What is the reason for not stating that everything is One?

Osho, if there were only one single method of sadhana in your ashram, wouldn’t it be more convenient for seekers?

These are two styles: either you support yourself—and then there is no need of another. Fine; the matter is finished. Support was the whole issue, and you supported yourself. Have you noticed: a mother’s love is strongest for the child who is the weakest. This is exactly the opposite of economics. But economics and the scripture of love are opposite. According to economics, love should be for the strongest, the most intelligent, the most skilled. No—mother knows the strong, the intelligent, the skilled will manage for themselves. They have no need. It is the weak who are less intelligent, who are more likely to stray, who may fall—the mother takes care of them. It often happens that the sick child becomes dearest to the mother—more than the healthy ones. The experience of God comes to those who stagger in helplessness. That is why in the religions of Buddha and Mahavira…

Osho, the witness, the seer, consciousness is always separate—virginal and unbound. And the whole play of life is nothing but the movement of the gunas within themselves. In such a situation, if a person’s qualities of sattva, rajas, and tamas are calmed in a scientific or chemical way, or if a person is made sattvic, will he then attain that ever-free witness? If the witness is forever free and present, then by chemically altering the three gunas will it not be revealed? Would the person not then become religious? What is the fundamental difference between solving the problem arising from the

Sadhana means we are dissolving the current itself, not breaking the bulb. There is no point in breaking the bulb. In fact, the bulb is useful; it tells you whether the current is flowing or not, whether there is current or not. Your anger within tells you you are still sunk in ignorance. Lust tells you your life energies have not yet become aware. If we remove these elements, anger will stop manifesting and you will also stop knowing that you are in deep ignorance. It is as if a man is sick and we snatch away the symptoms of his disease so that he doesn’t even come to know he is ill. And keep in mind, anger is an opportunity. Only the unwise say anger is simply bad; I do not say so. Anger is an opportunity; you can use it badly or well. Anger is a chance. In…

Osho, Krishna is called a complete incarnation, a Purnavatar, but why are all the wise not unanimous about him?

A word means only what meaning you give to it. Mahavira says, “The soul alone is truth.” And Buddha says, “Nothing is more untrue than the soul.” Naturally they look opposed. Even a blind man can see it: one says the soul alone is truth and attaining it is everything; the other says the soul itself is untrue and to be free of it is liberation. But if both are wise, then you have to understand their words properly. What Mahavira calls “soul,” Buddha does not call “soul” at all. For Buddha, “atta”—“self”—always means ego, the sense of I-ness. “Self” carries that meaning too: “I,” the self-sense, atta. So when Buddha uses the word “self,” he is speaking of ego. When ego is dissolved, Buddha says, nirvana happens. You will remain, but the “I”-sense will not. Mahavira does not use “soul” in the sense of ego—although that connotation is contained…

Osho, you have said that there are many mutually opposite paths that lead to the One Divine. In the past it used to be that seekers of a single path would gather around one master: yogis separate, devotees separate, tantrikas separate, meditators separate. That made it easy for everyone to walk their own path. But with you, in your ashram, there is a whole fair of opposing paths—yogis and bhaktas, tantrikas and Sufis, karma-yogis and meditators—all together. How is this so? It also creates obstacles. Kindly say something about this.

It is true. In the past it was like that. A master would be the advocate of one narrow path. That had its benefits, and its harms. The benefit was that no dilemma arose in your mind. The same thing—the same thing, the same thing—you heard. The same thing—the same thing, the same thing—you did. Doubt did not arise. You quietly held your path and walked. But there was a danger: narrowness set in. Sectarianism set in—the feeling that only I am right and everyone else is wrong; only this path is right and all others are wrong. So there was a benefit, and there was a harm. And the harm proved greater than the benefit. The benefit reached very few; the harm reached millions. The whole world became sectarian. The whole world became dogmatic: we are right and everyone else is wrong. Ask a Jain—he says, our guru is…

Osho, the twenty-one-day ritual you have hinted at—was that practice or elemental realization in any way traditional? Because from your mode of expression it continually seems that you surely represent some teacher’s or Tirthankara’s method. Within this I also want to dare to ask: do you want to add a link to some established spiritual lineage, or, like Buddha, are you attempting to cut a new path through the mountains?

Nor is the issue one of tolerance. It is a matter of sky-like spaciousness, not tolerance. Not mere forbearance. Not that a Hindu “puts up with” a Muslim or a Christian “puts up with” a Jain. Forbearance already holds violence within it. I do not say the Quran and the Gita say the same thing. The Quran says something quite different; it has its own individual voice—that is its greatness. If it only repeated what the Gita says, it would be worth two pennies. The Bible says something else again, which neither the Gita nor the Quran says. Each has its own voice. Mahavira does not say what Buddha says; they say very different things. And yet from these differing statements one ultimately arrives at the same place. My emphasis is on the oneness of the destination, not on the oneness of the paths. My emphasis is that in the…