According to Osho, Indian pride springs from collective ego: when a nation lacks wealth, education, or technology, it compensates by inventing a glorious spiritual past and claiming universal sages as its own. This pride is unspiritual, because true spirituality is humble and beyond nationality or religion. Societies aren’t spiritual; only individuals are—and until many awaken, national boasting masks insecurity and materialism.
They’re proud because ego makes up a special ‘spiritual’ past to feel important, but real spirituality is humble and not about any country.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHY ARE THE INDIANS SUCH A PROUD PEOPLE? Paul, God knows! They have no reason to be. I am also surprised. There is nothing -- but the ego clings to anything or it invents something. India goes on inventing a beautiful past. It is invention, pure invention. It has never been there, it has never existed. Yes, there have been people like Krishna and Mahavira and Buddha, but they are not Indians at all. Jesus is not Jewish and Lao Tzu is not Chinese. These people are universal; nobody can claim them. The whole earth belongs to them; they are our common heritage, so you cannot brag about them. But every country has to invent something to feel good. Just as individuals need egos, countries need egos, races need egos, religions need egos. And Indians have a tremendously big ego.
Osho, in a recent article in the international herald tribune, william borders, a longtime observer of this country for the new york times' office in new delhi, wrote of how we are an embarrassment to "image-shy india". What is it about india that makes indians so concerned about their international image? And why cannot india be proud of you? Never has there been a religious leader in history that has received so much publicity abroad.
And if India really feels it has some claim to being spiritual, then let India disappear first. That will be proof. Let India disappear as a nation; let it become an international land. That will be proof, concrete proof. But people go on talking about non-violence in India, and go on preparing for war. They go on talking about brotherhood and the unity of all religions, and just go on doing the opposite of it. Because I am exposing things as they are, because I am functioning like an x-ray, they are angry. Nobody likes the x-ray, because it reveals your bones, your skeleton, your skull; and you have been thinking yourself so beautiful and all that comes out is just a skeleton? So this is you? You become angry, you become annoyed. Their annoyance with me is understandable. I perfectly understand it. India has lived for a thousand years…
Question: OSHO, WHY DO INDIANS THINK THEY ARE MORE SPIRITUAL THAN OTHERS? John, PLEASE FORGIVE THE POOR INDIANS. They don t have anything else to brag about. You can brag about other things: money, power, atomic or hydrogen bombs, airplanes, that you have walked on the moon, that you have penetrated to the very secrets of life, your science, technology; you can brag about your affluence. Poor India has nothing else to brag about; it can only brag about something invisible so there is no need to prove it. Spirituality is such a thing you can brag about it and nobody can prove it, nobody can disprove it. For thousands of years India has suffered starvation, poverty, so much so that it has to rationalize it. It has rationalized it so that to be poor is something spiritual. The Indian spiritual man renounces all comforts and becomes poor.
Question: First question: Osho, on this land of India I directly see the radiance of Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira, Kabir, Nanak, and such great souls shining through you. Will India remain foremost in spirituality, or will foreign seekers take the lead? For foreign scientists, engineers, doctors, thinkers, seers are rushing to Poona as if the whole world’s treasure is this ashram. The truth, nonviolence, compassion, love, the feeling of surrender that these foreigners have learned and absorbed in your presence—through meditation and discourses—clearly shows in the ashram’s activities. Will the land of India then be deprived of your wealth? Will hypocrites like Satya Sai Baba, by producing watches and dropping ash, not reduce India itself to ash? Or will such great beings continue to incarnate on Indian soil in the future? Please be gracious and explain. Why do you think within such petty limits?
So does it mean that the more sannyasins there are, the more hypocrites there will be among them?
For me, the soul is a vast thing, and it can manifest in many forms. If we do not let a poet be a poet, that person will never attain to his soul—because for him the path to the soul is poetry itself. If we do not let a dancer dance, we shall never allow him to reach the soul—because his path to the soul is dancing. Ravi Shankar will seek his soul through the sitar. If we make him fast and sit in a temple, he will never find his soul. His soul has its own path. Now what should I call spirituality? I call spiritual that attitude which accepts all paths and allows people to reach, by their own roads, that which they were born to be. You must become that which you were born to become—that is the attainment of your soul. Through that you will know…