Why is there a perceived preference for Westerners over Indians in the context of Sannyas?

Why do you appear to give more attention to westerners and, on the whole, to almost ignore indians? -- I am thinking especially of when you give sannyas.

THIS QUESTION IS VERY IMPORTANT and has to be understood both by Indians and non-indians. When a Westerner comes to me I have to approach him through his head, because there is no other entry possible. When an Indian comes to me a simpler approach is possible through the heart. When an Indian comes to me he comes for SATSANG -- he wants just to be in my presence. He has no questions. And those Indians who have questions, they never come to me. I have created too many barriers for them to come. Those Indians whose minds are too much stuffed, they don't come to me -- and I don't want them here. I have made every possible effort to prevent them from coming to me. I am not interested in them. The Indians who come to me, come to be with me -- silently. They can understand the…

Osho, I wish you would say something about the eastern indifference to what you are doing, and the western attraction.

You can see it happen everywhere. Rabindranath Tagore got the Nobel Prize. Before he got the Nobel Prize his book was already published for years -- the book on which he got the Nobel Prize, GITANJALI -- but nobody has praised it. Once he got the Nobel Prize, the whole India was praising him, and he could see. He refused the invitation of Calcutta Corporation. They wanted to honor him. He said, "I won't come. I refuse this honor, because the book has been published for many years in the original, and you have never honored me." In fact, no note was taken of his book, and it is one of the greatest books ever written. On the contrary, people were criticizing it, criticizing it because it was not according to the old pattern of Indian poetry. It has something original, and the Indian mind cannot understand anything original; it…

Osho, India is a land whose very life-breath is religion. One proof is that even the most insignificant gurus here do not keep their number of disciples below a hundred thousand. But it is surprising that a guru as radiant as the sun, like you, has so few Indian disciples. Kindly shed some light on this.

Ramanand Agnihotri! No country has religion as its life-breath! Not India, not China, not Japan, not Iran, not Pakistan—no country. Countries cannot be religion-breathed. Countries are political units; what could they possibly have to do with being religion-breathed! Do countries have any prana—any life-breath at all? If there is no life-breath, how will there be religion-breath? Individuals are religious, not countries. Not castes, not communities, not organizations—only individuals. That is the dignity of the individual. Did it never occur to you that first there must be life-breath? At the very least, there should be life—religious or irreligious—but life. Do countries have any life-breath? These are political fictions, political tricks. Just a while back, before 1947, Pakistan was India; now it is not. What will you say? Is Pakistan now religion-breathed or not? Before 1947 it was; now? Now it is not. Bangladesh earlier was religion-breathed because it was part of…

Beloved Osho, never before have I felt so much at home with you. This place has such a beautiful vibration, and I feel alot of it is created by your indian disciples. Sometimes, it feels that their gestures are in such a melting with your gestures and grace that I start asking myself if we, your western sannyasins, are missing out on something. To see indian sannyasins bowing down to you touches my heart deeply, and sometimes I feel that I am missing out. To do the bowing does not feel right, and only once in a while the bowing down happens to me -- which I feel is one of the beautiful moments

The credit does not go to the conquerors, remember. The credit goes to the defeated, the conquered -- because these people have lived in a totally different atmosphere, a different milieu; they have been nourished on different vibrations. Fighting and killing for the land, for the money, was not in their minds. They were conquered not because they were not brave enough, they were conquered because they were not foolish enough to fight. They allowed the way; they said, "A few idiots have got this idea to conquer the whole world -- let them conquer. What are you going to gain by conquering, the whole world?" A totally different approach to life: that the very idea of conquering is ugly, inhuman. But to the Alexanders, to the Napoleons, to the Hitlers, to conquer was the greatest thing in life; there was nothing more. India knows much more. India knows that…

Osho, why are you so opposed to politics?

I am not against politics. Politics is only a symptom. I am against the inferiority complex in man; that inner sense of smallness. And politics is a symptom of that very disease. The more a person suffers from an inferiority complex, the more he hankers after position. The more he is filled with inferiority, the more he hankers after wealth. Understand this. An inferiority complex means: inside you feel, “I am nothing, a nobody, a two-bit fellow.” But this rankles. “I—and two-bit!” The mind cannot swallow it. “I will show the world that I am somebody. I’ll become a prime minister, a president. I’ll amass the world’s wealth and prove to the world that I am somebody.” Politics is the device to fill that inner sense of two-bit-ness, meaninglessness, emptiness. Politics means ambition—whether for money or for office, it makes no difference. Sometimes it is even the ambition for renunciation;…