Laughter is the essential religion

Question 1:

Mukta, do you think you still have your head? It has been cut long ago. Just the idea has remained.

I will take the idea too. I had left it - otherwise people would feel a little disturbed to see you walking without a head. But if you want to enjoy that, it can be done.

This is my whole profession: cutting the head off but still leaving the idea that you have it, so you can move in the world and nobody freaks out.

Question 2:

Prem Patipada, I do understand your feeling. But I have been telling you this for two reasons: One, I should not be standing in any way between you and existence. Even as a window to existence I give existence a frame which it does not have; it is frameless and formless. If you are looking through the window, the frame of the window becomes the frame of the sky, of existence, which is frameless.

Secondly, it is man's strange mind - if you feel grateful towards me, somewhere, someday you may take revenge against me. It may not happen to you particularly; but it has happened to many who were as grateful as you are, and now they are as revengeful as they were grateful - in the same proportion.

The mind has a problem: if you are with me, enjoying my presence, enjoying my silence, it is very natural to feel grateful; but one never knows about tomorrow.

Our paths may separate, or you may be able to go only so far with me and then stop. Then you will have to find some rationalization for why you have stopped, or why you have separated from me and moved on another path. You are not in a state of consciousness which can simply say, "It was beautiful to be with Him and I am grateful for that, but life takes strange routes; although I am now on a separate path, my gratefulness to Him remains the same." That needs great consciousness.

What happens ordinarily is that the moment you are on a separate path, you start finding fault with me to justify why you are separate; and instead of being grateful you start being revengeful. You feel as if you have been cheated for so long, exploited, deceived. And then the wheel turns completely; where there was love, hate arises.

This is the ordinary human mind; either it can love or it can hate. When it loves it finds all the rationalizations to love, when it hates it finds all the rationalizations to hate. And when it hates it forgets completely those moments of love and gratitude.

To avoid your being sometime hateful towards me, I go on insisting: don't be grateful towards me. If you are not grateful towards me, even if you separate you will not be revengeful towards me - as if we were two strangers who walked on the way for a time and then our paths separated.

Right now it will be very hurtful even to think this. You are asking me not to say it again.... But you know those people also, who had also been in the same state of gratefulness as you are. But small things, very trivial, and your hate which has been waiting - while you were showing your love, your hate was hiding behind it, just waiting for the moment when your love disappears for any reason...

then the hate comes with full vengeance. And just because you have to justify yourself, you even create lies - not knowingly, not consciously.

You have seen Shiva sitting here for almost seven years, and his gratitude was as deep as it can be.

He would have died to save me. But you are not aware of the whole of your own mind. He came to the commune in America, but the whole setup had changed. He wanted, there too, to sit by my side, to have the same power. He used to think that he loved me - if he had loved me, then there would not have been any problem. He loved his own power. He was the chief guard in the ashram, but by the time he reached the commune, other guards, more efficient, had taken his place. He was not made the chief guard. Then all his love disappeared, all gratitude disappeared.

He has written a book against me now, full of lies, with no foundation in truth. But he has to justify why he has left. Still he is blind, still he cannot see that it was power that was keeping him here and it is power that is now taking revenge.

I have no complaint against anybody, but I understand your whole mind. You don't understand your whole mind. You only understand the part that is on the surface in this moment.

The whole commune was created by Sheela. And she did hard and great work - there is nothing except appreciation. But deep down she was very much worried, because she had taken the place of Laxmi - and the fear was natural that somebody else could take her place.

She never wanted me to see anybody else except her. When I was in silence for three and half years, only she was seeing me, reporting how things were going on. And everything was going perfectly well. She had a great managing capacity and absolute devotion.

When I used to go for "drive-by" she used to carry a gun by the side of my car; she learned to shoot, she got thirty people trained. And she was working from morning till late in the night. Nobody would have thought that she could say anything against me.

But as I started speaking, after three and a half years, people started sending questions relating to the work, relating to her dictatorial methods - that anybody who does not listen to her is immediately thrown out of the commune. And because only she was seeing me, I knew only as much as she related to me - and that was the part she chose.

So I said to her, "This is not right. I will have to see a few more people so that I can be aware of what exactly is going on in the commune. And if I find that you are doing something wrong, I can put you right." I started seeing two, three people once in a while - just to get an idea of whether Sheela is representing things to me exactly, and I found she was not being truthful. This was the point when she became afraid, afraid of those people who were seeing me. And the commune had become almost an empire in itself.

She would have died for me, but the day I declared that there will be no successor to me, that instead of a successor there will be a committee of enlightened people who will choose who is going to be in charge of the commune.... deep down there must have been the hope that she was going to succeed me.

She started things which are inconceivable. She bugged my room, to be aware of what other people were telling me, what my answers to them were. And it was the same person who was moving with the gun to save my life. But the desire for power, which was unconscious up to now, and perhaps to her it remained unconscious.... But bugging your own master's room.... On the one hand trusting me totally - but bugging my room is not trust. She was afraid that I might be preparing somebody - in case someone could take better care of the commune.

She tried to poison Vivek, because she was the one who was taking care of my body... just to remove her, so that she could put in somebody who would only report what Sheela wanted - her own person. She poisoned Devaraj, my personal physician, to kill him, so that another doctor could be put in his place who would report to me only things which Sheela wanted.

Man's mind is such. And when she found that I had become aware that she had bugged at least two hundred houses in the commune, whomsoever she suspected may be capable of taking over her power.... She started tapping everybody's telephones, to find out if there was anybody who was against her.

When I became aware of all these things she simply escaped from the commune, leaving all the problems which she had created, and taking all those twenty people who were in charge of different departments. The day she left there was only food for one day in the commune, for five thousand people. Usually the routine was that food should be available for three months ahead.

She had created the commune; she could not bear to see it in somebody else's hands. If she could not be in power... and it was all in her mind. There was nobody who was going to take her place.

I had no idea to replace her. I had certain ideas that things that she was doing should not be done.

If you cannot trust your own people and you have to bug two hundred houses, then whom are you going to trust? If you have to tap everybody's phone, then it has become almost a fascist state.

I was going to tell her to remove all these bugs, all these tappings; I was not going to replace her.

She was capable, and there was nobody else who was more capable than she was.

But in her own fear, because I had come to know all these things and now she had no answer - what answer could she give to me, why she had bugged my room? - she escaped with twenty people who were in charge of different departments, so that the commune would collapse: "If I cannot be in power, then nobody can be in power; the commune cannot exist." Man's mind is such.

Then she started writing and giving press releases, press interviews in Europe, saying things which were absolutely absurd. But she had to justify why she had left. And after she had been sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment, the first thing she said was, "In this jail I feel better than I did in the jail of Osho's commune."

She was the whole, sole power. I simply used to come for one hour to talk to people. I had no idea how much money she had put into Swiss banks - she had never seen so much money: two hundred million dollars we had put into the commune. It was her secretary, who did not go with her, who said that she had been keeping at least thirty to forty million dollars in a secret account, in her own name, in Switzerland; and the money belongs to the commune.

Still I was not going to replace her. I was just going to change her ways, tell her, "This commune is a commune of love, of trust, of friendliness, and you are taking advantage because I cannot look after small matters - money, and food, and land, and banks - you have to take care of."

Neither here do I know anything about how you have to manage. I know this much: that you love me and you will manage in a loving way.

But to justify herself - because people started asking, "Why have you left the commune?" - she had to find fault with me, to justify why she had left the commune.

So, Patipada, it is better to be fully conscious and let your gratitude be towards existence. Leave me aside - because I know any moment, any small thing may create a situation where you have to justify yourself. And to justify yourself you will have to invent lies against me.

Because you have been so grateful, the other side of your mind, which knows nothing of gratitude but only ungratefulness, will take over. You have loved me, now you will hate me with the same strength.

Knowing the games of the mind, I have always been saying that your gratitude should be towards existence. I am no more than a stranger you have met on the way. We talked a little while, just to pass the time. We can depart in a friendly way; there is no need to justify yourself.

When you are in love, it hurts to hear me saying to you that you need not be even grateful to me.

But, Patipada, I am going to say it again and again so you don't forget it, because I don't want you to lie someday, to say things against me which you know perfectly well are wrong.

For example, Shiva was never my bodyguard; it simply happened as a coincidence. An Indian sannyasin attacked Laxmi and almost destroyed her nose. Laxmi is a small woman, so when I came to know about it I told Shiva, "You should be a bodyguard to Laxmi; wherever Laxmi goes you have to follow her." In evening initiation meetings Laxmi used to sit by my side to give me information about the person, and I had told Shiva, "Wherever Laxmi is, you have to be there," so he started sitting on the other side. He was not my bodyguard.

Now he is writing that he was my bodyguard and he knows every secret. He has never entered my room, not even once; there was no need. Someday he will repent what he has done, but then it will be too late; the people who are reading his book will be convinced of whatever he is saying. This can happen to anybody. And I don't want it to happen to anybody.

Teertha was hoping.... He was the first therapist to join the ashram; naturally, because he was the first, he became the chief therapist without any formalities. Nobody had told him that he was the chief therapist. It was just by coincidence, because he was here before anybody else - the other therapists came later on - that he managed to become the chief. And there was no harm in it; somebody had to take care of all the therapy groups.

When the commune dispersed he saw clearly that I cannot be in America - for fifteen years I cannot enter America. And in India the American government is pressurizing the Indian government that no foreign sannyasins should be allowed in.

Seeing the situation, he thought it was better to open an institute of his own in Italy. There was no harm in opening the institute in Italy. I had to tell my therapists that wherever they were they should continue to create institutes, communes, because all European countries have banned me. I cannot enter into Europe, I cannot go to America, and foreign sannyasins cannot come into India.

Now there was no need to accept me as his master; there was a chance of becoming a master himself. So Teertha has become a mini-guru. He knows nothing about enlightenment. He has never meditated. Here he was involved with his groups, which have nothing to do with meditation. And I have told these therapists, "You should meditate," but it was against their egos, because they were therapists. Thirty or forty people were joining their groups, and they were the leaders. To meditate with the same people was against their egos, so they never meditated.

People must have been asking him, "Is your institute Osho's institute?"

He said, "I have not been Osho's disciple...."

Then what was he doing here? What was he doing in America? And the same has been done by Somendra, by Rajen, by a few other therapists - they are all therapists. Finding an opportunity that they can become mini-gurus.... But for that they have had to deny that they had anything to do with Osho.

There were many reasons why I told you to drop the malas, to drop the orange clothes: First, so that you can enter this country; otherwise you cannot enter this country. Second, you will not be known to the world as my disciples, so there will not come any moment to deny it. I am simply trying to save you from telling lies, and making you absolutely independent even while you are here. You come here as friends - more than that seems to be risky. I will continue to do whatever I can do for you. I see not only your present - but possibilities in the future.

All these people are lying, and I don't feel it right to contradict their lies - they have been my disciples, I have loved them and I still love them. It is below me to contradict their lies. If their spiritual growth happens somehow, they may realize by themselves.

So, Patipada, there is no need to feel any pain. Whatever I say has a meaning in it, far-reaching, that you may not be able to understand right now. Gratitude is good - but to the trees, to the moon, to the sun, because you will never be in a position to be against the trees, against the moon, against the sun. But to be grateful to me is dangerous.

So I just want not to be in your way. I want to help you to move on the way - but I don't want to stand in your way. My whole approach is to give you absolute freedom, so you never feel any revenge against me.

Question 3:

Atmo Sarvesh, do you know who you are? And if you do not know, how are you going to take responsibility for your own existence? When I say, "Let go," or "Go with the flow," or "The universe wants it that way," I am trying only one thing: to relax you, for you not to be tense. These are only devices to relax you, because only in deep relaxation will you come to know yourself. And once you know yourself, you will not be able to divide your responsibilities, your existence from other's existence - from the whole of existence.

The moment you know yourself, you become part of the whole existence - so organic a part that the question does not arise of taking responsibility. You will respond, but your response will not be a responsibility. Your response will be the response of existence itself, just through you - just as flowers belong to existence, but roses will come on a rose bush. They don't belong to the rose bush; ultimately they belong to existence. And only a stupid rose bush will think, "they are my flowers, my responsibility." But rose bushes are not stupid, they are utterly relaxed, they let existence take care. They are not separate from the earth, from the sun rays; they are joined in a thousand ways.

The rose bush is only an expression of existence: So are you. But first know it! And only with a non-tense mind can one know oneself. So relaxation or let-go are only devices. Once you are so relaxed, the way the trees are relaxed, you will find your roots in existence. All that you have is not yours - not even you; it is a flowering - existence has flowered in your individuality in a certain way.

Existence loves variety, creates unique individuals, unique animals, unique trees.

Just for the last few days I have been seeing a bird. When I left for America it was not here, and I have never seen it anywhere else. It is so beautiful: pure white, with a black head and such a long tail - the bird is very small, the tail is almost six times bigger than the bird. Because the tail is so long, it cannot fly like other birds; it moves in air like a fish moves in water. I enquired... because it is a strange bird, I have never seen one so beautiful. It has made a point... every day when I am taking my food in the morning and in the evening it comes for certain. Shunyo told me that this bird is a rare bird; it is called the "bird of paradise."

I said, "It looks like a bird of paradise - it doesn't seem to belong to the earth. The beauty is so unique... with a small black head, and so snow-white, and the tail is so long that it cannot fly, it just hops from one tree to another tree. The way it moves is almost like a fish moving in water." I told Shunyo, "Watch, he cannot be alone, there must be a girlfriend or boyfriend - in this place he may be a bird of paradise, but he cannot be a saint!"

She says she has seen his girlfriend. She has a little small tail - that is the only difference. But I have not seen the girlfriend yet. It is my experience, if the girlfriend comes first to me the boyfriend is bound to come. But if the boyfriend comes first, then it is not necessarily so - the girlfriend even may become an enemy to me, jealous. The poor fellow comes alone. And every day I have been watching, looking; she must be sitting somewhere. But she is avoiding me.

This whole existence takes responsibility for the oceans, for the mountains, for the stars. Sarvesh, why should you be bothered about being responsible for your own self when you do not know who you are? It is just an egoistic desire.

Relax, know first who you are. In that very knowing you will know you are nothing but a part of this immense universe, and the universe takes care. Even if it takes care through you it is existence that takes care. You cannot take the credit for taking care of yourself. The ego desires that, the ego wants to be separate; it wants its territory to be demarcated. But you are so one with existence that ego is just an idea, a figment of your mind, it has no reality anywhere. And the moment you understand it, experience it - that there is no ego - you will be as happy as the birds singing, the trees taking a sunbath. All around you everything is immensely joyful.

Ego makes you sad, serious; responsibility takes away your smiles, your laughter - and to me laughter is the essential religion. The capacity to dance and sing, not separate from existence but as part of it, is the very foundation of a real religious man.

Question 4:

Shantam Divyama, there is the famous statement of an English philosopher: "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."

I do not agree with him. My analysis is totally different. Everybody is full of violence, greed, anger, passion - but has no power; so he remains a saint. To be violent you need to be powerful. To fulfill your greed you need to be powerful. To satisfy your passions you need to be powerful.

So when power happens into your hands, all your sleeping dogs start barking. Power becomes a nourishment to you, an opportunity. It is not that power corrupts, you are corrupted. Power only brings your corruption into the open. You wanted to kill somebody, but you had not the power to kill; but if you have the power, you will kill.

It is not power that corrupts you, corruption you carry within yourself; power simply gives you the opportunity to do whatever you want to do.

Power in the hands of a man like Gautam Buddha will not corrupt; on the contrary, it will help humanity to raise its consciousness. Power in the hands of Genghis Khan destroys people, rapes women, burns people alive. Whole villages are burnt - people are not allowed to get out. It is not power... this man Genghis Khan must have been carrying all these desires in him.

It is almost like when rain comes, different plants start growing; but different plants have different flowers. Whatever is hidden in your seeds, whatever is your potentiality, power gives you a chance - because most human beings are living so unconsciously that when they come to power all their unconscious instincts have a chance to be fulfilled. Then they don't care whether it kills people, whether it poisons people....

You are asking me about the misuse of power. Power is misused because you have desires which are ugly, which are an inheritance from the animals.

In a better world the first things should be.... We waste almost one third of life in educating our children. In that one third of life, some time should be given to cleanse their unconscious; so by the time they graduate from their university, and they have some power somewhere - somebody will become a police commissioner, somebody will become a governor, somebody will become a prime minister - if they do not have anything in their unconscious that is poisonous, destructive, then power cannot be misused. Who is going to misuse it? Power is neutral.

My sannyasins in Italy have been trying for one year for a tourist visa for me, just for three weeks.

And it has taken one year for the authorities, and they still have not been able to decide. Finally, a few days ago, a letter came: after one year the old application has become useless, a new application is needed.

They had filled in the application, I had signed the application, and just yesterday the Italian ambassador informed me that I have been given a ten day tourist visa - but there are conditions. I have never heard that tourist visas are given with conditions. The conditions are: "To report on what date, at what time, from which airport you will leave India and on what date, at what time, at what airport you will land in Italy; and the same for the return.

"In Italy, whichever city you are in, you should appear at the police station first, and inform them how long you are going to stay in the city. And before leaving the city you should go again to the police station, to inform them that you are leaving the city. Next city, again you have to go to the police station."

I have told Anando to write a letter to the prime minister of Italy: "Just a few months ago you were in India. How many conditions were put on you? And in how many police stations did you appear?

And do you think I am a murderer, or a terrorist, or I am carrying bombs and dynamite?

"Let us know when you are coming back to India, so that we can give you a really good welcome.

And I refuse to step in your land unless you apologize for making these conditions. It took you one year to figure out all these conditions; and then too you have not given the visa for three weeks, just for ten days. Ordinarily the visa is given for three months - and nobody has ever heard that such conditions have to be followed."

I have told Anando to write to him that, "It seems Benito Mussolini has not died yet. Your country is not a democratic country, it is still fascist. These conditions indicate, without any doubt, a fascist mind.

"So I will come to Italy if you apologize publicly; or I will come to Italy when you are no longer in power. And my people in Italy will try in every way to ensure that you are no longer in power. Just let the new election come, because I have thousands of sannyasins in Italy; and this is an insult to my thousands of sannyasins in Italy.

"The pope comes to India, and the president the prime minister go to receive him at the airport; and he is not asked to appear at the police station in every city. And he himself has been here. But next time, if you come here as prime minister, then just inform us at what time and at what airport you are landing, so that we can reply to you about your conditions."

These people are not corrupted by power. These people are corrupted; power simply brings their corruption into action.

Power in itself is neutral. In a good man's hand it will be a blessing. In an unconscious man's hand it is going to be a curse. But for thousands of years we have condemned power, without thinking that power has not to be condemned; people have to be cleaned of all the ugly instincts that are hiding within them, because everybody is going to have some kind of power or other.

It does not have to be great power. You may be just sitting in a railway station selling tickets, but that too gives you power. You are standing at the window, and the man does not even look at you. He goes on turning his file - and you can see that he is not concerned with the file, he simply wants to show you your place. Even the peon sitting outside the collector's office behaves as if he is the president of the country - so it is not a question of where you are. Wherever you are, you will have some kind of power.

Aurangzeb, one of India's Mohammedan emperors, was so impatient that he could not wait for his father to die, or to become old, so that he could succeed him. He imprisoned his own father, and became the emperor of the country. His father had remained busy all his life. Now, sitting in the prison cell, he sent a message to his son: "At least arrange thirty boys, so that I can teach them the holy KORAN."

And the comment that Aurangzeb made to his courtiers is very significant. He said, "That old man does not want to lose power. Now he is no longer the emperor. But thirty students... teaching them the holy KORAN, he will again have the power over those small children."

Psychologists say that people who are afraid of competing in life and becoming powerful, choose a simpler way: they become teachers in schools. Small children... and you can harass them, beat them, although it is illegal - but it happens all over the country.

Just the other day I was reading a report that there are cases found... but the government goes on hiding those facts. For the first time it has been accepted, because it has become too much, that teachers have hit the children so hard that they have become deaf for their whole lives.

One boy... his own father chained him; almost for ten years he remained chained, tied to a pillar in the house. He has almost become like an animal. He cannot stand up, he can only move on all fours; and because he was forced to live in darkness, he has lost his eyesight.

Even parents use power. Teachers use power, husbands use power, wives use power. It does not matter where you are.

If mankind comes to understand the deep psychological roots and changes man's unconscious so that there are no seeds, power can go on raining but there will be no flowers of corruption. Otherwise power is going to be misused always. And you cannot take power from people's hands; somebody must be a mother, somebody must be a father, somebody must be a teacher.

The only way is, to cleanse people's unconscious with meditation, fill their inner being with light. It is only meditation that gives you a clean heart, which cannot be corrupted. Then power can never be misused, then power can be a blessing - it is going to be creative. Then you are going to do something to make life more lovable, more livable; to make existence a little more beautiful. But that great day has not yet arrived, and to make an effort for that great day to arrive, all the power - addicted people are going to be against you.

It has been again and again asked of me, "Why is the whole world against you?"

They are all power-addicted people, and I am trying to make man a pool of serenity - peace and silence and love and ecstasy.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.