Imitation

Question: OSHO, CHRIST AND FIVE MILLION CHRISTIANS CARRYING THEIR CROSSES! BUDDHA AND TEN MILLION BUDDHISTS CARRYING THEIR LOTUS FLOWERS! ONE WONDERS, CAN WE ESCAPE THE RISKS OF IMITATION IN THIS AMAZING GAME YOU HAVE CREATED? It is impossible to imitate me. I am taking every care that if you try to imitate me you will fall like Humpty Dumpty -- and then nobody can put you together, not even me. It is impossible to imitate me, for the simple reason I am so inconsistent, so self-contradictory that it is impossible to follow me. Because in the morning I will say, "Go north!" In the afternoon I will say, "Go south!" By the evening I have changed the whole idea -- "Go to the west!" How can you follow me? Christ can be followed, because his message is small and very consistent.

Osho, Mahavira and Gautam Buddha were contemporaries. From your talks it becomes clear that the two were saying the same thing. Yet their disciples would argue and quarrel among themselves. After they were gone, there was even violence and war among their followers. But if Mahavira and Buddha had said that we are speaking of the same religion and the only difference is in method, then such hostility would not have grown and the harm that befell both religions would not have occurred. Kindly explain. Amrit Bodhidharma has asked:

If someone is enchanted by the design of the mosque, by its minarets, let him go to the mosque. But this has nothing to do with religion; it has to do with architecture, with aesthetic sense. You build your house one way, I build mine another—this creates no quarrel. I build my God’s house one way, you build yours another—why should that create quarrel? I build mine round, you build yours square—there is no quarrel. The purpose of a house is one: that I will live in this round house, you will live in that square one. We build houses to live in. There must be that much freedom—that whoever wishes should build as he likes; in old style or new; ancient design or an invented one; with a high roof or low; with a garden or without; with plants or with sand—a matter of taste! We do not quarrel…

Osho, I want to walk in your footsteps. I seek your blessing.

Your hem is many-colored; each hue carries a fresh fragrance. The hope in my heart is old; the thirst upon your body is new. Be the butterfly of the garden, swinging from flower to flower, deepening love with each bud, forgetting the griefs of each season. One and the same enchantment holds you—be it monsoon or mustard bloom. Your youth is a riddle; your longing is newly fresh. Your hem is many-colored; each hue carries a fresh fragrance. In face and form you flaunt a frank, playful charm; beauty poised upon every limb. Alongside it, the sheen of unseen dreams waves. At every turn of life your longing weaves a new romance. Your hem is many-colored; each hue carries a fresh fragrance. You tire of one flight, yet weigh yourself again and again; one gait does not please you—you sway at every step. Even so, my foolish heart sings only…

What is wrong, in imitating the great ideals taught down the centuries?

It is not a question of great ideals or petty ideals, it is a question of imitating. What you imitate is immaterial; the important thing is that you imitate. If you imitate you become a carbon copy. If you imitate you have betrayed your authentic being. If you imitate you are no more your being, you are no more your soul, you are no more yourself. You have committed suicide -- and this suicide is far more suicidal than when you destroy your physical body. This is destroying your very psychology. Imitation means you will not live according to your own spontaneity, you will live according to somebody else as your image; you will follow somebody else's character, behavior, way of life. You will have to impose. What will you do if you want to follow Christ; if you want to imitate Christ, what will you do? You will act…