Chapter 27

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

Q: BHAGWAN, YOU NEVER STOP SURPRISING US. HOW COME YOU DECIDE TO GO FOR A WORLD TOUR?

A: It is very simple. People don't live in the moment. They plan for the future.

Hence they are surprised.

I live in the moment. I don't know about the next moment. So it is not only I surprise others; I surprise myself too. I keep the coming moment open, unplanned. I don't know what is going to happen. This way, life is more juicier, more adventurous, more spontaneous. This way one is always young, never gets old. This way even death is a surprise, not a shock.

One enters into death too with great joy, to discover something; and if the whole life has been a moment to moment journey, discovery, the death cannot be otherwise. Because the death is not the end of life, it is the very culmination, the very peak, the height.

Q: WHEN CAN WE EXPECT YOU IN ITALY?

A: Any time. Perhaps I may start my world tour from Italy.

Q: DO YOU EXPECT TO BE WELCOME IN ITALY (INAUDIBLE) THE POPE AND THE VATICAN?

A: Certainly. In fact because of them, I am going to be welcome in Italy. The Pope and his company have exploited Italy for centuries and I don't think Italians are dumb or retarded. They can see the parasite in the Pope.

I am going to be welcomed by the intelligentsia of Italy, by the youth of Italy, and by all those who are bored and fed up with the rotten Christianity that the Pope represents. I have always felt Italy to be my country, more than any other country. It does not belong to the Pope. It belongs to me. In fact, Jesus Christ was crucified by the Italians. They should do the same with the Pope.

It is not a coincidence that Italy became the citadel and the center of Christianity, because Jesus Christ was crucified by the Italian governor general, Pontius Pilate in Judea. It created guilt in Italy. And out of the guilt, Christians have exploited Italy. They destroyed the Roman empire, they destroyed the whole glory of the country. They destroyed its fundamentals of philosophy. The Roman philosophy of life is very close to me, because it was the philosophy of a pagan. It was not devoted to a god, a fiction. It was not devoted to the other world, another fiction.

It was basically devoted to man, his life, his joys. It was a very earthly and pragmatic world view. That's why I say, Italy belongs to me, not to the Pope.

Q: THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT HAS ALREADY STATED THAT THEY DON'T WANT YOU IN THEIR COUNTRY. WHY DO YOU THINK THEY ARE SO AFRAID OF A MAN THEY HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE?

A: Every government is afraid. And every organized religion is afraid, for the simple reason that I am against all kinds of establishments. I am against the whole past of humanity. I want to begin the history anew, fresh. The past has been ugly, and the responsibility goes to the politicians and the priests. And I don't want it to be repeated in the future again.

Naturally, I am the greatest enemy of establishment today in the world. They are afraid because they don't have any argument against me. Whatever I am saying is so true that they cannot deny it. They are aware that their intelligentsia, their young people, are going to understand. Germany particularly is afraid. The reason is Adolf Hitler, and what he has done to the world. He is the politician par excellence. With Adolf Hitler, the Germany is completely disappointed in the politicians, and the politicians know it perfectly well, that the German youth is seeking and searching some substitute for them. They know also that even far away countries, wherever I have been, the German youth has been reaching to me.

Their concern is that if I come to their country, I can change the whole mind of the youth, which is the future. I can manage very easily to put their youth against themselves. They can see that even without going to Germany, I have the largest number of sannyasins in Germany, and I have not gone there. Once I am there, it will be difficult to find a young man who is not a sannyasin. So those cowards politicians are trying to prevent me from entering Germany. They don't understand me. This helps my work. This makes their weakness clear, and brings it in the open and loudly.

As I have reached Europe, my sannyasins in Germany are going to sue the government in the courts because it is absolutely illegal to prevent me. I have never been in the country. Naturally I have not committed any crime in the country. They don't have anything against me. And to prevent a person who has not done anything in your country, he has not even entered in your country, is simply absurd.

The reason that they have given why they don't want me to enter in the country is so lousy, that is makes one laugh. They have said that they don't want me to enter Germany because I am not going to be a help to their country. Then they should make a general law that only people who are certain to be a help to their country can enter Germany. And before I have entered, how they have managed to find it, that I cannot be a help to their country. I have thousands of sannyasins there, I am a help to them, they are a part of their country, they want me to be in the country. They cannot be deprived.

They have been asking me, should they go into the courts against the government? I have been telling, "Just wait, let me be in Europe; then sue the government. With me in the Europe it will be a totally different scene, then all the sannyasins of the Europe will be of tremendous help to you; and you will feel stronger, and the government will feel weaker.

"We are going to defeat them, and I am going to enter Germany. Whether they change their law or not, it does not matter."

Q: SEVERAL OF YOUR SANNYASIN FRIENDS; AND THEY SUGGEST THAT YOU COME TO THE BORDER OF GERMAN AND AUSTRIA, AND THEY WILL COME IN THEIR THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS TO VISIT YOU AND DANCE ON THE BORDER, SO THAT THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT WILL BE EXPOSED ALL OVER THE WORLD. WOULD YOU LIKE THIS TO HAPPEN?

A: I am going to do many things. That is one of the things. I am going to call them to the border, be with me, declare to the world news media that if our master cannot to Germany, Germany can come to our master. And I have seen the American jails. I would love to see the German jails too. If they don't change the law, still I am going to enter Germany and show to the world that how your so-called democratic governments are behaving with absolutely innocent people.

Q: YOU HAVE ATTACKED ALL THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, POLITICIANS, THE PHILOSOPHERS, THE SCIENTISTS, THE GURUS, INTELLECTUALS, THE POPE, MOTHER TERESA, EVEN GANDHI, THE MEDIA, THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM, AND THE WHOLE WORLD AS SUCH.

IS THERE EVERYTHING WRONG IN THIS WORLD? IS THERE ANYTHING WE CAN SAVE?

A: It looks a little bit strange, when I say everything in one stroke. It looks strange because you don't understand that all things in the world are part in an organic unity. They are not separate things, so it may be possible that if you take a fragment, it will look good and worth saving. But it is dangerous. It has been part of a poisonous unity. To save it can pollute your future.

For example, if the politicians have been corrupt, if the priests have been corrupt, if the educationists have been corrupt, who creates your intellectuals? The educational system, the theologians, the philosophers, the political ideologies, they are all part of your intellectuals. Their minds are conditioned by them. You cannot save the intellectuals. Saving them you will be saving much of the priests, much of the politicians, much of the educationists.

Even your paintings, howsoever beautiful, are influenced. Your sculpture is influenced. You can see in the middle ages even your greatest artists, people like Michaelangelo have worked their whole life in the churches and cathedrals, just painting the stories which are all fictitious about Jesus. Your sculptors have been in the hands of the priests, making statues of Jesus, Buddha, Mahavira to be worshipped. Your musicians have been part of the course(*) of the universe.

Your philosophers have been part of theology, part of the courts; none of your philosophers have the guts to expose the religions and their patent lies.

Even men like Kant, Hegel, giants in the world of philosophy are completely silent about Christianity. Whom they are cheating? They are showing their cowardliness, and they are trying to propound a philosophy that somehow supports the religion, the vested interests, the establishments. They are not revolutionaries.

Everything is entangled with everything else. Society is an organic unity. And when you want to clean the whole human race, the whole human consciousness it is better to drop it all and begin absolutely fresh, rather than choosing pieces, which may look good as pieces, but they have been part of a poisonous system for centuries, and they carry the poison. They may destroy your whole project for the future. And what is the need?

We can create a new man, we can create a new art, and we can create new architecture. If we can create a new religiousness, we can create new philosophical understanding of life, we can create new art, new poetry, new paintings. Why not get rid of the old, so that you are not chained with the dead.

It is something like your father dies, your mother dies. Your father had beautiful eyes. They were real, alive, in the organic unity of your father's body. But if you dig those eyes out, and save them...

(Tape side B, no overlap) ... that they were rebels, revolutionaries, that they were against the past. No.

They were trying to take help from the past so that they can have the authority of the past. They wanted to be authoritative. The desire to belong to the past is the desire to be authoritative. I don't want to be authoritative. And there is a difference to be remembered between these two words, authoritative and authority. The authoritative person is always deriving his authority from ancient scriptures, traditions, prophets, and all that. He is not certain about his own experience to be enough of an authority. He needs props and supports.

My experience is enough unto itself. It is a authority in itself, without anybody's support. In fact, their desire to belong to a tradition, their effort, the way Jesus is trying continuously to persuade that "I am your messiah." The way Buddha is trying to persuade the Jainas that I am your twenty-fourth Tirthankara is pitiable. That simply shows these people, don't rely on their own experience; their experience is not authoritative. They need some extra authority, some certificates from tradition, some sanctions from holy scriptures.

It happened, one of very impressive man in this century in India was Ramateertha. He impressed America immensely, Europe and other countries.

Naturally he thought, that when he comes to India he is bound to influence millions of people. When he could influence people of other traditions, other religions, it is a natural corollary that he is going to influence the Hindus to whom he belongs.

So he reached first to Varanasi, which is the center of Hindu wisdom, and thought to be the oldest city in the world. Perhaps it is. There is not a single scripture in India which does not mention Varanasi; the oldest of the scriptures still mentions Varanasi. Many cities have arisen and disappeared; Varanasi has a certain permanency. And it is the most sacred city in India, the citadel of Hindus; Hindu scholars, pundits, priests. So Ramateertha reached Varanasi, because if Varanasi recognizes him as a saint, then the whole India is bound to recognize him.

But to me, this is the poverty of the man; to seek recognition from others. You don't have your own experience certainly. Otherwise that experience authenticates you. There is nothing else that you need. It is enough, more than enough. It is only one who is empty within who wants some sanction from outside.

He called the meeting of the wise of Varanasi. He stood up to speak. He had not spoken more than few minutes, and a Hindu scholar, a Brahmin pundit, stood up. And he said, "Stop all this nonsense. First answer me one question: Do you know Sanskrit? Because listening these few minutes to you, it seems you don't know it. You are quoting from Persian, from Urdu, but you are not quoting from Sanskrit. And your pronunciation is not that of a Sanskrit scholar."

And it was true; he was born in Punjab, near Lahore, which is now in Pakistan.

His mother tongue was Urdu, not Hindi. He was educated through the medium of Urdu, and he was a scholar of Persian, Arabic. That was the atmosphere around Rapal(*). It was a Mohammedan area. He has read even VEDAS and UPANISHADS through the translations in Persian. He had no idea of Sanskrit or Hindi. He had to accept it. And the Brahmin pundit said, "Then first go and learn Sanskrit; and don't destroy our time and don't waste our energy. Without knowing Sanskrit, you cannot be accepted by the Council of the Wise as a saint."

This was very shattering experience, very shocking, but it can be shattering and shocking only to a person who has no inner light of his own. And, you will be surprised, he started learning Sanskrit. What a poverty! It is shameful. And he was so much shattered that the Council of the Wise, which is the topmost council of the Hindus, has rejected him that he drop his orange clothes. He has no right.

He started using white clothes 'til he becomes a scholar in Sanskrit as if to become wise, to become enlightened, Sanskrit is a necessity. That is absolutely stupid. Buddha never knew any Sanskrit. He never spoke Sanskrit. Mahavira never knew Sanskrit, he never spoke Sanskrit.

He went to the Himalayas, learning Sanskrit, and one day he saw his wife coming up the hill. He was married before he renounced the world and became a sannyasin. The poor woman had accepted, as it has been the case for millions of women in India, with grace and gratitude, with joy although it is going to be a very difficult life for her because he had not left anything, he was not a rich man.

He was just a lecturer in a college. He came from a poor family, he was a very intelligent boy, so he was getting scholarships, and that's how he finally managed to top the university in mathematics, and became a lecturer of mathematics. But he had not much to leave behind. The poor woman was happy that her husband has become a holy man. In pain, in anguish, but still she was not angry.

Hearing that he has come back after years of traveling, she sold the few ornaments that she had for the ticket from Punjab to the Himalayas, just to see him. There was no other expectation. One of his disciples, Sadha(*) Bonsingh(*), was sitting with Ramateertha as he saw the wife coming. Ramateertha told the Bonsingh(*) that "Close the doors, and don't allow that woman in."

Bonsingh(*) was a very intelligent man, and he had written few very beautiful articles, poetry. He said, "This is strange, because I have seen you meeting hundreds of women in the West. I have seen you shaking hands with people, which is against Hindu spirituality. This act seems to be ugly. The poor woman you have left. Somehow she is managing by cleaning people's houses, their toilets. And she has come to see you; and you are closing the doors. What is the fear? Do you still believe that she is your wife? Then you have not renounced.

What is the distinction between another woman and this woman? So either you allow her, and let her see you; or I am going to leave you. It has been difficult for me to accept that you are learning Sanskrit just to get a sanction from those idiots, none of whom is enlightened. But I have been keeping silent. But this is too much."

(GAP IN THE TAPE) ... being a holy man by the Pope. Now the Pope himself has no enlightenment.

He is not an awakened being. What meaning his sanction carries? And the person who starts believing himself as saint because a sanction has been given by the Pope is also not self-realized. Otherwise he will not wait for the sanction.

I don't have any sanction; I am nobody's saint. No tradition supports me. No orthodoxy stands behind me, no holy scripture can certify me. But I don't need.

Even if they want to, I will reject. Because my own experience is more than enough, and it gives tremendous freedom.

So certainly I am a strange friend, master; and with me begins a new era of religiousness. And I want to destroy everything that is old, past, dead. I don't believe in renovating old houses. I want to make a new house, fresh, for the new man to live in it.

Q: DESCRIBE HOW IS IN YOUR VISION, YOUR MAN EAST AND WEST ZORBA THE BUDDHA, AND A SCIENTIST WITH WINGS, RELIGION AND SCIENCE. SO IF YOU CAN BRIEFLY EXPLAIN WHAT IS YOUR VISION OF THIS SYNCHRONICITY, THIS UNITY THAT WE TRYING TO CREATE IN THE WORLD AND WHAT WE CALL HUMAN.

A: The old man was schizophrenic. He was split between the body and the soul, between matter and spirit, between this world and that world. And he was told by the old religions, the old prophets, the messiahs, the saviours, to choose.

If he chooses the body, he chooses the matter, he chooses this world, he is a materialist, he is a Zorba; and the Zorba was condemned by all the religions around the world, without exception. If he chooses the spirit, he chooses the other world, he chooses God. Then he is a spiritual being. Then he is a saint. But in either case, he will be in anguish, he will be in suffering, because both are intrinsic parts of his being, and he is being cut into two.

So whatever he chooses, Zorba or Buddha, he will remain half. And the half can never be totally fulfilled. The half will remain always a wound because the other half is missing. So the Zorba is missing; he becomes almost an animal, loses all dignity. And that hurts. The buddha is missing; he becomes almost a god, but he loses contact with reality. He starts living in a dream, in fantasies. He has lost his roots. Now his flowers cannot be real ones; they can only be plastic. So all buddhas have plastic flowers, and certainly plastic flowers can't have fragrance and can't have life.

The Zorba remains only the roots; and the roots are ugly, and the roots live underground in the darkness of the soil. They can't even see the light of the sun, the stars of the night. They live like thieves in darkness, hiding themselves, hiding their ugliness. This has been the history of the past men. I can say with absolute certainty that the past history of man is hysterical; it is sick.

(Tape side C) The new man accepts the whole man. It does not divide. It teaches an organic unity. Its fundamental philosophy is that you are one whole, not body and soul, not this world and that world. Your body is only the visible part of your soul.

Your soul is only the invisible part of your body. This world contains that world within it. Just you have to go deep into it. In each experience, if you are intense and total, you will find within this world that world too. This contains that. They are not separate. There is no guilt, there is no sin.

Yes, you can commit mistakes, which is absolutely human. And you commit mistakes because you are not aware. I say to you, you are allowed to commit mistakes, but don't repeat the same mistake again and again. That means unawareness. When you commit a mistake for the first time, it is perfectly okay, because you have never committed it before, so how you can be aware of it. So it is a good learning. Learn something out of the mistake. And be aware that it is not repeated. So commit as many mistakes as you can. But they have to be always new, so you go on learning and you go on growing in awareness.

So all the rituals of religions, and all their prayers and all their mantras and chantings, are reduced to a simple method: awareness. All their sins are reduced only to mistakes. The original meaning of the word sin is good. It means forgetfulness. So don't commit the same mistake again, otherwise it becomes a sin; it becomes a forgetfulness. But I would not like to use the word sin, because it has become so much associated with guilt, and guilt is the heaviest load on humanity. To take it away, we can make people so light that they can almost fly.

The new man will not have any guilt. The new man will not have any split. The new man will have only one religion; that is awareness. The new man will have only one world, this world. Because that world is hidden behind it. This world is like a circumference, and that world is the center. And I call the whole man the holy man; then he becomes Zorba the Buddha.

Then the whole life, with its whole spectrum, all the colors of the rainbow, you can live without any fear, without any guilt. You can dance like a Zorba, you can meditate like a Buddha, and I don't see there is any contradiction. In fact, if you have danced totally, deeply, so deeply that the dancer disappears in the dance, that is the time to start meditation.

And when you have meditated, and you are full of silence and peace and blissfulness, so much so that not that you are blissfulness, but you can bless the whole world, that is the moment to dance. Your dance then will be a showering of blessings to the whole world.

I don't see any contradiction. That's why I say, drop the old completely. It was sick, it was schizophrenic. And let us have a new man; organic, healthy, whole.

And with the new man comes a new world into existence, which will not be divided by politics into nations; which will not be divided by religions into different sections, fighting, murdering, killing, burning living people.

We can make this earth a paradise, if we are together. If there are no nations and no churches, no religions, nothing dividing man from man. Then we will have so much energy available which is being involved into wars, into fighting, into organizing; that this whole earth can blossom into new flowers of consciousness.

Okay, Sarjano.