According to Osho, there is fundamentally no difference between political and religious leaders: both spring from an inferiority complex expressing as will-to-power. Whether on a throne or a pulpit, the mind seeks to feel superior by making others inferior. Such leadership is intellectual, second‑hand, serving the status quo for honors and rewards, not arising from authentic intelligence or rebellion.
Both kinds of leaders often just want to feel big by having power over others, not because they have real wisdom.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, how come you speak about political leaders and religious leaders in the same tone -- is there no difference between them?
Just look at past history. All politicians have been promising people things which have not materialized in thousands of years. Thousands of political leaders have been promising the same things. How blind humanity must be! The promises have not changed -- that means certainly nothing has been achieved. The same promises are being given to you and you go on following, hoping. Hope is the greatest drug that man has invented. Strange, that religious people are against drugs; politicians are also against drugs. Politicians make laws against drugs, religious people create hell and punishment against drugs. Why are they so afraid of drugs? It needs a deep search, investigation. They are afraid of drugs because drugs are competitors to them. LSD can give you hallucinations of heaven. That's the trouble. No religion can afford to allow people to use LSD. LSD is not dangerous; taken in the right proportions, under…
Do you feel, Osho, that all leaders—whether political or religious—are caught in the same dilemma?
If someone were to ask Buddha, “Is there God?” Buddha would say, “There may be.” And if someone were to ask, “Is there no God?” he would say, “There may not be.” How can such a person assume leadership? Buddha is so perfectly in the middle. It is like this: in a room a glass is kept half-filled with water. One man comes out and says the glass is half empty; another says it is half full. These two can argue; two parties can form. A third man, utterly in the middle, having seen the whole, returns and says, “The glass is both half empty and half full.” He will say, “You are right, and you are right—and you are wrong, and you are wrong. It both is and is not half. It is half empty and also not; half full and also not.” Such a man makes such a…
Osho, is it possible for a politician to be a religious man or for a religious man to be a politician?
IT is absolutely impossible for a political man to be religious, because the ways of politics and religion are diametrically opposite. You have to understand that it is not a question of adding something to your personality -- religion is not an addition. If you are political, you can be a painter, you can be a poet, you can be a musician; these are additions. Politics and music are not diametrically opposite; on the contrary, music may help you to be a better politician. It will be relaxing, it will help you to get unburdened of the whole day and the anxieties that a politician has to go through. But religion is not an addition, it is a diametrically opposite dimension. So first you have to understand the political man, exactly what it means. The political man is a sick man, psychologically sick, spiritually sick. Physically he may be perfectly…
And, of course, if you are willing, willing to commit a spiritual suicide and just become a shadow to these people, they are offering you all the rewards that you can imagine in paradise. Hindus have tried to change the world, Christians have tried to change the world; all the religions have been doing that. Communism, socialism, fascism, all have been doing that. My sannyasins have to be totally different: a new phenomenon in the world, not interfering with anybody's life, and yet transforming the whole world. This is real magic. You never intended, you never imposed, you never interfered, you never trespassed anybody. You never made any judgment, "You are wrong and I am going to put you right." You were never concerned. That is their business, that is their life. If somebody wants to destroy it, he has the right to destroy it.
Why do you say that politics and religion are diametrically opposite?
Because they are. It is not a question of my opinion -- they are, because politics is an ego trip and religion is dropping of the ego. The politician cannot be religious, and the religious person cannot be a politician. It is absolutely so, it is categorically so. The politician is always trying to have more power. For what? -- to enhance his ego, to show to the world that "I am somebody." And the religious person has dropped that whole stupid business. HE KNOWS HE IS SOMEBODY, so what is the point of saying or showing to anybody? He KNOWS! The politician pretends; the religious person knows. He has come inside his own being, and he has known the King of kings -- the Master of masters there. So what is the POINT now? Striving for a bigger chair and a higher post -- what is the point? You…