What is the significance of media perception in relation to spiritual teachings?

The attitude of the italian press is changing. After the end of rajneeshpuram, finally, some journalists started to get interested in you -- not for the superficial aspects but for your real teaching. Could it be because they think that an emperor without a kingdom is less dangerous?

I was never an emperor, and I don't have any kingdom -- neither have I had one ever before. But after the fascist destruction by the American government of my commune in Oregon, America, it is simply human that people started feeling sympathetic. They started looking at why the greatest power in the world should be so afraid of a man who has no power; why a great power should be afraid of a small commune of five thousand people which lives in a desert, which has changed the desert into an oasis, which is not in any way a disturbance to any neighbor -- because the closest town was twenty miles away. The commune had one hundred and twenty-six square miles of desert, and it was situated only in three square miles of that land. The way they behaved with me, the way they behaved with sannyasins... Where five…

Osho, seeing the wide publicity of your views along with your photographs in newspapers and magazines, people have formed the impression that you are eager for advertising and fame—something not in harmony with India’s saintly tradition. Our sages and saints lived simple lives in solitude, far from crowds and display. Osho, we request you to speak on this.

But in this country we suffer from the idiocy of forcing everything into a mold and then insisting everyone fit that mold. How am I to fit? Mahavira was nude. A Jain could say: until you are naked, how can we accept you as a tirthankara? So should I go naked just because Mahavira did? That was Mahavira’s whim, his way—he lived in his own manner. Buddha, a contemporary of Mahavira, was not naked; he wore robes. The Jains always objected: if only Buddha would drop his clothes, he could be a tirthankara; clothed, he’s not—at best a little lower, a mahatma; not yet arrived. Thus Jains call Mahavira “Bhagwan,” Buddha merely “Mahatma.” And Buddhists don’t call Mahavira “Bhagwan”—for them he is “Mahatma,” while Buddha is “Bhagwan.” Each has its own notions. They say one should not go naked and advertise oneself—that, too, is a form of propaganda. And that’s…

Beloved Osho, in our journalism training course, the growth of being, the spiritual dimension, is totally ignored, while other psychosomatic subjects are all very much highlighted. Osho, could you please explain: why is it significant to include the spiritual dimension in the teaching of journalism?

One of the very famous novels of Dostoevsky, THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, has a statement by one of the brothers: If I meet God, I want to return my ticket. I don't want to be in the world; it is simply useless, there is no meaning. You are asking me: "In our journalism training course, the growth of being, the spiritual dimension, is totally ignored." It is because you are not growing a journalism that belongs to this earth, that has the fragrance of this earth. You are simply imitating. And you are doing a tremendous harm to this society, because here spiritualism is the most fundamental thing. But the same is happening in your educational systems. In your universities, in your colleges, in your schools, everywhere there is a mental slavery to the West. Whatever is happening in the West, you have to imitate it; it has become your unconscious…

Beloved Osho, you spoke the other night of how much you have been misrepresented. But for every handful of scurrilous and shoddy press reports on you, isn't the love and trust of one single sannyasin of far greater significance and a far more telling confirmation of who you really are?

It is. That's why I don't care about the misrepresentation. I don't care about all the lies they go on spreading. And the masses believe any written word; they live on newspapers. Their minds are full of newspaper clippings, just files of old newspapers. I am neither worried about them nor offended by them. In fact, what they are doing is absolutely expected. The real miracle is that my people -- in spite of all this worldwide conspiracy of governments, politicians, journalists -- can still recognize me. That's enough reward for me. This conspiracy is also giving me recognition in a negative way. They cannot ignore me; that much is absolutely certain. Even countries I have never been to -- and I may never be in -- cannot ignore me. That is their way of recognition. I am grateful for it. But my joy is those few people who love…

Osho, after the earth undergoes an austerity of thousands of years and conceives, somewhere a Buddha descends. And in this land, countless Buddhas have happened. This country discovered an immense wealth of inner knowing. Even so, when an awakened one like you is present today, why is it that the people of this country, the so‑called religious leaders, and those in power do not understand what you are saying? Hearing from your own lips how great your compassion for India is, it seems to me that even compassion itself must have felt compassion. But why does the heart of the Indians not melt? Pl

My sannyasins returning from Germany say, “At first we were very frightened. Wherever we walked, people stared: ‘There they go!’ The propaganda against you was so strong we were afraid what would happen.” But slowly the wind has changed. I said, “Don’t worry. Sitting in my room, I keep changing the winds. You need not worry.” Now people come near and ask, “What is the real story? Give us a book to read. Tell us the news. We want to come too.” New people have begun to come who perhaps would never have come. And do you know who organized the whole campaign? The German Protestant Church. They set it in motion—sent spies here, fabricated stories, got false statements issued. Why was the Protestant Church so bothered? Naturally there was a problem: hundreds of young men and women from Germany had taken sannyas here. And one who takes sannyas will…