According to Osho, the Indian sadhu has two faces: the authentic, a rare soul on the most arduous inner adventure, and the counterfeit, an easier role that exploits the revered image of realized beings. Fakes persist precisely because the real has existed and people still long for it; authenticity and imitation inevitably co-arise, demanding discernment.
Some sadhus are truly deep and rare, but many copy the image because it’s easier; the fakes exist only because real ones once inspired people.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Then how can one tell if a sadhu is authentic or not?
There is no need. If someone becomes a sadhu, it is his own private affair. There is no need to pay any attention to him. Whether he is fake or authentic, it is his affair. His belief is a private affair, his being a sadhu is a private thing. Once it becomes public, there will always be fakes, there will always be false people who will exploit. If one is a poet it is his own affair, if one is a dancer it is his own affair, if one is a sadhu it is his own affair. He should not be worshipped -- not even if he is authentic. If the authentic is worshipped, then the false will follow automatically and there will be those who exploit the phenomenon. The need to recognize who is an authentic sadhu arises only when you want to worship someone. If you want to…
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…
Osho, yesterday you said that when anger is watched consciously, it dissolves. But why is it that when sexual desire arises, even in awareness its intensity persists? Why is it so?
There is no entanglement in the breath. If you try to practice on anger… Anger is not happening every moment; it happens sometimes. And when it happens, it happens with such intensity that you are already going deep into it; so much is at stake in those moments that you may think, “We will look into awareness later; first let’s settle this now.” Lust is very deep, because existence has made it so deep; life depends on it. If lust were so easy that you decided and were freed, perhaps you would not even have been born—because many before you would have become free, and the possibility of your being would have been almost nil. But your parents, and their parents, did not become free; therefore you are. You too will not get free so easily, because your children are also to be—they are waiting: “Do not run away midway.”…
“Those who are absorbed in love—such sadhjan…” This word “sadh” is very sweet—and much distorted. If you look in dictionaries you will find sadhhu means great man, ascetic. But the precise meaning of sadh is simple, straight. One who is straightforward—so simple that there is no net of intellect and logic in his life. The intellect is tricky, crooked, cunning. It does something, shows something else; one thing is inside, another outside. The intellect is a great hypocrisy. One who is free of the intellect’s hypocrisy is sadhjan. What is within is without. No discrepancy between inner and outer. He says only what is. He is what he says. Taste him from any side—you will find the same flavor. Buddha said: the sadhhu is like the taste of the ocean; taste it anywhere—it is salty. Day or night, morning or evening, dark or light, this shore or that—the same.
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…