Apology

An apology too? No, no! Whether you should apologize or not—that’s not what I’m saying, that’s not what I’m saying. If it arises from within, certainly ask. If it doesn’t arise and you want to ask just for the sake of courtesy, even then… I’m not talking about that. I am saying that an apology does not erase anger; it only dulls the consequences of anger.

I abused you in anger, and then I went and apologized to you. My anger does not disappear by apologizing. The abuse I hurled at you in anger had a harmful impact on you; that will be reduced a little. If I apologize very deeply, it will be reduced further. If I actually catch hold of their feet and enough… that is, whatever I did in anger, I do precisely the opposite. What did I do in anger? I hurt their ego. And in apologizing, what will I do? I will coax their ego and flatter it. What is an apology? It is flattery. What is an apology? After all, yesterday you abused me, and today you come, take hold of my feet, and ask me to forgive you. Then the abuse you gave me yesterday wounded my ego, my ego was hurt. Today, when you come and hold my…

Osho, in almost all the so‑called religions, especially Christianity, atonement is regarded as a great religious virtue. But yesterday you said that atonement is simply anger standing on its head. Please say more in this context!

She said, “Tell them what! It’s been three hours. Do you think I remember what started it? Was I sitting with a notebook? One thing led to another, and now we’re God‑knows‑where. So what of it!” This “remorse” is simply reinstalling the ego’s statue. The ego fell—once again you did what you had resolved not to do. How to enthrone the statue again? Atonement is the art of reinstalling the idol: “All right—let’s repent, let’s atone. We are very, very sorry.” But even in that sorrow there is a web of ego. All religions have invented such devices. In Hinduism: go bathe in the Ganga. It’s convenient. Why repent every day? Every few years, or when the Kumbha Mela comes in twelve years, take one dip—twelve years wiped clean! Now write freely again on the slate—abuse and all, whatever you fancy. Begin again with Sri Ganeshaya Namah. And why worry?…

A friend has asked: Osho, if meditation brings peace to life, then why does it not spread across the whole country?

We teach children: anger is bad, anger is a sin, don’t be angry. The result is not that they stop being angry—that cannot happen. The anger only remains incomplete, never allowed to run its full course; they never fully experience the pain of anger; they never pass through its fire. And then the question of non-anger does not arise; the search for peace does not begin. One who has not even been truly unpeaceful—how can he become peaceful? One who lacks even the capacity to be fully unpeaceful—how will he have the capacity to be peaceful? These things may sound upside-down, but I tell you: only the one who can be thoroughly unpeaceful can truly set out on the path to peace. One who, by getting angry, lives anger through and through—who is pierced by all its thorns, who is singed in its flames—one who drinks anger to the dregs…

Osho, you said that the acceptance of sin gives birth to worthiness. But can it not also give birth to self-abasement? Please explain.

If the acceptance of sin truly happens, self-abasement can never be born. Self-abasement arises because you do not want to accept, and yet you are forced to accept. Understand the difference between these two. What you want is to be supremely wise. You want the world to know you as a great knower. Within yourself you already believe you are; only others have not recognized it yet. In time they will; people are ignorant, foolish—that’s why they don’t see your great wisdom. Otherwise, of course, you are supremely wise. There is an Arab saying: at the final moment of sending each creature into the world, God calls them close and makes one last joke, whispering in their ear, “I have never made anyone greater than you.” And each person carries this within all life long. If he tells anyone, people laugh—because God has played the same joke on them too.…