Why was Jesus not born in America?

Was jesus really born of a virgin mother?

Poets also stumble upon the same truths, but when they express them they are expressed in a different way. In fact, poets always arrive before the scientists ever arrive, because scientists move very cautiously and poets move in a drunken way. Poets don't care about logic; poets don't move in a logical, syllogistic way -- they simply jump from one point to another. And they are not afraid to be laughed at, and they are not afraid even if people think they are mad. So they always discover things before scientists discover them -- almost thousands of years before. Because the scientist moves so cautiously, so slowly, step by step... he has to look into details; he has to prove something. The poet has to prove nothing: he simply asserts. Nobody asks any proof. Whatsoever happens in his intuition, he simply goes on singing it. Nobody wants any consistency, nobody…

Osho: can you share with us a joke about christmas today?

ACCORDING TO THE ANCIENT AKASHIC records, Mary had just given birth to her son. She was lying back in the hay exhausted, when the door opened and in walked half a dozen shepherds, and half a dozen kings, and half a dozen wise men from the East. She raised her eyes to her husband and said, "Jesus, what a way to spend Christmas!"

You said that lao tzu was born old. How did he achieve his wisdom and maturity? Was a master necessary to bring him to the point where he could be born old?

YOU DON'T EVEN have a sense of humor. You can't understand a joke. These are just symbolic tales, beautiful in themselves, but if you start asking questions about them they become ugly. That's how the whole mystery and the poetry of a thing is lost; and that is what has been done. The whole of theology is all about such nonsensical questions. "Was Jesus really born out of a virgin?" It is a beautiful symbol. "Was Jesus really resurrected when he was dead, crucified?'' This is a beautiful symbol. "Was it a reality that Lao Tzu was born old, eighty-four years old, remained in his mother's womb for eighty-four years?" It is a beautiful Lao Tzuan joke. I suspect that Lao Tzu must have spread the rumor -- nobody else could do that, it is so subtle. If you understand the joke, you understand. If you don't understand please don't…

And your religions have been telling you, that it is the most difficult thing -- for the simple reason because your priests don't know anything about it. They are professional people. It is their profession, not their experience. Naturally when you ask them, the only way is to console you, to satisfy you, that "It will happen, but it takes years' effort. You have already been here on the earth for many, many lives. How much more they want to wait? There is something basically wrong in their whole approach. They are not turning you towards your own being. That is where they are wrong. They are turning you towards a god somewhere far away. You are already looking out in things, in money, in power, in people. That is your mistake that you are looking out, not in. And they go on making the same mistake greater.

Beloved Osho, history shows that when a great master appears on the earth, other, lesser leaders recognize him and bring their followers with them. Do you see this happening here?

Except this Nicodemus, no rabbi ever approached Jesus -- and Nicodemus approached him in the night. It would have been better that he also had not approached Jesus, because he shows the cowardliness of your so-called religious people and who crucified Jesus? The high priest and the supreme command of rabbis who overruled the whole community of Jews -- they decided that he should be crucified. There were many attempts made on Buddha's life by religious people, and I have always suspected -- although it is impossible now after twenty-five centuries to find out whether my suspicion is right or wrong, but there is a ninety-nine percent possibility that it is right .... It has to be right because some fundamental principles are involved. Buddha died of food poisoning. I suspect he was given poison, that it was not a coincidence. There were many attempts on the life of Mahavira.…