What is the perception of sannyasins by mediocre people?

Beloved Osho, the mediocre people create much fuss and fervor, misinterpreting the loving, silent, soft and meditating sannyasins as brainwashed. What do you say about this state of affairs?

In fact, tell those mediocre people that it is not only a brainwash, it is a mindwash -- far deeper, from the very roots. Brainwashing is just pruning the leaves, which will come again. In fact, if you cut one leaf, three leaves will replace it. The tree is not going to be defeated so soon. Tell them, "It is a mindwash. And you are on the right path; whatever you are saying is right, but not the total truth, only a fragment. The total truth is, that we have decided to drop the mind completely because the mind has given nothing but misery, suffering, torture and nightmares. You can have it. "You can see our people -- they are simple, they are innocent, they are rejoicing, they are loving. If brainwashing can give you this much, it is worth it. What is wrong in it?" And tell them, "Our…

People from the outside looking at you and your friends are confused. They talk about brainwashing, while you are talking about deconditioning. If the surrender of your people to you is not escapism into a hedonistic dream, what is it then?

I am not brainwashing anybody. Everybody is washing his own brains -- and everybody has to wash his own brain. The washing gives you such freshness, such newness, such perceptiveness, such clarity about things -- about your relationships, about yourself and the world -- that it is not a loss, it is an immense gain. People on the outside may be thinking that I am brainwashing people; they should come here and see that I am not brainwashing anybody. I don't wash even my own clothes... poor Chetana has to do it. And I have one million sannyasins; how can I manage to brainwash so many people? And there is no need when you can do the job perfectly well. I simply show you the way to get out of your mind and then everything else is left up to you. If you are some kind of a psychological hippie…

Beloved Osho, why it is so difficult for sannyasins to have deep relationships with non-sannyasins?

His father was working in a coal mine; his parents were really poor, and you cannot say anything against them. And Vincent van Gogh's first works are just coal sketches -- but they are tremendously beautiful. Now even those coal sketches have a value of millions of dollars. But his parents would not give him money for paints, for canvases, and finally they had to turn him out. One of his friends took pity on van Gogh and asked him to stay with him until he got some employment. And he fell in love with the sister of the friend -- just love at first sight. The first day in the house of the friend, he proposed to the girl. The girl simply laughed; they were more comfortably-off people -- better educated, middle class, higher than Vincent van Gogh and his family. She could not believe that this poor beggar…

Osho, people are calling it a sham that, having surrendered myself at your feet, I have become unburdened and blissful. What should I say to them?

Hari Vedant! They are quite right. They have to say it. They are not saying anything about you; they are only defending themselves. If you are right, then they are wrong. Only if you are wrong can they protect their sense of being right. So do not be angry with them. Understand their feeling. They have become afraid of you, frightened of you. Your joy has become a danger to them, a challenge. If you are truly joyous, then they will have to change their lives. They too have been seeking joy and have not found it. They too have wanted to be so carefree and intoxicated, to dance, to sing songs of joy dropping all social restraints—whose heart has not desired that? But the life they have built has turned into a kind of hell. All the threads are tangled. Nothing makes sense. Then, suddenly, one day someone just…

Beloved master, please speak on the difference between mediocrity and ordinariness.

The ordinary person has no need to be a hypocrite, no need to be a pretender. He is just open; he need not be secretive. And there is beauty in openness, simpleness. So it is a rare paradox that the person who feels himself ordinary becomes extraordinary, and the person who goes on feeling himself extraordinary, remains very retarded, a mediocrity. Everybody has to look within himself. But people are such deceivers that, deceiving others, slowly slowly they start deceiving themselves. They become so articulate about deceiving. It is dangerous to be a hypocrite, because sooner or later you will start thinking this is your real face. In my thirty-five years' work with people I have come across thousands of people, intimately, and I was puzzled that these people have deceived themselves. To deceive others can be understood, but they have deceived themselves. And you cannot take them out of…