Does enlightenment mean that one would still engage in conflict or violence?

They have asked, Osho, does this mean that Muhammad, even after enlightenment, would still take up the sword and go to fight?

Hence it is no accident that the class that gathered behind Mahavira became absolutely impotent, thoroughly emasculated. They shrank from life on all sides. For twenty-five hundred years they have lived by clinging only to the trader’s occupation. Why? They could not understand any other vocation—every other trade seemed dangerous. Only one business seemed safe: minimal hassle, no quarrels. And they produce nothing, they go nowhere; they act as middlemen—doing the work of a broker. Who could ever imagine that behind so courageous a man as Mahavira such un-courageous people would gather—who can do nothing except brokerage? Is brokerage even a vocation? Can any inner potential—the powers hidden within—awaken through brokerage? But to the fearful man this seemed the most convenient. Strange indeed—that behind Mahavira the cowards gathered. Muhammad is an extremely compassionate person. And it is precisely out of compassion that he took up the sword. Had his compassion…

Osho, you said... then you will find that the devotee is God. The question arises: if one devotee prefers to be God and another wants to remain only a devotee, then which of the two is superior?

The one who wants to be God will not be able to be. And the one who wants to remain a devotee will become God. The question of superior or inferior does not arise, because only one of the two will happen. The one who does not want to be will be. The one who wants to be will be deprived. That very wanting is of the ego. But the matter is a little delicate. Sometimes humility too belongs to the ego. Beware that your humility may not be of the ego. Perhaps you are saying, “No, I don’t want to be,” because you know that those who refuse are the ones who attain. Then you are clever. Then your humility is adulterous. Your humility is not pure, not sacred, not virginal—it is like a prostitute. The one who wants to be God, whose ego says, “I must become God,”…

Osho, Lord Shri Krishna in the Mahabharata took up the Sudarshan Chakra against tyrants. The Prophet Muhammad too had to take up the sword for the sake of religion. Even the Son of God, Jesus, had to take a whip in his hand. The “ahimsa paramo dharmah” of Buddha and Mahavira must have come in the way of their path, and people committed violence against them. Osho, is that still the call of the time? Is that how the law of things stands?

Osho, until life is sacrificed in love, in my eyes there can be no true devotion before that. Osho, may my life depart in your embrace—my heart is restless for that hour; love does not happen for everyone—this deep affection is only for a few. Osho, the longing for self-offering seethes in our hearts; let us see how much strength there is in the murderer’s arm. They say nails were driven into Mahavira’s ears. Consider that story. Mahavira stood naked outside a village beneath a tree in meditation. It was during the twelve years of silence. A cowherd was grazing his herd. Someone came calling him home for urgent work. He saw a naked fellow standing uselessly and said, “Brother, watch my cows for a bit.” He said it and left, not noticing the silent man had neither nodded nor spoken. He assumed silence meant assent—mounam sammati lakshanam. Mahavira could…

Osho, yesterday you said that when anger is watched consciously, it dissolves. But why is it that when sexual desire arises, even in awareness its intensity persists? Why is it so?

There is no entanglement in the breath. If you try to practice on anger… Anger is not happening every moment; it happens sometimes. And when it happens, it happens with such intensity that you are already going deep into it; so much is at stake in those moments that you may think, “We will look into awareness later; first let’s settle this now.” Lust is very deep, because existence has made it so deep; life depends on it. If lust were so easy that you decided and were freed, perhaps you would not even have been born—because many before you would have become free, and the possibility of your being would have been almost nil. But your parents, and their parents, did not become free; therefore you are. You too will not get free so easily, because your children are also to be—they are waiting: “Do not run away midway.”…

Osho, it is surprising that among animals there is hardly any hypocrisy or deceit, and among indigenous people it is also very little, whereas in the so-called educated and civilized society it is at its peak. Has humanity’s long and arduous journey from barbarism to civilization then gone in vain? And in that case, is the tribal order preferable?

Animals are without falseness, without hypocrisy—not because they have achieved something, but because they are incapable. They cannot be hypocrites; there is no way for them to be. They have no facility for being bad, no possibility of falling. But precisely because an animal cannot fall, it also cannot ascend to divinity. One who cannot fall cannot rise. And where there is no possibility of sin, there is no possibility of the divine either. The animal is in a kind of stupor; it does as nature makes it do. Its journey is mechanical. It has no free will. Therefore an animal cannot do evil, but it cannot do good either. It simply does what nature impels. It has no individuality of its own. Hence an animal can be neither wicked nor virtuous, neither a great sinner nor a great saint. An animal remains an animal. The animal is born complete.…