Lifestyle

Question: The final question: Osho, do you also drink alcohol? And there is nothing else truly worth drinking. For years I haven’t drunk water—that much I can assure you; for ten years at least I haven’t touched it. I drink soda and wine. Soda on the outside, wine on the inside. I believe in balance—a little of the outer, a little of the inner. There is a wine that has never been distilled; toward it no one has ever been able to gaze. There is an elixir like that. I drink this undistilled wine. I live on this unseen elixir! And I want to make you drunkards too. Bhakti means wine. Shandilya means a drunkard. The devotee’s temple is a tavern—intoxication, sweetness, mellowness. Drink the Divine; then no other wine will remain worth drinking.

Beloved Osho, do you feel that the hippie way of life -- a life of nonachieving, all play and no work, living for the moment, wandering about instead of remaining in one place -- is better for a spiritual seeker than the usual life of marriage, family and career?

The first thing: the hippie is not the alternative, he is a by-product. He has always existed in different forms. But remember, he depends on the established society. He is not an alternative, he's just a shadow, a by-product of the society. He can go on moving, wandering, because many are established. If everybody is wandering nobody can be a hippie. A wandering monk, a wandering hippie, needs a society which is established, otherwise where is he going to wander? And he can afford play because others are working. This is new in the West, because the West has become for the first time affluent. It is one of the ancient traditions in India. Right now five million sannyasins exist in India, wandering. They have been always there. They don't stay in one place, they don't work -- they simply exist. They beg, the society supports them. But they can…

Osho, please don’t talk about wine, for heaven’s sake. Can’t you find some other metaphor for devotion to God?

Islam says streams of wine flow in heaven. One should ask: what will you do with those streams? Here you teach people, “Do not drink; those who drink will go to hell; they will not reach paradise.” The arithmetic seems clear: those who do not drink here, who have renounced life’s colors, who are not householders—dispassionate, dreary souls—will go to heaven. But what will they do there with streams of wine—those who have never drunk? O preacher, you do not drink, nor can you make anyone drink— what is the point of your pure wine? These lines are significant. They mean that if you ever want to enter the life of God, do not enter in gloom. In this life, wherever, however, in whatever measure—even if fleeting—taste the joys that arise. In that taste, feel also the taste of God. It is a drop, true—but even the drop is of…

I had heard that wine is bitter and burns the breast, but the taste of your wine is something else.

I say unto you, enjoy life with the witnessing consciousness. But you want to drop the witness. You catch only 'enjoy'. Enjoy life but if you enjoy it without remaining the witness, you didn't enjoy it. Real enjoyment is only when you remain a witness. Drink wine but if consciousness is lost you didn't drink it. You have drunk real wine only if consciousness grows as you drink. There is no other wine than samadhi. As I see it, the attraction for alcohol will continue in man until the attraction for samadhi grows. People will go on drinking fake wine until real wine is available to them. False coins will pass until the real coin is available. Governments throughout the world try to stop the consumption of wine, but it doesn't happen. They have always been trying to do it. Religious people have been advising governments to enact prohibition. They…