Who is doing the choosing among the chosen few?

Beloved Osho, I don't really have a question to ask you -- everything is very good. Only one thing is confusing me a little. You have often spoken about the "chosen few." please, who is doing the choosing?

It is a very difficult question. In the beginning, God used to do it! But there are many hypotheses about what happened to God: some say he died a natural death, some say he committed suicide, some say he got into an accident. Some say he was murdered by man -- because without murdering him, man could not really be free. I will not go into what happened to God. One thing is certain: he is missing. In the beginning, he had chosen the Jews to be the chosen few -- "God's own people." But since then, he has had no opportunity. Although Jews have been praying continuously in every synagogue all over the world, "Now it is time for you to choose somebody else; we have suffered enough!" And it is true. If God had not chosen them they would have lived just like everybody else. But because he…

Osho, another discourse, another silly question. Why do you refer to your sannyasins as "the chosen few" when any lost soul who can make it to poona with a willingness to participate in some trendy gestalt-oriented therapy groups and do some meditating, can apparently take sannyas? Who ever gets refused sannyas and on what grounds? P.s.: bob dylan says, "I never got into any of them guru trips. I never felt that lost!"

Dick Blackburn, nobody is ever refused, no Tom, Harry or Dick. That does not mean that all are accepted. Nobody is ever refused, that's true, but that does not mean that all are accepted. Only those are accepted who surrender. Only those are accepted who are utterly committed, who have fallen in love with me, who can trust, and whose trust is unconditional and absolute. They are accepted. Sannyas is not denied to anybody, because sannyas is an opportunity. A few people surrender even before taking sannyas, a few surrender after taking sannyas, a few surrender after being sannyasins for months or for years. Hence sannyas is not denied; it creates a space, a context, for surrender. But as to who is really received, who is really accepted, it is a totally different matter. It is not declared; it remains esoteric. Only I know. And, slowly slowly, the person who…

Osho, a master can always know the spiritual state of a seeker longing for liberation, but how can the seeker know whether the master has attained truth or not? And if the disciple ever feels he has lost the gamble in his choice, can he go to another master? Please clarify your view.

The scripture says: eat once a day—so they eat once. Two garments—so two garments. Don’t travel after sunset—so they don’t. Don’t drink water at night—so they refrain. Rise before dawn—so they rise. They rehearse what the scripture prescribes; through this, they match your idea and seem suitable. If your conception springs from the same scripture, the match is exact. Hence the odd spectacle: the guru of one sect does not seem like a guru at all to another sect. But to his sect he appears the supreme guru. Their conceptions match. Understand the trick. You study the same shastra… Consider an actress who came to see me: “What do you say about the Bhrigu Samhita?” I asked why. She said, “In Delhi they read my Bhrigu. I noted what they said of my past lives, and future too. Some things about this life were true. Others aren’t yet, but the…

Hearing that now you speak only among chosen seekers and work only with them, a variety of reactions have stirred among us. A sannyasin friend said, “On one side, my ego savored being chosen; on the other, a fear arose that perhaps now attending Osho’s discourses every day will cease to be optional and become compulsory.”

Beloved Osho, if you are only a fallible, ordinary man, and not a great master, why are we called "the chosen few" who are going to be messengers of rajneeshism for the world at large? Doesn't this fulfill our egos?

Perspiration is a natural way to keep the heat from entering you. You perspire, and the sunrays are prevented by your perspiration. The sunrays become engaged -- they are foolish -- they become engaged in evaporating the perspiration. They forget you, they leave you alone, and your temperature remains the same. You have holes all over your body: seven million small holes, with glands ready to perspire any moment. If Mahavira never perspired, I can think only of one thing -- that we should forget the idea that we have invented plastic. Mahavira's body must have been a plastic body; only a plastic body cannot perspire. Plastic is very stubborn. Now the scientists of the whole world are worried: so much plastic is being thrown into the ocean, into the rivers, into the earth, and there is no way for plastic to dissolve into earth or into water. It is…