Crucifixion

I recoil from the whole idea of the crucifixion. The murder of jesus at thirty-three, even more than the murder of john the baptist or the murder of socrates, seems supremely unnecessary. Could not he, the prince of compassion, have managed to sympathize with the high priests, seeing the impossibility of their situation? After all, they were bishops, not the gestapo; benighted no doubt, but not murderous. Or worse still, did he deliberately push then to the ultimate impossibility -- where they were bound to kill him and set them up as the villains?

It is like Jesus walking in Cambridge or Oxford University, where philosophers think that God is meaningless. If Jesus comes to Oxford and stands on the crossroads and cries, "I and my Father are one," those philosophers will gather together and they will laugh. "About whom are you talking? Which father? Where is he? What do you mean by'father'? Then who is your mother? " They will ask irrelevant questions and they will laugh. Jesus will simply feel embarrassed. This is my understanding: that the Jews of Jesus' days were very simple people, not sophisticated. Religion was very meaningful, not just a philosophy. Their whole life was at stake. And this man was destroying it: this man was uprooting all that they had been protecting for centuries; this man was trying to create a revolution, a chaos. They had deep love for the tradition, for the values that they had…

Just recently a sannyasin wrote me a letter and asked—now he is my sannyasin, but he doesn’t realize that somewhere inside he has a sickness. He wrote to ask: Jesus was crucified, Mansoor was crucified; why aren’t you crucified? This is making him restless. Until I am crucified, he won’t be at peace. I understand his difficulty. His difficulty is that if I were crucified, he could say—See, our master! Ah, he has risen to the rank of Jesus and Mansoor! He is greatly puzzled as to why I am not being crucified!

Anger only proves one thing: what you wanted is not happening as you wanted. Only one who has no more wanting is free of anger. One who says, “Thy will is my will. As you do, so it is good,”—for him anger is impossible. Right now people even rage at God. You worship for years, and your desires are not fulfilled—one day, in a fury, you throw the idols into the well: “To hell with it all—lies!” I know a man who did exactly that after thirty years—“Not a single prayer answered!” Even your “prayer” is nothing but desire. You know nothing of prayer. Even your “love” comes with conditions: do this, do that, only then you will get my love—don’t go beyond this, nor fall short. Otherwise my anger—I will flare up, fire will blaze. “Lost at the confluence of lust and anger, all forget.” In the confluence of…

Osho, “The Beloved struck me with a flower and I was hurt to my very core; people threw stones, and I did not feel even a speck of pain.”

The miracle was this: one last desire had remained hidden; that too was seen. Had a hand descended from the heavens, it would not have been so great a miracle. Had the earth split or the sky, even that would not have been so great a miracle. Had the sun sunk at high noon—it would still not have been so great. Had Jesus ascended bodily to heaven—even that would not have equaled it. The true miracle, in my view, was that in his own unconscious the very last chain became manifest. The moment it revealed itself, the hour of awakening struck. Instantly Jesus said, “No, no—forgive me. What have I said? Who am I? Not my will—let thy will be done. Let what you wish come to pass. Let thy will be fulfilled. What will have I? I am content with thy will. Let thy kingdom come upon the earth,…

Beloved Osho, can you say something about recognition? Why do we take you for granted? Why will we, your disciples, not recognize you until your crucifixion? When you said that, it was like a sword through me.

And I say that he must have done it against himself because as Jesus was crucified, suddenly he became aware of what he had done. Death is not a small matter. He had killed the man he loved, he had killed the man he worshipped. He was feeling so much repentance that within twenty-four hours he committed suicide. Christians don't talk about why Judas committed suicide, why Jesus insisted against the will of his disciples to go on that ugly night to Jerusalem. As far as I am concerned, my feeling is that his disciples were fast asleep -- and Jesus had tried everything to wake them up and they would not wake up. Hence, he had chosen the last resort of a master. Perhaps his life cannot help. There is no harm in taking the chance -- maybe what life has not been able to do and perform, death…