Is there a connection between feeling like a fruitcake and reading The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky?

Beloved Osho, these days I feel like a fruitcake. Also I'm reading the idiot by fyodor dostoevsky. Do you think there is any connection?

Vimal, there is nothing wrong in feeling like a fruitcake. It is really delicious. It is so nice... and it cannot have any connection with the reading of the great masterpiece of Fyodor Dostoevsky, THE IDIOT. THE IDIOT is only the name, but the person he calls the idiot in that great novel... That novel has to be considered one of the ten great novels in the whole world literature. There is no way to think that anything better than Fyodor Dostoevsky's IDIOT can be created. The idiot is a sage. He is called idiot by the people because they can't understand his simplicity, his humbleness, his purity, his trust, his love. You can cheat him, you can deceive him, and he will still trust you. That's why people think he is an idiot. He is really one of the most beautiful characters ever created by any novelist. The novel…

While practicing zazen, just sitting, I discovered that I had become the greatest fool on earth. But suddenly I remembered one proverb: when ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be wise. Though this stupidity has made me a fool, I have never been so full as I am now. I have now fallen in love with this zazen stupidity. I invoke your blessings so that I remain a fool till eternity.

I have heard about one man who made a will when he died. And in the will he said, 'Write on my tomb: Born such-and-such year, died when thirty, buried when seventy.' Almost always it happens that people die near about thirty, then they are buried at seventy. That's another thing: burial is one thing, dying is another thing. When society comes to know that you are dead that's another thing. I have heard about a priest -- a Catholic priest of course -- who died, and for three days he could not understand what had happened. Then he came to his church and tried to communicate with his successor, and said, 'Be aware. I died, but for three days I did not think that I was dead because I was more dead while I was alive. I was feeling more alive so I did not think that I was…

Question: BELOVED MASTER, ARE IDIOTS BORN OR TRAINED? I call this whole history of mankind a long, unjustified crime against every human individual. It has served the vested interests: the people who are in power, the people who are scholars, which is another kind of power, the people who are rich, which is another kind of power. They would not like everybody to be centered in himself because a man centered in himself cannot be exploited, cannot be enslaved, cannot be humiliated, cannot be forced to grow a cancerous sense of guilt. These are the reasons humanity has not been allowed its growth. In Japan they have very ancient trees, four hundred years old... and they think that it is an art because the tree's height is only six inches and it shows signs of old age.

Empathy comes and goes. When it goes I am a wreck. I am falling apart in fear and yearning. The yearning is getting deeper, twisting in my gut. Sometimes I know I am a fool and in those moments can hear the birds and see the sky. I have written questions for months and not handed them in because they all seemed foolish when the moment passes.

First, all questions are foolish. I have never come across a question which is wise. How can there be a wise question? Questions are foolish. All questions are childish. One of the very important therapists in the West was Fritz Perls. He used to say to his friends, patients and disciples, that only children ask questions. That seems to be perfectly true. Only children ask questions. Have you ever walked with a child -- just a morning walk? And see -- he will not allow you to walk at all. A thousand and one questions... each step brings questions. 'Why is this tree green papa?' Now who knows why this tree is green? Everything becomes a question for a child. Put anything in a child's mind and out comes a question. The whole mechanism is question-producing. Anything, any small thing -- and the child immediately makes it a question. Questioning…

Why is religion a dirty word for me, and why does it threaten me far more here in poona than it ever did before?

Religion HAS become a dirty word. It has been used too much and abused too much. It has passed through thousands and thousands of hands. It is just like an old coin or an old currency note which has been passing through many hands and has become dirty. Everything used too much becomes dirty -- not only religion. All beautiful words have become dirty.'God','love','ecstasy' -- all have become dirty. The reason is natural, obvious. Because the words are so beautiful, humanity tends to use them too much. Just look at advertisements and you will find all the beautiful words -- used for cigarettes, soaps, cars, furniture. All beautiful words. The advertisement for a cigarette can even say that the cigarette is ecstatic. Now, a beautiful word is being dirtied. Every film, every movie, is thought to be'marvelous','fabulous'. If everything is fabulous, and every movie is fabulous, then nothing is fabulous.…