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If they recognize me, then I will not be of much worth. They don’t recognize me because I have something important to deliver to you.

The recognition is not possible; it has never been possible. Christ was not recognized by the Jews, Buddha was not recognized by the Hindus – how can they recognize me? Recognition comes from the past, and I am herenow.

Recognition means that I should behave in a pattern that they recognize. If I walk naked, then Digamber Jainas will recognize me because they have the idea that an enlightened person walks naked. They cannot recognize me with clothes on – those clothes are a barrier. Buddhists will recognize me only if I look like Buddha. I don’t look like Buddha and I am not sorry that I don’t. I am happy that I look only like me and I don’t look like anybody else.

If you look like somebody else, you are a carbon copy. Carbon copies can be recognized because they tally with some original. I cannot be recognized because I myself am an original; it does not tally with anybody. The Christian will come and he will start thinking in terms of Christ. He will start looking for Christ in me and he will not find him. That is obvious. The Buddhist starts looking for the Buddha and he cannot find him.

Because I am me – and the recognition of me, if you are searching for it in some past pattern, structure, is impossible. You can recognize me only as me. To see me as me, you will need to become unprejudiced. To be a Hindu is to be prejudiced. To be an Indian is to be prejudiced.

So you ask: “India is such a sacred country…”

First, never be befooled by such slogans. No country is sacred, no country has ever been sacred. It is only rarely that one individual in millions becomes sacred – countries are not sacred. Just because Buddha was in India, has India become sacred? Does that mean because Albert Einstein was born in Germany, Germany has become mathematical? Does that mean that if some country has produced a great painter, the country has become artistic?

It does not mean anything. No country can be artistic because it has given birth to a Picasso, and no country can be a musical country because a Wagner or a Mozart was born there. No country can be sacred because a Buddha or a Mahavira was born there. Jesus was not born in India. Mohammed was not born in India. Zarathustra was not born in India. Lao Tzu was not born in India. Sacred people have been coming to the world in different places.

Places have nothing to do with it – places are just places. Buddha was born in India, but only one in a million. And what about the million fools? If you judge by numbers, then every country is a foolish country because it produces millions of fools and rarely a buddha.

No country is sacred. No geography is sacred. No history is sacred. That quality of sacredness happens only to individuals, because a country has no soul to become holy. A country has no individuality, only individuals have souls. Meditation happens in a soul, not in a country. Meditation happens in an individuality, not in a collectivity, not in a society.

Remember it. Although every country tries to prove itself the best in some way or other, it is part of the game of the ego. Every country thinks: “I am incomparable.” You can go to any country and every country thinks deep inside that it is higher than others, holier than others, more moral than others, this and that. This is part of our egoistic mind which is being projected in the name of the country – sometimes in the name of religion.

Every religion thinks, “This is the highest religion there is – my religion. My religion has to be the highest because it is my religion. I am the greatest person in the world – how can it be otherwise?”

I have heard about a professor of philosophy who was head of the department of philosophy at the University of Paris. One day he declared: “I am the greatest man in the world.”

His disciples, his students, were a little puzzled because he was a poor professor. First, he was a professor, and a professor of philosophy – the poorest. They could not believe it, but they had always thought that he was a little eccentric, otherwise why should one go and study philosophy? He was a little crazy, but that day they thought he had gone completely out of his mind. What was he saying – that he was the greatest man in the world?

One student, just jokingly, stood up and said, “Sir, can you prove it? We need proof and we can expect proof from a man like you – a logician, a professor. Have you got any proof for your statement?”

The professor said, “Yes, I have brought it.” He had brought a map of the world. He fixed the map of the world on the blackboard. They could not understand what he was going to do with the map. By and by they came to understand.
First he said, “I will ask one question: which is the greatest country in the world?”
They were all French, so naturally they said, “France.”

He said, “So now, the whole world can be dropped; we can concentrate on France. If I can prove that I am the greatest Frenchman, I will be proving that I am the greatest man in the world.”

Still they were not certain what he was going to do.

Then he asked, “Which is the greatest city in France?” Naturally, it is Paris, they were all Parisians. Now they started suspecting that there was something in it.
He said, “Paris! I am the greatest man in Paris. If I can prove this, then my first statement will be proved.” Then he asked, “Which is the greatest place in the city of Paris?”

Naturally, it is the university – the seat of learning, the seat of wisdom, knowledge. Now it was clear to everybody that they were trapped.
He asked, “Which is the greatest department and the greatest subject in the university? It is philosophy. You are all students of philosophy, so naturally it is philosophy.” He asked, “Who is head of the department of philosophy? – I am the greatest man in the world.”

That’s how we go on vicariously, indirectly, proving that we are the greatest. So our country is the most sacred, our country is the bravest, our country is the most intelligent, our country is the most aesthetic, and all kind of things are being claimed. Everybody else is a barbarian, uncivilized. Everybody else is the link between monkey and man. We are men and everybody else is a link.

It is not only Adolf Hitler’s logic, it is the logic of everybody. Unless this logic is thrown to the dogs, Adolf Hitlers will go on coming. They use this logic. They say that our race is the Nordic race, the Aryans, the purest blood… These statements are all nonsense.

What do you mean by pure blood? Everybody’s blood is pure – unless you mix something in it, everybody’s blood is pure. What do you mean by pure blood? What do you mean by a pure race? All races have been mixing and man has grown by the races mixing together. The crossbreed is the stronger breed because it has more complexity. Growth is from the simple to the complex. What do you mean by calling a race “pure”?

But these are just egoistic ideas. It appeals, it appeals to people. It gives them great nourishment; it becomes food for their egos. No country is sacred. Yes, there have been individuals, but only few and far between – a Buddha, a Christ, a Zarathustra, a Mohammed – they can be counted on one’s fingers. These are sacred people. But they have been coming to every part and place of the world, they have been coming to every place in geography. Never be trapped by such slogans. These slogans are dangerous, poisonous.

You say: “India is such a sacred country…”
It is not, because no country is.

And you say: “…the heart of spiritualism.” All nonsense! You cannot find a more materialistic country in the world than India. But you will have to look with open eyes. You will be surprised how this idea that India is the heart of spiritualism is not allowing you to see the reality.

Another sannyasin has written, “Osho, I am freaking out that the move to Gujarat is postponed.” Why is she freaking out? – because she says: “In Pune it is so difficult to walk on the streets. People look at you with such lustful eyes. One feels embarrassed. They come on bikes and motorbikes and hit you. They will not lose an opportunity to touch a woman’s body. They are crude and ugly.”

I can understand the sannyasin’s letter to me.

You call these people: “…the heart of spiritualism”? They are the most sexually obsessed people in the world. Of course, they are against sex, but that does not make them non-sexual, that makes them sex-obsessed. Their whole mind is sex-obsessed. They are thinking of sex continuously – and they are against it.

Because they are against it, they cannot fulfill it; because they cannot fulfill it, it goes on accumulating and it drives them crazy and perverted. Now, this is ugly. If you love a woman, to hold her hand has a beauty, to caress her body has a beauty. But a woman just walking on the road and you hit her…? It is perversion! It is… Love has gone into a very poisoned and ill state of affairs. It is pathological. It is uncivilized, uncultured. But this goes on happening.

These people are against materialism. But don’t just listen to their words, watch their lives and you will find them more materialistic than anybody else. Indians are so obsessed with money; money seems to be their god. No other country worships money, but in India it is worshipped. They have a special day in the year when they worship notes and rupees – that day is coming closer – Diwali. No country in the world has ever worshipped rupees and money, yet they worship it.

This is not just symbolic, this is very indicative. They cling to money like anything. It is very difficult for them to be non-greedy, to leave a single paise is impossible. That’s why, if somebody renounces a little bit of money, he is thought to be a great man. That too is materialism.

Why? If somebody has renounced money, what is the point in it? Why should he be praised? But he is praised like anything, the whole country will talk about him. He will be thought to be a great man – he has renounced money. Money must be the greatest value. One becomes great if one renounces money. If people were really spiritual, renouncing money would just mean that somebody has renounced his mistake, that’s all.

There is nothing great in it. Somebody has found that money is valueless, so he has renounced it. But there is nothing to be praised in it; he has corrected his error. He was thinking that two and two are five, now he has come to understand that two and two are four. You don’t go declaring that he has become a buddha because now he knows two and two are four. Before, he was stupid; now he is normal. But in India, if you renounce money, it is worshipped because people know how much they are clinging to money. And you call India the heart of spiritualism?

This is what Indians have been teaching the whole world. Don’t be deceived – this is just advertising. They go on claiming all over the world that they are the heart, that they have the greatest secrets of spirituality. They go on exploiting in the name of spirituality. They can deceive people, and they can deceive only because people are no longer materialistic, particularly in the West.

Let me explain it. In the West there is material affluence. People have much more money, better houses, bigger cars, better bank balances, that is true – but people are not materialistic. They have a lot of material wealth, but that does not mean that they are materialistic. In the East, people are poor, but that does not mean that they are spiritual. Poverty has nothing to do with spirituality. In fact, you can become aware that material wealth has nothing in it only when you have it, not before.

Psychologists talk about three layers or planes of desires and needs – they call it the hierarchy of needs. The first they call physiological needs, the second psychological needs, the third spiritual needs. This idea of the hierarchy of needs is very important. The first and basic needs are physiological – food, sex, shelter. If food is not available, you cannot think of poetry.

If food is not available, you cannot think of music – a higher need. If sex is not available, you cannot think of love. Love is a higher need; it comes only when sex has become very satisfied, not before it. When you have food, the right shelter, clothes, warmth, and you are not constantly starving yourself and not constantly afraid of tomorrow – tomorrow is coming and you may again be hungry and you may not get bread and butter – then you start thinking of something else: music, poetry, literature, painting.

When sexual needs are fulfilled, love arises; it cannot arise if sexual needs are not fulfilled. In India, sexual needs are not fulfilled, that’s why people are not loving – notwithstanding what they pretend. People are not loving because their basic need is not fulfilled; they are sexually starved.

Because the need for food is not fulfilled – thousands of people die every year because of starvation, and those who are not dying are undernourished – they cannot have higher needs, they cannot think of beauty and they cannot think of the stars. They cannot see dewdrops on the grass in the morning and they cannot see the sun rising – that is not possible. The body needs to be completely satisfied. When the body is satisfied, it starts moving into new dimensions; it thinks of higher things, it dreams of higher things.

The second stage is of psychological needs: love, music, art, painting, poetry, sculpture. If your need for love is not fulfilled, prayer never arises. That is the third, the highest need. Sex fulfilled – love arises; love fulfilled – prayer arises.

When physiological needs are fulfilled, you start singing and dancing. When the need to dance is fulfilled, the need to meditate arises. When you have heard the outer music, you want to hear the inner music. When you have known the poetry that is created by words, then you want to know the poetry that is wordless, the poetry that arises in silence. Those are spiritual needs. There is no way to jump over them.

What I am talking about here is the highest need. So it is not accidental that people from the West are coming to me and the people of India go on condemning me; it is just natural. I don’t take any offense from it; it is natural, it is how it should be. I am talking of the third need – the spiritual need – and people in India are not even fulfilling their first need. There is no meeting between me and them. I am a stranger here, an outsider. They need food first, they don’t need God at all. God does not make sense.

They can’t be interested in music. How can they be interested in music? How can they see the beauty of a solitary tree standing all alone in the field? It is impossible. They are preoccupied with the needs of their bodies. So whatsoever I say is completely incomprehensible to them. They take revenge. They go on criticizing. In criticizing me, they think they have solved the problem; they are deceiving themselves. They don’t want to see the problem. They don’t want to see that a country can be spiritual only when it is settled as far as materialism is concerned.

Spirituality is a higher stage of materialism. It is the same search. First you have to seek in matter, and then you have to seek in the mind. When you don’t find it in matter, you start seeking in the mind, but matter has to be searched completely, only then can you rise to the mind. When you search in the mind and you don’t find it – and you have searched the whole realm of the mind – you start searching in the soul. That’s how it is.

Because I call a spade a spade, people don’t like it. How can they like it? If I say that India is sexually obsessed – how can they like it? They like Vivekananda because he says, “You are the greatest country in the world. You are the most spiritual country in the world. You are the source of all spirituality. You are the source of all wisdom. You are the source which is going to lead the whole world.” They feel very good. They can’t feel good with me.

With Vivekananda they feel good. Vivekananda becomes a hero because he satisfies their egos. Just because he satisfies their egos, I declare that he is not enlightened because no enlightened man will ever satisfy anybody’s ego. To satisfy anybody’s ego, is really inimical, it is poisoning him.

I say things as they are. I say it is one of the most barbarous countries – ugly, materialistic, money-oriented, sex-obsessed. I don’t deny that Buddha has been here, Mahavira has been here. They were spiritual people, but they don’t make the whole country spiritual.

If I am here – remember – some day, after a few centuries, Pune will claim that Pune is spiritual because of me. I have nothing to do with Pune and Pune has nothing to do with me. Just the same was the case with Buddha. India had nothing to do with him. He was alone and solitary, and people were criticizing him as cruelly as they are criticizing me. They have always done that.

They were throwing stones at Mahavira, they are throwing stones at me. They have always done that. Not only here, they have done that everywhere in the world. Whenever somebody brings light into the darkness, people feel offended because his presence becomes a very embarrassing phenomenon – he reminds you of your darkness, he reminds you of your ugliness.

Haven’t you heard about the woman who was against mirrors? Whenever she would come across a mirror, she would immediately throw a stone at it and break it. Why was she so very much against mirrors? This was her logic: mirrors are against me and whenever I come before a mirror, the mirror shows that I am ugly. She was ugly, but she was very much offended by the mirror because the mirror showed her as ugly. She was throwing the responsibility onto the mirror.

That has always been so. Buddha is a mirror; he reflects whatsoever you are. If you are ugly, he reflects you as ugly. If you are materialistic, he reflects you as materialistic. He simply reflects without changing, without coloring – he simply reflects that which is. Naturally people feel offended because their ugliness and all kinds of darknesses, snakes and scorpions which are moving inside their beings, are reflected. They want to throw a stone at the mirror. If the mirror is not there, they will be at ease again. Hence, they crucified Jesus and they killed Socrates. This has been their attitude everywhere and always.

You ask me: “India is such a sacred country – the heart of spiritualism. I don’t understand all the crude remarks that they write about you in magazines.”

They are very understandable. There is nothing special about them. If they didn’t write those crude remarks about me, that would not be right. Lao Tzu has said: “When I talk about Tao, there are very few who understand it. Those who understand become silent. There are many who feel offended – they become angry. And there are more of the angry people.” Lao Tzu says: “If people don’t become angry, what I am saying is not the truth.”

A mystic used to stay with me. He was a really beautiful old man, very strange, very eccentric, but always to the point. He used to deliver talks all over the country. He had something to give. Whenever people applauded, he would become very angry. He would say: “Stop! Don’t applaud because whenever you applaud, I think I must have said something wrong. If you can understand it, it must be wrong. When you don’t understand, only then is there a possibility that some truth has been said. If you become angry, then certainly some truth has been said, some stone has been thrown into your sleep and you have become disturbed. Your dreams are disturbed. You are ready to take revenge.”

Because I am saying the truth, because I am being the truth, it is very natural.

“I don’t understand all the crude remarks that they write in magazines about you.”

They should be writing more and more. The more people will be coming to me, the angrier they will become, because the more dangerous I will be to them. More and more people will be coming; they are on the way. There will be thousands, many thousands of sannyasins around here. They will become very angry because they will become afraid, more afraid that what I am saying is becoming powerful. They will try everything to destroy what I am saying. They will try in every way to destroy me.

That is natural, there is nothing unexpected in it. You have to be ready for it; you have to be ready to accept all this. You need not feel offended, this is the way they are showing their respect toward me.

When they threw stones at Buddha, they were showing their respect. That was their way of recognizing that someone dangerous was present. When they crucified Jesus, that was their respect – their way of respecting a man who had brought truth to them. When they poisoned Socrates, that was their humble homage. So this is going to happen and it is going to happen more and more. You have to accept it without any anger.

“Why is India so ignorant in recognizing you?”

Because India is very knowledgeable; India thinks it knows already. Every pan wallah, every chai wallah knows what truth is. They can quote the Gita and the Vedas, they are like parrots. India is a country of pundits, parrots. They go on repeating mechanically. If they think they know, how can they recognize me? I am saying things which go against their parrot-like knowledge. I go on saying things which are against their so-called knowledge.

I am trying to give truth new words because the old words have become rotten, because the old words have been used so long that they have lost their intensity. They have lost their life, they have become like a dirty currency note. When a note comes from the mint it is fresh, clean; when it moves through hands – from one hand to another – it starts becoming dirty. Words are also currency. Currency means they go on moving, they are like a current – from one mouth to another mouth, the word goes on moving down the centuries. It becomes very dirty. The Vedas have become dirty, so has the Bible.

I am trying to renew; I am trying to give new words to old truths, new bottles for the old wine. They cannot recognize the bottle, they don’t know anything about the wine – they have never tasted it. They only know about the old bottle. When they see the new bottle they become angry: “This can’t be the truth.” The truth has to be in the old bottle.

The old bottle is rotten, maybe broken, and the wine has flowed out. It may be just an empty bottle, and they don’t know anything about the wine, they only know about the bottle. So if I give a new bottle, they cannot recognize it. Only those who have tasted wine will recognize me, not otherwise.

You will recognize me because you are tasting with me. You are a part of the feast that I am, you are celebrating with me. The more you taste, the more you will know that what I am saying is exactly what Jesus, or Buddha, or Krishna said. But first you will have to taste me, then that recognition will come.

They are too occupied with Krishna’s words and Buddha’s words. Those words are like bottles. Those people cannot come here, they are very, very scared, frightened. Maybe they have somewhere, deep down a suspicion: “Maybe there is truth…?” And if they come close, they may be converted. That fear, that unconscious fear is there.

They go on talking against me and they don’t know anything about me. They go on writing against me and they have never come here. They never listen, they never look into my eyes, never come close. They go on circulating rumors and they feed upon each other’s rumors. It is a mutual arrangement. Somebody writes one article in a magazine, somebody else reads it, writes another – basing himself on that article. It goes on and on in this way. And of course, they have much material; they have been reflecting each other. Nobody comes to me. But that’s how they have always done it. They are afraid to come. In fact, they criticize me just to protect themselves. That criticism helps them because then they think, “Now there is no need.”

But more and more people will be coming to me. Thirsty people, seekers who have nothing to do with Christianity or Hinduism or Mohammedanism, will be coming to me. I am here only for the seekers not for the mob. What the mob says is irrelevant. I am here for those who are ready to be transformed and transfigured. I only want to be for them. I don’t want to waste a single minute on anybody else.

Those people are there around the world – many at this moment because this moment is critical in the history of man, in the history of human consciousness. A great jump! Either man dies or man becomes new – that is the only choice. The old man cannot continue. The old man has arranged his suicide; he is ready to commit global suicide.

Either the old mind wins and there will be a global suicide and humanity will disappear from the earth, or the new mind will be born – that’s what the effort here is – and humanity will take a new direction. The new man will be born. The new man will not be Indian, not be German, not be Chinese. The new man will not be Christian, not be Hindu, not be Mohammedan. The new man will not be black, will not be white. The new man will not be man, will not be woman. The new man will be a totally different kind of being, with no adjectives around him. A purity, a primal innocence. My work is to give birth to that new man.

If only a few can be transformed, they will become the heralds. Only a few seeds… If they can grow into the new man, they will create the new humanity. My whole interest is with them and in them. I want to invest my whole energy into those few people who are ready to slip out of the old skin and become new.

The Indians cannot recognize me, the Christians cannot recognize me, the Hindus cannot recognize me. To recognize me they will have to come out of their preoccupations.

Two keen football fans, up in London for a big match, decided to spend the evening at a Soho strip club. The first act was a very voluptuous blonde who went through her whole routine while the whole audience stared open-mouthed. As the curtain came down and the applause rang out, one of the two fans said, “Phooey!”

His companion was surprised, but said nothing. The second act was even more breathtaking but again, when the curtain came down, the first man said, “Phooey!”

This went on all through the show – however beautiful and exotic the girls were, after each act the first man said, “Phooey!”

Finally the second man could stand it no longer. “What’s the matter with you?” he said. “These are some of the most attractive and sexy girls I’ve ever seen – and all you can say is ‘Phooey?’” “I’m not thinking about the girls,” replied the friend. “I’m thinking about my wife!”

Now this is his preoccupation. He is not looking at those girls, he is thinking of his wife. He is not saying “Phooey!” to these girls. He is saying again and again “Phooey!” to his wife. A preoccupied mind never sees that which it is confronting, never sees that which is. It goes on comparing.

When an Indian comes, he is not listening to what I am saying, he is comparing in his head – whether it corresponds with the Vedas, whether it follows the Gita, is in harmony with this or that. He is continuously working inside his mind, comparing, judging, condemning, criticizing – and he goes on missing. He looks as if he is here, he is not. It is not only a question of Indians. Anybody who has come with a fixed mind will have the same difficulty.

Ramanandas’s old mother is here. Just the other day, somebody said that she went to mass at the church. Here, Jesus is being made alive. Here, we are living Jesus again, moving with Jesus again; here, Jesus is again not a history but a presence. But Ramanandas’s mother had to go to church, to mass, to listen to some stupid priest there. The preoccupied mind!

My Christ is not her Christ. My Christ is alien. She wants the Christ who is sold in the church, she wants the old bottle. She must have felt good there because this must be a strange world to her. These orange people – what are they doing here? There, with the same kind of people, with the same kind of mind, she must have felt good; she must have felt relaxed, at home. This is how it happens with the preoccupied mind.

The Christian visitor to Jerusalem asked his Israeli host to show him the Wailing Wall. Arriving at the sacred spot, the visitor put on his hat, stood close to the wall, and said, “Thank you, Lord, for all the blessings you have bestowed upon me during my life.” Then he turned to his Israeli friend and said, “Is that nice?”

“That’s nice,” said the Israeli smiling.

The Christian then turned back to the wall and said, “Please, Lord, keep my family and friends in health and prosperity. Is that nice?”

“That’s nice.”

“And persuade the Israelis to see the error of their ways and to hand back to the Arab nations the land taken from them in the recent conflicts, so that there may be peace in the Middle East. Is that nice?”

The Israeli said, “You’re talking to a wall.”