He was surprised, but the real problem is people stopped laughing and took a joke as an insult—so stay respectful yet light-hearted and don’t turn faith into anger.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, yesterday you said that jealousy is included in respect. I have immense respect for you, but the jealousy inherent in it keeps poisoning it, and I feel guilt and pain. Does reverence transcend this poison-laced respect?
It needs a little explaining—it's a delicate point. Whenever you respect someone, you do so because you see in that person something you do not have. You respect because you glimpse in the other something you would also like to possess. A beggar respects an emperor because he, too, longs to be an emperor. So on the one hand he respects, and inside he also envies. Because he is not yet an emperor but wants to be. You have attained what he wants to attain. He respects you as skillful, successful: “I stand far back in the line; you have gone ahead to where I should have been.” So you are powerful, clever, intelligent, strong—he respects you. But inside a fire of jealousy also burns—if he gets the chance, he would like to be in your place and push you aside. And if the beggar gets that chance, he will…
Until now man has not found a laughing religion—a dancing religion. Somber, serious, old—it has made man old, sad, serious. Man has become a tomb—a tomb of sadness, wherein everything is sealed. There the flute never plays, no song ever bursts forth. Those who are already old, sad, bound in tombs—they become very angry with small children. They quickly say to the children, “Find your tombs fast and lock yourselves in! Do not make a racket, do not laugh, do not speak loudly, do not dance, do not jump—lock yourselves in; find your tombs.” As if life is only a long procedure to find a grave—the one who finds a grave is blessed. We scold our children. Before the ray of their life dawns, we kill them. If the new man is to be born, we must ensure that man is freed from sadness. There is no need for seriousness.
Osho, The bliss I have felt since taking sannyas cannot be put into words. A thirty-year habit of drinking and smoking has ended suddenly. I can’t offer namaz. I forget the very words. And a state of meditation arises. I feel an inner strength to speak the truth. Lies simply no longer come out. I am indebted to you!
Anand Mohammed! This is the magic of meditation, the magic of sannyas. Only the one who steps into this world of magic will know it. One way is to drop alcohol by effort; that has no real value. You can force yourself to quit, but it will be repression. Inside, the craving will go on burning, and it will keep looking for a way, for an excuse. If you don’t drink alcohol, you’ll start taking something else—some substitute will be needed. You will get intoxicated by something or other. Only if another kind of intoxication happens can you drop alcohol; and even then, the desire to drink can lie buried within. If an opportunity comes, everything can collapse. Mulla Nasruddin was in court, because he’d been caught on the street, blind drunk, babbling nonsense. The magistrate asked, “Why did you drink so much?” Nasruddin said, “Because of bad company—call it…
Osho, you say the same thing in countless ways. But when I listen to you, it feels as if I am hearing it for the first time. And I feel so much joy that I don’t feel like going back home. What should I do—what can I do—so that I can just keep listening to you!
You will feel as if you have been made to rise out of season, before time—as if you were not yet to go and yet had to go. And if you go in that way, your home will become even more desolate than before. I do not want to make your home desolate; I want to make your home a temple. I want that when you go home, your home’s new form is revealed. I do not want to tear you away from home, from the world, from family life. That is the newness of my sannyas: I do not want to sever you from the world; I want to join you to the world in such a way that your connection with the world becomes a connection with the Divine. Let the world no longer be a barrier between you and the Divine; let it become a means. If…
Osho, gurdjieff had a beautiful waterpipe and did not hate cigarettes either. All his life baal shem had a clay pipe in his mouth. Does smoking really have to drop? And if so, how come the only temple in the ashram is the smoking temple?
Anando, MY WHOLE EFFORT HERE is to transform the mundane into the sacred. It is an alchemical school: we change base metals into gold. That's why the smoking place is called a temple; that is the only temple we have. I am not against smoking. I don't smoke myself because now there is so much smoke in the air that one need not bother carrying a clay pipe or a waterpipe in one's hand; just ordinary air is enough -- it is so polluted. In fact, ecologists say that it is a wonder how man is surviving because just fifty years ago scientists used to think that if air became as polluted as it has become today in New York, in Bombay, in Calcutta, in London, then people will die. But man has a tremendous capacity to adjust to any situation. Where so many cars are moving and trains are…