Zorba is the fun, body-loving part of Kazantzakis that he turned into a character, while another part of him was strict and religious.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, I've often heard you speak with love and admiration of zorba. Yet nikos kazantzakis, the man who created him, led a tortured life -- guilt-ridden, obsessed with religion, fearful of women, preoccupied with death. Are zorba and kazantzakis the two sides of all of us who are unenlightened?
The Greek is materialistic, Epicurean -- loves the body, loves good food, good wine, beautiful women, beautiful men -- and is not concerned at all what happens after death. According to Epicurus you die with your death, nothing happens afterwards. There is nothing after death, there is nothing before birth. You are an accident, without any planning -- a small lifespan of seventy years. Don't waste it, enjoy. Nikos is half Greek and half Christian. He cannot intelligently deny that there is something more to you than your physiology. He cannot deny his mind, he cannot deny even the witness of the mind -- which are not physiological phenomena. That was his continuous torture. He was one of the most tortured artists of contemporary life -- one of the best, but that is the curse. When you have the best intelligence, you want to become one organic whole. The idiots…
Beloved Osho, when I came to greece to see you, everything reflected more and more of the zorba. Now, being here in india, everything around you is reflecting more of the buddha. Osho, does this depend on being in greece or india?
In Harapur, seven thousand years ago, they had bathrooms attached to their bedrooms, they had bathtubs, and they had a very special arrangement for circulation of water in the city. The hot and cold water in your bathroom is not a new thing; it was available in Harapur, in Mohenjo daro. They had swimming pools. It must have been a very highly cultured society. At the time of Gautam Buddha, just twenty-five centuries ago, even then the West was not very evolved. And you can see it. We did not crucify Gautam Buddha, and the West crucified Jesus Christ five hundred years after Gautam Buddha. And what Jesus was saying was nothing compared to Gautam Buddha. Gautam Buddha was saying that there is no God; still, nobody thought of crucifying him. Jesus Christ was not saying anything against Judaism; on the contrary, he was simply saying that he was their…
What is your relationship with zorba, as invented by kazantzakis, and what does zorba have in common with you? I know that he didn't have any wealth....
Gautam Buddha was a Zorba up to the age of twenty-nine. Six years of deep meditation transformed the man. He became enlightened. So when I have called the new man Zorba the Buddha, I have reasons to call it so. Every man is born as a Zorba. Your religions don't allow you to live the Zorba, so you don't get bored with it. They don't allow you to live it so totally that you get finished with it. Your religions are preventing you from becoming buddhas. The word `buddha' means the enlightened one, the awakened one. Your religions are keeping you asleep. They are certainly functioning as opium. My effort is to make you first totally Zorbas, utterly Zorbas, intensely Zorbas, so that you can transcend Zorba and enter into another phase of your consciousness -- the awakening. Zorba is the foundation of the temple. Buddha is the temple itself.…
Why did you choose to come to crete? Are you a kazantzakis enthusiast?
Not Kazantzakis... but I am a lover of Zorba. It is a tragedy that Kazantzakis himself could not live the life which he has created in Zorba. Reading ZORBA THE GREEK you will think the man who wrote it must have lived like this. You are wrong. The man who wrote it was just the opposite, -- miserable. He wrote it as a consolation. This is the way he wanted to live, but he could not. Kazantzakis is sick. I am not interested in him, but I am certainly interested in Zorba. To me Zorba is the symbol of an authentically uninhibited human animal. And unless a man lives like a Zorba, totally and intensively, there is no possibility for him to rise above, into the higher realms of consciousness. I said that it is a tragedy because ZORBA THE GREEK is only half a book, because Zorba is only…
Beloved Osho, I am just curious. Have you read the book zorba the greek by kazantzakis? I love it so much. Is not zorba exactly the way you want us to be? At least that is how I understand your teaching.
So I would not say to you to wait for the next time. Take hold of this moment! This is the only time there is, there is no other time. Even if you are eighty-five you can start living. And what is there to lose when you are eighty-five? If you go barefoot on the beach in the spring, if you collect daisies -- even if you die in that, nothing is wrong. To die barefoot on the beach is the right way to die. To die collecting daisies is the right way to die. Whether you are eighty-five or fifteen doesn't matter. Take hold of this moment. Be a Zorba. You ask: "I am just curious. Have you read the book Zorba the Greek? I love it so much." Only loving it won't help. Be it! Sometimes it happens that you love the opposite of what you are. You…