People attack him for what he says, not what he does, because his words spread and shake power while he avoids doing things that could turn violent.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, ARE YOU PERSECUTED FOR YOUR IDEAS OR FOR YOUR ACTIONS? My ideas are my actions; otherwise I am a lazy man. I have been telling my people that I am the lazy man's guide to enlightenment. Action! Just the very word freaks me out! But ideas are enough; they are more powerful than any action. I have only ideas, and I am persecuted for my ideas. I have never done anything, good or bad, for which I can be condemned or praised. All that I have done in my life is to find out the truth about anything that is the concern of the moment and say it forcefully, emphatically, with the authority of my own experience. And I don't think any action is needed.
Osho, why are society and the government against you? Why is there a continual attempt to suppress your voice?
As it should be, that is exactly what is happening. This is proper; it has always been so. If society did not oppose what I say, my words would not be true. Only when society opposes my words is there proof that there is some truth in them. Society only opposes truth. With lies society is always at ease. Lies cannot harm society; society digests them and makes them part of itself. It cannot digest truth. Hence Jesus has to be crucified. Hence Socrates has to be given poison. Hence stones have to be thrown at Buddha. What is happening is right. It is just as it should be; it is happening according to the law. Do not be anxious about it. Do not waste time in it. What I am saying is of a kind that society will not tolerate. Only a few brave individuals can bear it. Society…
Osho, what is the relationship between meditation and patience?
If you sit to meditate to remove mental restlessness, you will keep looking back again and again: “Has it gone yet?” And the irony is that when you begin to meditate, restlessness will increase. Because what has been repressed will start surfacing; catharsis will begin. The rubbish you have kept hidden within and never allowed to express—meditation will break open those doors too. It will clean the house. Dust piled up for years, for births, will rise again; there will be gusts and storms. For a while even the little peace you had will be lost. Then you will panic: “I came for peace, and even what I had is gone.” Without patience, you could even become unhinged, because meditation brings such a great storm. The disease is not from a day or two; it’s from lifetimes. Meditation will break through all the layers to reach your innermost core. In…
Beloved Osho, the united states government proudly proclaims itself the land of the free and the home of the brave and points to its constitutional protections of fundamental rights. At the same time it twists and breaks its own laws to persecute you who embody freedom and truth. It seems the politicians always tell the biggest lies in the loudest voice. The worst tyrants talk most about peace and freedom. Could you please comment.
On celebration days the population of the commune -- which was only five thousand -- used to rise to twenty thousand. We had every arrangement for twenty thousand people. We created new kinds of tents which can be air-conditioned, which can be centrally heated, which can be used around the year, whether it is hot or cold, or snow is falling. These were our own invention. They could be folded in ten minutes and could be put up again in ten minutes. We were keeping those tents for the fifteen thousand people coming for festivals. The festivals were exactly what festivals should be -- twenty thousand people eating together under one roof, and while people were eating, somebody was playing guitar and somebody was dancing and somebody was playing on the flute. That was my idea always, that people should live as festively as possible. Their lives should be one…
Osho, India bid farewell to Buddha after his Mahaparinirvana and the world embraced him. You have been expelled from countries across the world, even though the world is now educated; this is the greatest sorrow. Will the world remain like this? From Socrates to Sarmad, when will this treatment stop?
If Buddhism has been wiped out from India… Socrates still has followers in Greece even now. And those who follow Jesus are the largest line in the world. But in India, Buddha’s birthplace, only Buddha’s name remains. There, no Buddha’s teaching, no Buddha’s revolution—which was a great revolution, through which a transformation could have happened in human life—was allowed to remain; India’s priests erased it, wiped it away. And they wiped it away in such a way that no one would even notice. We too crucified Buddha. Our way of crucifying was our own—Indian style. In pure khadi clothes, with a Gandhi cap placed on his head. We killed him properly, with calculation. But the revolution Buddha brought, we did not allow it to happen. Now you ask that I have been expelled all over the world, and the world is now civilized, educated, cultured. There is democracy, there is…