Fanaticism

Osho, why are people so fanatically committed to groups and organizations of all kinds: religious, social, and political?

It is good that these people don't participate in your Olympic races; otherwise your great runners will just look silly. You cannot move like monkeys from one tree to another tree. They go on jumping from one tree to another tree for miles; they need not touch the ground. You cannot fight even with a monkey. This has to be accepted: that man is the weakest animal on the earth. And this is the foundation of his whole behavior, his commitments, his groupings. He has to be part of something bigger than himself; only then does he feel safe. He had to invent all kinds of weapons. No animal has bothered to invent weapons. There is no need; their hands, their teeth, their nails, are enough. From the earliest days man had to invent weapons -- first made of stones, rocks, then slowly slowly with metals. Then he had to…

Osho, what is the difference between surrender and blind imitation?

So be careful: the freedom you allow yourself, allow the other too. You have no right to judge another as blindly credulous or as a surrendered being. Drop that concern. You cannot judge anyway—how will you enter another’s heart? How will you know? Think only about yourself. See within whether, up to now, you have lived by blind belief or by surrender. Decide only there; leave worrying about others. Otherwise, all your judgments will be wrong. Jesus said: Judge not; do not set yourself up as a judge in relation to another. To the friend who has asked: if you are asking for yourself, good. Drop worrying about others. Look within and see: whatever I have been clinging to till now—have I ever staked my life to hold it? Have I meditated for it? Have I loved for it? Or am I just clutching what culture, society, civilization handed me?…

Beloved master, why is it that so many people abandon their intelligence, their sensitivity, their responsibility and their individuality when they become part of a group? Must the rebellious spirit always be alone?

And what is my crime? My crime is that I am trying to create groups where people are individual, intelligent seekers, meditators, lovers. Not believers, not faithful to any holy scripture, not faithful to any dead prophet -- trusting only their own intelligence and their own still, small voice, heard in the silences of the heart, in deep meditation. Who am I to give you a moral code? You have to find your morality yourself, and only the morality that you have found for yourself will give you dignity. It will not be a bondage, you will not feel burdened, enslaved, imprisoned. On the contrary, you will feel integrated, crystallized, more pure and more clear. You are living according to your own light, and the more you use your light, your intelligence, your silence, the more it grows. Remember always, if you stop using anything it dies. Don't use your…

The masses were against jesus, they were against buddha, they are against you. Why?

The masses live in a kind of non-individual existence. They live like sheep. So whenever a man like Jesus or Buddha is there, asserting his individuality, his rebellion, his freedom, he is naturally disliked. The masses become afraid; their foundations are shaken. If Jesus is right, then the whole life pattern of the masses will have to be changed. It is too much work, and people have invested too much in their slavery. The presence of Jesus makes people feel bankrupt. The moment you come across a Buddha, you are reduced to a very ugly kind of inhuman being. You lose all dignity, you feel humiliated. If you are intelligent you will rise to the occasion: you will see the point that up to now you have lived in ignorance, in sleep. And you will feel grateful to the Buddha that his presence has become a ray of light into…