Legacy

Osho, seeing your health makes me very anxious. You have poured your soul out trying to make the world understand, yet instead of changing, people want to erase you. Why are you working so hard?

A small incident comes to mind. Among the Jews there arose the Hasidic mystics. The mystic who gave birth to the Hasidic tradition—the Baal Shem—wrote his first book and sent it as a gift, by the hand of his disciple, to the greatest rabbi of the Jews, their chief priest. He told the disciple: Take this book. Give it into the chief rabbi’s own hands, no one else’s. I am sending you because I want to know his response—what he says, what expression appears on his face. Notice everything. You must return and tell me, detail by detail, without missing a thing. And I am sending you because you are my most alert disciple. Hasidism is a revolutionary tradition. The Jewish rabbis stand for old, decayed, dead conventions. To be a Hasid one must pass through revolution; to be a Jew it is enough to be born in a Jewish…

Beloved Osho, you have just been saying that the words of the master become mere words after the master is gone. What will happen after you are gone?

For a simple reason I have been able to contact millions of people around the world: I am not confined to any tradition. I am not burdened by the past, I am completely weightless. So anybody who is burdened -- and who is not burdened? -- becomes interested in me, particularly the young people who are fed up with all the nonsense that is being taught in the churches and the synagogues, in the temples, in the mosques. All these people, these churches, synagogues and mosques, are trying to bridge the gap. You have heard the phrase "generation gap." Between you and the church, between you and the synagogue, there is not just a generation gap, there is a gap of hundreds of generations. And in trying to bridge it, they are proving themselves buffoons, because truth never compromises. It cannot -- with whom will it compromise? Compromising truth means…

Osho, every day you speak of nectar, and yet this world keeps returning poison to you. Do you ever feel: to which blind ones am I showing light, and to which deaf ones am I offering ambrosial words?

And remember one more thing: those who abuse and fling poison—this much is certain: they have a relationship with me. They think of me, they brood about me. A connection has been made. Enmity too is a bond—just as friendship is. One remembers the friend, one remembers the enemy. If they have taken me as their enemy, they have made a little room for me in their heart. From there the work will begin. That little space is enough: give me a foothold, and slowly—if the toe finds a hold, the whole hand will gain a hold. And those who are filled with hatred can, at any moment, be filled with love—because hatred and love are two faces of the same coin. In truth, they are angry precisely because they fear that if they are not angry, they may agree with me. So let me repeat: you are angry only…

Osho, you are speaking out of such compassion! The people of this country don’t understand it and get angry. Can you not accomplish your work without taking so much risk? You are softer than a flower. We have fallen in love with you. You are the very foundation of our lives. I am afraid.

There is not the slightest need for fear. Because what is, cannot be destroyed; and what is not, will inevitably pass. Man is the sum of both—the mortal and the immortal. The mortal will go, sooner or later, this way or that. The mortal has to take leave, so there is no reason for fear there. And the immortal is forever; there too there is no reason for fear. Be fearless! Do not cling to what must wither. Do not get too attached to my flower. Recognize my fragrance; that will not fade. You say: “You are speaking out of such compassion! People of this country don’t understand it, they become angry.” This is the eternal way. This has always been people’s manner. Neither their ways are new, nor my love is new. Neither their defeat is new, nor my victory is new. It has always been so. They are…