Why is there a focus on enlightened individuals who are not physically alive rather than those who are alive today?

Another friend has asked: Osho, why is it that, leaving everyone else aside, you speak only against Gandhi?

And now science has confirmed this. Earlier it was only the talk of those esoteric people who worked in the inner world. They knew that a distance of thousands of miles is no distance. If the art of relating from within is known, one can be related across thousands of miles. And for thousands of years people have been related in this way. But now science too has given its approval—that this is not merely a possibility, it is a fact! And the approval came from where you would not expect—from Russia, first of all. A scientist named Fyadeyev succeeded in experiments establishing connection over a distance of fifteen hundred miles. Sitting in Moscow, he successfully sent a message to a man sitting in a garden far away in Tiflis. A man, a thousand miles away, was resting on a bench in Tiflis. He was being observed. A stranger walking…

Osho, Why does everyone praise a person after he dies—even those who spent his whole life condemning him? What’s the secret?

You ask, “Why do people praise a person after he dies?” They have to. That’s why at weddings people offer blessings and congratulations. The elders send blessings, contemporaries send best wishes—because the poor fellow is as good as dead! Finished! The end has come. They say when an ant is about to die it grows wings—well, the wedding wings have sprouted; the ant is near its end! Henceforth no future. Only darkness ahead. So give all the congratulations and blessings now. Bid a final farewell: “Brother, from here on, it’s between you and God!” That’s why you honor mahatmas and saints so much—the poor fellows are dead! Already dead! Walking corpses! If you don’t respect them, what else can you do? There’s nothing else left to do with them. If they were alive, there would be other ways to relate. Now all you can do is show as much reverence…

Osho, what are the reasons that very few persons in the world are interested in transforming their inner heat into spiritual light? Do you feel that the present generation is capable of creating enlightened ones like krishna, lao tzu and christ?

That also did not do because you cannot force yourself to be a Buddha, you cannot imitate. But Devadatta is forgotten and Buddha remains. The whole age is forgotten; only Buddha remains. Everything has disappeared; only Buddha remains. And then we compare Buddha with our own age. Because of that, this problem arises over whether a Buddha or a Jesus can be born today. It looks impossible. How is it possible in "this age of darkness, corruption, immorality"? How is this possible! Another factor also enters: whenever a person is dead for twenty centuries, we forget how we behaved with him when he was alive. Jesus was crucified not because he was a great Teacher or a great Enlightened One, but only because he was "immoral, undisciplined -- against the code and against the tradition". This behaviour was not that of a respectable man. And when he was killed, it…

Osho, even with a living master present, in our country the dead are worshipped. Is this our misfortune, our foolishness, or our downfall?

Satya Prem! Neither misfortune, nor foolishness, nor downfall. It has always been so. This has been man’s way. It is built into the very mode of human being. It is an inevitable part of man’s unconsciousness. You can worship the dead; with the living you have to be transformed. Worship won’t do. Worship is a trick to avoid, a device, a politics. The most cultured way to avoid someone is to worship him. Offer a couple of flowers at his feet and be free—and remain exactly as you were. And you even take the inner pleasure of feeling you did something. In fact you did nothing. The flowers belonged to the trees; they were already dedicated to the divine. You plucked them and placed them on a stone idol or on a scripture. All flowers are already at the feet of the divine. All the birds’ songs are prayers unto…

Duke hwan of khi, first in his dynasty, sat under his canopy reading his philosophy. And phien the wheelwright was out in the yard making a wheel.

PHIEN LAID ASIDE HAMMER AND CHISEL, CLIMBED THE STEPS, AND SAID TO DUKE HWAN: 'MAY I ASK YOU, LORD, WHAT IS THIS YOU ARE READING?' THE DUKE SAID: 'THE EXPERTS, THE AUTHORITIES.' AND PHIEN ASKED: 'ALIVE OR DEAD?' THE DUKE SAID: 'DEAD A LONG TIME.' 'THEN,' SAID THE WHEELWRIGHT, 'YOU ARE READING ONLY THE DIRT THEY LEFT BEHIND.' THE DUKE REPLIED: 'WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT IT? YOU ARE ONLY A WHEELWRIGHT. YOU HAD BETTER GIVE ME A GOOD EXPLANATION OR ELSE YOU MUST DIE.' THE WHEELWRIGHT SAID: 'LET US LOOK AT THE AFFAIR FROM MY POINT OF VIEW. WHEN I MAKE WHEELS, IF I GO EASY THEY FALL APART, AND IF I AM TOO ROUGH THEY DO NOT FIT. BUT IF I AM NEITHER TOO EASY NOR TOO VIOLENT THEY COME OUT RIGHT. THE WORK IS WHAT I WANT IT TO BE. YOU CANNOT PUT THIS INTO WORDS, YOU…