How can Mahavira return if he was in a state of moksha, from which there is no return?

Osho, Mahavira’s prior-life state was a state of moksha, and you say that from moksha there is no return. Then how did he return? Please clarify.

In a rush he kissed the maid and said to the wife, “Take care of the children!” The wife protested. He said, “Then let me correct it,” kissed the wife and told the maid, “Take care of the children.” “Sometimes I slip,” he said. So do we all—we keep remembering: this is my father, my wife, my son. If we forget, others remind us: “I am your father.” We must remember our roles; the more dutifully one plays, the more “conscientious” he is. I do not say, “Do not play.” Life is for playing—and it is delightful. Only do not forget one thing—even if you forget everything else—do not forget that it is a play, and that inwardly there is a point in you that forever stands outside. Swami Ram went to America. He had a strange habit; people were puzzled—he always spoke in the third person. He would say,…

Osho, in your talk on Mahavira you said that Mahavira had already attained the ultimate in a previous birth, and, out of compassion, took birth again only to express it. About Krishna you said he was accomplished from birth. Now, from a conversation you and I had in Jabalpur, I had the impression that what you said about Mahavira and Krishna applies to you as well. If so, out of what compassion did you have to take birth? Please also shed light on your previous lives and their attainments so that seekers may benefit. And how much interval was there between the last birth and this one?

There is another reason. Compassion has a double meaning. It not only wants to give; it knows that if it only takes away from you and cannot give, it puts you in greater danger. If I can show you something, good; but if I cannot, and at the same time blind you to what you could see, your trouble increases. About these seven hundred years, two or three further things. One, I never thought this would come up, but in Poona it did. My mother must have been asked by Ramlal Pungaliya whether she had any earliest memory of me. I was surprised—because I did not know when it was said. She said publicly that I did not cry for three days and did not take milk for three days after birth. That is my first memory. Then nothing more was said, and the matter passed. But it is true.…

And so someone has asked: Why are there not two Tirthankaras at the same time?

So every compassionate teacher, returning once, arranges everything so that later on, ways to connect with him will remain. When the body is gone, what will be his code number—by what special mental tuning can contact be established with him? The special mantras of all religions are code numbers. Through their attentive, continuous repetition, the mind attains a particular tuning; in that tuning, contact with particular teachers becomes possible. They are exact code numbers, telephone numbers—if the mind moves in that very vibration, it reaches a specific tuning. And that code number belongs to one teacher only; it will not work for another. Hence the strict insistence that these code numbers be kept utterly secret. They are given silently, in great secrecy. To enable contact, they leave many devices: signs, images, words, mantras; special figures—call them tantras; yantras—geometric forms by concentrating upon which the mind attains a specific state, and…

Osho, if a Tirthankara wishes to take birth again, it would be in the physical body, right?

Now, this matter is quite another thing. This point, you see, is a completely different matter. Let me say a little about it. If a Tirthankara has to take birth—as a Tirthankara takes birth—there is a very interesting thing: before dying, he does not have to drop the fourth body. And there is a way not to drop it, a method. That way is the vasana—the urge, the seed-intention—of being a Tirthankara. When the fourth body is about to drop, one vasana must be saved so that the fourth does not drop. After the fourth has dropped you cannot be born again; the bridge through which you could return is broken. So, before the fourth body, the vasana of being a Tirthankara has to be preserved. That is why not all who are qualified to be Tirthankaras become Tirthankaras. Many who are qualified simply set out straight on the journey.…

What is the point? He has no competition with anyone; no rivalry. Hence there is no question of taking hidden revenge. This is a deep insight of Mahavira, one no scripture before Freud caught so clearly. No other scripture in the world made it a rule that a sadhu not engage in others’ joking. Only Mahavira said so. Surely Mahavira had a deep realization: when one satirizes another, hidden violence lies behind. Watch yourself: when you begin to joke about someone, what do you want inside? You want to show him down. Finding no straight way, you take the indirect. A sadhu can joke about himself; he can satirize himself. Mahavira would certainly have called Bernard Shaw a sadhu. One day, after his play ended—astonishing play— everyone clapped and cheered except one. That man stood and said: Shaw, your play stinks! For a moment there was silence.