Osho's Message

Beloved Osho,
What is your message in short?

Parinirvana - better known in the commune as Paribanana, Buddha's message in short is: Be a light unto yourself.

And mine?

Be a joke unto yourself!

What is your message in short?

Take it easy.

Osho,
What is your message?

My message is very simple. Live life as dangerously as possible. Live life totally, intensely, passionately, because except for life there is no other God.
Friedrich Nietzsche says God is dead. That is wrong because God has never been there in the first place. How can he be dead? Life is, always has been, will always be. Allow yourself... and I repeat again, allow yourself to be possessed by life.
The so-called religions of the past have been telling you just the opposite. They say, "Renounce." I say, "Rejoice." They negate life, I affirm it. They say life is something wrong, illusory, and they create an abstract idea of God which is nothing but a projection of their own minds. And they worship that projection. It is so unintelligent, so utterly stupid that one wonders how millions of people have believed in such sheer nonsense. That which is, is denied for that which is only an abstraction of the mind. God is only a word, but they say God is real. And life is a reality.... You feel it in your heartbeat, it pulsates in your blood, it is all over the place - in the flowers, in the rivers, in the stars. And they say this is all MAYA, all illusion. They say that it is made of the same stuff as dreams are made of. And they create a God - and of course, everybody creates a God in his own image. So there have been thousands of gods.
It is your imagination. You can make a God with four heads, you can make a God with a thousand hands. It is up to you, it is your game. And these people have been telling an poisoning the minds of others. They say, "BRAHMA SATYA" - God IS true, and "JAGAT MITYA" -- the world, life is untrue.
I say to you, life is the only truth there is. There is no other God than life. So allow yourself to be possessed by life in all its forms, colors, dimensions - the whole rainbow, all the notes of music. If you can manage this simple thing... It is simple because it is only a question of let-go. Don't push the river, let the river take you to the ocean. It is already on the way. You relax, don't be tense and don't try to be spiritual. Don't create any division between matter and spirit. Existence is one, matter and spirit are simply two sides of the same coin. Relax, rest, and go with the river. Be a gambler, don't be a businessman, and you will know more of God because the gambler can risk. The gambler is non-calculative, he can put all that he has at stake. But the thrill of the gambler when he stakes every thing and waits;... what is going to happen now? In that very moment a window can open. That very moment can become a transformation of the inner gestalt.
Be a drunkard, drunk with life, with the wine of existence. Don't remain sober. The sober person remains dead. Drink the wine of life. It has so much poetry and so much love and so much juice. You can bring the spring any moment. Just give a call to the spring and let the sun and the wind and the rain enter into you.
It is because of THIS message that the spiritualists are against me because they think I am denying God. I am not denying God. For the first time I am bringing God into a real perspective, I am making him alive, I am bringing him closer to you, closer than your very heart. Because he's your very being, nothing separate, nothing far away, nothing there in the sky, but herenow. I am trying to destroy the very idea of there and then. My whole vision is of HERE AND NOW because there is no other space than the here, and no other time than the now.
The spiritualists are against me because they think I am making people materialists. And the materialists are against me because they think I am taking people into meditative drunkenness.
The Shankaracharya would not agree with me because he says, "God is true and everything else is false." I cannot agree with him. And Karl Marx will not agree with me because he says, "Religion is the opium of the people," that religion is something utterly false, that there is no God, no spirit, no life except matter, that what you think is your consciousness is an epiphenomenon - just a by-product. The moment you die everything dies.
I tell you you are born and you will certainly die but something in you was before your birth, and something in you is there which will remain after your death. And that something is life. Life is eternal.

That is my message.

Beloved master,
What is your message to the new world?

Where is the new world? And in the first place, why should I give a message to the new world? First let me destroy the old! I am too much engaged in destroying the old. And when the new comes I am not going to give any message to the new, because that will be programming. I will leave the new world to find its own way.

What is your message for humanity today?

Humanity has lived for thousands of years, and has got wrong notions, misconceptions, superstitions; and these have become its very bone, blood, its very marrow.
It has completely forgotten that a child is born neither Hindu nor Mohammedan, neither Indian, nor American. We condition the child with thousands of years of knowing and destroy his innocence. And the moment a child loses its innocence, he lives in futility. He cannot be himself, he has completely forgotten who he is, and he has been imposed by ideas which he is not.
This schizophrenia is the basic problem of humanity; and my basic message can be, stop this schizophrenic atmosphere. Let every child grow in his innocence. Don't impose anything, don't try to make out of him; that's the only possibility he may become what is his potential. And only a person is blissful when he becomes himself. There is no other way. All other ways lead to frustration, misery, hell.
According to me there is only one heaven; that is to achieve your reality without interfered by anyone. And there is only one hell; to lose your reality, interfered by your parents, the society, the religion, the priest, the teachers, the politicians. They all grab the child. And the child is so helpless, he cannot rebel. Naturally he has to follow whatever is being told to him.
The whole humanity is living in a hell. No joy, no love, no flowering; and the simple reason is, we create a split from the very beginning. We try to repress the real and impose the unreal. My message is, it is time enough to stop it.

What is your message, Osho? I don't understand you.

My message is that there is no message. I am not here to give you a message, because a message will become knowledge. I am here to impart something of my being. It is not a message, it is a gift. It is not a theory, it is not a philosophy. I want you to partake of my being. It cannot be reduced into a dogma. You cannot go back and tell people what you have learned here; you will not be able to. If you have learned anything you will not be able to relate it to anybody, although your whole being will show it. You will not be able to say it but only to show it. Your eyes will show it, your face will beam, your whole energy will have a different vibe.
I am not functioning here as a teacher. This is not a school. I don't teach you a thing. I simply want you to participate with me, in this mystery that has happened to me. Fall in tune with my energy, vibrate with me, pulsate with me - and you will know something which is beyond words, which no message can contain.

He is right. A Master is not a word, a Master is a door. A Master is not a message but a medium. A Master is a link, a bridge. Pass through the door, pass through the bridge, and you will come to know exactly what life is all about. If you can dive deep into the Master you will start feeling the presence of God - but it is not a message.
And you say you don't understand me. I know why you can't understand me: because whatsoever I am saying is so simple, that is why. Had it been complex you would have understood it. You are accustomed to complexity: the more complex a thing is, the more your intellect starts working on it. The challenge to the ego...
My communion with you is so simple, so utterly simple that there is no challenge for the ego; that is the reason why you can't understand me. What I say is simple and absolutely clear. I don't use any jargon. I am simply using the language that you use in your day-to-day work, in your day-to-day life. Maybe that is the reason for your not understanding me. The obvious is what I say and teach - yes, the obvious - but the obvious sounds bizarre because you have become so accustomed to the complexities that the mad mind goes on spinning and weaving around you.
And moreover, always keep in mind that what I say is said for no particular reason. There is no motive behind it. Just as they say 'art for art's sake', what I am saying to you has no particular reason behind it, no motive, but a sheer joy of being together with you, a sheer response to your questions. Not that my answers will solve your questions; no, not at all. If my answers can solve your questions, then it becomes a message. My answers will only help you to understand your questions - and when a question is understood, it dissolves. No question is ever solved. If you understand a question rightly it dissolves, it is not solved. It becomes insignificant, trivial and false, like a dry leaf from the tree. It loses all meaning. I am not going to give you answers, I am going to take away your questions.
And when the mind has no question to ask, in that utter silence where no question is present, you come to know that which is - call it God, call it Tao, truth, NIRVANA, or what you will.
That's why I say there is no particular reason in my saying whatsoever I say to you. There is no particular motive behind it, it is a simple response to your being. I am only being a mirror, hence there is no particular need to understand me. Don't try to understand me. There is nothing to understand. Just be with me and understanding will come on its own. And these are two different types of understandings.
When you try to understand me you will miss, because while I am imparting something to you, you are engaged and occupied in understanding it. You will miss it. Don't try to understand it, just listen! Just as I am talking to you without any motive, listen on your part without any motive - and the meeting is bound to happen. When I am without motive and you are without motive, what can hinder, what can obstruct the meeting? Then the meeting is going to happen. And in that communion is understanding; in that communion is light, clarity, transparency.
So rather than trying to understand me, celebrate me, rejoice in me - and you will understand, and without any effort to understand.
Nobody ever understands through effort. What effort do you make when you listen to music? Do you try to understand it? If you try to understand it, you will miss the whole joy of it. The music has to be rejoiced in. Do you try to understand a dance? Then you will miss it. The dance has to be celebrated. Do you try to understand the rose-flowers and the songs of the birds in the morning? There is no need! Just be with the rose-flower, just see the bird on the wing. Don't let anything hinder, and suddenly, understanding arises. That understanding arises from the heart, from your intelligence. It is not of the head.
And then the understanding has a totally different flavor, a totally different fragrance to it. Then it has beauty - because it comes out of effortlessness, it comes out of love. If you try to understand me, logic will be there, mind will be there. If you don't try to understand me, if you just listen for the sake of listening, then slowly, slowly something starts opening in you, arising in you, awakening in you.
Let me be a provocation, not a message. Let me be an alarm to wake you up, not a message. If you think in terms of a message you will create a wall between me and you. Just be here. Just as I am with you, you be with me - for no particular reason, just for the sheer joy of this silence, this presence that surrounds me and you, that joins me and you, this meditativeness, this grace, this moment of sheer beauty and benediction.
And your heart will understand. Whether your mind understands or not is of no significance.

Osho, what is your message to humanity on this new year's day?

My message is simple. My message is a new man, homo novus. The old concept of man was of either/or; materialist or spiritualist, moral or immoral, sinner or saint. It was based on division, split. It created a schizophrenic humanity. The whole past of humanity has been sick, unhealthy, insane. In three thousand years, five thousand wars have been fought. This is just utterly mad; it is unbelievable. It is stupid, unintelligent, inhuman.
Once you divide man in two, you create misery and hell for him. He can never be healthy and can never be whole, the other half that has been denied will go on taking revenge. It will go on finding ways and means to overcome the part that you have imposed upon yourself. You will become a battle-ground, a civil war. That's what has been the case in the past.
In the past we were not able to create real human beings, but humanoids. A humanoid is one who looks like a human being but is utterly crippled, paralysed. He has not been allowed to bloom in his totality. He is half, and because he is half he is always in anguish and tension; he cannot celebrate. Only a whole man can celebrate. Celebration is the fragrance of being whole.
Only a tree that has lived wholly will flower. Man has not flowered yet.
The past has been very dark and dismal. It has been a dark night of the soul. And because it was repressive, it was bound to become aggressive. If something is repressed, man becomes aggressive, he loses all soft qualities. It was always so up to now. We have come to a point where the old has to be dropped and the new has to be heralded.
The new man will not be either/or; he will be both/and. The new man will be earthy and divine, worldly and other-worldly. The new man will accept his totality and he will live it without any inner division, he will not be split. His god will not be opposed to the devil, his morality will not be opposed to immorality; he will know no opposition. He will transcend duality, he will not be schizophrenic. With the new man there will come a new world, because the new man will perceive in a qualitatively different way and he will live a totally different life which has not been lived yet. He will be a mystic, a poet, a scientist, all together. He will not choose: he will be choice-lessly himself.
That's what I teach: homo novus, a new man, not a humanoid. The humanoid is not a natural phenomenon. The humanoid is created by the society - by the priest, the politician, the pedagogue. The humanoid is created, it is manufactured. Each child comes as a human being: total, whole, alive, without any split. Immediately the society starts suffocating him, stifling him, cutting him into fragments, telling him what to do and what not to do, what to be and what not to be. His wholeness is soon lost. He becomes guilty about his whole being. He denies much that is natural, and in that very denial he becomes uncreative. Now he will be only a fragment, and a fragment cannot dance, a fragment cannot sing, and a fragment is always suicidal because the fragment cannot know what life is. The humanoid cannot will on his own. Others have been willing for him - his parents, the teachers, the leaders, the priests; they have taken all his willing. They will, they order; he simply follows. The humanoid is a slave.
I teach freedom. Now man has to destroy all kinds of bondages and he has to come out of all prisons - no more slavery. Man has to become individual. He has to become rebellious. And whenever a man has become rebellious.... Once in a while a few people have escaped from the tyranny of the past, but only once in a while - a Jesus here and there, a Buddha here and there. They are exceptions. And even these people, Buddha and Jesus, could not live totally. They tried, but the whole society was against it.
My concept of the new man is that he will be Zorba the Greek and he will also be Gautam the Buddha: the new man will be Zorba the Buddha. He will be sensuous and spiritual, physical, utterly physical, in the body, in the senses, enjoying the body and all that the body makes possible, and still a great consciousness, a great witnessing will be there. He will be Christ and Epicurus together.
The old man's ideal was renunciation; the new man's ideal will be rejoicing. And this new man is coming every day, he is arriving every day. People have not yet become aware of him. In fact he has already dawned. The old is dying, the old is on its death-bed. I don't mourn for it and I say please don't mourn for it. It is good that it dies, because out of its death the new will assert. The death of the old will be the beginning of the new. The new can come only when the old has died utterly.
Help the old to die and help the new to be born! And remember, the old has all the respectability, the whole past will be in his support; and the new will be a very strange phenomenon. The new will be so new that he will not be respected. Every effort will be made to destroy the new. The new cannot be respectable, but with the new is the future of the whole of humanity. The new has to be brought in.
My work consists in creating a Buddha-field, an energy-field, where the new can be born. I am only a midwife helping the new to come into a world which will not be accepting of it. The new will need much support from those who understand, from those who want some revolution to happen. And the time is ripe, it has never been so ripe. The time is right, it has never been so right. The new can assert itself, the break-through has become possible.
The old is so rotten that even with all support it cannot survive; it is doomed! We can delay, we can go on worshipping the old; that will be just delaying the process. The new has to come: at the most, we can help it to come sooner, or we can hinder it and delay its coming. It is good to help it. If it comes sooner, humanity can still have a future, and a great future: a future of freedom, a future of love, a future of joy.
I teach a new religion. This religion will not be Christianity and will not be Judaism and will not be Hinduism. This religion will not have any adjective to it. This religion will be purely a religious quality of being whole.
My sannyasins have to become the first rays of the sun that is going to come on the horizon. It is a tremendous task, it is an almost impossible task, but because it is impossible it is going to seduce all those who have any soul left in them. It is going to create a great longing in all those people who have some adventure hidden in their beings, who are courageous, brave, because it is really going to create a brave new world.
I talk of Buddha, I talk of Christ, I talk of Krishna, I talk of Zarathustra, so that all that is best and all that is good in the past can be preserved. But these are only a few exceptions. The whole humanity has lived in great slavery, chained, split, insane.
I say my message is simple, but it will be very hard, difficult, to make it happen. But the harder, the more impossible, it is, the greater is the challenge. And the time is right because religion has failed. science has failed. The time is right because the East has failed, the West has failed. Something of a higher synthesis is needed in which East and West can have a meeting, in which religion and science can have a meeting.
Religion failed because it was other-worldly and it neglected this world. And you cannot neglect this world; to neglect this world is to neglect your own roots. Science has failed because it neglected the other world, the inner, and you cannot neglect the flowers. Once you neglect the flowers, the innermost core of being, life loses all meaning. The tree needs roots, so man needs roots, and the roots can only be in the earth. The tree needs an open sky to grow, to come to a great foliage and to have thousands of flowers. Then only is the tree fulfilled, then only does the tree feel significance and meaning and life becomes relevant.
Man is a tree. Religion has failed because it is talking only of the flowers. Those flowers remain philosophical, abstract; they never materialise. They could not materialise because they were not supported by the earth. And science has failed because it cares only about the roots. The roots are ugly and there seems to be no flowering.
The West is suffering from too much science; the East has suffered from too much religion. Now we need a new humanity in which religion and science become two aspects of one man. And the bridge is going to be art. That's why I say that the new man will be a mystic, a poet and a scientist.
Between science and religion only art can be the bridge - poetry, music, sculpture. Once we have brought this new man into existence, the earth can become for the first time what it is meant to become. It can become a paradise: this very body the Buddha, this very earth the paradise!