Is there a danger that Osho will become a tradition or sect?

A friend has asked: Osho, you said about a wayward son that one should let him pass through his experiences, and he will learn on his own. But even after experiencing, he still prefers the same thing—someone is asking about his wayward son—no matter how much suffering he has to endure, even if death itself should come, still he does the same. After stumbling again and again, he repeats it. What can be done? How to reform him?

You will not be able to reform him. If life cannot reform him, if even death cannot reform him, what will you be able to do? If what you say is true—that again and again, even after suffering, he does the same thing; even if death comes, he will still do the same thing, and he does not change—then take your hands off. You will not be able to reform him. You cannot be stronger than death. And one who does not learn from suffering—what will he learn from you? Do not call him a wayward son. You have found yourself a Jadabharata. Because those whom suffering does not reform, whom even death does not reform—these are great, arrived masters; they are in the ultimate state. Do not even try to reform such a one. And why are you so eager to reform another? It is enough to reform yourself.…

Osho, yesterday you called sects footpaths and religion the royal road. But almost all sects were formed in the wake of the enlightened ones who walked the royal road. Why, then, did those supremely enlightened ones not take care to see that sects did not arise behind them? And what are you doing to prevent it?

And know for certain: the sect that will arise behind Krishnamurti will be more dangerous—inevitably so, because Krishnamurti gave no help in its making. The one that will arise behind me will be as dangerous as any sect is, but less dangerous than Krishnamurti’s, because I have supported you. I have given you robes, names, sannyas. I have given you every facility for forming a sect. Because I know that what is bound to happen will happen; the best is that I cooperate. It will be a little more well-shaped, a little more far-reaching. The footpath will be a little closer to the royal road. What you would build on your own would wander very far afield. If it is built leaning on the royal road, it will remain alongside it. From that footpath it will not be too difficult to come onto the royal road. Whenever you wish, one…

Osho, you have said that, in order that the chain not continue and no sect remain, you will present every religion before us. But wouldn’t that itself create a sect—one that takes up every religion in a new way and includes people from every religion? Why don’t you think that all religions could take on a single new form?

It will arise of its own accord.

Osho, jesus, buddha, krishna, etc., certainly were enlightened masters. But buddhism, hinduism, christianity and whatsoever has developed from them, have not much to do with the ideas of the masters. Osho, I am sure you are an enlightened master too, but what can we do, or what at all is possible to do, to prevent oshoism?

And he persuaded Arjuna to go into war, and the reasons that he gave were that, "The soul is eternal, so don't be bothered. You can kill -- the soul is not killed, only the body, and the body is dead anyway. So there is no violence involved, because the soul is immortal and the body is mortal. You are only separating the immortal from the mortal, there is nothing wrong in it -- just separating the essential from the non-essential. Do you think you would have agreed? That's why people create Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Mohammedanism -- it is easier, very easy, because then you can manage the dead Master according to your ideas. You can put your ideas in his mouth, you can ignore the ideas that go against you, you can interpret. manipulate, rationalize... you can do thousand and one things because the Master is no more there.…

Osho, the story of Reverend Jim Jones and the mass suicide in Guyana has dominated the newspapers for the last few weeks. It has all the ingredients of a perfectly sensational news story. The fallout has been endless analyses and commentaries, along with a re-examination of all nontraditional religious experiments. In the classical media vocabulary these are called “cults”—which is, in a way, a built-in accusation. I am quite sure the same label could be applied to the Osho Ashram. Would you kindly explain the difference between your teaching and experiments, and cults?

So first, this is not a cult or a sect. It is freedom from all sects. And who are these people who condemn cults and sects? They themselves are sectarians—some are Christian, some Hindu, some Muslim. They condemn sects. Why? Because their own sects feel threatened. They themselves are bound by beliefs, yet they fear a rival might appear. Yes, they have one argument: they say, “We are traditional, therefore we are not a cult; we are religion. What is nontraditional is a cult; what is traditional is religion.” What a definition! Then when Jesus first gave birth to Christianity, was that religion or a cult? It was not traditional then. Then the Jews did the right thing by crucifying Jesus, for he was a cultist, creating a sect, provoking and misleading the Jews. And when Buddha gave birth to the Buddhist way, that was a cult, a sect—not religion.…