Cricket

Osho, you know that in India cricket is so popular that people go crazy over it. Because of this foreign game, many of India’s own games never got a chance to emerge. The situation is such that Test cricketers—I don’t want to name names—are worshipped in India, treated like stars. After politics and films, if anyone dominates the stage most, it is these players. But because of this game many of Hindustan’s own sports haven’t been able to flourish. How do you see this craze?

Craze is craze—whether foreign or Indian. Across the world different sports drive people mad, but the function is the same. Last year the University of California studied what happens there whenever football matches are played: people go absolutely crazy. And for seven days after the match ends, crimes rise by fourteen percent—more violence, more suicides, more rapes. And still the government will let those games go on! Those games can’t be stopped. Nor would I say stop them—because the madness that gets an outlet through sports, if it doesn’t find a way out, will turn into even more rape and even more violence. Whatever the sport—cricket, football, volleyball, hockey—it is a cultured way of releasing the violence inside you. And as long as man carries violence and anger within, there’s no harm in that. I don’t mind if cricketers are placed at worshipful heights like leaders and film stars. My…

Osho, for centuries Indians have been enslaved and poor, and as a result suffer from a terrible sense of inferiority, blindly imitating the West. Isn’t this imitation unhealthy? And shouldn’t they find their own path and destination themselves? In this context, what guidance will you give us?

Mahatma Gandhi gave the poor a new name—Daridra Narayan, “God in the form of the poor.” If the poor are Narayan, how can poverty be eradicated? Will you eliminate Narayan? Narayan is to be worshiped. Install the poor in temples, worship them! Blessed is he who is poor! He called untouchables “Harijan,” people of God. We are clever with words. Once, “Harijan” meant those who had realized God; Gandhi applied it to bhangis and chamars. God is unknown—but we have His “people”! The word untouchable at least contained a sting, a pain. Harijan is syrup over poison—easy to swallow. Now being Harijan even feels good! Should poverty be eradicated, or worshiped? If they are Daridra Narayan—then build temples! Tagore said: My God is where the laborer breaks stone; my God is where the farmer, under the blazing sun, sows his field. Fine—then the more who break stones by the roadside,…

Osho, your compassion towards india brings, in return, anger and condemnation towards you. Every day indian newspapers and magazines are full of third-rate criticism against you. Even so, you keep hammering this rotten culture. What is this business? Does india deserve so much compassion?

Now, if you ask a drunkard, he will have his own logic. He will see reality through his own drunkenness. Indians get angry because they have become accustomed to being praised continuously. Nobody has ever criticized them. Nobody has ever pointed out to them that "You are living a death, not a life. You are shrinking and dying. You have lost the fervor, the zest, the gusto to live authentically, to live totally." They have been praised. Their paleness has been given the halo of holiness. Their anti-life attitudes have been raised to great spiritual fantasies. Their hysterical experiences have been called samadhi. Their madness has been respected as if something of the beyond has descended in them. Their gibberish is thought to be esoteric; people go on finding meanings in it. Fools have been worshipped, masochists have been thought to be ascetics, sadists have been thought to be great…

Beloved Osho, india, your homeland, has treated you badly and without due respect. Yet sometimes when I hear you speak, do I not detect a subtle fondness in you for india and her people? Osho, what do you love about india?

India, to me, is not only a country, but a concept... not just a land, but a way of life, a tremendously significant philosophy. So when I talk about India, it does not matter at all that they have treated me badly, that they would like me to be killed. They have made efforts -- unfortunately they failed. These are small things, and I don't take them into consideration. My consideration is for the India as a concept. It is the only part of the world which has gone deep into the interiority of man, which has discovered for the first time the ultimate in consciousness, the universality of individual beings. Science has discovered much, but no discovery of science can be compared to the discovery that India has made in the past. For ten thousand years continuously it has devoted its whole energy to finding out the meaning of…