It’s not whether your question is a joke or serious; what matters is that it comes from love and trust in your master.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
It has been said that a disciple should have respectful manners and a respectful attitude towards his master, but often I feel like asking you playful, joking and naughty questions. Does this indicate lack of respect and 'shraddha', trust?
It does not depend on the question, it depends on the questioner. The question is irrelevant. You can ask a playful, joking, naughty question with deep respect. There is no problem about it. In fact without deep respect how can you ask such a question? If you love the master and you love him so deeply, you respect him and you respect him so deeply, then you are free to ask anything. It depends on the questioner, not on the question. If the questioner is in a deep love and trust with the master, then everything is allowed. He can ask any sort of question. But if the trust doesn't exist in the questioner you can ask a very serious and respectful question but it is just formal respect -- deep down there is no respect. Try to understand the quality of the questioning heart. If there is trust, then…
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, you are the eternal, awesome silence and grandeur of the himalayas. And yet you live in a fragile, human body, which is such a joy for us to be together with. In connection with you, and even more in relation to close friends, the question arises: can the playfulness of human love be bridged with reverence for the divine?
So let me make it clear to you: don't call it "respect for the divine." It will be better to call it "reverence for life." And then there is no problem. Then playfulness is part of being alive; it is the overflowing energy of life. It can become a dance, it can become a song, it can become any kind of creativity. I wrote to both the ambassador of Ceylon to America and the atheist association of America, saying that it looks contradictory because of their conditionings -- and that I want to destroy those conditionings; hence specifically I have chosen Zorba and Buddha, two polarities, and have put them together. And I want the New Man to live both together, without any contradiction. Once we stop thinking of respect for the divine and start thinking of respect for life, reverence for life, then the bridge becomes immediately possible. Then…
Osho, I have worn the mala for less than a month, but I understand how feeling you is important. But these feelings are mixed up. I respect and love you, but I don't look at you as his holiness. Strange, but I look at you as a buddha. Only that, without anything added or taken away from your being. And what a buddha is I don't know. How come I love you, respect you because you are my master. But...love? Also I see that I can play with you with joy and you are so far away. Or so close? Respect, love, joy -- are they the same?
IT IS GOOD THAT YOU CANNOT THINK OF ME AS HIS Holiness, because I am neither His Holiness nor His Unholiness. It is good and beautiful that you think of me as a Buddha, because that's exactly what I am -- simply a Buddha. A Buddha means one who is awake. It has nothing to do with holiness, nothing to do with unholiness. Holiness, unholiness, both are dreams; for dreams you have to be asleep. A Buddha is awake; all dreams have disappeared. A Buddha is not a saint, is not a sinner either. A Buddha is not God and is not a devil either. All dualities are irrelevant as far as Buddha is concerned. Buddha is simply a witness of all the mystery that surrounds you within and without. Mario, it is absolutely right, you are moving in the right direction. If you start looking at me as a…
What is respect to a master? How do we respect you? Are rituals needed in honor of you? Can we joke with you? In sufi dancing we were told to think of something to make us giggle. I thought of you slipping, just like slipping on a banana peel. Is it disrespect or is it just okay?
With me it is perfect. But you have been disrespectful to the banana peel. And remember, bananas are not Buddhas -- they will never forgive you. The fifth question: