Rebel

Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHAT ARE THE QUALITIES OF A REBEL? A rebel simply lives his life in the moment, with awareness, with no desire to dominate, either while he is living or when he is dead. He does not have any lust for power. He is a scientist of the soul -- that is the fourth dimension. Just as science uses doubt, skepticism, inquiry, he uses the same methods for his inner search. Science uses them for objective reality, he uses them for his subjectivity. But he does not condemn doubt, he does not condemn skepticism, he does not condemn disobedience, he does not condemn a nonbelieving approach to reality. He enters within his own being with a scientific mind. His religion is not superstitious -- it is scientific.

Question: BELOVED MASTER, DOES THE REBEL BELONG TO ANY CATEGORY? Maneesha, the rebel by his very nature cannot belong to any existent categories; he is a new category. He introduces a new man into the world. He is a herald of a new dawn, a new beginning. No category of the past can contain him; all the categories that have existed up to now have proved either failures, or insufficient to change the whole of humanity. The rebel is the seed for the transformation of all. There have been great people in the world, but even the greatest of them are very small in comparison to the authentic rebel I am talking about, because they all, in some way or other, compromise with the establishment. And that's where the rebel differs from them all.

Beloved master, doesn't the word `rebel' imply fighting against something? The word itself comes from latin, rebellare, fighting back. When you speak on the rebel, you speak of it in a positive sense. Are you changing the meaning of the word?

Rabia Prabhudasi, I am not changing the meaning of the word; I am making it complete. The meaning that has been given to it is only half... just the negative meaning; and no negative can be without a positive. It is true, the word `rebel' comes from Latin, rebellare, fighting back. But that is only half of the meaning; the other half has been missing for centuries, from the very beginning. Nobody has bothered to complete the whole meaning of the word. Fighting against is only the beginning part. But fighting for what? And it is not only with the word `rebel', it is with many words. `Freedom' has only a negative nuance in people's minds -- freedom from. But nobody asks about freedom for. Freedom from is an essential part, but only a negative part. Unless you have a positive goal, your freedom from is meaningless. You should also…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS YOUR NOTION OF REBELLION AND OF A REBEL? Giulia, my notion about the rebel and rebellion is very simple: a man who does not live like a robot conditioned by the past. Religion, society, culture... anything that is of yesterday does not in any way interfere in his way of life, in his style of life. He lives individually -- not as a cog in the wheel, but as an organic unity. His life is not decided by anybody else, but by his own intelligence. The very fragrance of his life is that of freedom -- not only that he lives in freedom, he allows everybody else also to live in freedom. He does not allow anybody to interfere in his life; neither does he interfere in anybody else's life.