Enjoy what’s happening now; you can’t control what people will do later, and even if they build cages, brave hearts can use them to grow.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
It is a sight for gods to see that so many men and women, mostly young and intelligent, from all over the globe, have gathered at your ashram to seek truth and true religion. But aren't you at the same time laying the foundation of another organized religion, a global one this time, which will again turn into impediments in the way of truth and religion itself, or do organized religions too play a positive role?
THE FIRST and the most important thing to remember is: never think of the future, and never be entangled with the past. While I am here, enjoy me. While I am here, don't miss this opportunity. This is mind playing games. You are not enjoying me. You are not delighted -- you are creating a worry for yourself. Now the worry is about the future -- who are you to be worried about the future? And how can you manage to control it? -- there is no way. The future will take its own course. We cannot manage the future in a certain way, that it should be so or should not be so. All efforts have always failed. Buddha tried that there should not exist any organized religion in his name. He tried that there should not be any image made of him, but there are more images of…Read the full discourse →
Osho, if organization and sectarianism bring about the decline of religion and Tao, please explain why people like Buddha or Mahavira lay the foundations of organizations. And you too, being fully aware of this, why are you laying the foundation of an organization like Neo-Sannyas International?
As I said, birth comes with death; whenever truth is born, organization is born. This cannot be avoided. The moment truth is told to another, organization begins. Either the one to whom truth has happened keeps silent, drinks it alone, and tells no one. Buddha thought so. When he became enlightened he remained silent for seven days. He thought, There is no point in saying it. Those who can arrive will arrive without words; those who cannot, telling will not help—it will only create confusion. Better to remain quiet. But there is a sweet story: the gods, Brahma himself, came and pleaded at his feet, “Do not do this! Who knows after how many thousands of years someone attains buddhahood; what he has known should be spoken, communicated, shared.” Buddha said, “Those who can attain will attain without me, and those who cannot—why should I waste my time and energy…Read the full discourse →
Osho, you are quoted as being here to proclaim a new tradition, not to perpetuate the old. Why is this, and how do you see the future?
First: the creation of a new tradition is the only way to perpetuate the old, the only way. The old has to become new again and again. Only then can it be perpetuated. It is like Buddha attaining enlightenment sitting under a Bodhi tree near Bodhgaya.... That tree has existed, not exactly the same tree, but again and again branches of the tree were planted -- three times it has happened. The old tree died and when the tree was dying a branch was planted. Then that tree also died, but before it died another branch was planted. It comes in the same conti-nuum. It is not the same tree in a sense, just as your son is not you in a sense, but it is the same tree in another sense -- just as your son is another you in a sense, your continuity. Each time the world consciousness…Read the full discourse →
Every religion degenerates into a moralistic institution. You commend lao tzu because no religion could grow from his way. How can those who love you avoid such an institutional degeneration of your inspiration?
IF YOU START AVOIDING, you have already started creating it. Don't bother about it. If it is going to happen it is going to happen; if it is not going to happen it is not going to happen. You don't bother about it, because if you start wondering how to avoid it you have already taken for granted that it is going to be there. You have already become self-conscious about it -- and that will help to create it. Buddha tried hard to see that his religion would remain an alive phenomenon and not a dead institution. He tried hard -- but he failed. The harder he tried, the more people tried to create an institution around him. Krishnamurti is trying hard -- and he will fail, because this is the law. Why are you trying so hard? You must be afraid deep down that it is going to…Read the full discourse →
Osho, Mahavira was non-insistent, yet Jainism became a religion of insistence. You too are non-insistent—won’t your religion in the future also turn into a religion of insistence?
One who understands knows that the said religion will be made and unmade. The unsaid religion is eternal. What Mahavira did not say will not change. What Mahavira said will change; dust will settle upon it. What I am saying—dust will settle upon it. What I am not saying will not change. What I am not saying is the same as what Mahavira did not say, what Krishna did not say, what Buddha did not say. Only when you can hear the unsaid will you recognize the eternal. As long as you can hear only what is said—and even that is difficult; you don’t even hear that properly—as long as you only hear the statement, everything will grow stale. This is natural. There is nothing to cry over or be troubled about; nor is there any need to make arrangements against it. No arrangement will work; all arrangements will fail.…Read the full discourse →