Anand Rose
Osho Times, Cologne, Germany
Osho,
No country, not even America, is as upset as the Germans at your presence in the world today, and at your influence on intelligent and creative people. They are trying hard to see you as another Hitler. What does that tell about the German mind, forty years after Hitler's death?
The ghost of Adolf Hitler, his long shadow, is still present. And Adolf Hitler is not something that you can confine to one person, it is something deep down in the German mind itself. Adolf Hitler would not have existed if the German mind had not been supportive of him. And not only ordinary people who can be easily influenced, impressed, but exceptional people: geniuses like Heidegger, who is certainly the most important philosopher of the twentieth century – he was a follower of Adolf Hitler.
What these people were seeing in Adolf Hitler was something that was in themselves, in Adolf Hitler it was magnified. In themselves they could not see it, but Adolf Hitler became the mirror, they could see it. And he became the representative of the collective unconscious mind of Germany; hence the influence that he had.
Although forty years have passed, the German mind is still the same. And when they see my influence on people they become afraid, for the simple reason that if I can influence so many young intelligent German people, I can paint the whole of Germany red. And Germany has suffered through Adolf Hitler’s influence so much, the wound is still there and it hurts.
They don’t know much about me, all they know is that thousands of young Germans are ready to die for me. To their knowledge, this phenomenon had happened only with Adolf Hitler. In the same way, thousands and thousands of people were ready to die for him, to do anything for him, so they see a certain similarity. But there is no similarity at all: I teach people to live for me, not to die for me. I teach people to dance for me, not to die for me.
All your so-called great leaders of the world have told their people that they should be ready to die for them, it was thought to be something of great pride. And certainly millions have died for idiots – they died, they killed; all kinds of neurosis was released by these so-called leaders. I am not a leader, I am not a politician; I insist to my people to live long, to live happily, to rejoice. Even if I die, celebrate it; nobody has ever said to his people, “When I die you rejoice and celebrate, sing and dance.”
In thousands of years not a single man has been there to say this. They were just saying, “Be ready. If you love me, be ready to die for me, because we are going to conquer lands, conquer the whole world. If you are not ready to die for me, you are a coward, and then how are you going to conquer the world?” I have a different way of conquering the world. I don’t need nuclear weapons, atom bombs, I have a different approach totally. And they have all failed.
None of them could conquer the whole world, neither Alexander the Great, nor Napoleon Bonaparte, Ivan the Terrible, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mussolini, nor Mao Tse-tung. They have all – without exception – failed, because this is not the way to conquer. Hate is not the way to conquer; it will destroy the other, and in consequence it will destroy you too. Your victory is going to be just a very passing phase. I say to my people, yes we are going to take over the world; by our rejoicing, by our love, by our peace, serenity, by our meditation.
We are not politicians, we are not going to rule them. In fact, we are going to teach everybody not to be ruled by anyone and not to rule anyone. Only then are you really an authentic human being. My influence on German people is exactly the opposite of Adolf Hitler’s. But influence is there, those who don’t know me can find a certain similarity. Those who know will find that the influence is there, in fact it is far greater than Adolf Hitler’s. And it is not me who is saying it. One of the most important Western journalists, the author of many significant books, Aubrey Mennen, wrote a book almost ten years ago about the new mystics. He put my picture on the cover.
The book was published by Thames and Hudson in London. Inside, what he said even I could not believe. He says, “I have seen Adolf Hitler, interviewed Adolf Hitler, I have listened to Adolf Hitler in a meeting sitting in the front row, and I have seen his tremendous influence on people, but it is nothing compared to Osho.” His influence, he says, was only that of oratory, there was no substance in it. Those people were enchanted because their egos were fulfilled.
He was saying to those people that you are the highest race amongst human beings: you are the purest Nordic Aryans, it is your birthright to rule all over the world. Naturally, all those who had ambitions, ego trips, were influenced. Here is a man who can manage to fulfill their hidden desire. They themselves, of course, cannot manage, it is too big. Aubrey Mennen says that people were influenced, but that influence was something sick, it was fulfilling their egos. The people who are influenced by me are totally different.
I am making every effort to destroy your ego, and to destroy the German ego is the hardest thing! In fact, the young, intelligent, German generation is influenced by me against Adolf Hitler and against any possibility of Adolf Hitler ever happening again in Germany. I am the greatest enemy of Adolf Hitler anywhere. Any country which is influenced by me, particularly the young generation – I don’t care about the graveyards, I only trust the young blood, fresh blood – if they are in love with me, that means Adolf Hitler is impossible, destruction is impossible.
And it is true about other countries too. If all over the world the intelligent young people become attuned with me, fall in love with me, not only Adolf Hitler but even the Third World War is impossible. To create a Third World War you will need all kinds of geniuses, talented people, young. And if they have in some way fallen in love with me, they are not going to serve any destructive cause at any price; they are going to simply refuse. My influence is diametrically opposite to Adolf Hitler.
The older generation may be afraid; they have seen Adolf Hitler, they have seen his great influence, they have seen people becoming almost mad after him. And he himself was a retarded mind: he himself was not intelligent at all, just a third-rate person. He was refused admission to schools, colleges, he was refused admission to the university where he wanted to learn architecture. Then, seeing rejection everywhere – nobody could think him capable of anything great – he joined the army. That was the last resort of all the idiots, of all the fools, of all the stupid minds. The army is the last resort: you don’t need intelligence, in fact, intelligence is a barrier in becoming a good soldier. Just as a retarded person cannot become a sannyasin, an intelligent person cannot become a soldier.
What does it mean to become a soldier? It means you have accepted death as your profession. You don’t have any sensitivity for what you are doing: for a little salary and employment you have accepted to murder innocent people, children, women, old people who have done no harm to you, to whom you are not even introduced. This needs something of a very low kind of person, almost the animal. Physically he looks like a human being, mentally he is not.
And these people have fought all the wars. Of course, when you want to kill people you have to be ready to be killed any moment. They have not only sold their intelligence and their freedom into the hands of some dictator, for just a little employment they have become murderers. And simultaneously they have accepted for that little salary to be suicidal also, because in war it is not necessarily that you will only kill and you will not be killed.
So those leaders were emphasizing, “Be ready to kill or be killed. The stake is great: the nation’s pride, the race and its ego, the religion and its messiah.” All these people have been teaching you just death, either somebody else’s or your own.
I am simply amazed when people start comparing me with people who are absolutely opposite to me. In anything, my influence is to live more, to allow others to live more, to love more, to allow others to love more. Let this whole earth become a celebrating planet. There is no reason to kill and be killed – and just for some fool like Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Joseph Stalin. If they want, they can commit suicide, they can hang themselves from any tree, but why spread this poison? They spread this poison because it fulfills their ego. The name of the nation, race, religion is just a facade, just a curtain, a mask. Behind it is some monster who looks like a human being.
My message is for love, life, laughter. But not only in Germany, everywhere there is fear, because it has always happened that whenever there was a man of charismatic influence who can attract people so much that they become identified with him, there has always been difficulty. That’s why, because of their past experience, they are afraid. All over the world there is great fear. And the strange thing is, their fear is absolutely baseless.
I am a totally new kind of man, the beginning of a new humanity. But I can understand them. They have only their past, and their past is long, and their experience is wrong. And whenever there has been a man of influence, he has created trouble. Adolf Hitler created the Second World War. Now they are afraid: if their younger generation is being influenced by me and is ready to do anything that I say, naturally fear arises. Again the same situation may happen.
But just tell them, with me it cannot happen, without me it can happen. They are so afraid in Germany that perhaps sometime I may be coming to visit my communes, they have already put a bogus law case against me. Just in case I want to enter the country I can be immediately arrested. I have never been in Germany and I have never done anything in Germany, but they can file a case against me.
That case will help them in many ways: first, they can refuse my entry. Secondly, they can allow me to enter but refuse to let me out of the country. Thirdly, as long as the case is not finished, they can force me to remain there. And they can put other cases. If I win one case, they can put another: there is no problem in it. Somebody simply goes to the court and says, “What Osho has said hurts my religious feeling” – that is enough.
It is a very strange world in which we are living. If your religious feeling is hurt, then it is your problem: get treated, or drop that religion which cannot help you to be strong enough not to be hurt by a small criticism from anybody. And if your heart, your religious feelings, are disturbed, that simply shows they are superficial. You need a new religion which goes deep to your roots and nobody can hurt you.
Can any of my people be hurt? None of my people have gone to the courts, filing cases that their religious feelings are hurt. I have been condemned all over the world, in all the newspapers, in all the media, they have called me all kinds of names. You could have easily gone to court, in every country you could have fought that your religious feeling is hurt. But, none of my people has even thought about it: they simply laughed and ignored it. Filing a lawsuit means giving attention to idiots. And whatsoever they are saying, they are saying without any argument, they have no argument.

In India once there was a case against me of a similar type, that I had hurt the religious feelings of Hindus. That is enough in any country, it is very strange. And why was the case accepted by the court? It went for almost one year and I had to come back to Ahmedabad again and again for that case. They were simply wasting my time, and the case was utterly stupid.
Speaking in Ahmedabad amongst fifty thousand people, I had said that Mahatma Gandhi used to listen to the story of Rama every day. Vinoba Bhave, one of his disciples, but a very scholarly person, used to read the Ramayana, the story of Rama. It is read in every house in India, the drama of Rama is played in every town, city, village, every year. Rama is in every Hindu’s heart center.
I said in the meeting that Vinoba was reading the story of Rama and there comes a passage where Rama’s wife, Sita, is stolen. Just to leave some clues as to what direction she has been taken, she went on throwing her ornaments along the way. Indian women have many ornaments, and she was a queen so she had enough ornaments. And it was bound, she felt – it was certainly logical – that Rama would find these ornaments and they would give him a clue to the direction. And if he found more, that made it more certain: if he found more he could reach to where she was being taken.
He found precious diamonds, emeralds, rubies and he asked his brother Laxmana, “Do you recognize, are these ornaments my wife’s? I cannot recognize them myself because whenever I am with Sita, she is so beautiful that I get lost into her. I don’t pay attention to her ornaments, so I cannot be certain that this ornament belongs to her. But in this thick forest, who is going to throw rubies and diamonds and ornaments made of all kinds of precious stones? Laxmana, perhaps you can find.”
Laxmana said, “Please forgive me, because I have never seen Sita, except her feet, because I used to touch her feet every morning.” Your elder brother’s wife in India is thought to be equal to your mother. “And I have never seen her face, I have never seen above her feet. Yes, if we come across the ornaments she used on her feet, I will recognize them immediately.”
Gandhi was a little puzzled. He said to Vinoba, “I don’t understand. First, I cannot understand Rama, that he lived for so many years and he could not recognize the ornaments of his own wife. But perhaps he was still in his honeymoon, Sita may have been very enchanting. But why Laxmana never saw Sita?”
Vinoba produced an argument which is not in the story, the argument is Vinoba’s: he produced an argument that Laxmana never saw Sita’s face because he wanted to remain celibate. He wanted to remain unimpressed by Sita’s beauty because he was under a strict discipline. And Gandhi accepted the idea that it was because of a strict discipline; that Sita is so beautiful, perhaps looking at her he may get interested passionately in her. Gandhi accepted the idea. Not only that, it was because of this argument he gave Vinoba the title of acharya. Acharya means “the master mind.” He said, “The explanation that you have given makes you a master. I could not have conceived that this would be the explanation.”
I told this whole thing to the people, fifty thousand people, and they were all Hindus, followers of Rama, followers of Gandhi, followers of Vinoba and I told them that his explanation is ugly. It simply shows that he was afraid to see the face. This fear is already part of desire and passion: he is perfectly aware that if he sees her, he would like to have her. All this must have been going on in his mind. He must be dreaming of Sita, because it is not that he had never seen her – before the marriage, Laxmana and Rama had both gone to see her.
In those days in India, the king’s daughters used to have a certain ceremony; it was called swayamvara. The princess chooses her husband by a certain device. Sita was the daughter of a very big emperor, hundreds of kings had come to marry her. The device was that Sita’s father had one very long bow – which was known as “Shiva’s bow” – and the condition was that anybody who can, just by hand break the bow into pieces, would be the person to marry Sita. The bow was so heavy that many kings tried to take it up from the platform but they themselves fell, they could not move the bow. There was no question of breaking it just by hand. Sita was sitting there ready with the garland; whoever breaks the bow…
Laxmana was getting too eager. They had gone with their teacher, Vashishtha. The father of Rama had sent Vashishtha to take care of the boys and see that they were not defeated, that no cunningness was being used. Laxmana was getting so excited that he was asking again and again, “Vashishtha, just give me permission and I will break it.”
Vashishtha said, “You just keep quiet. Rama has the first right, he is your elder brother. If he fails, then you have a chance.” Of course Rama broke the bow. Laxmana had seen Sita, seen the beauty of the woman. She must have been a rare woman: now he had to treat her as if she were his mother – you can think of his mind.
I explained to those people that Vinoba’s explanation simply shows Vinoba’s mind, it has nothing to do with Laxmana. Vinoba was a celibate, and he knew perfectly what celibacy means: your dreams are full of girls, your whole day is continuously a fantasy of sexuality. The repressed sex tries in every possible way to break your unnatural idea of celibacy.
Vinoba was afraid of meeting women, seeing women. He used to live isolated; he never lived in Gandhi’s ashram itself, because there were women there. He lived a few miles away: he used to come every day at the prayer time, reading the story of Rama or some other scripture, and would go back. But he lived in isolation: Gandhi’s ashram was dangerous, there were women – beautiful women – and he was a celibate monk.
The explanation that he gave was his own mind, and the explanation is a condemnation of Laxmana, it makes him a repressed sexual person. It is a condemnation, it is not appreciation. Neither Vinoba understands the psychology, nor Gandhi understands the psychology, because he confers the degree of acharya for this stupid explanation.
A case was filed against me, that somebody’s religious feelings were hurt. I said to the court, “This is strange. I have not said a single word against Laxmana. I was criticizing Vinoba’s explanation.” Vinoba was alive then, I told the court, “Call Vinoba, and I am ready to argue with him that his explanation is wrong – not only wrong, but condemnatory. And from where does this man get the idea that his Hindu feelings are hurt? Vinoba is not yet a Hindu incarnation of God, and I am trying to save Laxmana, that this is not the right way. In any Sigmund Freud’s hands this explanation will mean Laxmana is sexually so repressed, so much afraid of his own repression that he cannot look at the face of the woman.”
The court finally agreed with me. But the court was also Hindu, so they were not daring enough to also call Vinoba into the court. I said, “This is unfair. I criticized him, this man says I have hurt his feelings. Now the court gives the judgment that I am not speaking against Hinduism: I have spoken against the explanation. Now it is the duty of the court to call Vinoba. Vinoba has hurt the Hindu mind and the Hindu mind’s religious feeling.” But Vinoba was a great Hindu leader, so naturally he was never called. The case was really against him, not against me.
But a strange thing happened. Whenever the case was in the court, thousands of people would be there, inside the court, outside on the verandas, on the lawn, thousands of people – at least ten thousand people would come to listen to what I was saying, and they were all Hindus. And when I won the case, the man who had filed the case against me told the magistrate that he needs police protection.
I said, “For what? I need police protection because I have hurt the feelings of the Hindu religion, religious people, and these ten thousand people are Hindus. And I have to go out of this room. These ten thousand people can kill me. And this fellow is asking police support and police protection, for what? Are these Hindus against him?”
They were: they could see the point clearly, they could see that this man is simply a Hindu chauvinist. They could see that I had been unnecessarily harassed for the whole year. And they were really angry, they were shouting and screaming and asking that the man should be delivered to them, so they could teach him what it means to be religiously hurt!
The magistrate himself was afraid that the situation was dangerous. He told the man to go inside, behind, which was the magistrate’s private room. “Just remain there until everybody is gone. No police protection will help, because these ten thousand people… From where can I bring the whole army to prevent these ten thousand people? The court has a few policemen, but they are not enough to protect you: just sit.”
And he went inside the room and waited. I left, so naturally other people left, by and by. Perhaps he must have left just when the court was being closed, or he must have left with the magistrate in his own car.

Exactly that type of case they have put in Germany and soon they will be putting it in every country. I told the Australian media, “Get ready, I am coming” – now the whole of Australia is agog, afraid. Newspapers have started coming, saying that people are very much disturbed, afraid that I may remain there, may not leave Australia.
But the man himself who was here was an intelligent man; I really loved the man, he was not just a journalist. He is answering the phone calls continuously coming to his studio. He informed us, “I have never answered myself, my secretary answers: but this time I am answering myself because I can say to them that I have been there, I have seen the man, I have seen the commune that is there, and they are beautiful people. You need not be afraid, and don’t get unnecessarily excited by rumors, there is no danger.”
But it is now all over Australia, a great wave of fear. I have not gone there and there is not much possibility. But my people are there, and my people are growing in every country. And in every country my people will have to face the same problems. They cannot believe, the politicians and others, that I am not going to use my influence politically. It is something inconceivable to those retarded people, that there can be a man who has great influence and is not going to use it in any way.
My influence is that of love. I love my people, and I would not like to put my people in any kind of destructive situation. But what can you do with people who are so afraid that they cannot even come to visit the commune to see, and experience themselves, that there is nothing to fear? My people are peaceful and wherever they will go they will bring the peace, the silence, the rejoicing. They will bring songs to every country and ecstasy to every land. They don’t understand our war is totally different – we are spreading a certain kind of atmosphere around the world which can prevent wars, which can prevent Adolf Hitlers, which can prevent nuclear weapons being used.
Osho,
In your vision of the world being one commune, is it still so that the Italians should be the cooks, the French the lovers and the Germans the organizers?
Most probably, because who can cook better than the Italians? And in my commune everybody is to do the best he can. Yes, the Germans will be the organizers; they have proved, and I have a greater number of Germans than any other country. They are the best organizers, the most reliable people; you can trust them, they can never betray. They certainly have a very strong spirit.
But nobody is going to force them; if they want to change places they can change, and that is how it is happening in my communes all over the world. People don’t remain stuck to one job, they want to learn many more things. The doctor wants to learn plumbing, the plumber wants to be a mechanic, the mechanic wants to be a cook. The commune is also a university. It is so many things together: it is a religion, it is a university, it is the birth place for the new man.
So my feeling is that Italians will try to learn how to organize, although in the beginning their organization will be greasy, lousy, spaghetti all over. Nobody is going to condemn them, that’s natural. The Germans cooking – you can understand, Koran Grove will be full. If we can survive German cooking, that means a miracle has happened. But we will try, we are open to all possibilities. And it is already happening that way – in fact the moment you enter a commune nobody recognizes you as Italian, as German, as Indian, as American. All those things simply disappear: you are just my people, the red people. A new identity comes up and throws out all old identifications.
I don’t know who is a German, who is an Italian, who is Greek, who is Spanish. I don’t know myself, except for a few people who had come to me in the very beginning, so I know them more personally. That’s why when I want to say something about Germans I will use Haridas, because except Haridas I don’t know any German. If I have to talk about the English, I have to talk about Teertha because I don’t know anybody else. If I have to talk about Italians, then Asheesh is the only Italian. But there are many and now there is no possibility for me to be acquainted the way I am with Teertha or Haridas or Asheesh: that way is not possible any more.
I will love you but I will not know your name. I will do everything for you but I will not know your name, your race, your country. And the thing has become so enormous and big, and it is expanding with such speed, you cannot expect me to. In the beginning, when there were only a few people who could be counted on the fingers, naturally I knew their name, their country, their background and they had the chance of being more intimate. In the beginning it was possible. But don’t feel that those who have come late are deprived of anything, because my work has really begun now.
After I started speaking again, those three years that I remained silent were just to give a gap. All that I had done before that was only a preparation. Then a three-year gap for all those who want to escape, can escape before my real work starts. So those who have come just now, they should not feel deprived, my work has begun just now. Now I am talking directly to you: there is no Krishna between me and you and no Jesus between me and you. I am cutting their heads right and left and creating a direct passage.
I am not allowing even people whom I love – Bodhidharma, Chuang Tzu – I am not going to let anyone stand between me and you, I am going to chop their heads. Of course, lovingly. I can ask them, “Forgive me, but I have to chop your head because now nobody stands between me and my people.” However beautiful is Heraclitus, and however much I have loved Pythagoras and Zarathustra, does not matter, that is my personal affair. As far as you are concerned, I am not going to let anybody else stand between me and you.
So nobody needs to feel that he has missed something – no! My work has begun just now and you have all come in the right moment. Those who have remained in the preparatory period, in the silent period, of course are more fortunate. But, if you have courage enough you can take a long jump and be in the front line with the old sannyasins. It only needs courage: they had enough time to go slowly, step by step, the new sannyasins will have to jump four steps at a time. Soon you will be all in the same line.
And that’s my effort, that’s why I am giving you so many shocks. Shocks are particularly good to keep people jumping. I don’t let them stand in one place; another electric shock and they jump four, five steps immediately. A day or two I may let them rest there, but not more than that.
Osho,
Why is the media so nervous around you?
Because they have never come across a man like I am. The media knows politicians, popes, other kinds of leaders; they are all afraid of the media and nervous. The politician is nervous: he has reasons to be nervous. And the journalist is assertive and aggressive, and the politician is simply dodging and trying to save his skull.
A few days ago I saw an interview with Rajiv Gandhi, who has now become the prime minister of India – he was here in America. The interviewer goes on continuously hammering and Rajiv Gandhi looks almost frozen, as if any moment his breathing is going to stop. And I can see the reason, because the interviewer tried in different ways to get Rajiv Gandhi to say something against Russia. That Rajiv Gandhi cannot do. Before coming to America, first he had gone to Russia. In fact, he must have been prepared there in Russia, what to say and what not to say, because India is almost in the hands of Russia. It is not a communist country but on the very verge, any day it is going to become a communist country.
The interviewer was also trying to force Rajiv to say something against America. That he cannot do. He has come to America to create more friendship, he has come to get more uranium for nuclear weapons in India: he cannot say anything against America. He cannot praise America either, because Russia will get upset; he cannot praise Russia because America will get upset.
So naturally, the politician is nervous before the media. I have no problem; I can say exactly what I want to say. All the media becomes nervous because they know they will not even be able to report the things I say, because if they take all these things to the editor, they may perhaps be thrown out of the job.
They are nervous because what I am saying is also hurting their prejudices. They are human beings: first they are human beings, then they may be journalists. First Christians, then they may be journalists: and when I am hitting on Jesus they want to scream but they cannot do that. Naturally, it becomes a nervous feeling, they forget to ask what they wanted to ask. They have never met a man like me who has nothing to lose, so can say anything, who does not belong to your society, who does not care about respectability.
Now, the pope is continuously concerned that his respectability as the greatest religious leader in the world should not be affected by any statement. All his statements are prepared by other bishops, looked at by a committee, everything is edited. He is simply a spokesman, he is not speaking himself. The whole church, the Catholic hierarchy, is decisive. He has just to speak what they teach him, what they tell him to say.
Another fundamental reason they get nervous is that I am an absolutely free man. I don’t care about contradicting myself, so they cannot put me into a corner by saying, “You said this fifteen years ago, now you are saying that.” They cannot put me into any corner. I say forget it, to hell with those fifteen years. Whatever I am saying now is true now: tomorrow I do not promise I will say the same thing, because I don’t bother about consistency, about respectability, about what people will think.
I have no reason to be nervous, I simply enjoy their nervousness. It is strange, something new. The table with the water is placed by the side of the person who is being interviewed. Because when he feels nervous he can start drinking just to do something: get busy, forget nervousness, and meanwhile he also has time to think what to say next. Here, it is just the opposite: the water and everything is placed by the side of the media. And I see them plucking grapes, taking water, tossing and turning in their chair, sometimes looking at the photographer, sometimes at the director.
They will never forget the interview, because that kind of interview is never going to happen to them unless they come here again, to have another nervous breakdown. But my work is first to give you a nervous breakdown, because only from there is there a possibility of a spiritual breakthrough. Breakdown to breakthrough, that’s the whole story.

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