How can followers avoid the institutional degeneration of inspiration?

Every religion degenerates into a moralistic institution. You commend lao tzu because no religion could grow from his way. How can those who love you avoid such an institutional degeneration of your inspiration?

IF YOU START AVOIDING, you have already started creating it. Don't bother about it. If it is going to happen it is going to happen; if it is not going to happen it is not going to happen. You don't bother about it, because if you start wondering how to avoid it you have already taken for granted that it is going to be there. You have already become self-conscious about it -- and that will help to create it. Buddha tried hard to see that his religion would remain an alive phenomenon and not a dead institution. He tried hard -- but he failed. The harder he tried, the more people tried to create an institution around him. Krishnamurti is trying hard -- and he will fail, because this is the law. Why are you trying so hard? You must be afraid deep down that it is going to…

Osho, so many dull and crazy religions once started with a wonderful and enlightened person. Please tell me, will your sannyasins become as dull and crazy as all the other stupid religions? I am afraid to fall into another institution.

Shiva's wife, Parvati, died. Now he is the god of destruction, death, but he could not accept the death of Parvati. You see the human element? He took the dead body of his wife, carried her on his shoulders for twelve years around the country in search of a physician. There may be someone -- who knows? -- a magician, a physician, a miracle man who will revive her. He loved her so much... Now you cannot carry a dead body for twelve years. The body became rotten, it started falling into pieces. Somewhere the hand fell, somewhere the leg fell -- that's how the Hindu sacred places were born. Wherever any part of Parvati fell, one sacred place was born. So there are twelve most sacred places in India. Those places are just graveyards of parts of Parvati. Unless the whole dead body disappeared... Shiva carried her in search…

Osho, I frequently hear a question being asked about the ashram.... There is so much vitality here now and so much creativity with all these shows and music and fashions and crafts, as well as events happening abroad, that people are wondering what will happen when you are gone. When you leave your body will the ashram become a dead institution, and will you just become deified and forgotten?

These people who are wondering what will happen, are the same people who will create a dead institution. My people cannot create a dead institution -- it is impossible. Those who have been in communion with me will have learnt one thing absolutely, categorically: that life cannot be confined into institutions; the moment you try to confine it into institutions you destroy it. So while I am alive they will celebrate. When I am gone they will still celebrate. They will celebrate my life, they will celebrate my death, and they will remain alive. Remember, religions are created by guilty people, and I am not creating any guilt here. There are certain mechanisms.... If Jesus had not been crucified, there would have been no Christianity at all. The real founder of Christianity was not Jesus Christ but the high priest of Jerusalem, the rabbi, and Pontius Pilate. These two persons,…

Osho, why is it that all enlightened ones teach the central transformation of awareness and awakening, yet the religions founded on them shrink into conduct codes and rituals? Aren’t all organized religions merely parts of society?

But the wife would not agree. She said, “I don’t get into talk of mistakes and corrections. Some ill omen might occur! What harm is it to us?” Lines remain: “It happened this way, it was done that way, it was said so.” Then our meanings, our blindness, are added to them. Religion becomes superstition; truth loses its peaks and becomes the falsehood of the valleys. And around that falsehood, crowds gather. Those who reached the Buddha in the beginning reached through their own awakening. Then they had children; those children had nothing to take from the Buddha, nothing to give. For them, religion is only a rite. Born in a Buddhist home—Buddhist; had they been born in a Hindu home—Hindu; in a Muslim home—Muslim. It is a matter of accident. Being born in a Hindu home is as accidental as a white cat sitting by a pot of curd.…

Osho, Mahavira was non-insistent, yet Jainism became a religion of insistence. You too are non-insistent—won’t your religion in the future also turn into a religion of insistence?

One who understands knows that the said religion will be made and unmade. The unsaid religion is eternal. What Mahavira did not say will not change. What Mahavira said will change; dust will settle upon it. What I am saying—dust will settle upon it. What I am not saying will not change. What I am not saying is the same as what Mahavira did not say, what Krishna did not say, what Buddha did not say. Only when you can hear the unsaid will you recognize the eternal. As long as you can hear only what is said—and even that is difficult; you don’t even hear that properly—as long as you only hear the statement, everything will grow stale. This is natural. There is nothing to cry over or be troubled about; nor is there any need to make arrangements against it. No arrangement will work; all arrangements will fail.…