According to Osho, Jesus did not literally raise Lazarus; the story is a parable about awakening. We live robotically 'dead' in time (kal), and a true Master calls the disciple out of this inner grave into real life, the taste of eternity. Taking such metaphors as history misses their transformative pointing and reduces religion to nonsense.
No—it's a teaching story: a master wakes people who are 'asleep' inside so they can truly live beyond the clock.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: OSHO, DID JESUS REALLY CALL BACK LAZARUS FROM DEATH? The function of the master is precisely that: to call the disciples to the real life -- ordinarily they are dead. Ordinarily you only appear to be alive; don't be deceived by the appearance. You function like a robot, efficiently, but it is not life. You have not tasted life yet. Life has the taste of eternity, not of time. Time is death. In Sanskrit we have one word for both, for time and death -- kal. It is very significant. It must have been because of the mystics' experience. time is death. To live in time is not to live at all; to go beyond time is the beginning of life. That is the meaning of the parable; it is a metaphor. Lazarus represents all the disciples, Jesus represents all the Masters.
But it states in the bible that the body was already smelling.
The body may smell; the person may be in a deep coma and the body can begin to smell. There are other possibilities also, but the Jews of that time could not understand what those other possibilities were. For example, your soul may be out of the body and yet connected to it. Then the body will be in a deep coma, and it has to be preserved or it will begin to deteriorate -- it is a problem now. A very strong force is needed to bring the soul which is hovering around the body back to the body. But it can be revived, and a person like Jesus can help it to revive. In India, we have many such events.... You may have heard the story about Shankara's great debate with Mandan Mishra, the great Indian scholar of dualism. He came to debate with him, because that was…
Want nothing. Where there is desire, say nothing.
HAPPINESS OR SORROW -- WHATEVER BEFALLS YOU, WALK ON UNTOUCHED, UNATTACHED. DO NOT ASK FOR FAMILY OR POWER OR WEALTH, EITHER FOR YOURSELF OR FOR ANOTHER. CAN A WISE MAN WISH TO RISE UNJUSTLY? FEW CROSS OVER THE RIVER. MOST ARE STRANDED ON THIS SIDE. ON THE RIVERBANK THEY RUN UP AND DOWN. BUT THE WISE MAN, FOLLOWING THE WAY, CROSSES OVER, BEYOND THE REACH OF DEATH. HE LEAVES THE DARK WAY FOR THE WAY OF THE LIGHT. HE LEAVES HIS HOME, SEEKING HAPPINESS ON THE HARD ROAD. FREE FROM DESIRE, FREE FROM POSSESSIONS, FREE FROM THE DARK PLACES OF THE HEART, FREE FROM ATTACHMENT AND APPETITE, FOLLOWING THE SEVEN LIGHTS OF AWAKENING, AND REJOICING GREATLY IN HIS FREEDOM, IN THIS WORLD THE WISE MAN BECOMES HIMSELF A LIGHT, PURE, SHINING, FREE. The separation is caused by desiring. Desiring means complaint. Desiring means all is not as it should be.…
Question: OUR BELOVED MASTER, DAIKAKU SAID TO HIS ASSEMBLY OF MONKS: "SITTING MEDITATION IS THE METHOD OF GREAT LIBERATION; ALL THE TEACHINGS FLOW FORTH FROM THIS; MYRIAD PRACTICES ARE MASTERED THIS WAY. SUPERNORMAL POWERS, KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM AND VIRTUE, ALL ARISE FROM HERE. THE PATH OF LIFE OF HUMANS AND GODS OPENS HEREIN; ALL THE BUDDHAS HAVE ENTERED AND LEFT BY THIS DOOR. BODHISATTVAS PRACTICING IT HAVE ENTERED THIS DOOR. DISCIPLES AND SELF-ENLIGHTENED ONES ARE STILL ONLY HALFWAY THERE, WHILE OUTSIDERS, THOUGH THEY PRACTICE, DO NOT ENTER THE RIGHT PATH. WHATEVER ESOTERIC OR EXOTERIC SCHOOLS DO NOT PRACTICE THIS, DO NOT HAVE ANYONE WHO REALIZES THE WAY OF BUDDHAHOOD." A MONK THEN ASKED DAIKAKU, "WHAT DOES IT MEAN THAT SITTING MEDITATION IS THE ROOT SOURCE OF ALL THE TEACHINGS?
Question: BELOVED OSHO, MODERN CHRISTIANS ARE MAKING DESPERATE ATTEMPTS TO SAVE THEIR RELIGION FROM ITS PRIMITIVE, SUPERSTITIOUS PAST -- AND FROM THE FUNDAMENTALISTS! FOR EXAMPLE, A MODERNIST IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND BELIEVES, IT IS SAID, IN A GOD WHO WORKS THROUGH EVOLUTIONARY PROCESSES ONLY, DOES NOT DOUBT THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS CHRIST, BUT WOULD NOT LOSE HIS FAITH IF IT WERE TO BE PROVED THAT JESUS NEVER EXISTED, AND CLAIMS TO BELIEVE IN THE SUPERNATURAL, BUT NOT IN THE MIRACULOUS. HIS JESUS DID NOT PERFORM MIRACLES AND WAS NOT BORN OF A VIRGIN. THE TOMB WAS NOT EMPTY. ETHICS ARE MORE IMPORTANT TO THE MODERNIST THAN DOCTRINE. DOWN THE SAME PATH IS TRAVELING OUR OLD FRIEND, THE BISHOP OF DURHAM, WHO GOT INTO TROUBLE FOR HIS COMMENTS LAST YEAR ABOUT THE VIRGIN BIRTH AND RESURRECTION.