Discourse Series on Many Masters



Discourse Series on Many Masters
From July 1974, Osho continues to give discourses every morning until 1981, with alternate months in Hindi or English. He comments on the teachings of enlightened mystics in many spiritual traditions: Tao, Zen, Christianity, Hassid, Sufi, Baul, Hindu, Tibetan, Tantrik, etc. On alternate days Osho answers questions. Each series of ten or twenty days is published verbatim, as one book--over 240 books in seven years.
A Buddha spoke, a Lao Tzu spoke, Jesus spoke...and they knew that they were saying something which cannot be said, but they still said it. They tried hard their whole life to say it in so many ways. They used a thousand and one devices and they knew that they were going to fail...but still the failure is never complete.
Yes, it cannot be said and yet something is being transferred. In the very effort of saying it, something is transferred.
I cannot say what love is, but my very concern--that I would like to relate to you--will show my love.
I cannot say what music is, but my very concern to convey it to you, will make you hear the music of my heart. diseas28
I am using all climates, I am bringing all the possibilities to you. It has never happened before. Buddha created only one climate, one energy-field, Buddha-field. Mevlana Jalaludin Rumi created another, the Sufi-field. With Jalaludin only those gathered who were natural Sufis, with Buddha only those who were natural Buddhists.
With me it is going to be totally different. This place is going to be the first place in the world, in the whole human history, where all climates will be available, all kinds of soils, all possibilities. So it is going to happen again and again, and you have to remember that you have to learn tolerance, sympathy. When something is not suiting you, just don't start condemning it--because if I am talking about it, it must be suiting somebody else. And I have to look to the needs of all.
And those old kinds of special fields--the Buddha-field, the Sufi-field--cannot exist in this world now, because the earth has become so small. Countries are no more secluded; the world has become just a global village. We are so close to each other, and all the old barriers and boundaries are breaking on their own. Man has become more grown-up.
So around me all kinds of people will be here. Jews are here, Mohammedans, Christians, Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Taoists--all kinds of people are here. People who believe in Yoga, people who believe in Tantra, people who believe in Zen, people who believe in Hassidism--they are here. And I have to nourish them all....
I am going to go on speaking on all kinds of schools. And here, if you are a born Mohammedan, you have to disappear as a born Mohammedan. If you are a born Hindu, you have to disappear as a born Hindu. You have to find your natural qualities--because only nature grows. Birth is accidental, birth determines nothing. It was coincidence that you were born in a home where people were Hindus--it is as much a coincidence as if they belonged to a particular political party. If your parents were communists, you need not be a communist. If your parents were Catholics, you need not be a Catholic either.
You have to search for your own path; each one has to search for his own path. I will make all the paths available to you, so you can see and feel. And when the right path happens you will immediately see great joy arising in you. That is indicative that shows that your climate has arrived, that this was the time you were waiting for, that this is your spring. easy208
I am proclaiming a new religion--the essential religion. In Islam it is known as Sufism, in Buddhism it is known as Zen, in Judaism it is known as Hassidism--the essential core. But I speak your language, I speak the way you understand, the way you can understand. I speak-a very religionless language. I speak as if I am not religious at all. That's what is needed in this world. This twentieth century needs a religion completely free from all kinds of superstitions, utterly nude, naked.
This century is trained in the ways of science, is trained very logically. Never before was any other human society so logically trained. I am talking about something which is basically illogical but I have to talk in a logical way. If you go to a Sufi he talks about the illogical in an illogical way. I talk about the illogical in a logical way. If you go to a Zen Master he simply talks in an illogical way. You will not be able to make a bridge between you and him. With me, the bridge is very easy. I go with you to take you with me further.
First, I go with you. I make you perfectly happy that I am coming with you. Sooner or later you forget when things change and you start coming with me. I am ready to come into your valley--the darkest valley, wherever you are--I am ready to come into your unconscious cave...and in the way you want. I am ready to come there. Once I have entered there I can bring you out. That is the only meaning when I say, 'I proclaim a new religion.' sufis110
I speak on Mahavir as a part of my duty--my heart is never with him. He is too mathematical. He is not a mystic, he has no poetry of being. He is great, enlightened, but like a vast desert; you cannot come across a single oasis in him. But because I was born a Jaina I have to pay some debts. I speak on him as my duty but my heart is not there; I speak only from the mind. When I speak on Mahavir I speak as an outsider. He is not inside me and I am not inside him.
The same is true about Moses and Mohammed. I don't feel like speaking on them; I have not spoken on them. If I had not been born a Jaina I would never have spoken on Mahavir either. Many times my Mohammedan disciples or my Jewish disciples come to me and say, "Why don't you speak on Mohammed or Moses?" It is difficult to explain to them. Many times, just looking at their faces, I decide that I will speak; many times I look again and again into the words of Moses and Mohammed, then I again postpone it. No bell rings in my heart. It would not be alive--if I spoke it would be a dead thing. I don't even feel a duty towards them as I feel towards Mahavir.
They all belong to the same category: they are too calculative, extremist; they miss the opposite extreme. They are single notes, not harmonies, not symphonies. A single note has its beauty--an austere beauty--but it is monotonous. Once in a while it is okay, but if it continues you feel bored; you would like to stop it. The personalities of Mahavir, Moses and Mohammed are like single notes--simple, austere, beautiful even, once in a while. But if I meet Mahavir, Moses or Mohammed on the road I will pay my respects and escape.
I speak on Krishna. He is multi-dimensional, superhuman, miraculous, but seems to be more like a myth than a real man. He is so extraordinary that he cannot be. On this earth such extraordinary persons cannot exist--they exist only as dreams. And myths are nothing but collective dreams. The whole of humanity has been dreaming them...beautiful, but unbelievable. I talk about Krishna and I enjoy it, but I enjoy it as one enjoys a beautiful story and the telling of a beautiful story. But it is not very meaningful, a cosmic gossip.
I speak on Jesus Christ. I feel deep sympathy for him. I would like to suffer with him and I would like to carry his cross a little while by his side. But we remain parallel, we never meet. He is so sad, so burdened--burdened with the miseries of the whole of humanity. He cannot laugh. If you move with him too long you will become sad, you will lose laughter. A gloominess surrounds him. I feel for him but I would not like to be like him. I can walk with him a little while and share his burden--but then we part. Our ways are different ways. He is good, but too good, almost inhumanly good.
I speak on Zarathustra--very rarely, but I love the man as a friend loves another friend. You can laugh with him. He is not a moralist, not a puritan; he can enjoy life and everything that life gives. A good friend--you could be with him forever--but he is just a friend. Friendship is good, but not enough.
I speak on Buddha--I love him. Down through the centuries, through many lives, I have loved him. He is tremendously beautiful, extraordinarily beautiful, superb. But he is not on the earth, he does not walk on the earth. He flies in the sky and leaves no footprints. You cannot follow him, you never know his whereabouts. He is like a cloud. Sometimes you meet him but that is accidental. And he is so refined that he cannot take roots on this earth. He is meant for some higher heaven. In that way he is one-sided. Earth and heaven don't meet in him; he is heavenly but the earthly part is missing; he is like a flame, beautiful, but there is no oil, no container--you can see the flame but it is going higher and higher, nothing holds it on the earth. I love him, I speak on him from my heart, but still, a distance remains. It always remains in the phenomenon of love--you come closer and closer and closer, but even in closeness there is a distance. That is the misery of all lovers.
I speak on Lao Tzu totally differently. I am not related to him because even to be related a distance is needed. I don't love him, because how can you love yourself? When I speak on Lao Tzu I speak as if I am speaking on my own self. With him my being is totally one. When I speak on Lao Tzu it is as if I am looking in a mirror--my own face is reflected. When I speak on Lao Tzu, I am absolutely with him. Even to say "absolutely with him" is not true--I am him, he is me.
Historians are doubtful about his existence. I cannot doubt his existence because how can I doubt my own existence? The moment I became possible, he became true to me. Even if history proves that he never existed it makes no difference to me; he must have existed because I exist--I am the proof. During the following days, when I speak on Lao Tzu, it is not that I speak on somebody else. I speak on myself--as if Lao Tzu is speaking through a different name, a different nama-rupa, a different incarnation....
So Lao Tzu is just a spokesman of life. If life is absurd, Lao Tzu is absurd; if life has an absurd logic to it, Lao Tzu has the same logic to it. Lao Tzu simply reflects life. He doesn't add anything to it, he doesn't choose out of it; he simply accepts whatsoever it is....
Remember this...I am not commenting on him. There exists no distance between me and him. He is talking to you through me--a different body, a different name, a different incarnation, but the same spirit. treas101
It is said Buddha never laughed. And you can see Jesus...it is impossible that that face can laugh. Mahavira cannot laugh. There is only one man...and because of his laughter all the houses I have stayed in have been called Lao Tzu House. Lao Tzu is the only man who was born laughing. Every child is born crying. That is absolutely unique about Lao Tzu. There are many things in his life which are unique, but nothing to be compared with the fact that he was born laughing. Everybody was shocked. His mother and father could not believe it. Even a smile would have been too much, but he was laughing. And he remained a laughter all his life. chit21
You say: So many times I can't understand your words because the sound of your words showers on me, your sound strikes me with energy, filling me, and as a shock, I feel in my spinal cord thrills, waves and vibrations. Should I be carefully aware for the meaning of your words?
Then there is no need to be careful about the meaning of the words; that will be a disturbance. If you feel in tune with my sound, there is the meaning. If you feel you are being showered with a new energy, if you feel thrilled, pulsating in a new way you never knew before, if you feel a sort of new dimension arising in your being because of the sound of my words, then forget all about me. Then there is no need; you have got the meaning already. That showering is the meaning, that thrill in the spine is the meaning, that vibration that cleanses you is the meaning. Then there is no need to worry about the ordinary meaning of the words. Then you are getting a higher meaning, then you are reaching a higher altitude of meaning. Then you are really getting the content and not the container. The meaning of my words is just the container.
If this is happening to you, then my words are no longer words to you; they have become existential. Then they are alive, then they have become a transfer. Then something is transpiring between my energy and your energy. Then there is happening something like what Bauls call love.
Allow it. Forget all about the words and their meaning. Leave it for foolish people who only collect words and are never in contact with the content. The words are just like shells: hidden behind them, I am sending you great messages. Those messages cannot be understood by the intellect, those messages have to be decoded by your total being. That is what is happening--the vibration, the pulsation, the thrill, the showering of a new energy--your total being is decoding. This is real listening. This is really to be in contact with me, to be in my presence....
When I talk to you my words are like caged eagles; my words are in a prison. If you really listen to me, you will drop the cage and you will release the eagle. That is what is happening...the thrill. Then the freedom is released; then you become the eagle--and higher and higher you rise. The earth is left very far behind. You can forget all about it. The ordinary is left very far behind. The shell is left, the container is left, and you have the whole sky open to you; you, your wings, and the sky, and there is no end to it. The eternal pilgrimage has started.
Forget all about words and their meanings, otherwise you will be more concerned with the cage and you will not be able to release the eagle within you. belov110
I have never spoken except in utter silence. You know, for years you have heard me. You know the silence in Buddha Hall. Only in that silence.... Your English phrase is meaningful: that the silence is so profound that you can hear even a needle drop on the floor. So I know, but I am just accustomed to silence. glimps18
In August 1974, Osho comments on the sayings of Jesus from The Gospel According to St.Thomas. These discourses, published under the title The Mustard Seed, become one of Osho's most famous and best selling books, and attract the interest of many Christians around the world.
The four gospels of Jesus are recorded after his death, and not immediately, three hundred years afterwards. Now nobody was a witness; all the witnesses were dead. And these gospels were recorded by people who had not seen Jesus. They had not even seen Jerusalem. Now biblical research scholars have found that even the geography that they have mentioned in the four gospels is wrong. These people have never been to Israel. They have heard from others, who have heard from others, who have heard from others.
That's why I have spoken on Thomas's gospel which was written in India. He was a direct disciple of Jesus, but his gospel is not included in the Holy Bible. It was discovered just thirty years ago, but it is the most beautiful because at least Thomas was a witness. And it has tremendous beauty because it is not only that he was a witness to Jesus, here in India he went through a transformation.
He meditated, he practiced yoga, he lived like a sannyasin and moved from monastery to monastery. Buddha's air was still there. Buddha was gone five hundred years before that, but his fragrance was still alive. So in his gospel there is a certain authority which is lacking in the four gospels of the Bible. First he was a witness, he had heard Jesus, and secondly he himself had experienced the truth. The combination of both, gives a greater authority to the fifth gospel of Thomas than The Holy Bible. celebr02
When I spoke on the gospel of Thomas, I received many letters from Christians: "What is the need of commenting on it? What Thomas has said is enough, clear enough." Certainly it is clear enough, because Thomas was also an uneducated man; he has ideas that are not very complex, that can be explained. But if I want to make something complex out of something simple, I can. That is not difficult. And when they heard me on Thomas, then they started writing letters to me: "We had never known that this is the meaning of Thomas."
It has nothing to do with Thomas, it is simply my meaning. It is my gun on poor Thomas' shoulder. I am using him as a jumping board; and I have used all these people as jumping boards. I don't say that what I have said is their meaning--how can it be? I have come twenty-five centuries after Buddha; how can it be? Twenty-five centuries have not gone by uselessly. So when I speak on Buddha, it is not the meaning of Buddha, it is my meaning. I am using his words and putting my meaning into his words. This has been a continuity in India that makes for a tremendous development of ideas. unconc21
I don't want you to become Christians--that is useless, that is a lie. I would like you to become Christs. And you can become Christs.... seeds21
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