Rebellion is a style of life

Question 1:

Giulia, my notion about the rebel and rebellion is very simple: a man who does not live like a robot conditioned by the past.

Religion, society, culture... anything that is of yesterday does not in any way interfere in his way of life, in his style of life.

He lives individually - not as a cog in the wheel, but as an organic unity. His life is not decided by anybody else, but by his own intelligence. The very fragrance of his life is that of freedom - not only that he lives in freedom, he allows everybody else also to live in freedom. He does not allow anybody to interfere in his life; neither does he interfere in anybody else's life. To him, life is so sacred - and freedom is the ultimate value - that he can sacrifice everything for it: respectability, status, even life itself.

Freedom, to him, is what God used to be to the so-called religious people in the past.

Freedom is his God.

Men have lived down the ages like sheep, as part of a crowd, following its traditions, conventions - following the old scriptures and old disciplines. But that way of life was anti-individual; if you are a Christian you cannot be an individual; if you are a Hindu you cannot be an individual.

A rebel is one who lives totally according to his own light, and risks everything else for his ultimate value of freedom.

The rebel is the contemporary person. The mobs are not contemporary.

Hindus believe in scriptures which are five or ten thousand years old. Such is also the case with other religions too the dead are dominating the living.

The rebel rebels against the dead, takes his life in his own hands. He is not afraid of being alone; on the contrary, he enjoys his aloneness as one of the most precious treasures. The crowd gives you security, safety - at the cost of your soul. It enslaves you. It gives you guidelines on how to live:

what to do, what not to do.

All over the world, every religion has given something like the ten commandments - and these were given by people who had no idea how the future is going to be, how man's consciousness in the future is going to be. It is as if a small child were to write your whole life's story, not knowing at all what youth means, not knowing at all what old age means, not knowing at all what death is.

All the religions are primitive, crude - and they have been shaping your life. Naturally the whole world is full of misery: you are not allowed to be yourself.

Every culture wants you to be just a carbon copy, never your original face.

The rebel is one who lives according to his own light, moves according to his own intelligence. He creates his path by walking on it, he does not follow the crowd on the superhighway.

His life is dangerous - but a life that is not dangerous is not life at all. He accepts the challenge of the unknown. He does not meet the unknown that is coming in the future, prepared by the past.

That creates the whole anguish of humanity; the past prepares you, and the future is never going to be the past. Your yesterday is never going to be your tomorrow.

But up to now this is how man has lived: your yesterdays prepare you for your tomorrows. The very preparation becomes a hindrance. You cannot breathe freely, you cannot love freely, you cannot dance freely - the past has crippled you in every possible way. The burden of the past is so heavy that everybody is crushed under it.

The rebel simply says goodbye to the past.

It is a constant process; hence, to be a rebel means to be continuously in rebellion - because each moment is going to become past; every day is going to become past. It is not that the past is already in the graveyard - you are moving through it every moment. Hence, the rebel has to learn a new art:

the art of dying to each moment that has passed, so that he can live freely in the new moment that has come.

A rebel is a continuous process of rebellion; he is not static. And that is where I make a distinction between the revolutionary and the rebel.

The revolutionary is also conditioned by the past. He may not be conditioned by Jesus Christ or Gautam Buddha, but he is conditioned by Karl Marx or Mao Tse-tung or Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini... it does not matter who conditions him. The revolutionary has his own holy bible - DAS KAPITAL; his holy land - the Soviet Union; his own mecca - in the Kremlin... and just like any other religious person, he is not living according to his own consciousness. He is living according to a conscience created by others.

Hence, the revolutionary is nothing but a reactionary. He may be against a certain society, but he is always for another society. He may be against one culture, but he is immediately ready for another culture. He only goes on moving from one prison into another prison - from Christianity to communism; from one religion to another religion - from Hinduism to Christianity. He changes his prisons.

The rebel simply moves out of the past and never allows the past to dominate him. It is a constant, continuous process. The whole life of the rebel is a fire that burns. To the very last breath he is fresh, he is young. He will not respond to any situation according to his past experience; he will respond to every situation according to his present consciousness.

To be a rebel, to me, is the only way to be religious, and the so-called religions are not religions at all.

They have destroyed humanity completely, enslaved human beings, chained their souls; so on the surface it seems that you are free, but deep inside you, religions have created a certain conscience which goes on dominating you.

It is almost like one great scientist, Delgado.... He has found that in the human brain there are seven hundred centers. Those centers are connected with your whole body, the whole system. There is a center for your sex, there is a center for your intelligence, and for everything in your life. If at a particular center an electrode is implanted in the brain, a very strange phenomenon happens. He displayed it for the first time in Spain.

He put an electrode in the brain of the strongest bull - a remote control was in his pocket - and he stood in a field, waved a red flag, and the bull rushed madly towards him.

That was the most dangerous bull in the whole of Spain, and thousands of people had gathered to see. They were looking at the phenomenon... their breathing stopped - their eyes were not blinking.... The bull was approaching closer and closer, and they were afraid that Delgado was going to be dead within a second. But he had in his pocket this small remote controller.... Just when the bull was one foot away, he pushed a button in his pocket - nobody saw it - and the bull stopped as if suddenly frozen, like a statue.

Since then, Delgado has experimented on many animals, and on man too; and his conclusion is that what he is doing with electrodes, religions have been doing by conditioning. From its very childhood you condition a child; you go on repeating, repeating a certain idea which becomes settled near his center of intelligence, and it goes on goading the center to do something or not to do something.

Delgado's experiment can prove dangerous to humanity. It can be used by the politicians. Just when the child is born, in the hospitals, a small electrode needs to be pushed into his skull near the intelligence center, and a central controlling system will take care that nobody becomes a revolutionary, nobody becomes a rebel.

You will be surprised to know that inside your skull there is no sensitivity, so you will never be aware whether you have something implanted in your head or not. And a remote controller can manage...

from Moscow even the whole Soviet Union can be managed. Religions have been doing the same in a crude manner.

A rebel is one who throws away the whole past because he wants to live his own life according to his own longings, according to his own nature - not according to some Gautam Buddha, or according to some Jesus Christ, or Moses.

The rebel is the only hope for the future of humanity.

The rebel will destroy all religions, all nations, all races - because they are all rotten, past, hindering the progress of human evolution. They are not allowing anybody to come to his full flowering: they don't want human beings on the earth - they want sheep.

Jesus continuously says, "I am your shepherd, and you are my sheep...." And I have always wondered that not even a single man stood up and said, "What kind of nonsense are you talking? If we are sheep, then you are also a sheep; and if you are a shepherd, then we are also shepherds."

Not only his contemporaries... but for two thousand years NO Christian has raised the question that it is such an insult to humanity, such a great humiliation to call human beings sheep and to call himself the shepherd, the savior.

"I have come to save you"... and he could not save himself. And still almost half of humanity is hoping that he will be coming back to save them. You cannot save yourself; the only begotten son of God, Jesus Christ, is needed. And he had promised to his people, "I will be coming soon, in your own lifetime"... and two thousand years have passed - many lifetimes have passed - and there seems to be no sign, no indication....

But all the religions have done the same in different ways. Krishna says in the GITA that whenever there will be misery, whenever there will be anguish, whenever there will be need, "I will be coming again and again." Five thousand years have passed, and he has not been seen even once - never mind "again and again."

These people, howsoever beautiful their statements may be, were not respectful to humanity. A rebel respects you, respects life, has a deep reverence for everything that grows, thrives, breathes.

He does not put himself above you, holier than you, higher than you; he is just one amongst you.

Only one thing he can claim: that he is more courageous than you are. He cannot save you - only your courage can save you. He cannot lead you - only your own guts can lead you to the fulfillment of your life.

Rebellion is a style of life. To me, it is the only religion which is authentic. Because if you live according to your own light you may go astray many times, and you may fall many times; but each fall, each going astray will make you wiser, more intelligent, more understanding, more human.

There is no other way of learning than by making mistakes. Just don't make the same mistake again.

There is no God, except your own consciousness.

There is no need for any pope, or for Ayatollah Khomeini, or for any shankaracharya, to be mediators between you and God. These are the greatest criminals in the world, because they are exploiting your helplessness.

Just a few days ago, the pope declared a new sin: that one should not confess directly to God; you have to confess through the priest. Confessing directly to God, communicating directly with God, is a new sin. Strange... you can see clearly that this is not religion, this is business - because if people start confessing directly to God, then who is going to confess to the priest and pay the fine? The priest becomes useless, the pope becomes useless.

All the priests are pretending that they are mediators between you and the ultimate source of life.

They know nothing of the ultimate source of life. Only you are capable of knowing your source of life. But your source of life is also the ultimate source of life - because we are not separate. No man is an island; we are a vast continent underneath. Perhaps on the surface you look like an island - and there are many islands - but deep down in the ocean, you meet. You are part of one earth, one continent. The same is true about consciousness, But one has to be free from churches, from temples, from mosques, from synagogues. One has to be just oneself, and take the challenge of life wherever it leads. You are the only guide.

You are your own master.

Question 2:

Giulia, I do not have any teaching. My life is that of a rebel. I do not have a doctrine, a philosophy, a theology to teach you. I have only my own experience of rebellion to share, to infect you with rebelliousness. And when you are a rebel you will not be a copy of me; you will be an unique phenomenon in yourself.

All Buddhists are trying to be carbon copies of Gautam Buddha. He has a teaching: If you follow this certain discipline, you will become just like me. All Christians are carbon copies - the original is Jesus Christ.

I don't have any teaching, any doctrine, any discipline to give to you. My whole effort is to wake you up. It is not a teaching - it is just cold water thrown into your eyes. And when you wake up you will not find that you are like me - a carbon copy of me. You will be just yourself - neither Christian, nor Hindu, nor Mohammedan... an unique flower. There are not two persons alike - how can there be so many Christians? How can there be so many Buddhists? And the whole of history is a proof of what I am saying.

For twenty-five centuries, millions of people in the East have tried the discipline and the teaching of Gautam Buddha - but not a single one has been able to become a Gautam Buddha. Nature does not allow two persons to be the same. Nature is not an assembly line where cars are produced...

so you can see hundreds and thousands of Fords coming off the assembly line - the same, exactly the same. Nature is very creative, very innovative. It always creates a new man. It has created millions and millions of people, but never two people the same. You cannot find even two leaves on a tree just exactly the same, or two pebbles on the seashore just exactly the same. Each has his own individuality.

I don't have a teaching; but whatever I have experienced, it is a living phenomenon I share with you - not words, not theories, not hypotheses. I can give you as much closeness as you need; just as when you bring an unlit candle close to a candle which is burning there is a point where suddenly the fire jumps from the lit candle to the unlit candle. The lit candle loses nothing, and there has not been a transfer of any teaching, but a transfer of fire.

Giulia, I would like to say that I don't have any teaching, but I have great fire in my heart, and whoever comes close to me becomes aflame.

These people here are not my followers. They are just friends who are sharing in an experience which can burn all that is false in them, and can purify that which is their essential individuality, their authentic potential. This is an alchemical school, a school of mystery. I am not a teacher; I don't have any ideas, concepts... but I have a life to share, I have a love to share, and to those who are ready, I am ready to give all that I have - and in no way will they be enslaved.

The closer they come to me, the more they understand me, the more they will be themselves: that is the miracle.

I don't believe that walking on water is a miracle - it is sheer stupidity. The real miracle is to wake you up, to bring the message of freedom to you - freedom from all fetters. And I do not replace your imprisonment with new fetters and new chains; I simply leave you in the open sky. I fly with you a little while so that you can gather courage: there is no need to be afraid - you also have wings, just like I have wings. You have not used them; you have never been told that you have wings.

So this is a place where I make every effort that you become aware of your wings, encourage you, push you into the infinite sky which belongs to you. This is a totally different place - it is not a church, it is not a temple, not a synagogue. I am not your savior, and I am not the messenger of any God. A messenger is just a postman and nothing else.

I don't have a message to give to you, but I have a fire to impart to you. And if this fire is not radical, then nothing else can be radical in the whole world.

Question 3:

I hate politics. I am not a politician, and I am never going to be a politician.

An invitation has come from the Italian Radical party that they would like me to be their president.

I have informed them: I cannot be a member of your party, but I can be a friend - and if you need guidance in bringing more rebellion to your country I can be immensely helpful.

I am particularly interested in Italy because of this pope: until the Vatican is destroyed completely, humanity will not know what freedom is. The pope is not the representative of God, he is the representative of the whole idea of how to enslave people.

Italy has been destroyed by the Catholic religion. Otherwise, in its golden days, when Rome was at its highest peak of glory, it was one of the most beautiful countries in the world - for the simple reason that it was pagan. It had no religion; it believed in life, it believed in love, it was earthbound.

Those were the most beautiful days Italy has seen. The whole country was full of Zorbas.

But the trouble started because Judea, where Jesus Christ was born, was under the Roman Empire; and Jesus Christ was crucified on the demand of the Jews, but under the control of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea.

It is a strange story of deep human psychology. Pontius Pilate never wanted to crucify Jesus, because he could see there was nothing wrong in that man. At the most he was a little crazy, was talking about things which were harmless.... Anybody can say, "I am the only begotten son of God"

- what harm is there? He has not harmed anybody.

But the Jews - and particularly the chief priest and the rabbis were very much against him, because they thought that God is their monopoly; and this carpenter's son, who is uneducated, uncultured...

is destroying their very concept of God, and he is pretending to be the long-awaited messiah of the Jews. They could not tolerate it.

Pontius Pilate behaved politically, as politicians are supposed to. Knowing perfectly well Jesus Christ is innocent... just some screw is loose in his head, that's all, but that is not a crime - you cannot be crucified because some screw is loose or tight. You can go to a workshop and get the screw put in the right position - but crucifixion is not the way.

Hence, a very symbolic act, which Christians have never discussed - but Sigmund Freud was very much interested in that act.... Jesus was crucified to satisfy the Jews. Judea was their country and if Jesus was not crucified there was every possibility that the Jews might rebel against the empire.

The empire could not take such a risk just to save one innocent man....

When Pontius Pilate ordered the crucifixion and went inside, the first thing he did - he was seen doing - was to wash his hands, without any soap or water, but he was washing his hands.

This washing of the hands has been taken very seriously by Sigmund Freud, himself a Jew:

unconsciously Pontius Pilate was trying to say that "I am not responsible for it. I wash my hands completely of it. This is the Jews and their doing. I am not guilty of it." But the idea of guilt had arisen.

Slowly, slowly the followers of Jesus started moving into the Roman Empire; and the feeling of guilt grew, because it was under the Roman Empire that Jesus had been crucified. Many Romans started feeling guilty that they were also part of it; just to save the empire they had crucified an innocent man, a man of God.

This was a turning point in the history of Rome, and it ended finally with the whole pagan, earthbound, pragmatic philosophy of Rome disappearing under a dark cloud of Catholic, Christian ideology. Rome lost its glory because of Christianity - because Christianity teaches: Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who are standing last in the queue - because they shall inherit the kingdom of God.

The Roman Empire disappeared. Every empire disappears after a certain height. In this world nothing remains permanent; everything is in a flux. And Christian missionaries were roaming around in Italy preaching this ideology of poverty, meekness... that you are born a sinner, that unless Jesus saves you, you will fall into the darkness of hell for eternity.

Out of fear, out of helplessness, Italy became a victim of Christianity. It had killed Jesus Christ. But man's psychology takes strange turns; the crucifixion of Jesus finally became the crucifixion of the pagan, and the crucifixion of Rome and all its glory.

Italy will remain a neglected country. Only in the proverb now its glory has remained. "All roads lead to Rome" no more. Once it was true; now half the roads lead to Washington and half the roads lead to Moscow - not a single road goes to Rome. Destroy the Vatican and make at least one road.

I can help the Radical party of Italy to bring the beautiful pagan approach to life again, because deep in the soul of Italy that pagan is still present; and that is why I love the Italians tremendously. I see a certain hope that things are not always going to remain the same. The pagan will assert again, it is time. And that is why I have accepted that if you want me to be a friend, a guide, I am available - because I am immensely interested in the repressed pagan of the Italians.

It is difficult in India, because for ten thousand years at least, the pagan has not been heard about.

It may have died.... But I have so many sannyasins in Italy, and whenever they come I can see that their Christianity is superficial; their paganism is a reality - and I am interested in their pagan.

Italy can come to its glory again, but not as a Catholic country. Catholic... the very word shows the degradation of the Italian mind, Italian soul. Its beauty was in its paganism, in its love for existence, in its love for songs and dances, in its love for the body.

To me, the pagan is the beginning of real spirituality; it is not the end. Zorba is the beginning and Buddha is the end. The beginning I have to find in Italy, and the end I have to find in India. And once we can create a synthesis between the pagan and the awakened, the enlightened being, we have the whole man.

You can call that my philosophy: the philosophy of the whole man. Nothing has to be denied; everything has to be absorbed in a beautiful orchestra, in a beautiful symphony.

Question 4:

Giulia, the Catholic religion destroys the most. But the Italian soul is so deep-rooted in the pagan philosophy and the pagan approach to life, that in spite of the Catholic religion it has still remained pagan.

The Catholic religion has not been able to reach to the very center of the Italian people, it has touched just their surface; and this I am saying out of my own experience.

The Italian is Christian only skin deep; just one layer has to be peeled and the pagan will be there, still throbbing, alive, dancing, full of juice. It is a miracle that the Catholic religion has not been able to destroy the soul of Italy - and in that there is great hope.

I would like the radical people in Italy to destroy that thin layer of Catholicism as quickly as possible, because once that layer is destroyed, all the radical changes that they want will become absolutely easy. With the Catholic layer, no radical change is easy; it is going to be very difficult - so it is better first to destroy that layer.

The Catholic religion is such a poor religion; it has no arguments. Italy has enough intelligentsia. It is simply unbelievable that with so many intellectuals, so many geniuses in every dimension, they still go on tolerating this pope - and that too a Polack! I sometimes wonder whom you are going to choose next, a buffalo or a donkey? - because you have fallen to the bottom. Who has ever heard of any Polack who has been intelligent?

Italy is still deep down the same - just a thin layer has to be removed. And I have seen this happening here. To change the Italian into a living, dancing, joyous human being is so easy; but to do the same with an Indian is so difficult. You go on digging and you go on digging... the water has disappeared completely; there is no juice anywhere.

I wanted to go to Italy because I feel a deep spiritual affinity between myself and the Italian soul; but for almost one year the pope has been preventing my entry into Italy. Not only are these people retarded, they are cowards too.

This is my open challenge to the pope: I am ready; alone I will come to the Vatican, amongst your people, and I am ready to discuss each single point of your religion. With a single condition: if you win, I will become a Catholic; if I win, I become the pope, and the Vatican becomes the capital of the sannyasins of the whole world.

But he is such a coward that the government goes on saying, "We are giving you a visa for three weeks only." They are afraid because the pope is absolutely against my entry into Italy. In just three weeks these priests are afraid that I may destroy their tradition, their culture, their religion, their morality, that I will corrupt the whole country - in just three weeks. And they have not been able to corrupt the country in two thousand years; that shows their weakness, their impotence.

When he was here, I was the only man who welcomed him; I was the only man who opposed the people who were preventing his entry, who were not allowing him to move from one city to another.

I condemned them, and I said, "This is stupid. Welcome him. He is a guest. Invite him to an open discussion. You need not be worried about it" - because all the basic foundations of the Catholic religion are so poor, indefensible.

The virgin birth of Jesus Christ... there is no way to prove it; it is so unscientific. The concept of God as a trinity: God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost... and this "holy ghost" made the poor girl Mary, Jesus' mother, pregnant - without any license - and still he is holy? Then what is unholy?

And in this trinity there is no place for any woman? A strange family, three men. It is just to humiliate womankind. Even Jesus' mother - although they put up her statues, they worship her statues - she is not part of their ultimate trinity. Their ultimate trinity is a gay group - and I have every suspicion that the disease AIDS has come from the trinity. Everything has arisen from God - why not AIDS?

I know so many Italians that I feel perfectly at ease that they will be able to understand me: that this is not religion - this is simply mythology; there is no science for inner transformation in it. It cannot create an awakened, enlightened human being. Its whole structure is based on belief, and a true religion is always based on doubt, not on belief.

Doubt until you come to a point when doubt becomes impossible; that means you have arrived at the truth, indubitable. Only truth cannot be doubted. So one has to search within oneself for a place, a space, a quality, which even if he wants to doubt, he cannot doubt - it is so absolutely certain, so categorically ultimate.

Christianity is one of the lowest pseudo-religions of the world. All religions are pseudo; but in those pseudo-religions are also categories.

Question 5:

Satyam Svarup, perhaps you are also a Jew. Maybe not in this life, but in some past life. But to be a Jew is such a disease that it goes on and on from one life to another life. So don't be worried; because I am an experienced hand at killing many Jews. I will kill you, too.

While you are meditating and the business goes on in your mind, let it go on. You just remain a witness, as if you are seeing a movie. The movie is there on the screen; so is your mind, with all its thoughts of business and other things - just a screen. You remain a witness.

In the beginning you will forget again and again and get involved in the business things. But the moment you remember, never repent, never feel guilty. Just the moment you remember, again settle down to be a witness. It is only a question of some waiting; soon you will see gaps happening on the screen. For a few seconds there is no thought moving on the screen, and those moments will be of such serenity, such silence, such joy, such beauty, such ecstasy....

That experience will help you to become a stronger witness - because now witnessing is not just an empty exercise; it is now helping you to discover treasures within yourself. All your business will fall away... soon you will find the mind is empty. But this emptiness is not negative; this emptiness is the most positive thing in existence. It is so full of blissfulness - as if thousands of flowers have suddenly blossomed, as if spring has come to you.

To me, the coming of this spring is the goal of the search for which you have all gathered here. And the fullness in this emptiness is multidimensional. It is not only the fragrance of many flowers; it is also as if many suns have arisen around you... so much light, so much music - and your heart is for the first time in a mad dance.

So don't be worried about the Jew. Everybody's mind is a Jew. So I am not using the word in a racial sense - because mind always means business; and we have to go beyond the mind; we have to go beyond the mundane and trivial thoughts. We have to come to a point where everything becomes still, silent, serene. From there begins the world of the mysterious, of the divine.

I call it the beginning of godliness - not of God, because that gives a wrong conception, as if God is a person. God is not a person, he is not like a flower; he is more like a fragrance. God is a quality.

And when you experience godliness your life is fulfilled, contented. Then you have not been here unnecessarily.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho!