Rajneeshism: womb for transformation

Question 1:

IT is a contradiction in terms, but I will not dispose of the question so easily. I will try to squeeze as much juice out of it as possible.

Yes, there is some way to define the orthodox Rajneeshee. It is going to be a strange definition because two terms which are contradictory to each other are used together. But still I feel it is significant.

The first quality of an orthodox Rajneeshee will be:

He will not be orthodox - in no possible sense, in no direction.

He will be totally committed to the spirit of rebellion.

He will fight against everything that is bad but that still goes on burdening human consciousness; things which should have been thrown away long ago.

But because of a strange habit of the human mind, many dead things go on keeping their grip on you; and the more ancient they are, the deeper and stronger is their grip on you. The reason has to be understood.

Before anything like education came into existence, there was only one way to learn, and that was from the people who were experienced. Naturally, the older generation would teach the younger generation. The older generation had experience, and experience was the only school; there was no alternative. The younger generation had to accept whatever the older generation was saying; there was no way to bypass the older generation.

The older generation was the only source of knowledge, hence the older people became respected.

The older they were, the more respected, because the greater was their experience, the longer was their experience - and it gave them a certain authority.

There was no possible authority to compete with it, the older generation had the whole monopoly.

Because of this situation - and this must have prevailed for thousands of years - the mind has got the habit, and habits die really hard. And habits which have been accumulated over thousands of years become engrained. They become a kind of program in you.

I was criticizing Mahatma Gandhi my whole life but no Gandhian replied to my arguments. I cannot blame them, because there was no argument on their side: whatsoever they would have said would have looked stupid - and they knew it. In private they had admitted to me, "What you are saying is right, but that you are saying it is not right. Just to say something against a man who is worshipped by millions of people is not right; you are hurting their feelings."

I said, "Do you mean I have to lie not to hurt their feelings? Do you mean I have to stop saying the truth? - and Gandhi's whole life can be described as a deep search for truth? He entitled his autobiography, THE STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH... a man who thinks that his whole life is an experiment with truth. And you are his intimate followers, you have lived with him:

you have got some nerve to tell me that I should not say it even though it is true."

In public, not a single Gandhian had the courage to accept what I was saying, but they were not able to find any argument against me either; so they found one thing which in India is tremendously appealing. All the Gandhians all over the country started saying that I was too young, inexperienced; that when I became old enough, I would not say such things. Even Morarji Desai....

He thinks himself to be now the only living successor of Mahatma Gandhi, and he enjoys one thing very much.... Gandhi was called Bapu all over India. Bapu means father, but it is far sweeter than father, closer to daddy or even dad. If it is to be translated exactly I will have to use Jesus' word for father, abba. That is Aramaic, and it has exactly the same meaning as bapu. Bapu is a Gujarati term. Morarji Desai is also Gujarati; and now he is old enough, ninety, it is time he should be called Bapu - because that's what Gandhi was called by the whole country.

Morarji Desai was deputy prime minister when he criticized me, and this was the only criticism that I was too young. After a few years, when he was no longer in the government, he wanted to meet me.

He wanted me to help him throw Indira Gandhi from power, and he wanted my advice about what should be done. When I went to see him - it was not like him but now he was in a difficult situation - he was standing at the gate to receive me. That was not like him - I had seen him before, when he was in power.

He took me by my hand into his house and made me comfortable. A few of my hairs had started becoming grey, so he said, "Last time your hair was not grey."

I said, "What to do? To prove myself right I am making a tremendous effort to make my hair grey.

Unless my hair is grey, I am wrong."

He could not understand. I said, "Let me remind you. You criticized me when you were deputy prime minister of the country, saying that I was too young. Since then I have been trying to become older.

And I still have the same arguments - more strongly, because now I am more experienced. In a way you were right, but as far as I can see, the older I become, the sharper my arguments will be. I don't see any hope that I can ever accept stupidities - whether they are propounded by Mahatma Gandhi or by God Himself."

Morarji Desai was very much embarrassed, and I said to him, "If age is an argument, then have you heard my remark? - that 'Morarji Desai has become senile. If he were a little bit younger he would understand what I am saying. It needs intelligence, and he is senile. And the more senile he becomes, the more idiotic and stupid will be the ideas that have a grip over his mind.' "

But strangely enough, Kaka Kalelkar, Morarji Desai, Vinoba Bhave, Shankarrao Deo - all great Gandhians in India - used the same argument, that I was young. As if to be young is to commit a crime, as if to be young is enough to be wrong, and nothing else is needed.

I told Shankarrao Deo, "How old was Jesus Christ when he was crucified? I am older than him - he was only thirty-three. According to your argument, all that he said should be just thrown away, it is just meaningless. What meaning can it have? A man who is just thirty-three, what authority can he have... so inexperienced?

"But," I said, "you may be willing to throw out Jesus Christ because you are not a Christian, so let me remind you how old Shankara, the greatest Hindu philosopher was. He was also thirty-three when he died. If age is a determining factor, then Shankara should never be mentioned again - and Shankara has the greatest hold on the Hindu mind."

No, when it is in your favor - when the young are just following the old without having any skepticism - then their youth is not to be even mentioned. Their youth comes to be questioned only when they are skeptical, when they start raising doubts against the older people.

In ancient times it was impossible... because young people could not give an equal weight to what they were saying; their experience was so small. Now the whole thing has changed, so much so that I can say that it has moved one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. Because of the educational systems, now experience is not the only way to know; in fact it is a very long way to know. By education you can know by a shortcut. What a man may be able to know in ninety years of his life, you can know within one year.

Whatever Bertrand Russell has written in a long life of almost one century, you can read within six months. It actually happened.... Bertrand Russell had a student, Ludwig Wittgenstein, a German, who went through all the books of Bertrand Russell - which is not difficult. Bertrand Russell has written everything that occurred in his mind - he was one of the greatest intellects of any time - but he had to write all that in a long life.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was a young man. He went through all Bertrand Russell's books because Russell was going to be his teacher and he wanted to be absolutely acquainted with what went on in the mind of this man. The day he entered Russell's class he knew much more than Bertrand Russell knew. Bertrand Russell was ancient; Wittgenstein was very young, but he knew more, because he knew all that Bertrand Russell had written and much more that others had written; much that enemies of Bertrand Russell had written. And he found many fallacies and many loopholes in Bertrand Russell's writings.

Bertrand Russell was simply shocked, but he was an authentic man, an honest man. He accepted that: "Ludwig Wittgenstein, although my student, knows far more than I know because he went by a shortcut and I had to go by a long route. He went by a shortcut, became acquainted with everything that I had written, and started arguing against me in such a way that only a tremendously experienced person could."

Bertrand Russell was so impressed in his few days' contact with Ludwig Wittgenstein that he said to Wittgenstein, "Don't waste your time, you have nothing to learn from me. You already know more."

Wittgenstein used to write a few notes in the class. Bertrand Russell just asked him, "I would like to see your notes." And when he saw those notes he said, "These notes are so significant that they should be published."

But Wittgenstein said, "I am not writing for publication, I was just noting down any idea that was coming to me. This book is very raw, it is not a book for publication."

Bertrand Russell said, "Publish it as it is, and I am going to write the introduction for it."

Those notes have been published and they proved revolutionary. They are just fragments, because they were not written as an essay or an article - just any ideas that came to him. But because the book, TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS, became so famous - it was only a tract, but it became so famous that no other book in philosophy is as famous in this century - and was so profound, it gave an idea to Wittgenstein. He never wrote any other books in a different fashion - it became his style just to write notes, fragments.

The fame of the book proved that when you write an essay your idea has to be spread all over the essay and it loses its intensity, its sharpness. It becomes more understandable but less penetrating.

When it is just like a maxim, a bare, naked statement with no decorations around it, it simply hits deeper, although it will be understood by only very few people - people who have the capacity to see in the seed the whole tree, which is not yet existent but is only a potentiality.

And a man can see in the seed the whole tree.

Wittgenstein's statements are just like seeds. You will have to figure them out, what potential they have. He does not give you any clue, he simply puts the seed in front of you and goes ahead putting down other seeds. He never tries to connect them; you will have to connect them.

To read Wittgenstein is really an experience. To read anybody else is like having the food chewed for you and then you eating it. With Wittgenstein, it seems he is simply placing the food in front of you: you have to chew it, you have to digest it. You have to find out what it means.

Ordinarily the philosopher tries to convince you of what he means. He tries to prevent you going astray from his meaning, and he gives you the whole package with all the details. But he leaves nothing for you, no homework for you. He is not helping your intelligence; he is, in fact, destroying you. When you start living on liquid food, soon you will be incapable of digesting solid food. The liquid food will destroy your capacity to digest the solid food.

But Bertrand Russell didn't say to Wittgenstein, "You are too young" - no. And that should be the attitude of a genuine thinker.

Education has brought in a new methodology. Within days you can read, just sitting in a library, in a university, all that took Pythagoras his whole life to collect; and it is all available to you. So when a boy comes home from the university... trouble has arisen in the world. In the past it was always the father who was right, the grandfather was even more right. Now it is not so; it is now the young man who is right, because even if the father had been to university, that was thirty years before, and in thirty years so much has changed.

When I entered the university to study psychology, my professor was an old man, well-studied, but all that he knew and had studied was half-a-century old. Those names that he used to quote had been completely forgotten in the world of psychology. Who bothers about Woodworth? And when I told him, "Woodworth? Are you mad or something? It was perfectly okay before the first world war, but two world wars have happened. Have you been asleep or what? - Woodworth is no longer any authority." But when my professor was at university Woodworth was the authority. I told him, "You should read Assagioli."

He said, "Assagioli? Who is this fellow?"

I said, "If you don't know Assagioli, resign! - because psychology has passed from Freud to Adler, to Jung, to Reich; it has come to Assagioli. Assagioli preaches psychosynthesis; Freud was teaching psychoanalysis, it is just the opposite." And I told him, "When I came to study psychology, I did not come here to study some rotten old stuff which is no longer relevant. You died with Woodworth!

What are you doing here? You don't know the name of Assagioli? - and if you don't know about psychosynthesis you are out of date."

I told him, "You remind me of a madman who lives in front of my house. He comes every day to me, early in the morning when I am just taking tea, for the newspaper. I go on giving him any newspaper - one month old, two months old - and he takes it joyously and reads it happily. He never bothers about the date.

"I asked the madman,'You are so interested in newspapers, but one thing is strange about it: you don't bother about dates.' The madman said,'I am interested in news - when it happened, who cares? And what does it matter that it happened last year or two years before? It happened, that is enough, and I enjoy it.""

I told this old professor, "I will come to your house and sort out all the old stuff you are reading."

He said, "No, you should not come to my house, because you will throw everything away. The way you are talking.... I was really thinking about my reading room, because you will throw away all my books; they all belong to my student days."

I told him, "Then you will have to get up to date, otherwise you sit in the class and I start teaching.

If you are not ready to get up to date, then why bother? You sit - at least you will be learning something. I don't see that I can learn anything from you. If Woodworth is the end of psychology to you, then...."

He said, "I will try my best." He was a nice man, and he accepted the fact that it was true - that many professors would be benefited if they could accept that after they leave the university they never read, they never go to the library. In fact I went to the library and checked: "How many professors come to the library?" And I was surprised that the librarian said, "Professors? The library is meant for the students - professors don't come."

I said, "This is something weird. Professors have to be acquainted every day with what is happening, because things are moving so fast, and they are stuck thirty years, forty years back." In these years so much progress has happened in knowledge that you cannot compare these thirty years with the past three thousand years. What has not happened in three thousand years has happened in thirty years; and what has happened in three years has not happened in the past thirty years.

You can see the fact that now scientific discoveries are not published in book form, they are published in periodicals as papers, for the simple reason that by the time you finish the book it will be already out of date. The book will take time, perhaps one year, to write properly in the old format - giving all notes, footnotes, appendix - and it will take one year or two years to finish it. But by that time somebody else may have already published papers which are far more profound than your book. So the scientist today rushes immediately to publish whatsoever he has found, in the smallest paper, in a periodical. One never knows what is going to happen tomorrow.

So now the younger man knows more than the older. The fresher your knowledge, the better. But it was not so in the past. It is not yet so in the uneducated countries - for example in India where only two percent of the people are really well educated. They say eight percent of the people are educated; but six percent are "educated" because they can write their signature, nothing else. Even if we count those, then too ninety-two percent of the people in the villages are uneducated.

In the villages it is still the routine: the father knows; the son has to accept it - and the grandfather knows even more. The older the person, the more respectable, because he is more wise. It is not strange that all the religions paint God as a very old, ancient man. Have you ever seen God painted as a young man in blue jeans? That will not suit Him, it will look insulting, but really that should be the case today.

The way you have been painting God in the past was okay; at that time the older was the wiser - naturally you could not paint God as a young man. But now, the older is simply out of date; the younger, the more up-to-date, is more correct, closer to the truth.

If you want God to be closer to the truth, put Him in blue jeans. It will look a little odd because He has never been in blue jeans. He may feel a little difficulty, but what to do? - things have changed.

But the mind goes on keeping, somewhere deep inside, the program.

My sannyasin has to be absolutely unorthodox.

I will not say anti-orthodox, for the simple reason that if you are anti-orthodox.... Perhaps in America I should not say anti-orthodox; here they say "ant-eye-orthodox"! I cannot say that, it is so ludicrous. "Sem-eye-automatic weapons".... These Yankees are doing strange things with a beautiful language. No, I will continue my own way.

I will not call my people anti-orthodox, because if you are anti - , somehow you are still attached. It is as an enemy, not as a friend, but there is a relationship. It is not of love but of hate, and hate is a far more binding relationship than love.

Have you observed that love is very momentary? - comes and goes just like a breeze. It is here, and you feel so full of love towards someone that you cannot imagine that this love can ever disappear.

In such moments people get romantic, start saying things which are only allowed for mad people or poets. But that moment is so overwhelming, they start saying, "I will love you forever!" And it is true - for the moment. They are not lying, that's what they are feeling in the moment, that: "If there are other lives I cannot conceive of loving anybody else than you."

Still the person is not lying, he is absolutely honest. He is so full of love that he feels this is how it is going to be, that life is going to be too short to fulfill this love, to share this love. But he is not aware that it is just a breeze which comes from one side, from one door, and moves on to the other side, to the other door, leaving you in the same state as you were before, again back on the earth.

Those wings had suddenly appeared, and you were flying high - "higher and higher, Osho, higher and higher." Those wings... then you look all around. and they are not there. Suddenly you feel lower and lower, lower and lower. You are not even on plain ground, you are falling into a ditch!

Love is momentary - it fades.

But hate seems to be far stronger.

You fall in love, you fall out of love.

But once you fall in hate....

It is rarely heard that a man has fallen out of hate. He is stuck, glued. Hate has some force, it keeps you glued to it. Enemies remain enemies for generations.

In my neighborhood - and neighbors are the worst enemies; where else can you find better enemies than your neighbors? Perhaps it was an afterthought of Jesus Christ's.... First he said, "Love your enemies as yourself." Then later on he said, "Love your neighbors as yourself." That is a second thought, because neighbors are really the enemies. You don't have to go far away in search of enemies, you find them just by your side.

So the family that lived by the side of my house had been my family's enemy for generations. I was prohibited from going into their compound, into their garden, and I was not to play with their children as "they are our enemies."

I simply said, "They may be your enemies. I have not even been friends of theirs, how can I be their enemy? At least first let me get acquainted."

My father said, "You should not argue about it. We have been fighting in the courts, we have been fighting physically... and this has gone on. This enmity is something that has become almost sacred."

I said, "I am no longer a part of it. I am going to play with their children and I am going into their garden, because they have more beautiful mangos than you have. They have such a beautiful...."

There is a special type of well that is made in India.

I don't know whether it is made in any other country or not. It is an old type. On one side you can draw water by a bucket with a rope, but on the other side it has steps. It is called a baodi. So if by chance you don't have a bucket and a rope, you can go down by the steps and get the water.

Particularly in places by the side of the road in a jungle, they will make a baodi, not a well, because sometimes a traveler may be thirsty but may not have the means to reach the water, so both possibilities have to be made available to him. If he can pull the water out, that is best, that is preferable. The alternative is only for an emergency, because people going close to the water may dirty it, may start drinking just with their hands. So to go down is not encouraged very much. But I enjoyed this way because then I could have a good bath in our neighbor's well.

I said to my father, "Your well is simply a well, and they have a baodi. Your enmity, you take care of; your forefathers have taken care of it - I am not interested in it. And they have nice children and they are good people, why should I be inimical to them? We don't know in what circumstances your forefathers and their forefathers became enemies. And what has that to do with us? - we have never fought. And whenever I have gone there they have always welcomed me joyously, for the simple reason that they could not believe it:'It has not happened for centuries between the two families."' I was the first to break the barrier.

The neighbors were very happy; they said, "We wanted to break the barrier, but who should take the initiative? They would seem to be weak."

I said, "I am not coming to you out of any weakness. I cannot understand what kind of intelligence you and my family have. You don't even know the names of the people who started this fight." - neither my father knew, nor they knew who was the first - and you go on fighting. It has become almost a religion to you.

"I am not coming out of any weakness, I am coming from strength. I have come to tell you that it is sheer stupidity to prolong this hatred so long. Nobody prolongs love so long, so why hate? And moreover I am not interested in you, I am interested in the mangos, in your baodi; and I have to enter this compound. Whether you are enemies or friends, that is your business."

I told my father, "Nobody can prevent me from going there. And they have received me, welcomed me, and said,'We always wanted to break this thing, but who should take the initiative?' I think anybody who has more intelligence should take the initiative, the stupid will lag behind."

And slowly, slowly, because my family could not force me - they knew the more they forced me, the more I would be there. I told my father, "If you insist too much I will start sleeping there, I will start eating there; and they really have invited me."

He said, "Okay, I won't insist on anything, but don't eat anything offered by them. They are enemies - they can poison you."

I said, "Forget all about it. They are nice people. I know them more than you do or your forefathers did. I am going there every day, they are so nice. They have not even prevented me from jumping in their well, just for the simple reason that'this is the first person from the other family to enter our compound; let him have a bath in the baodi. Don't prevent him - it doesn't look good. After so many generations, the first person has entered, has dared to."

"And don't be worried about me being poisoned, because I have already eaten things from them. I have not told you because I knew this is what you would say. So first I had to eat and see that there was no poison, and there was nobody interested in poisoning anybody. They don't prevent me from taking their mangos and their other fruits, simply for the reason that this is the first person from our family who has come into their compound. I am going to invite their children into our compound, into our garden, and I would expect you to be at least gentlemanly."

And when I started bringing their children, of course my family was nice to them. How can you be against small children who have never done anything, who have just come into the world?

But hate has a very long life.

Love has a very short life.

Perhaps that's the way things are.

There are so many roses in the morning, but by the evening their petals have started falling, they are disappearing. But the rock? It was there in the morning, it will be there in the evening, it will be there again the next morning. Many roses will come and go and the rock will remain.

Hate is something rocky.

Love is something like a flower.

So I will not say, then, that my people have to be anti-orthodox, anti-traditional, anti-conventional.

No, they have to be unorthodox, unconventional, untraditional.

Unorthodox means you are not related to orthodoxy in any way, positive or negative. You are indifferent, you couldn't care less. You are not for, you are not against, you are simply not interested - because "for" and "against" are just different sides of your interest.

So an orthodox Rajneeshee will be unorthodox in every possible way.

His life will be a life of continuous rebellion.

Let me repeat: continuous rebellion.

Rebellion is a continuum.

It is something like a river that goes on flowing.

It is not like a water tank.

That's the difference between revolution and rebellion.

Revolution is like a water tank - the French revolution, the Russion revolution, the Chinese revolution... Just look at what happened. The Russian revolution happened, but it is not a continuum.

it happened in 1917, then what happened to it? It also died in 1917. Since then there has been no revolution in Russia.

Since then revolution has become their orthodoxy, since then revolution has become their tradition, since then revolution has become their status quo. it is not flowing, it is not moving: it is stuck at 1917. They pay respect to that date every year. They pay homage to the great revolution that happened in 1917. What kind of revolutionaries are these, who look backwards?

Even God is not so much of a reactionary as the Russian communist is today.

You can see it clearly: God has not given you twe eyes at the back of your head. A right God - right according to all the orthodoxies - should have really given you eyes behind your head, not in front, because what use are your eyes in front? You have to see backwards, not forwards.

It happened in India: a man with his friend was going from Jabalpur to Nagpur - it is not very far, just the distance from here to Portland - on a motorbike. It was cold on the motorbike and the winds were blowing against them. So the man who was driving the bike had a an idea; he turned his coat back-to-front because the winds were too cold, and this way was more protective. But they had an accident, perhaps because of that coat, and he was wearing a helmet...

Somebody was coming from the opposite direction - a sardarji, a Sikh driver. Ninety percent of drivers in India are Sikh sardar drivers; I don't know why they have chosen that profession. in the night, seeing a man sitting on a bike backwards, the sardar lost his nerve. He could not hold his steering wheel properly, and there was an accident. And that was not the end of the whole thing, there is still something more - this is just the beginning!

The sardar got out to see what happened. He found this motorcyclist and thought, "My God! it seems in the accident his head has gone round the other way." Sardars are sardars: he forcibly turned the man's head according to the direction of the coat. The man was then still alive, but now no longer. He had tried to somehow get out of the hands of the sardar, but you can't get out of the hands of a sardar - they are strong people and absolute idiots - and he wouldn't listen to the motorcyclist. he said to him, "You keep quiet!" The sardar turned the man's head, and he was quiet forever.

I reached there at that point - I was coming from Nagpur - and I saw what was happening. I asked the sardar, "What is the matter, sardarji?"

He said, "Strange! First, this man was riding backwards. That created the accident, because I completely lost my senses. It happened just in a single moment. And then when I got out of my truck to help these people, I saw one man unconscious and this other man... his head must have been turned around."

I went to see. I said, "Sardarji, you have killed the man! It was not his head but his coat that was turned around. And it is simple: it is so windy and the wind is blowing in this direction. This poor man must have turned his coat around."

The sardar said, "Is that so? Then I should have changed the coat rather than change the direction of his head... because he was alive and I told him to shut up! And then I tried to tell him,'Now you can open your mouth, you can speak. Say what you want, where I should take you in my truck; I can take you. Forgive me that I told you to shut up' - but he did not speak at all."

I said, "Now he is dead. Now don't bother him anymore! And don't tell any of this story to anyone; otherwise you will be caught, because you have done two things - the accident, and the greater accident that you turned his head around."

God has given you eyes to look forwards.

And the people who are for tradition or against tradition are always looking backwards.

J. Krishnamurti is anti-orthodox, anti-traditional, anti-conventional. That's where my differences with him are: I am unorthodox, untraditional, unconventional. So an orthodox Rajneeshee - and remember, whenever you write "orthodox Rajneeshee," put it in inverted commas because it is a contradiction in terms - will be a continuous rebellion. Not just a revolution that happens once and is finished: then it itself becomes a tradition.

Jesus was a revolutionary, but Christianity is not. Buddha was a revolutionary, but Buddhism is not, because the revolution happened twenty-five centuries past. We have left it far behind.

Now the Christian is as much orthodox as the Jews who crucified Jesus. If Jesus comes again he is sure to be crucified by the Vatican. This time, of course, the scene will not be in Jerusalem, the scene will be in the Vatican; but a crucifixion is certain.

It happened: I was staying with a Christian family in Hyderabad. The whole day I was engaged in meetings and interviews. In the night when I was just going to sleep, my friend, who was much older than me, said to me, "The whole day I could not find you and I did not want to disturb your appointments, but I have a problem. It is late at night and you are going to rest - forgive me - but I have to tell you.

"My young son was a Jesus freak. Nobody took it seriously, and there was nothing wrong in it, that he was continuaUy reading the BIBLE and quoting the BIBLE. We thought that it was just a phase and it would go, but unfortunately now the Jesus freak is no more a Jesus freak, he has become Jesus Christ!

"For two months now we have been really concerned. Up to being a Jesus freak it was okay: You read Jesus' sayings - we are Christians - you worship Jesus.... That too is okay, although it was getting a little weird because twenty-four hours a day of "Jesus, Jesus...." We are also Christians; on Sunday we go to church for one hour, and that's enough. Jesus is satisfied with one hour every Sunday. You don't have to devote your whole life to him; there are other things also to be done. And we cannot do miracles - turn stones into bread, water into wine, so we have to earn our bread and do other things. One hour is enough, all that we can devote.

"But still we tolerated it, thinking that this phase would pass - just the foolishness of a young man who has become obsessed with an idea - but now this is not a phase: he has become Jesus Christ.

Now he is no longer quoting Jesus Christ, he simply speaks on his own authority. Now he has become a laughingstock.

"He is standing on the crossroads declaring that he is Jesus Christ, and people laugh and urchins throw stones. Now we are really concerned and sad. His whole career is finished, and you cannot make a career out of being Jesus Christ. Everybody knows what happened to Jesus! - even he was not able to make a career out of it, so how can my son make a career out of it?

"Who is going to give this man a job? He is a postgraduate, a first-class post-graduate - he could get a good job - but for Jesus Christ, even if he is a first class, nobody.... The moment they hear that he thinks he is Jesus Christ they will say,'It will be difficult, because we need an assistant manager, and Jesus Christ as assistant manager? The place is not worthy of him!' So what to do?"

I said, "Tomorrow morning I will have to talk with Jesus Christ - what else to do? Let me meet him."

I knew the young man - I had stayed in the family before. And I knew that he was a freak, but he had never bothered me, although I was staying in the family. He knew that if he was a freak, then I was a double freak! So once and for all I had settled it: "You remember - with me this BIBLE and this Jesus Christ won't do; you better torture others. Moreover, I am a guest in your house, you behave like a host." So he had understood it perfectly well, but that was when he was only a freak - now he was Jesus Christ.

I said to his father, "First let me be acquainted... what is the situation?" So the next morning, rather than his father bringing him to me, I went into his room and I said, "Hello, Jesus Christ."

He said, "You said 'Jesus Christ!'"

I said. "Yes."

He said, "But nobody believes me - not my father, not my mother, even my friends have left me.

Since I became Jesus Christ I don't have any friends."

I said, "You can rely upon me. I don't like freaks, but Jesus Christ.... It is a great idea! You come with me. Now we can talk, now we are in the same boat."

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "Just come. We are in the same boat; you will understand what I mean." I tried in many ways, but he was very defensive and very alert that maybe his father was behind me, working through me and trying to persuade him to come down and just be a Jesus freak: "Now, this is too much. This is the twentieth century, and it will be difficult.... Even in Jesus' time is was very difficult, this time it is going to be more difficult."

But he wouldn't listen to anything. Then his father came, and I said to his father, "I think he IS Jesus Christ. Now what he needs is crucifixion."

The young man said, "What!"

I said, "Without crucifixion you won't come to your senses."

He said, "Crucifixion!"

The father also was shocked when I said he needed crucifixion, but I said, "Make arrangements."

And the young man said, "Are you serious?"

I said, "I am always serious; and I told you that if you are a Jesus freak, I am double that. If you are Jesus Christ, I am double that too. I will see that you are crucified; and until the resurrection I am going to remain here."

He just went to his father and he said, "Forgive me, I am just a Jesus freak. I don't want to be crucified because I don't think I will be able to resurrect. That is too much trouble."

For two thousand years Christians have been looking backwards; for two thousand five hundred years Buddhists have been looking backwards. If you look around the world you will see everybody's eyes are turned backwards; and do you know, we are always moving forwards. Our legs are going forwards and our eyes are focused backwards.

Even for a man like J. Krishnamurti it makes no difference: Your eyes still remain focused backwards.

Now you are an enemy; first you were a friend. But to me it makes no difference because your eyes are still looking backwards.

Hence I prefer the word rebellion - because revolutions have happened but they have always become static, they freeze too quickly. A new orthodoxy is created, a new convention is created:

new gods, new heaven, new hell - everything is new, but soon it starts becoming old.

Now sixty years have passed since the Russian revolution; more than sixty years, now it is a sixty- year-old tradition. Marx, Engels and Lenin are their trinity; DAS KAPITAL is their BIBLE, their KORAN, their GITA.

And strangely this similarity is such that one cannot believe it. Neither the Mohammedan reads the KORAN... he worships it but does not read it. Who has the time to read the KORAN? And it is good in a way that he does not read it, because if he reads it he won't worship it because there is nothing in it worth worshipping.

You can either worship it or you can understand it. Once you understand it, it is finished; there is nothing much in it to understand. So the religious priesthood is not interested in your understanding the KORAN, the BIBLE, the GITA, no: they are interested that you go on worshipping them.

This is fossilized revolution.

Yes, those words spoken by Jesus had fire in them.

They were words on fire.

But in the BIBLE do you think you will find fire?

It would have burned the BIBLE long ago.

In the BIBLE you will find a hairlock your mother has been keeping from the days when your father used to love her and she had cut a few of his hairs. They are in the BIBLE - where else to keep them? The BIBLE is the safest place; even a thief is not going to steal it.

You will find strange things in BIBLES. Your daughter or your sister may be keeping her love letters in the BIBLE, because that is the best place. Neither the father opens it nor the mother opens it; nobody ever opens it. Phone numbers which are very important and secret and which you don't want everybody to know - keep them in the BIBLE. The BIBLE is a great safe deposit with no lock.

It goes on gathering dust. You can write your name on any Bible with just your finger, because there will be enough dust - no need for any ink or any color.

These are revolutions.

Once there was fire.

But now there are only ashes left.

My sannyasin has not to look backwards.

He has not to think of a revolution that happened in the past. No, he has to live the revolution every day.

And his revolution is never going to stop. That's why I call it rebellion, just to make the distinction.

His rebellion is something alive.

It is not an incident in history.

It is an explosion in his being.

It has nothing to do with time.

It has something to do with his inner space.

And then it is a continuity.

He lives it. He breathes it.

It is his heartbeat.

My sannyasin can never become orthodox: How can a constant rebellion be converted into an orthodoxy? That's why you will find my statements so contradictory.

The reason is that I have never read any of my books, so I don't know what is in them. It helps me immensely, because then I don't have to bother about whether I am contradicting myself changing, saying something else. It keeps me free. If you ask me, then whatsoever I am saying right now is the truth. Tomorrow will take care of itself I cannot guarantee that this will be the truth for tomorrow too, because tomorrow.... The whole universe is in a continuous flux.

I am not giving you dead rocks.

I am offering you living flowers.

What it will be like tomorrow neither I nor anyone else can say.

Only tomorrow will bring the revelation.

I have been constantly inconsistent so that you will never be able to make a dogma out of me. You will simply go nuts if you try. I am leaving something really terrible for scholars. They will not be able to make any sense out of it. They will go nuts; and they deserve it, they should go nuts. But nobody can create an orthodoxy out of me, it is impossible.

If Christianity is possible, then of course Jesus is responsible. His words may have been fiery but they were too consistent; it was too easy to make a dogma out of them. He was not careful enough.

He made such simple statements that anybody could make a catechism out of them.

From my words you can get burned, but you will not be able to find any kind of theology, dogmatism.

You can find a way to live but not a dogma to preach.

You can find a rebellious quality to be imbibed, but you will not find a revolutionary theme to be organized.

My words are not only on fire.

I am putting gunpowder also here and there, which will go on exploding for centuries. I am putting more than needed - I never take any chances.

Almost each sentence is going to create trouble for anybody who wants to organize a religion around me.

Yes, you can have a loose community, a commune. Remember the word loose: everybody independent, everybody free to live his own way, to interpret me in his own way, to find whatsoever he wants to find. He can find the way he wants to live - and everybody unto himself.

There is no need for somebody to decide what my religion is. I am leaving it open-ended. You can work out a definition for yourself, but it is only for yourself; and that too you will have to continuously change. As you understand me more and more, you will have to change it. You cannot go on holding it like a dead thing in your hand. You will have to change it, and it will go on changing you simultaneously.

One great Master, Nan In, was on his deathbed. He is one of those people who I can say was religious, really religious. His whole life is full of incidents, anecdotes, stories, which give a clear indication of a man of tremendous insight.

He was dying. He had told his disciples, "I would not like my death to be mourned. because it is not death, so you will be unnecessarily wasting your tears and crying and weeping. And I will be laughing from the other shore, because I will see,'These fools! The whole of my life I have wasted, and they have not understood a simple thing."

"I would like you to dance and sing and laugh and rejoice, because death is not death. I am going, leaving this house because it is no longer useful. This body is now more of a trouble than a convenience; I am just changing it. So there is no need to mourn. You should be happy that your Master is going into a new life."

To whatever he said they listened, but their faces were showing that they were all ready to burst into tears. They were sad - and who would not be sad when a man like Nan In leaves the world? But Nan In had made arrangements.... He said, "A few things to be remembered... this is my will."

In the East it is a tradition, perhaps in the West also, that before you burn or bury a body you wash the body and put new clothes on it. I know the reason in the East is that he is going on a faraway journey; maybe there will be some chance to have a bath, or maybe not. And certainly he will need new clothes, so new clothes are given, a bath is given. This is just a way to say goodbye from this shore: "From now onwards we cannot help, you take care of yourself."

Nan In said, "Don't give me a bath because I have just taken one. And I don't like baths in such a cold winter; even if I am dead, I don't want another bath. I have taken one which was necessary.

I have done it myself because I was concerned that if you give me a bath I won't know how much water you pour in, how cold, and what else you do. I have taken my bath, so that ritual has not to be done.

"And don't change my clothes. You see, I have already changed, because I don't like clothes which don't fit, which are too loose or too tight. You know I am fussy about that, so I have my dress ready - you can see it is new." And they saw that he had taken a bath and he did have a new robe.

Nan In said, "So these two things are not to be done - this is my will - but anything else you want to do, you do. Don't weep, don't cry, don't mourn. That would not be the right kind of goodbye for me"

- and he died.

And although he had said, "don't cry" - but what to do? Tears are not in your hands, just to stop or... To lose such a man, such a tremendously alive man, disappearing into who knows what. "And how much he has given! Now towards whom are we going to look? Questions will be torturing us, doubts will be arising and who is going to say,'Don't be worried, continue: you are on the right track and the goal is not far away.' And his voice was enough to bring courage again, strength again. Now who is going to help?"

They were crying and they were weeping, but they could not manage to do it for long. People like Nan In are really creative geniuses. When his body was put on the funeral pyre they all started laughing in spite of themselves; tears were coming to their eyes. It was a strange situation: that man had hidden in his clothes many things - firecrackers and small bombs!

That's why he had prevented them from changing his dothes, that's why he had taken his own bath.

And his dress was specially made with many pockets inside where he was hiding almost a three-hour celebration. The people were laughing and crying, and the bombs were bursting and firecrackers were going off - colorful, beautiful, because in Japan they make the best. Nothing can be compared with Japanese firecrackers, they make them in such artful ways.

What Nan In was continually telling these people appeared in the sky, in writing: "Beware!" A firecracker would go up and burst into small, flower - like pieces and they all would fall together and make the word, "Beware."

His disciples were looking at the sky and they forgot completely that it was a funeral; it became a beautiful exhibition of fireworks! They realized only as the fire died out and the body was consumed by the fire... only then did they realize that that man had been doing the same thing his whole life.

He had even made arrangements before dying so that after death also his work would continue in the same way, uninterrupted. Death made no difference: Nan In was still doing the same thing.

In the same way, in each of my words... I am putting enough fire, enough explosives to go on exploding for centuries!

Nobody can be an "orthodox Rajneeshee" unless you change the whole meaning of "orthodox Rajneeshee" to be according to me, as I described to you.

If by "orthodox Rajneeshee" you can mean one who is untraditional, unconventional, unorthodox; rebellious as a continuity, with rebellion as his life... with no tight, regimented, bureaucratic, hierarchical organization, but just an open commune of friends who are only agreed upon one thing - that they love this crazy man....

On everything else they can disagree.

Their whole orthodoxy is confined to only one thing:

That they love this crazy man.