Why don't you use intoxication as a method to understand the innermost being?

Osho, Gurdjieff used to ply his disciples with abundant alcohol to know their innermost being. And when they got intoxicated he would listen carefully to what they said. Why don’t you do the same?

Krishnatirth, you silly fellow! And what do you think I’m doing? I pour it every day—morning and evening. What Gurdjieff poured was gross; what I pour is subtle. And the intoxication of the subtle goes far deeper. The gross can only reach the gross. Grape wine cannot go beyond the body. But there are other wines that go beyond the body. Those I am giving you: there is the wine of music, the wine of silence, the wine of meditation. And the supreme one, the Vedas called soma. Centuries have passed—countless people have been searching for soma. Scientists have tirelessly investigated in the ravines and mountains of the Himalayas: from which plant was soma produced? To this day no one has discovered how soma was made, what soma was. They will not discover it either—because soma is not something gross. Soma was obtained in the presence of the seers, by…

Osho, you sit in the tavern and, every morning and evening, you pour brimming goblet after goblet of wine. I do get intoxicated by your wine, but I don’t lose consciousness. What should I do?

That is why even a Sufi like Omar Khayyam has been misunderstood. Whatever notion you have about Omar Khayyam is wrong. The wine he spoke of is not the wine sold in taverns. The beloved he praised is not flesh-and-bone. He called the Beloved—God. And he called wine—devotion. Fitzgerald, who first translated Omar Khayyam into English, because of whom Omar became world-famous, did not understand him. Fitzgerald thought wine meant wine. He was a Western man. He took two plus two to be four. He took “wine” as wine and “beloved” as beloved. The subtle intention of the Sufis fell into a great misunderstanding. On the basis of Fitzgerald’s version the whole world translated him, and the mistake spread everywhere. Today taverns are named “Omar Khayyam.” Nothing could be more foolish. Temples should bear Omar Khayyam’s name—not taverns. Because the tavern he spoke of is of another kind. There is…

Osho, why do you sometimes use wine as a symbol for the supreme experience of the Divine? Can’t a better symbol be found?

“Better” or “worse” is only a matter of how you look; otherwise, what symbol could be dearer than wine? Wine simply means this—ecstasy, blessed forgetfulness, absorption, total immersion. Among the Sufis, wine is a greatly honored symbol. Have you read the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam? Omar Khayyam is not a drunkard. He is a Sufi fakir, a supreme knower—like Saraha and Tilopa, a realized one of the highest order. Wine is a symbol. And there is no symbol more beautiful in relation to the Divine, because whoever drowns in That becomes forever intoxicated—God-intoxicated. A wine that never wears off once it rises; it speaks right from the head! A wine that does not merely bring unconsciousness—paradoxically, it brings wakefulness. The ego becomes unconscious, and the soul awakens. No, it won’t do otherwise. The symbol of wine must be brought in. However much one may speak of witnessing the Truth, it…

Question: The final question: Osho, do you also drink alcohol? And there is nothing else truly worth drinking. For years I haven’t drunk water—that much I can assure you; for ten years at least I haven’t touched it. I drink soda and wine. Soda on the outside, wine on the inside. I believe in balance—a little of the outer, a little of the inner. There is a wine that has never been distilled; toward it no one has ever been able to gaze. There is an elixir like that. I drink this undistilled wine. I live on this unseen elixir! And I want to make you drunkards too. Bhakti means wine. Shandilya means a drunkard. The devotee’s temple is a tavern—intoxication, sweetness, mellowness. Drink the Divine; then no other wine will remain worth drinking.

A friend has asked: Osho, you said about a wayward son that one should let him pass through his experiences, and he will learn on his own. But even after experiencing, he still prefers the same thing—someone is asking about his wayward son—no matter how much suffering he has to endure, even if death itself should come, still he does the same. After stumbling again and again, he repeats it. What can be done? How to reform him?

You will not be able to reform him. If life cannot reform him, if even death cannot reform him, what will you be able to do? If what you say is true—that again and again, even after suffering, he does the same thing; even if death comes, he will still do the same thing, and he does not change—then take your hands off. You will not be able to reform him. You cannot be stronger than death. And one who does not learn from suffering—what will he learn from you? Do not call him a wayward son. You have found yourself a Jadabharata. Because those whom suffering does not reform, whom even death does not reform—these are great, arrived masters; they are in the ultimate state. Do not even try to reform such a one. And why are you so eager to reform another? It is enough to reform yourself.…