According to Osho, you've been 'inoculated' by social and religious conditioning, so you cannot catch the 'measles' he means - the living contagion of awakening. Fixed images of Christ, Buddha, or any master act like vaccines, blocking direct recognition. Unless you unlearn these implants and meet existence freshly, even a living Christ could stand before you and you'd miss him.
Our upbringing stuffs us with ideas that block real spiritual aliveness; drop the ideas to feel it directly.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
When I was a child I was inoculated against the measles. Can I still catch them now?
Yes, every child has been inoculated. Every child has been destroyed. Every child has been conditioned in such a way that he cannot get the measles I am talking about. You have been brought up as a Christian or a Hindu. That very upbringing closes your doors. Even if Christ comes' to you, you will not be able to see him. The idea that Christianity has given to you about Christ is so false, it is so foolish. it is so inhuman, that if Christ comes to you, you will not be able to recognize him. You will not be able to get the measles even from Christ! And Buddhists have created the idea of Buddha so abstractly and they have so conditioned their children with that abstract idea, with that inoculation, that even if Buddha comes across you, you will not be able to recognize him. So it is…
Beloved Osho, sitting close to you these last few mornings and looking into your eyes, I felt so much like a small child, full of innocence and excitement. Many times I wanted to wave my hand in the air wildly and shout: hello, hello, hello, my most beloved. Beloved master, can you talk about this blissful innocence that I am feeling and how it relates to meditation?
It is good to start with innocence, but remember there are two kinds of innocence: one is of the child and another is of the meditator. The meditator also becomes a child, but that is on such a different level, at such a great height -- as if the child is in the valley and the enlightened man who has again become a child is on the sunlit peak. The distance is tremendous. But there is a certain similarity, a thread running from the child to the heart of the sage. The child cannot understand the sage, but the sage can understand the child. Always remember it as a fundamental rule: the lower cannot understand the higher, but the higher can always understand the lower. And in your life, if anything can be compared with that high peak, it is your childhood. Try to rediscover it. Don't cover it with…
Question: BELOVED MASTER, CAN INNOCENCE IN AN ADULT HAPPEN WITHOUT AWARENESS? It was two o'clock in the morning and Gedalia the goniff was trying to break into a house. He tried all the doors and windows but he could not pry any of them open. Cautiously he climbed up to the second-floor balcony. Peering through a locked window, he saw a baby in its crib. By this time he was quite desperate so he decided to enlist the aid of the infant. "Hoo-hoo, bay-bee," he called softly. "Itsy-bitsy boo-boo, is oo gonna open window for nice mansi-wansie, hmm?" "Open the window?" yelled the baby. "Why, ya dumb schnook, I can't even walk yet!" The baby cannot walk, but he has become knowledgeable, he can talk. You have all become knowledgeable. You know nothing and yet you are full of knowledge.
Beloved Osho, what is it that reduces me to a hysterical, incoherent child in your presence or even at the thought of being in your presence? Is it something inherent in the master-disciple relationship, or my psychological immaturity, or both?
His wife used to keep notes of his thoughts... because sometimes he would come to a thought, but it was incomplete. And before he forgot it, he would tell somebody, whoever was close by, "Please write it down and keep it for me. Whenever I need it, just remind me -- because half is missing. It will come, but my fear is that when the other half comes, this half may be lost." Somebody suggested, "You are behaving strangely. Why don't you keep a notebook?" He said, "That is the trouble. I have been keeping notebooks, but then I go on forgetting where I have put them. Then the notebook becomes the problem! This is far better. At least somebody is responsible for the half thought and he will remind me: `This is half your thought. If the other half has come to your mind, take this and relieve me…
Osho, if an enlightened person cannot lose his buddhahood, how does a baby born as a buddha lose his?
Innocence plus consciousness is equal to Buddhahood. Innocence minus consciousness is equal to childhoodness. And how one can be conscious? The only way -- and let me emphasize -- the ONLY way is to lose it and gain it again. You ask me, Hajo: IF AN ENLIGHTENED PERSON CANNOT LOSE HIS BUDDHAHOOD, HOW DOES A BABY BORN AS A BUDDHA LOSE HIS? The enlightened person has lost it and found it. The baby has not lost it, and has not yet found it; he is born with it, oblivious of it. Hence you will see in the eyes of small children something of the saints, something of the same beauty; but also a deep ignorance. The innocence is there but full of ignorance. The saint is innocent but full of awareness, knowing. His innocence is not mixed with ignorance; it is wisdom. And the children are bound to lose their…