Build the room so you can sit quietly, but don’t let the room tell your heart what to do.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: OSHO, ISN'T ORGANIZATION A NECESSITY FOR A RELIGION TO SURVIVE? So I am now sending Sheela, every month, for three days to each commune, to see that the religious work is carried out according to my vision; so no sannyasin living in any commune feels that he's deprived of any facility. All the facilities should be absolutely similar and each commune is autonomous. Our sannyasins in many ways are very innocent people. They may be very educated but they are innocent people -- and after becoming sannyasins they have become more innocent. And therefore there is no problem; it needs a simple common sense. Organization cannot be avoided. We just have to be a little more sophisticated and more scientific and more mathematical about it. We have to use it rather than being used by it. So I am not against organization, but we can learn from the past.
Beloved Osho, often my fellow sannyasins ask what I think about a particular event that took place near you, or how I feel about the organization around you. Being here with you, I find myself more interested in that emptiness which you speak around, that space from where you come. Osho, will you speak to my friends about the crazy events and actions that always surround your presence?
I have seen people changing so dramatically, so unbelievably -- one could never have thought before that this man can become so peaceful, so loving; that so many flowers can grow in his consciousness, so that he becomes almost fragrant; that his life becomes a song, a dance, a celebration. It is simply a question of resonance. Great musicians know it. A great musician can play on his sitar, and can keep another sitar in an empty room far away in another corner. And there comes a moment when he is really lost in playing his sitar that the other sitar -- which is simply sitting there, nobody is playing it -- starts resonating the same tune, vibrating. In the old days that was one of the most important things before a man was called a master musician -- if he could create resonance, only then was he a master;…
Osho, if organization and sectarianism bring about the decline of religion and Tao, please explain why people like Buddha or Mahavira lay the foundations of organizations. And you too, being fully aware of this, why are you laying the foundation of an organization like Neo-Sannyas International?
As I said, birth comes with death; whenever truth is born, organization is born. This cannot be avoided. The moment truth is told to another, organization begins. Either the one to whom truth has happened keeps silent, drinks it alone, and tells no one. Buddha thought so. When he became enlightened he remained silent for seven days. He thought, There is no point in saying it. Those who can arrive will arrive without words; those who cannot, telling will not help—it will only create confusion. Better to remain quiet. But there is a sweet story: the gods, Brahma himself, came and pleaded at his feet, “Do not do this! Who knows after how many thousands of years someone attains buddhahood; what he has known should be spoken, communicated, shared.” Buddha said, “Those who can attain will attain without me, and those who cannot—why should I waste my time and energy…
Osho, you talk of totality. You can’t have a diffused movement at the same time. This diffused movement—how would you try to bind it into a single sutra?
Think about it a little. In fact, what does organization mean? Organization means that people of one idea, people who imagine bringing about a certain kind of society, gather together. They gather and try to place a pattern of ideology upon society. My understanding is that it is dangerous to impose a very fixed pattern on society. Because society moves ahead every day; a fixed pattern is always left behind. It is like putting pajamas on a child. The child keeps growing day by day; the pajamas keep getting smaller day by day. Every day there is a need for the pajamas to be bigger. But those who organized the pajamas say, “This is the pajama we decided on; he must go on wearing this same pajama.” The child grows; the pajama becomes tight. All organizations—the more organized they are—the more fixed and dead they become. What is needed is…
Beloved Osho, fritjof capra, in an interview with swami deva ojas about the nature of spiritual organizations, said, "the cosmos does not know any hierarchy," that "the best way to organize them is as a network, in a loose interaction," and that "such a network structure seems the best soil for the spiritual growth of the individual, because it ensures the possibility of the individual continuing and guarantees enough to develop human relations."
But growth is a little harder. To accept that you are alone, that nobody is above you who can decide for you, that you have to take decisions every moment of your life, that every inch you move is your decision.... If you commit a mistake, you have to correct it; nobody can forgive you, because there is nobody at all. If you do something good, nobody is going to reward you. So basically and deeply the acceptance that "my act is my reward, and my act is my punishment, and I am totally responsible for whatever I am doing" -- this is maturity. You are not in need of a father figure. You are not in need of being part of a crowd. You can be yourself. I wanted the communes not to be hierarchical -- but it seems difficult, because every man wants a hierarchy. So the only…