Influence

Osho, if one no longer remains connected with the medium, will its influence gradually wane and finally disappear?

It will certainly lessen. All influences are destined to wane. In fact, the very meaning of influence is that whatever has come from the outside will fade. What has arisen from within will not fade; it is your own. Influences are bound to diminish—they do diminish; but what comes from within you does not. Even when something comes in the wake of influence, once it has arisen within you, it does not lessen; it remains. Your fundamental wealth does not diminish; influence does. In the evolutionary process, going back is impossible.

Osho, Gautam Buddha, too, spoke for years, yet today in India his followers are almost negligible. Will the impact of your discourses also be popular only abroad, and not in this country? Why is it that Indians have not been influenced by your talks so far?

This India has been living in superstitions for ages. It has long ceased to seek truth. I will call; I will give the voice—I am giving it; but only those will hear who are willing to listen. Do at least this much: keep the door open. At least you listen, Jagannath Mahto! Forget worrying about others. For you have other questions too. From them it is evident that you are not hearing either. Those other questions prove that this question you have asked concerns you yourself; you have merely taken the name of “Indians.” A heart, by the severity of pain, bloodied and torn, Roams this city—a wild, wandering one. Is he a poet, or a lover, A yogi, or a wayfaring gypsy? Keep the door open! A cloud rises from the chest, and from the eyes a shower falls; Not the spring cloud that rains for four brief hours;…

Osho, just seeing sadhus and saints makes me bristle, even angry. I see nothing in them but hypocrisy. But with you—God knows what you’ve done—reverence wells up! What is the secret of your influence?

Buddha asked, “What are you doing?” They said, “This is not killing; not violence. The souls of these animals will go to heaven.” Buddha joked, “Then why not kill your parents? Send them to heaven. The door is open—why send animals? Send your parents, your wife, your children. Send everyone—and then go yourself! But don’t send these animals. They don’t want to go—they’re writhing, they want to run. They are pleading for mercy. They cannot speak—look into their eyes, they are beseeching. They are bleating: ‘Let us go.’ They don’t want heaven—and you are sending them. The yajman who is funding this sacrifice wants heaven—send him!” Clever folks have always been around. Tricks kept running; we kept bearing them. Sin and merit are difficult to determine. On one side are people along the Amazon who eat humans—and it is no sin to them. On the other side are the Quakers…

Osho, India is a land whose very life-breath is religion. One proof is that even the most insignificant gurus here do not keep their number of disciples below a hundred thousand. But it is surprising that a guru as radiant as the sun, like you, has so few Indian disciples. Kindly shed some light on this.

Ramanand Agnihotri! No country has religion as its life-breath! Not India, not China, not Japan, not Iran, not Pakistan—no country. Countries cannot be religion-breathed. Countries are political units; what could they possibly have to do with being religion-breathed! Do countries have any prana—any life-breath at all? If there is no life-breath, how will there be religion-breath? Individuals are religious, not countries. Not castes, not communities, not organizations—only individuals. That is the dignity of the individual. Did it never occur to you that first there must be life-breath? At the very least, there should be life—religious or irreligious—but life. Do countries have any life-breath? These are political fictions, political tricks. Just a while back, before 1947, Pakistan was India; now it is not. What will you say? Is Pakistan now religion-breathed or not? Before 1947 it was; now? Now it is not. Bangladesh earlier was religion-breathed because it was part of…