Osho: A Playful Confuser
Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country. The ambassador of Sri Lanka in
America wrote a letter to me: "I appeal to you not to name your
hotels ′Zorba the Buddha.′ It hurts our religious feelings."
I told Sheela to write to him: "It hurts the followers of Zorba too,
because this is a great insult to the followers of Zorba. He was
against the Buddha. What am I supposed to do? - because I am both,
Zorba and the Buddha. And my hotels or restaurants or discos have
nothing to do with you and your Buddha. Can′t you see ′Zorba the
Buddha?′ Is that the name of your Buddha? Your Buddha′s name is
Gautam the Buddha. This is a totally different Buddha." I told
Sheela to explain, "This is our Buddha, who is first Zorba, and then
Buddha: both together. Neither you have to be disturbed nor does any
atheist have to be disturbed."
Atheists have been disturbed. In India, the son-in-law of Amrit
Dange - the Indian communist party′s president - has written a
thesis against me because I am confusing people′s minds. It is
difficult to figure out whether I am atheist or theist, whether I am
a religious man or an anti-religious man. Through the whole of his
thesis he tries to figure who I am - and finds that it is
impossible, and that I am simply a confuser.
Amrit Dange, the president of the Indian communist party and one of
the oldest communists in the world, was part of the international
communist party at the time of the Russian revolution, he was one of
the members along with Lenin and Trotsky. Just by chance we were in
the same compartment, traveling.
He said to me, "Have you seen? - my son-in-law has written a book
about you. For three years he has been studying you. You have
created so much literature that it is going to be impossible to do
research on you. He was going mad, day and night. And you seem to be
impossible: it is not only that you contradict yourself one time,
you contradict again, and you contradict again. Finally it became
impossible to find what you mean, because.... And that′s the
conclusion that he reached."
I said, "You throw the book out of the train. He is a fool, tell
him. Why did he waste three years? Life is so short and you are a
communist: Rinam kritva ghritam pivet - borrow ghee, drink ghee. Why
waste time with a madman like me?" - and I took the book from his
hand and threw it out of the window.
He said, "This is too much!"
I said, "You can pull the emergency cord. What purpose has the red
cord always hanging there? Pull the cord." But by that time we were
miles away from the book, and it was midnight.
Amrit Dange said, "There is no point in pulling the cord - and even
if I pull the cord, we have come miles, and it is midnight - where
are we going to find the book? And there is no need to be worried:
my son-in-law has all the books. They are not being sold because
people say that either...." There was a clear-cut division in India
- either somebody was for me, or somebody was against me. Those who
were for me were reading my books; they wouldn′t waste their time
with his thesis. And those who were against me did not want even to
hear my name - what to say about the book.
So he said, "We have all the books. Perhaps you are right; he is a
fool. Three years he has wasted, and he has published it with his
own money. No publisher was ready to publish it,′Because,′ they
said,′the country is clearly divided; there are no neutral people
available, so who is going to purchase the book?′ He published it
with his own money and now he is sitting on the whole lot."
I said, "You can go on distributing this way, the way you
distributed it to me. Distribute it. Let people read it even if they
cannot get any substance out of it - because he has not been able in
three years to find out what I mean. Nobody is going to find out,
because I am not stating logical, philosophical maxims. I am a whole
presence. I can absorb Zorba without any difficulty, and I can
absorb Buddha without any difficulty."
In fact, to me, unless both are absorbed with the same joy, with the
same respect, you cannot be truly religious. And that′s what I mean
by authentic religion.
Authentic religion will not be theistic or atheistic.
Authentic religion will not be materialistic or spiritualistic.
Authentic religion will be wholistic. It will not divide life into
compartments, it will destroy all the compartments of sinners and
saints, heaven and hell.