What is the concept of charisma?

Beloved Osho, what is charisma? All sorts of people have it, both aware people and unaware people. Its such an intangible quality, I can say when someone is charismatic but can't define what it is.

Sudha, charisma is a mystery. It happens only to those people who have centered their being, concentrated their energies, who are no longer falling apart, who are consolidated, who have become one -- the very meaning of the word, "individual." Every individual has charisma. But individual means that which is indivisible. You cannot divide that person into fragments; you cannot say to that person that "this part is wrong in you, this part is right in you." You cannot create a schizophrenic psychology in that person; he's one and whole. This very phenemonon of being one, centered and whole, creates a magnetic pull. Now, you cannot see a magnetic pull. You can see the magnet, you can see the small pieces of metal which are moving towards the magnet, but you cannot see magnetism, you cannot see any power. All power is invisible. All energy is invisible. Charisma is the…

Osho, spiegel, the biggest news magazine in germany, has finally started a series on you, your sannyasins and the ashram. The writer says many nice and incredible things about you and even compares you with the polack pope. He says: "the masses who surrender to the charisma of john paul ii do nothing different than that which the poona pilgrims do in their surrender to Osho. Only the churches and their sect experts cannot agree with that." Osho, do you feel offended or pleased by this statement?

I am amused! The Polacks I have always loved. The Pope is secondary, the Polack is the real thing. The Polack is the elephant and the Pope is just the last part of the elephant, the tail part! I am certainly not a pope, I cannot be -- I am not that serious a man, I am not that religious either. I am very ordinary! To be a pope one needs to be very extraordinary. As far as charisma is concerned, I have none. I am just as ordinary as anybody else in the world. The whole idea of charisma is anti-human, it divides people. And the whole strategy of creating a charisma is nothing but the process of conditioning. If you go to see a naked Jaina monk you will not see any charisma because you are not conditioned for that. You will simply see an ugly, disgusting-looking person,…

Beloved Osho, I wonder why you are not available to people like me who come from as far as puerto rico and would like to meet you, even if it is only for five minutes. The main reason is to find out the kind of charisma that you have. Not even the greatest politicians have been able to accomplish what you have.

I don't see people for the simple reason that I don't have any charisma! I keep you away so you don't discover it. I keep myself closed in my room. I don't have any charisma, so you need not take the trouble of coming for five minutes. You will not find anything. I am just as ordinary as you are. My only charisma is that I accept that I am ordinary and you do not accept it. Deep down you go on believing you are extraordinary, special -- the only begotten son of God!

Into a blinding darkness go they who worship action alone. Into an even greater darkness go they who worship meditation.

FOR IT IS OTHER THAN MEDITATION, IT IS OTHER THAN ACTION. THIS WE HAVE HEARD FROM THE ENLIGHTENED ONES. MEDITATION AND ACTION -- HE WHO KNOWS THESE TWO TOGETHER, THROUGH ACTION LEAVES DEATH BEHIND AND THROUGH MEDITATION GAINS IMMORTALITY. INTO A BLINDING DARKNESS GO THEY WHO IDOLIZE THE ABSOLUTE, INTO AN EVEN GREATER DARKNESS GO THEY WHO DOTE ON THE RELATIVE. FOR IT IS OTHER THAN THE RELATIVE, IT IS OTHER THAN THE ABSOLUTE. THIS WE HAVE HEARD FROM THE ENLIGHTENED ONES. AUM PURNAM ADAHA PURNAM IDAM PURNAT PURNAMUDACHYATE PURNASYA PURNAMADAYA PURNAMEVA VASHISHYATE Action means that which is external to you, meditation which is internal to you. Action is outer, meditation is inner. Action is extroversion, meditation is introversion. Action is an objective approach; science is rooted in it, hence science insists on experimentation. And because science insists on action, experiment, it destroys all that is more than the external…

Beloved Osho, please throw light on the difference between a mystic and a master.

He gave Gandhi a blank check; whatever he wanted to spend, whatever he wanted to do with the money, he could do. He never asked, "Where does the money go? What happens to it?" And because Mahatma Gandhi was in Wardha, all the great freedom fighters in India, writers, poets, were going to see Gandhi, to meet Gandhi. And for them Jamnalal Bajaj had made a special guest house for five hundred people to stay together at one time. Chiranjilal was his manager, so he was the link between Mahatma Gandhi and Jamnalal Bajaj, Jawaharlal Nehru, Motilal Nehru, Madan Mohan Malaviya. All these people were respectful towards the old man. He was the man who invited me to Bombay. I had spoken at a Jaina conference, and as I came down from the stage -- it was a cold night, he was covering himself with a blanket -- he threw…