According to Osho, he is simply himself—not a messiah, prophet, or divine incarnation. He denies any God sending messengers, refuses prophecy because the future doesn’t exist for him, and rejects godhood as a human invention. He sees such titles as tools that have enslaved and divided humanity. His teaching: drop borrowed beliefs and savior-ideologies, live authentically in the present, and let intelligence and joy flower.
I’m just myself; don’t wait for saviors or predictions—be present and think for yourself.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, ARE YOU A MESSIAH, A PROPHET, OR A REINCARNATION OF GOD? I have never expected that one of my sannyasins would ask such a bullshit question! I am simply myself. I am not a messiah, because there is no God to send messengers to the world. Moreover, I don't want to be crucified. To prove that you are a messiah of God, crucifixion is absolutely necessary. Not that I am afraid of death, but I would like a comfortable, luxurious death. Not carrying the cross on my own shoulders, not even on your shoulders -- the cross will be carried on a Rolls Royce limousine. I am not a prophet either. I don't know what is going to happen in the next moment. I don't know even what I am going to say in the next moment. The future does not exist for me.
Question: Second question: Osho, are you a messiah? What do you take yourself to be? But those footprints were very clear. The astrologer grew anxious—was his scripture wrong? He followed the tracks. In the direction the prints seemed to go, he walked, for it had become necessary to see this man. Walking along, he reached the tree under which Buddha sat—and then he was in deeper trouble. Seeing Buddha’s face, it seemed indeed the face of a chakravarti—his very presence had the aura a world emperor should have: the same halo, the same circle of light, the same fragrance, the same majesty. Yet the man looked like a beggar. A begging bowl lay beside him; not even a mat to sit upon. He was seated on a rock under a bush.
Beloved Osho, are you a messiah?
Those who are with me have to understand, howsoever hard and painful it is, that you and you alone are responsible for everything that is happening to you, has happened to you, will happen to you. Once you accept all your responsibility in its totality, you become mature. You stop throwing tantrums, and you stop seeking for messiahs. Then there is no need for any Jesus to save you. Nor can any Jesus save you -- he was exploiting your situation. Jews did not allow him to disturb their hope, their dream, their future. Jews have suffered the most in the world, hence they need hope more than anybody else. And they have been clinging to the idea: "The messiah will come, and these are only a few days of suffering, and nothing to be compared with when the messiah comes and redeems you. And you will be the chosen…
Beloved master, who are you?
I am not a messiah, nor a prophet, nor a savior. I am simply a human being, with a little difference that you are not awake and I am awake. You can call me the awakened one. I emphatically deny the role of the messiah, the prophet, the savior, for specific reasons. My understanding is that nobody can save anybody else -- the very idea is insulting. And if somebody can save somebody, he can also drown him, because both the capacities come together. I am not a prophet, representing God, his message. As far as I am concerned existence is divine, but there is no God as a person. It is a quality of creativity, but not a creator. So the people who are creative are more religious than the people who go on praying in the churches, in the temples, in the synagogues to a God above in…
Beloved master, do you consider yourself god, god's representative on earth, a prophet, and/or just a very clear individual? Having seen you a couple of times in morning discourse and listening to tapes and videotapes of you, you never seem to answer this question. How and why do you know or feel something I do not?
Harold Peltz, the first thing is that there is no God. Yes, there is godliness, but no God. The idea of God is anthropocentric. The Bible says: God created man in his own image. The truth is just the opposite: man has created God in HIS own image. God is nothing but a projection of human wishes, desires, longings. God is nothing but the projection of human mind. That does not mean that I am an atheist, but I am not a theist either. My position is exactly that of Gautama the Buddha. He was not an atheist and he was not a theist. He did not believe in God, he did not DISbelieve in God. What was his position? His position is very unique, his position is worth sharing. His space is worth communing with. And that is the space of all the meditators: they believe in godliness. The…