According to Osho, Nietzsche's contemporary appeal lies in humanity finally ripening to a genius far ahead of his time. Misunderstood while alive, his revolutionary insights - overturning inherited certainties in philosophy, religion, morality, and aesthetics - now echo worldwide. His revival reveals their universality and freshness; what was dismissed as madness is increasingly seen as a profound, transformative challenge to the past.
People like Nietzsche today because we’re finally ready to understand his bold ideas that were too new for his own time.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, there is a revival of interest in nietzsche all over europe, from both the pre-and post-war generations. Nietzsche's appeal seems to lie in his views still being contemporary. Could you please comment?
But one thing has to be remembered: he was misunderstood, and all the people who have been misunderstood have one thing in common -- that nobody refutes them. It is as if misunderstanding is enough. Nobody has refuted Friedrich Nietzsche. Although he has challenged the whole of Christianity, the popes have been silent -- because what he is saying is so clear that it is better to ignore rather than to refute it; you cannot refute it. It is good -- it will help Europe to get rid of Christianity, which has been a calamity and has kept people retarded. It will also help people to think more aphoristically -- which looks like the person is jumping from one conclusion to another conclusion. That's how every great philosophical treatise should be written, because it is not written for children, it is not written for schools; it is written for the…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, NIETZSCHE WROTE, IN ECCE HOMO, HERE THERE SPEAKS NO PROPHET, NONE OF THOSE GRUESOME HYBRIDS OF SICKNESS AND WILL TO POWER CALLED FOUNDERS OF RELIGIONS. ONE HAS ABOVE ALL TO HEAR CORRECTLY THE TONE THAT PROCEEDS FROM THIS MOUTH, THIS HALCYON TONE, IF ONE IS NOT TO DO PITIABLE INJUSTICE TO THE MEANING OF ITS WISDOM.... HERE THERE SPEAKS NO FANATIC, HERE THERE IS NO PREACHING, HERE FAITH IS NOT DEMANDED: OUT OF AN INFINITE ABUNDANCE OF LIGHT AND DEPTH OF HAPPINESS THERE FALLS DROP AFTER DROP, WORD AFTER WORD -- A TENDER SLOWNESS OF PACE IS THE TEMPO OF THESE DISCOURSES. SUCH THINGS AS THIS REACH ONLY THE MOST SELECT: IT IS AN INCOMPARABLE PRIVILEGE TO BE A LISTENER HERE. OSHO, THIS IS CERTAINLY ABOUT YOU. WAS NIETZSCHE YOUR FORERUNNER? But truth you cannot create, you can only discover.
Beloved Osho, when you spoke about nietzsche's concept of will, it was so much the opposite pole to the concept of will that the nazis developed from the same source, and that is still so prevelant in the west. Could you speak about the difference?
My own feeling is, he was never mad. He was just too much ahead of his time, and he was too sincere and too truthful. He said exactly what he experienced without bothering about politicians, priests and other pygmies. But these pygmies are so many and this man was so alone, that they would not hear that he was not mad. And the proof that he was not mad is his last book, which he wrote in the madhouse. But I am the first man who is saying that he was not mad. It seems that this whole world is so cunning, so politically minded, that people say only things that bring reputation to them, which bring applause from the crowd. Even your great thinkers are not very great. The book that he wrote in the madhouse is his greatest work, and is an absolute proof because a mad man…
Maneesha's question:
IN HIS BOOK, The Antichrist, NIETZSCHE STATES: "PEOPLE WHO STILL BELIEVE IN THEMSELVES STILL ALSO HAVE THEIR OWN GOD. IN HIM THEY VENERATE THE CONDITIONS THROUGH WHICH THEY HAVE PROSPERED, THEIR VIRTUES -- THEY PROJECT THEIR JOY IN THEMSELVES, THEIR FEELING OF POWER ON TO A BEING WHOM ONE CAN THANK FOR THEM." WOULD YOU LIKE TO COMMENT? Maneesha, Nietzsche wrote his book THE ANTICHRIST in the insane asylum. But he was such a genius, that even though he was declared insane by all the psychiatrists, his books prove they were wrong. Even in his insanity he was far saner than your so-called sane psychiatrists. Even in his death -- he wrote his last letter to a friend -- he did not forget... He had always made his signature, "Antichrist, Friedrich Nietzsche". Even at the moment of death he did not forget to write "Antichrist" first, then his name. And…
Osho, is god really dead, as friedrich nietzsche says?
Because the Jewish-Christian-Mohammedan idea of God is not of a very nice fellow; he is not a gentleman. The Jewish God who is at the root of both the Christian and the Mohammedan God says himself, "I am a very jealous God. Those who are against me, I will destroy them. Those who are not with me are against me. Those who are with me will have all the pleasures of heaven, and those who are not with me will suffer eternal hellfire.'' Nietzsche says, "Rejoice, God is dead! There is no heaven and no hell. Don't be afraid of hell and don't be greedy for heaven, because there is no God. God is dead, and man is absolutely free." This has been done in the East in a far more subtle, delicate way. Mahavira says there is no God -- for the same reason as Nietzsche. Mahavira says if…