He says saints don’t teach you to be naturally yourself; they just say “no” to your real feelings and actions.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, in human life crimes range from lies to rape and murder. Since ancient times sages and saints have inspired righteous action. In this context, please explain how today’s enlightened class should resolve the disorder-born problems of human life?
Now there are two kinds of people. One: those who harm others—you call them sinners, wrongdoers. Two: those who harm themselves for the good of others—you call them saints. There is not much difference between the two. One harms others; one harms himself—both harm. I call him a saint who harms no one—neither another, nor himself. Only when such a rare event happens does a ray of religion descend. This event does not happen to the crowd—it cannot. It is asked again: “In this context, please explain how today’s ‘enlightened’ class should solve the disorder-born problems of human life?” Whom do you call enlightened? Because you got a university degree? Because you managed to publish a few articles in two-bit newspapers? Whom do you call enlightened? Because you can spout a little nonsense in a logically dressed-up way? Whom do you call enlightened? “Enlightened” is a very big word. Do…
Osho, just seeing sadhus and saints makes me bristle, even angry. I see nothing in them but hypocrisy. But with you—God knows what you’ve done—reverence wells up! What is the secret of your influence?
Buddha asked, “What are you doing?” They said, “This is not killing; not violence. The souls of these animals will go to heaven.” Buddha joked, “Then why not kill your parents? Send them to heaven. The door is open—why send animals? Send your parents, your wife, your children. Send everyone—and then go yourself! But don’t send these animals. They don’t want to go—they’re writhing, they want to run. They are pleading for mercy. They cannot speak—look into their eyes, they are beseeching. They are bleating: ‘Let us go.’ They don’t want heaven—and you are sending them. The yajman who is funding this sacrifice wants heaven—send him!” Clever folks have always been around. Tricks kept running; we kept bearing them. Sin and merit are difficult to determine. On one side are people along the Amazon who eat humans—and it is no sin to them. On the other side are the Quakers…
A friend has asked: Osho, why should we think about death at all? We have life—let us live it. Be in what is present. Why allow the thought of death to come in between?
Just as there can be fear of sleep. Sleep is, in a way, a daily death. The day is life; the night is death. It is a piecemeal death. Every day we die a little, we sink within; in the morning we return fresh again. Then after seventy or eighty years the whole body gets tired—work, work, work—the body wears out. Then full death takes hold; the entire body changes. But we are very afraid of that. It is a deep sleep. Yet we are very afraid of it. Have you noticed that the body changes every morning too? It changes a little, which is why you don’t notice. It does not change completely; there is a partial transformation. When you go to sleep in the evening, your body is in one condition; when you wake in the morning, your body is in another. By morning the body has become…
You say that seeing a sadhu stirs compassion. Then is there no sadhu who truly seeks the Self? By putting all sadhus in the same line, are you not insulting saintliness?
It is not a question of insulting a sadhu. I am speaking about what is going on under the label “sadhu.” I speak of it precisely so that a genuine respect for real saintliness may arise in us, so that we learn to know and recognize it. To know and recognize it, other things are needed—not a change of clothes. What is needed is a revolution of the whole of life. A revolution of the whole of life—and a natural, unforced way of living. When someone becomes a sadhu, life becomes utterly simple. All the complexity of life dissolves. Gain and loss become zero for him. The ones you call sadhus think in the language of profit and loss twenty-four hours a day. Even if they have left home, it is with the idea that in exchange they will gain heaven or liberation. They are the same old shopkeepers. Their…
Is it not harmful to an individual and also to society to live without the barriers of norms? If so, then why do you preach that your sannyasins should live as they like? Mind always goes the wrong way if not restricted.
And who is going to restrict the mind? The mind of the society? Who is going to restrict the mind? The mind of the dead people, the dead moralists, the dead priests? Who is going to restrict the mind? You? Who are you except the mind? The first thing to be understood: up to now humanity has lived under a curse, and the curse is that we have never been allowed to trust our nature. We have always been told, "Trust your nature and you will go wrong." Mistrust, restrict, control. Don't go according to your feel. We have been told that human nature is somehow basically evil. This is stupid, this is foolish and poisonous. Human nature is not evil. Human nature is divine. And if the evil has arisen, it has arisen because of restrictions. Now let me explain it to you. You never see animals going to…