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Osho, to rise above mental afflictions like lust, anger, greed and attachment, and states like ego and stupefaction, the Buddha, Mahavira, and all Indian saints have prescribed only practices such as meditation-awakening, devotional singing and chanting, and satsang. But why are you—on what basis—adding new means like therapy-groups (group psychotherapy) along with other methods for Indian friends? Kindly explain.

I have no desire for your respect or your applause. I am not here to reproduce any enlightened one. I will live in my own way. I will say what is mine to say. So drop these expectations. Don’t keep throwing names like Buddha, Mahavira, and the rishis and munis at me; you bore me with them. Let them be. If you meet them somewhere, ask them why they don’t conduct group psychotherapy! I will live in my own way. I am a category unto myself. I am not a repetition of anyone, nor do I have any taste for that. Time is changing. It changes every day. What was needed then, the Buddha would have done. What is needed today, I will do. That need did not exist then. People were simple, straightforward, rural. Understand a little. If a woodcutter who chops wood daily comes here, I will not…

OSHO (TO PRITO): One has to be two things: at the center, bliss, at the circumference, love; inside, bliss, outside, love. Love is the outside of bliss; bliss is the inside of love. Hence bliss can happen when you are alone, but love needs sharing, love needs togetherness. The whole past history of humanity is the history of a long failure, an exercise in utter futility, and this has been the reason, because we tried to do the impossible. Either we wanted to save the outside, so people tried to be loving.... But how can you be loving if you are not blissful? And how can you be unloving if you are blissful? They both happen simultaneously. And that's my effort: to introduce both together to my sannyasins. So in meditation be alone and enjoy your aloneness, but don't become shut up within yourself.

[A sannyasin says: I'm not sure which direction to take -- whether to go out more to people or to go inside myself more. I'm not sure which is best for my growth. Osho checks his energy.] Good, come back. The energy is really good. You have to do both. Choosing won't be good. These are not alternatives -- whether one should go out, meet, mix with people, or should go in. Both are needed together. If you move towards one, you will become lopsided. So sometimes go out, mix with people, forget yourself. Then really go out. And make it part of meditation that going out is good. Balance is needed; choice is not needed. All choice is wrong, because these are are not alternatives; they are complementaries. Together they make the whole, and together they make you holy and healthy. Together they will heal you.

Osho, how should life be lived, and what is its purpose?

Enter life—stay awake and experiment; try waking and observe; try sleeping and observe; try eating; try lying and truth-telling; try anger and forgiveness; try love and enmity—taste all. In all of it, wherever depth increases, where peace increases, where joy increases, where a glimpse of the divine comes—recognize that as the rule forming for your life. And do not make even that rule so rigid that there is no possibility of change tomorrow. No one knows what life will bring tomorrow. The straight path may suddenly need a turn. What was pleasurable may become painful. Keep an opening for tomorrow. Hence the second thing: discover life’s rules from within. And also: do not consider your discovered rule absolute. Do not regard it as perfect. It must have the flexibility to change tomorrow. Life flowers fully only in one who can change each moment. But we are “consistent” people. We insist:…