Media

Beloved Osho, why do indian journalists only record and publish your critiques of india? I never remember reading about your beautiful discourses on the real india.

The reason is simple: there is no such thing as free Indian journalism. Either the government is keeping a hold on the latest news media, television, radio, directly... and particularly in a country like India, where most of the people cannot read -- but they can see, they can hear. So the government is being really cunning in keeping the radio and television in their own hands to approach eighty percent of India and just fill those minds with their own ideas. Only the newspapers are there. They look free, but they are not. The government has indirectly curtailed their freedom as much as possible. Any newspaper that goes against the directions given to it has its quota for newsprint cut. Newsprint paper is not available on the market, it is in the government's hands. Now, this is a subtle strategy; "You write what we want; otherwise you don't have…

Although many journalists are very touched after meeting with you, the reports that actually appear rarely reflect this and sometimes are even negative. Can a journalist be authentic?

It is difficult for poor journalists to be authentic. They are really touched; I can see their faces, I have seen even tears of joy in their eyes. But when their reports come, they are negative. It has nothing to do with the interview that they have done with me; what they have written they could have written without the interview. They are talking about the gossip going around, about the archbishop preparing for a protest, that people are afraid that if I remain here then I will destroy their old tradition and I will corrupt their youth -- just the old charges which they had against Socrates, corruption of the youth. But in my heart I know this is not the journalist; this is just a poor human being serving under chief editors, owners, and following their dictates. They send him here not to report exactly what I am…

Osho, are all the journalists blind? Can't they see the truth? Why are they continuously spreading lies about you?

A journalist is taught by his profession to always remain at a distance: "Look from the outside." And from the outside you can never know how things are. A pretty young woman was traveling in a train across Texas. A dapper looking man walked up to her and whispered something in her ear, whereupon she gave him a stinging slap in the face. A tall Texan seated across the aisle stood up and asked her, "Is this man molesting you, Ma'am?" "He certainly is," she replied. "He just offered me ten dollars if I would go with him to his sleeping compartment." Without hesitation, the Texan pulled out his pistol and shot the man. "Good God!" cried the woman. "That's no reason to kill him!" "I will kill any man," replied the Texan, "who tries to raise the prices in Texas." If you had looked only from the outside you…

In that way Western journalism has come of age. A... if you are against there is no problem, you write against. But sincerely you are against and sincerely you write against. And if you are for, then sincerely you write for. But this kind of thing that happens in India is very strange. They show one face to me and they show another face in their article. THAT'S CORRECT, SIR. BUT INDIA TODAY ARTICLE YOU KNOW... IT WAS BALANCED, BUT SOME WAY CERTAINLY IT WAS AGAINST (INAUDIBLE) A: Yes. Somehow they will make something sarcastic, something they will leave, something they will add. And it makes immense difference, just a sentence left and the whole meaning changes. But their whole effort is somehow to be in the market a sensation. The whole Indian journalism is living on sensationalism. It has not yet become a category of literature.