Have similar claims of false prophets occurred in the lives of Buddha, Mahavira, and other enlightened beings?

Osho, in Krishna’s time there was the great war of the Mahabharata, and Krishna held a central place in it. He could have stopped the war if he had wanted to—but he did not. A vast devastation followed, and much of the responsibility for that devastation seems to fall on Krishna. Can Krishna be blamed for that war?

This race resembles the one that began some three centuries ago when ships from Europe rushed toward Asia—Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, German. Then, expansion and development demanded possession of Asian lands. Now that has become meaningless. Asians think their independence movements freed them; that is only half true. The other half is that there is no longer any point in holding Asian territory. That era is over. Now the struggle is to possess other ground—celestial ground. Eyes and energies have turned there. Life is an adventure of power. Those who embrace lifelessness are gradually destroyed. We are such a people—being destroyed. All the more reason why Krishna’s message is meaningful—not only for us. I would say the West too stands at a point where it may have to fight one more decisive war—surely not on earth. Even if rivals on earth must fight one another, they will likely do it…

Questioner: there was a king named pondrak in the times of krishna. This man had declared krishna to be a fake and himself to be the real krishna. Can you say if similar things have happened in the lives of buddha, mahavira and other enlightened beings?

Yes, they did happen. In the times of Mahavira, a man named Goshalak had declared that he, not Mahavira, was the real tirthankara. The Jews crucified Jesus on the basis that a carpenter's son was falsely claiming to be a Messiah; he was not real. The real messiah was yet to come. The Jewish tradition believed that a messiah would come; many past prophets like Ezekiel and Isaiah had predicted it. Just before the birth of Jesus, John the Baptist had gone from village to village announcing that the messiah is on his way who will redeem all people. And then a young man named Jesus came on the scene declaring that he was the messiah. But the Jews refused to accept him; instead they crucified him, on the grounds that he was a fake, he was not the real messiah. No other person except Jesus claimed to be the…

Osho, “Kaliḥ śayāno bhavati, saṃjihānas tu dvāparaḥ; uttiṣṭhan tretā bhavati, kṛtaṃ saṃpadyate caran. Charaiveti. Charaiveti.” “He who is asleep is Kali; the one who sits up from sleep is Dvāpara; the one who stands up is Tretā; but the one who starts walking becomes the Kṛta-yuga, the Sat-yuga, the golden age. Therefore keep moving, keep moving.” Osho, please be gracious and explain the purport of this subhāṣita from the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa.

Not only small people—your very Maryādā Puruṣottam Rāma runs after a golden deer! He loses the real Sītā chasing a fake golden deer. And this is everyone’s story: people lose the real running after the unreal. They chase a golden deer. Even the craziest person can understand there are no golden deer! The world is called a mirage. This very Rāma calls the world dreamlike, māyā, like the mirage that deludes a thirsty deer in the desert when the sun’s rays... There is a way the sun’s rays behave. Falling on bare sand, they heat it; heated sand reflects rays back. Those returning waves from afar look exactly like water rippling. Not only do they seem so, they appear with “proof”—because when the rays return, the ripples look water-like, and the silhouettes of trees nearby appear in those waves like reflections in a lake. Seeing that reflection, the deer becomes…

Beloved Osho, are you a messiah?

Now, rather than arguing the point, Buddha simply makes Mahavira a laughingstock, saying that if he is omnipotent then why cannot he cure his stomach, then why does the physician need to be asked? He is omnipotent! He is omniscient -- he must have seen it before it happened because he knows the past, present and future. And Buddha laughs and says, "I have seen Mahavira begging in front of a house in which nobody lives. He knows the past, present, and the future, and he does not know that the house is empty, that there is nobody inside! He has stepped -- in the early morning when it was not light enough to see -- on the tail of a dog; and only when the dog started jumping and barking at him did he come to know. And he is omniscient, he knows the past, present and future --…

The buddha said: "there was once a man who, being in despair over his inability to control his passions, wished to mutilate himself. The buddha said to him, 'better destroy your own evil thoughts than do harm to your own person. The mind is lord. When the lord himself is calmed, the servants will of themselves be yielding. If your mind is not cleansed of evil passions, what avails it to mutilate yourself?' " thereupon, the buddha recited the gatha: "passions grow from the will, the will grows from thought and imagination: when both are calmed, there is neither sensualism nor transmigration."

THE BUDDHA SAID, "THIS GATHA WAS TAUGHT BEFORE BY KASHYAPABUDDHA." THE BUDDHA SAID: "FROM THE PASSIONS ARISES WORRY, AND FROM WORRY ARISES FEAR. AWAY WITH THE PASSIONS, AND NO FEAR, NO WORRY." Go deeper and catch hold of anything arising in the first step. And then it is so easy -- just like you can destroy a seed very easily, but to destroy a tree will be difficult. And when the tree has sent its millions of seeds into the air, then it is almost beyond your control. The winds have taken the seeds to faraway fields; now it is impossible to find out where they have fallen. Now the tree is not one; it has created many possibilities of its own being. It will be imitated in many fields. BUDDHA SAYS THAT DESTROYING THE BODY IS NOT GOING TO HELP. If your eyes make you desirous of beautiful women…