According to Osho, the belief that Indians are more spiritual arises from centuries of poverty being rationalized and glorified as holiness. With little else to boast of, India elevated renunciation, fasting, and bodily endurance into signs of superiority. Cultural conditioning makes such austerities look impressive to outsiders, who confuse deprivation and self-torture with spirituality, mistaking historical hardship for inner awakening or authentic insight.
People think Indians are very spiritual because long poverty made suffering look holy, and others mistake that toughness for real spirituality.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
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: 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.
India is such a sacred country: the heart of spiritualism. I don't understand all the crude remarks that they write in magazines about you. Why is india so ignorant in recognising you?
Lao Tzu has said: When I talk about Tao, very few are there who understand it. Those who understand -- they become silent. Many are there who feel offended -- they become angry. And the angry people there are more of. And Lao Tzu says: If people don't become angry, then what I am saying is not truth. One mystic used to stay with me. He was really a beautiful old man, very strange, very eccentric, but always to the point. He used to deliver talks all over the country. He had something to give. And whenever people applauded he would become very angry. He would say Stop! Don't applaud, because whenever you applaud, I think I must have said something wrong. If you can understand it, then it must be wrong. When you don't understand, only then is there a possibility that some truth has been said. And if…
If india is such an unspiritual country, why are so many enlightened beings born here?
Try to understand me: when I say a man is spiritual I mean he is as easily flowing on the outside as he flows inside. He is whole. Neither has the East been spiritual nor has the West been spiritual. The West has been materialist and the East has been spiritualist -- but not spiritual. The West believes in the philosophy of the outside, the East believes in the philosophy of the inside. The spiritual person is one who has come to that ultimate synthesis between the outer and the inner, between matter and consciousness, between body and soul. In the real spiritual person East and West meet and disappear. The really spiritual person is neither of the East nor of the West; he is global. Where he exists is not the point. His approach is global because his approach is total. He's whole, that's why I call him holy.…
When sri aurobindo said that india is the spiritual center of the world, the thinkers all over the west felt offended. They mocked and laughed at it. Please comment.
India has been approaching the inner continuously. If you take India as a symbol of inner search, good -- but then you should remember that it is an inner search and a symbol of inner search. Then somebody who is born in the West and is seeking God is an Indian; and somebody who is born in India and is seeking money is an American. Then there is no trouble -- then Jesus is Indian, Zarathustra is Indian, Lao Tzu is Indian, Chuang Tzu is Indian, Bokuju, Rinzai -- all are Indians. Then 'India' has a totally different meaning. I also say that India is significant, but just as a psychological symbol. Longest India has been searching. And MORE Buddhas have happened here. The very climate of spirituality, the milieu, helps. Jesus is rare, Zarathustra is rare. In India, Buddha, Mahavir, Krishna, Ram -- it seems almost a normal state…