Culture

Why is there so much hurry in the west while the east seems to be so relaxed?

Different time orientation. The East thinks in terms of eternity, in terms of many many lives, incarnation after incarnation, one after another. The time span is very big, so there is no hurry. In the West the time span is very small, so there is hurry -- only one life. Only one life? -- and life is slipping by, it is going down the drain. If you live sixty years, twenty years will be lost in sleep; twenty years will be lost in some stupid job; fifteen years will be lost eating, defecating and things like that -- what is left? And whatsoever is left will be lost sitting before a TV -- finished! Fear arises, one becomes very much frightened. Something has to be done before it disappears... great, hectic hurry! The East thinks in a very very infinite span -- one life after another, the wheel of life…

Osho, they say that when drunk the englishman tends to boast, the irishman to fight, and the scotsman to go to sleep in case he's asked to buy a round of drinks. Now I want to know what do you say about an indian?

There is no difficulty. The question is very simple. When an Indian is drunk, he delivers a little spiritual discourse -- minimum time limit ninety minutes.

You said that imitation of any kind, even imitation of a buddha, is alien to pure consciousness. But we see that all our cultural life is nothing but imitation. In that case, is culture itself alien to religion?

Yes, culture, society, civilization, all are alien to religion. Religion is a revolution, a revolution in your cultural condition ing, a revolution in your social conditioning, a revolution in all the spheres that you have lived and you are living. Every society is against religion. I'm not talking about your temples and mosques and churches that society has created. Those are tricks. Those are things to befool you. Those are substitutes for religion, they are not religion. They are to misguide you. You need religion: they say, 'Yes, come to the temple, to the church, to the gurudwara. Here it is religion. You come and pray and the preacher is there who will teach you religion.' This is a trick. Society has created false religions: those religions are Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism. But a Buddha, or a Mahavira, or a Jesus, or a Mohammed, always exist beyond society. And society always…

What do you know about italy and the italian people?

I know everything about the Italian people. My first Western sannyasins were Italians; they introduced me to the West. I have thousands of sannyasins in Italy. They have a special quality to them; they are the most lively people on the earth, most earthly, most loving, most nonserious. To me, seriousness is sickness, and nonseriousness is a religious quality. I don't know anything about Italy because I have never been there. But to know the people is to know their land, is to know the earth where they have been born, is to know the trees, is to know the rivers and the mountains -- because they carry the taste of their atmosphere with them. Italy must be a very living, very alive, very young, youthful country. One thing I know was that in the past Italy had one of the biggest empires in the world -- the Roman empire.…