesty becomes a policy. How can honesty be a policy?
Honesty is religion, not a policy. Honesty is your heart, not a policy. It is not that you are honest to gain something; you are honest for the sheer joy of being honest. You are honest even if you have to lose everything; it is worth losing everything. Honesty can never be a policy, but politics makes everything a policy. An honest person and in politics? Impossible.

“I hope I’ll be able to count upon your support,” the candidate said to a merchant he called on.
“I’m afraid not,” was the reply. “You see, I’ve already promised my support to your opponent.”
The politician laughed. “In politics,” he said, “promising and doing are two different things.”
“Well, in that case,” declared the merchant affably, “I’ll be happy to give you my promise.”

In politics, and honest? It has never been heard of.

A politician named Strange lay on his deathbed. His lawyer was summoned. “On my tombstone, as an epitaph,” he gasped, “I want only the words, ‘Here lies an honest politician.’”
The lawyer protested, “Then how will people know who’s buried there?”
The old man nodded wisely. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Folks will take one look at those words and they’ll all say, ‘That’s strange.’”

The politician’s name was Strange. Honesty needs guts. It needs you to expose yourself as you are. It needs the courage to be naked.
The politician cannot do that. He has to wear masks, he cannot be naked. He has to fulfill the expectations of the masses, so whatsoever you want he pretends to be that. Whatsoever you want, he is ready to promise it. He goes on promising contradictory things to different people; his promise means nothing. He goes on playing different games and different roles.
If he goes to the Mohammedans, he starts reciting the Koran. If he goes to the Hindus, he quotes the Gita. If he goes to the Christians, he pretends to be a lover of the Bible. And all this is just pseudo: neither does he love the Gita nor the Vedas nor the Bible nor the Koran – he loves only his ego. He is ready to do anything, whatsoever is required, to fulfill his ego. You know it and the whole world knows it.
The whole world complains about these politicians, but somehow people are so stupid that when they get out of the clutches of one politician, they immediately get into the cage of another. People go on complaining, but still they keep falling victim to the same types of people – not a bit of difference.
Man has to be freed from his stupid mind, only then will he be free of the politicians. Hence, politicians don’t want you to be intelligent. They are very much against creating intelligence in people. For thousands of years they did not allow people to be educated because that was dangerous. Now they allow people to be educated, but the education is such that it does not make you intelligent. On the contrary, it makes you less intelligent.
When the child begins school he is far more intelligent than when he comes back from university. Those twenty years destroy much that is immensely valuable. The real diamonds are lost and he carries just words, jargon, theories, knowledge. He has sold his intelligence and brought home just dead knowledge, dead weight, dead wood, and he will live with that knowledge for his whole life. We still don’t have an educational system which helps people to become intelligent.
That’s why all over the world in all the universities there is a great fermentation, a great rebellion. It is a good sign: it simply indicates that the young people of the world are becoming more and more alert that what is called education is not education, but a kind of conditioning, a hypnosis. The older generation tries to mold the mind of the new generation. The teacher is just an agent of the older generation. The teacher is respected by the older generation because he is the agent. He corrupts the minds of the new generation, but the corruption is done with such skill that you will not become aware unless you are really alert, watchful.
People keep on complaining, but they go on doing the same thing.

Four friends met in a Moscow park. The first man heaved a sigh. The second also sighed. So did the third.
The fourth said impatiently, “Oh, do stop talking.”

Now in Moscow you cannot talk, but you can sigh. That is the way now; you cannot say anything, but you feel, you understand, what is being done to you. The whole country, the whole Russian mind, is conditioned by the politicians, so much so that no other way is even available.
I receive many letters from Soviet Russia. My books are being smuggled into Russia. People are reading, but underground; the books are passing from hand to hand. People cannot even write letters directly from Russia because they will never reach me. First the Russian government, and then Morarjibhai Desai – it is impossible to reach me. Every letter is opened, every letter is delayed, and one doesn’t know how many never get to me. But a few letters have reached me because Russians have given them to tourists to send from somewhere in London or Paris. Their letters get to me, but I cannot answer them – they will never receive any answer.
People want to come here. One woman wrote from Russia that she is even ready to marry an Indian, any Indian, if that will help her to get into India and be a sannyasin. Inside Russia too it is very difficult; they won’t allow you to leave even if you do marry. One of my friends married a Russian woman but he could not bring her to India. He remained in India, she remained in Russia. He has now died; the woman and children are still there. In China now, the situation is the same. In the so-called democratic countries it may not be so much, but it is exactly the same situation: the difference is only of degree, the difference is not qualitative.
Remember, politics is against all kinds of expansion of consciousness because if people really become conscious they will not follow stupid leaders. They will not need any leadership at all – they will be a light unto themselves.
You ask me, “Is it possible to be honest, intelligent, religious, and yet in politics?” Why should a religious person be in politics? For what? Politics is a power trip. The religious person is going in the opposite direction, where the ego has to be dissolved utterly. The religious person is simply dissolving himself. It is not a power trip, it is just the opposite. Yes, when the religious person has disappeared, great power descends, but it is not your power, it is divine power.
The politician is for his own power; he wants to be powerful. He wants to command armies, nations. Deep down he is suffering from an inferiority complex; deep down he knows his worthlessness. He wants to prove to himself and to others that he is not worthless, that he is great. Politics is a kind of disease.
Some day in the future, when people have become a little more alert and aware, politics will be thought of as a neurosis – just as you think now of many things in the past that were incomprehensible then. For example, five thousand years ago magic ruled the whole world, the magician was the most important person in any community. Now where is the magician? Who bothers about the magician? Maybe once in a while he can entertain at a party, or in a club, or in a hotel – just entertain. Other than that, where is his power now? Once he was very powerful – he still is in primitive societies. In African tribal communities he is still very powerful, the people believe that he has power. We now know that he has no power; he has power only because the people believe he has power. His power is not in him, but in the people’s beliefs.
Then the magician was gone and the priest became very powerful; even kings were not as powerful as the priest. And where is the priest now? Where is his power now? – nowhere at all. He has become part of the past.
Let me tell you, it is going to be the same with the politician. Sooner or later the politician will go the same way as the magician, the same way as the priest, the same way as the kings have gone – down the drain. As human consciousness grows bigger and bigger, brighter and brighter, all the illnesses that are hanging around us – hangovers of the past – will disappear.
The new man will not know much about politics. The new man will not be nationalistic. The new man will not believe in states; the new man will believe in a universal brotherhood. Yes, there will be a kind of government, an international government, but it will be functional, just like the post office. You don’t think about the postmaster, do you? Who cares about the postmaster-general even? He is just a functionary. So it should be with the prime minister and the president. Yes, a certain kind of order is needed in society because there are so many people. A certain kind of government will be needed, and a few people will have to do that work, but it is nothing to brag about. Politics is finished. It is only a relic of the past, an antique relic, soon to be preserved in museums. The future does not belong to politics.
The future belongs to a totally different kind of man: a man who will know how to love, not how to possess; a man who will know how not to be, not to be powerful; a man who will know egolessness. A man who will be capable of dropping all games and living an authentic life of deep meditation, of great love, of poetry.

The last question:
Osho,
When I first came to listen to you a couple of months ago, I felt a oneness with you. I have attended many of your morning discourses.
I was a bit sad one day when I heard you say that your energies, graces and blessings are only available to your sannyasins. Still, I attended one of your energy darshans, on the 27th of April, and stole energy from you.
What is it that makes it difficult for a Catholic priest to take your sannyas? Can one be both a priest and your sannyasin? Or are you thinking of forming a group of anonymous sannyasins?
From my side there is no problem at all – you can be a sannyasin. It does not matter whether you are a Catholic priest or a Catholic thief. I don’t prevent even Catholic thieves, so what to say about Catholic priests? To me, it is all the same.
I give sannyas unconditionally. There are no conditions attached to it, no strings attached. I don’t even ask who you are, what your profession is, what religion, what nationality; those are irrelevant things. Somebody has to be a businessman, somebody has to be a policeman; just like that, you are a Catholic priest. It is a profession.
From my side there is no problem, you can become a sannyasin. And deep down your heart is ready for it. How can I say no to you? I never say no to anybody. If your heart is ready, then become a sannyasin and go on doing whatsoever you are doing.
But the problem may come from the Catholics; about that I cannot guarantee anything. They will be afraid, they may not allow it. I am not afraid, but the darkness will be afraid. Whatsoever its name – Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Mohammedan – the darkness will not allow you to take the light in. I give sannyas to you because I know that if you become a sannyasin, if this light enters your being, then the darkness will go.
But if you are not courageous you can go on stealing. Don’t be worried, that too is perfectly good. Sooner or later, when you have stolen enough light, the darkness will be gone. There are different kinds of people. Sometimes things like kisses and so on are sweeter when they are stolen – the stolen kiss has more sweetness. Maybe, if that is your way, it is perfectly good. The whole point is that the light should reach your heart.
In fact, by becoming a sannyasin you will become a real catholic for the first time. Catholicism is a quality: to be catholic means to be liberal, to be understanding, to be humble. To be catholic in reality has nothing to do with the Vatican. It has something to do with a new quality in your heart: the openness, the vulnerability, the capacity to accept even those who are opposed to you, the capacity to love your enemy. That is the real spirit of being a catholic. By becoming my sannyasin you will be entering into the real catholic spirit. You will be in difficulty with your church, certainly, but that risk has always been there.
When Jesus started his work he got into trouble with his church, the Jewish church; he got into trouble with the rabbis. It was those rabbis who killed Jesus, but it was good that Jesus tried. And it will be good if you try also. What can be taken away from you? Yes, I know a Catholic priest enjoys many privileges, material privileges, which are not available to other priests; and if you are satisfied with them, then that is okay. But you are not satisfied with them, that’s why you are here; your being here is enough proof. I am not saying to leave your priesthood. If your church allows it, you can be both a sannyasin and a priest. In fact I would like you to both remain a priest and be a sannyasin, so that you can seduce a few more Catholics.
You also ask, “Or are you thinking of forming a group of anonymous sannyasins?” I am not thinking to form a group of anonymous sannyasins, but that group is already forming itself. There are many who would like to be sannyasins, but are not courageous enough. I am not thinking to form a group because the anonymous sannyasin simply shows that he is not courageous enough to declare to the world that he belongs to me. He is hiding the fact that he is afraid of facing the world. That is a kind of cunningness; that is a dual personality. In your heart you will be with me, but on the outside you will not be with me. That duality will create a split in you. On the outside you will have to speak against me; it will hurt you and you will become two people – and to be divided is to be in misery. If you are cunning, even if you are here, you will not be able to get as much nourishment as would easily be possible if you were a little less cunning, a little more sincere and honest.
Yes, you can steal a little bit of light, but there is no need to steal it because I am ready to offer it to you. I can give it to you in abundance. All that is needed is the courage on your part to receive it. And remember, these are rare opportunities. There were many who missed Jesus, there were many who missed Buddha, and there will be many who miss me. I hope that you will not be one of them.

Maggie was bemoaning her hard luck to her friend Tilly. The story she told was a real heartbreaker.
It seems Maggie was coming home late from work, and when she was only a few blocks from her home a shiny new Cadillac convertible drew up alongside her. In it was one of the handsomest young men Maggie had ever seen. He whistled at Maggie. “Baby, would you mind my company tonight?” he asked.
Maggie drew herself up. “On your way, mister,” she snapped.
The young man stopped the car and got out. He seemed contrite.
“Don’t take offense,” he said to Maggie. “You see, I just broke up with my girl. I’m lonesome. I just want to go out to dinner, to a nightclub, to dance. And you looked so pretty, so sweet, I couldn’t resist asking you.”
Maggie didn’t trust herself. The guy was too good-looking, the situation too attractive. She didn’t think it was okay.
“Tell you what,” she said to the young man. “Would you still want to date me tomorrow?”
“Sure,” replied the young man.
“Take my phone number. Call me tomorrow. I’ll tell you then.”
“You’ve got a date,” said the guy.
Maggie gave him her phone number and the guy hopped back into his car. “Look real nice for me,” he said and pressed something into her hand. Then he drove away.
“You see,” Maggie told her friend Tilly, “when I opened my hand, I found he’d put a hundred dollar bill into it.”
“So why are you crying?” asked the puzzled Tilly.
“Because,” sobbed Maggie, “I gave him a wrong phone number!”

If you are with me anonymously, one day or another you will repent – because you will be giving me a wrong phone number.
Be true. If your heart is beating faster with me, if a flame is arising in your being – of love, of surrender, of trust – then go with it, risk all. Then whatsoever happens will be good, you will never repent.
Many times it happens that we unnecessarily miss some opportunity. And so it is today. Tomorrow your heart may not beat, tomorrow you may become hardened. Your mood may change, the situation may not be the same. The connection may be broken, the bridge may be lost. I may not be here, you may not be here. Who knows what will happen tomorrow? Never postpone.
As far as I am concerned you are accepted perfectly, respectfully, lovingly. You can remain a Catholic priest – there is nothing wrong with that – and yet be a sannyasin. Because to be a sannyasin is something so deep that nothing can destroy it. Your being a Catholic priest is something imposed on you by others. Your being a sannyasin will be your own longing, it will be your own desire.
And whenever something arises in your heart as your own longing, never deny it because to deny it is to deny godliness. To deny it is to deny your whole life. To deny it is to remain unfulfilled.
Enough for today.

---