Why shouldn't Osho be considered a politician despite making statements on politics?

Osho, you make statements on politics; then why shouldn’t you be considered a politician?

Then just now, when Indira won, Vinoba remained silent; when he was informed that Indira had won, he clapped in happiness. The newspapers reported: Vinoba clapped in joy, became ecstatic! Two days later came the statement: I did not clap because of Indira’s victory; it just so happened that at that moment I was in a playful mood. At that very moment you were in ecstasy—neither a moment before, nor a moment after! What a coincidence that precisely then the mood to clap arose! Two days later he must have done the accounting that this clapping could prove costly. Politics is always calculation, arithmetic, maneuvering and cleverness. I tell you: by speaking on politics I am not a politician, and Vinoba, remaining silent, without giving statements, is a politician. Politics is a style of life; statements or non-statements make no difference. If there were even a little politics in me,…

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;…

Osho, do you think that it is not possible to be honest, intelligent, religious, and yet be in politics?

IT IS impossible. It is ABSOLUTELY impossible, CATEGORICALLY impossible. If you are intelligent, why should you be in politics? It is for the stupid, for the mediocre. The intelligent person will have much more important things to do. The intelligent person will not be interested in dominating others. His whole interest will be in knowing himself To dominate the other is a way of escaping from one's own inner meaninglessness, inner emptiness, inner hollowness. It is an escape from oneself. The intelligent person iS not an escapist. Politics is an escape, a GREAT escape. It keeps you so occupied, day in, day out, that you cannot find even a few minutes for yourself. Even when you sleep you think politics; it continues in your dreams. To be a politician is a twenty-four hour job. You cannot relax because if you relax you will be left behind. It is a tooth-and-nail…

Osho, in reference to your advising indira gandhi to impose a stricter emergency and suspend elections for fifteen years, mid-day carries the headline: "stick to your religious pursuits, mr. Rajneesh!" do you have any response, Osho?

I TEACH THE TOTAL MAN. One of the greatest problems that humanity is facing today is the fragmentary man. For centuries we have divided life into compartments. We have tried to make those compartments absolutely separate, so much so that one expert, one specialist knows nothing about anything else. He becomes very much informed, knowledgeable about one aspect of life at the cost of the whole. His vision becomes lopsided. They define science as knowing more and more about less and less. The problem now is how to make all these experts understand each other, how to create bridges, because man is not compartmentalized; man is one organic unity. Life is not divided, but we look at it AS IF it is divided; that "as if" is a fiction. A man is not only a father; he is also a husband, he is also a son, he is also an…

Question: The last question: Osho, you say a politician cannot be religious. Why? It is not a very difficult thing to understand that a politician cannot be religious. Politics means: how can I become powerful over others? The one who wants to be powerful over others is the very one who has no power over himself. It is his compensation. Psychologists—especially Alfred Adler—say that those who carry an inferiority complex, who feel within, “I am inferior, I am nothing,” are the very people who get involved in politics. Because they have only one device: if they can sit on a big chair, they can show the world that they are somebody. And if the world accepts that they are somebody, then perhaps they too can start believing they are somebody. They have no other way. Only people with an inferiority complex are keen on politics.