According to Osho, calling oneself Bhagwan means recognizing that only one reality exists and it is divine; we are that. The choice isn’t to be God or not, but to acknowledge or ignore it. Naming life 'God' opens growth, meaning, and adventure; naming it 'matter' closes us. He claims Godhood to provoke courage in others to recognize their own innate divinity and relatedness.
It means realizing everything, including you and me, is the same divine stuff, and calling it 'God' helps us live open, growing lives.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why do you call yourself bhagwan ? Why do you call yourself god?
The last thing about it. I am not a philosopher. Always remember me as a poet. My approach towards life is that of poetry, is that of romance. It is romantic, it is imaginative. I would like you all to be gods and goddesses. I would like you to reveal your true being. Calling myself god is a challenge. It is a subtle challenge. There are only two ways to settle with it. One is, you say, 'This man is not god, and go away, because then what are you doing here? If this man is not god, then why waste your time? You go away. Or, you accept that this man is god, and then you start being with me, and your own godliness starts flowering. One day you will also be a god, a goddess. Accepting me as god is in fact deep down accepting the possibility that…
As you call yourself 'god', what is the meaning of this word? And are there more gods? Who are they?
Joey, I am God because I am not. And the moment you are not, you are also a God. God is not something special; God is our very being, God is our very existence. When I say I am God I am simply saying I exist. Existence and God are synonymous in my language. I say the trees are also God, and so are the rocks, and so are you. Yes, Joey, even a journalist is a God! He may not know. You may not be aware of your godliness. I am aware of it! And the moment I became aware of my godliness I became aware of everybody else's godliness. So it will be difficult for me to tell you how many Gods there are. Infinity... All beings are Gods at different stages of recognition, realization, awareness. But I can understand your problem. Joey is a Dutch journalist. People…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, IF THERE IS NO GOD, WHY WERE YOU BEING CALLED BHAGWAN? Buddhists and Jainas don't believe in God, don't believe that anybody created the world, but they use 'bhagwan'. They have a different origination for their word. In Jaina and Buddhist reference bhag means fortune, and bhagwan means the fortunate one, the blessed one; one who has attained to his destiny, who has matured. So when I started talking thirty-four years ago, people started using it... because in India, if you respect a man you don't use his name; that is thought to be disrespectful. That's why a wife will not use her husband's name. When there is a census, it is such a trouble in India because the husband is not at home, he has gone to the office and the officers come and the wife cannot say the name of her husband.
A friend has said: Osho, why do you call yourself Bhagwan? And he is a very bold man, because he also wrote: If you are really bold, you must reply to my question.
You ask, “Why do you call yourself God?” I have never said it. But now that you say it, I will say: I am God. And I say this because there is no way to be anything other than God. You are God too. In this whole existence there is nothing but God. So if someone claims, “I am God and you are not,” then that claim is criminal. I have never made any claim. I have never even said it. But I cannot say the opposite either—that I am not God—because that would be downright untrue. I can only say there is nothing but God. And what can I do, since there is nothing but God? You too are God. It may be you don’t know it; it may be you do. One who doesn’t know should try to know. God means: existence—purest existence. That which we are in…
Osho, the navabharat times of october 13th carried a news item from surat, gujarat, according, to which the prime minister, morarji desai, said that he had read the book from sex to superconsciousness by acharya rajneesh and found it indecent and distasteful. He also objected to you being called bhagwan. Osho, would you please comment on it?
And if you simply want to be in power, then you have to satisfy the masses the way they want to be satisfied -- although their satisfactions are going to be suicidal. But who cares? Morarji Desai can remain the Prime Minister for at least five years; that is the real thing. Who bothers what is going to happen next century? That is not their business. Certainly Morarji Desai is not going to survive that long even if he goes on drinking water of life. That is not his business. His whole business is how to remain in power. He knows my attitude. I need this country to go through a great revolution. Indira is capable of it, Indira has all my blessings. That is the deep cause of why he is angry. I am really happy that Indira Gandhi is trying to contest again, to enter the Parliament. Once…