Why don’t saints or sadhus work together as a team?

A friend has asked: Osho, why should we think about death at all? We have life—let us live it. Be in what is present. Why allow the thought of death to come in between?

Just as there can be fear of sleep. Sleep is, in a way, a daily death. The day is life; the night is death. It is a piecemeal death. Every day we die a little, we sink within; in the morning we return fresh again. Then after seventy or eighty years the whole body gets tired—work, work, work—the body wears out. Then full death takes hold; the entire body changes. But we are very afraid of that. It is a deep sleep. Yet we are very afraid of it. Have you noticed that the body changes every morning too? It changes a little, which is why you don’t notice. It does not change completely; there is a partial transformation. When you go to sleep in the evening, your body is in one condition; when you wake in the morning, your body is in another. By morning the body has become…

Osho, forgive me; I want to ask something that has been on my mind for a long time. Why is it that all the great masters who are alive—including you—never come together?

Kabir’s disciples asked, “Why were you silent? Your speech has such power—give a little taste of it to Farid too! You shower it on us every day.” Kabir said, “Farid has already received it. What I shower on you, Farid has already received. Where I am, there is Farid. We both stand in the same place. Seeing each other, we were amazed. We are not two; we are one. So what is there to say? To whom to say it? If a man sits alone and talks, would you not call him mad? Someone sitting alone, talking to himself—raising the questions and giving the answers—that is what you call madness. So,” said Kabir, “did you want to make me mad? We were not two.” Therefore there is no need for saints to meet. Saints are not separate that they should have to meet. A Janata Party is formed by non-saints,…

The skilful masters (of the tao) in old times, with a subtle and exquisite penetration, comprehended its mysteries, which were so deep that they eluded man's knowledge. As they were thus beyond man's knowledge, I will make an effort to describe of what they appeared to be. Cautious, like crossing a wintry stream. Irresolute, like one fearing danger all around. Grave, like one acting as a guest. Self-effacing, like ice beginning to melt. Unpretentious, like wood that has not been carved. Vacant, like a valley. And dull like muddy water.

If we are asked to define a saint, we would say that saint is one who does not partake of alcohol, who does not eat meat, who does not eat at night, who lives in a hut, who goes about naked.... We would define him in terms that have nothing to do with saintliness. But Lao Tzu lays stress on awareness. This is the underlying principle of everything that is mentioned in our general definition of a saint, but our definition does not include awareness itself. A man can be a non-vegetarian in his state of unconsciousness. He can be a vegetarian in his state of unconsciousness. A child born in a vegetarian household is a vegetarian; another is born in a non-vegetarian family and remains a non-vegetarian. Both are equally in a state of unconsciousness. If these two children are interchanged in childhood, they would easily pick up the…

Osho, just seeing sadhus and saints makes me bristle, even angry. I see nothing in them but hypocrisy. But with you—God knows what you’ve done—reverence wells up! What is the secret of your influence?

Buddha asked, “What are you doing?” They said, “This is not killing; not violence. The souls of these animals will go to heaven.” Buddha joked, “Then why not kill your parents? Send them to heaven. The door is open—why send animals? Send your parents, your wife, your children. Send everyone—and then go yourself! But don’t send these animals. They don’t want to go—they’re writhing, they want to run. They are pleading for mercy. They cannot speak—look into their eyes, they are beseeching. They are bleating: ‘Let us go.’ They don’t want heaven—and you are sending them. The yajman who is funding this sacrifice wants heaven—send him!” Clever folks have always been around. Tricks kept running; we kept bearing them. Sin and merit are difficult to determine. On one side are people along the Amazon who eat humans—and it is no sin to them. On the other side are the Quakers…

You say that seeing a sadhu stirs compassion. Then is there no sadhu who truly seeks the Self? By putting all sadhus in the same line, are you not insulting saintliness?

It is not a question of insulting a sadhu. I am speaking about what is going on under the label “sadhu.” I speak of it precisely so that a genuine respect for real saintliness may arise in us, so that we learn to know and recognize it. To know and recognize it, other things are needed—not a change of clothes. What is needed is a revolution of the whole of life. A revolution of the whole of life—and a natural, unforced way of living. When someone becomes a sadhu, life becomes utterly simple. All the complexity of life dissolves. Gain and loss become zero for him. The ones you call sadhus think in the language of profit and loss twenty-four hours a day. Even if they have left home, it is with the idea that in exchange they will gain heaven or liberation. They are the same old shopkeepers. Their…