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Rajneesh
62 quotes
“One has to reach to the absolute state of awareness: that is Zen. You cannot do it every morning for a few minutes or for half an hour and then forget all about it. It has to become like your heartbeat. You have to sit in it, you have to walk in it. Yes, you have even to sleep in it.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen (1982)
“I am the rich man's guru.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Last Testament : Interviews with the World Press (1986)
“I have never been a celibate. If people believe so, that is their foolishness. I have always loved women — and perhaps more women than anybody else. You can see my beard: it has become grey so quickly because I have lived so intensely that I have compressed almost two hundred years into fifty.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Last Testament : Interviews with the World Press (1986)
“It is not decided by votes what is true; otherwise we could never come to any truth, ever. People will vote for what is comfortable — and lies are very comfortable because you don't have to do anything about them, you just have to believe. Truth needs great effort, discovery, risk, and it needs you to walk alone on a path that nobody has traveled before.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Your Answers Questioned (2003)
“Whenever I meet prostitutes, they never speak of sex. They inquire about the soul, and about God. I also meet many ascetics and monks, and whenever we are alone they ask about nothing but sex. I was surprised to learn that ascetics, who are always preaching against sex, seem to be captivated by it. They are curious about it and disturbed by it; they have this mental complex about it, yet they sermonize about religion and about the animal instincts in man. And sex is so natural.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not a man of etiquette, I don't know manners. I simply call a spade a fucking spade, because that's what it is.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any mundane activity can become meditative. Digging a hole in the garden, planting new roses in the garden — you can do it with such tremendous love and compassion, you can do it with the hands of a buddha. There is no contradiction … I say unto you, your every act should be a ceremony. If you can bring your consciousness, your awareness, your intelligence to the act, if you can be spontaneous, then there is no need for any other religion: life itself will be the religion.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be realistic: Plan for a miracle.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My whole teaching consists of two words, meditation and love. Meditate so that you can feel immense silence, and love so that your life can become a song, a dance, a celebration. You will have to move between the two, and if you can move easily, if you can move without any effort, you have learned the greatest thing in life.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ecstasy is our very nature, not to be ecstatic is simply unnecessary. To be ecstatic is natural, spontaneous. It needs no effort to be ecstatic, it needs great effort to be miserable. That's why you look so tired, because misery is real hard work; to maintain it is really difficult, because you are doing something against the nature. You are going upstream — that's what misery is.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Remain in wonder if you want mysteries to open up for you. Mysteries never open up for those who go on questioning. Questioners sooner or later end up in a library. They end up with scriptures, because scriptures are full of answers. And answers are dangerous, they kill your wonder.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All the Buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact: Be — don't try to become. Within these two words — being and becoming, your whole life is contained. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The longer a person has been dead the greater is the tradition … If Buddha is alive you can barely tolerate him. … You cannot believe this man has known the ultimate because he looks just like you … Hungry he needs food, sleepy he wants a bed, ill, he has to rest — just like you … That is why Jesus is worshipped now and yet he was crucified when he was alive. Alive, you crucify him; dead, you worship him.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You say that in heaven there is eternal beauty. The eternal beauty is here and now, not in heaven.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I am gone I hope there may still be courageous people in the world to criticize me, so that I don't become a hindrance on anybody's path. And those who will criticize me will not be my enemies; neither am I the enemy of those whom I have criticized. The working of the enlightened masters just has to be understood.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You must have heard about the beautiful Sufi legend of Majnu and Laila. It is not an ordinary love story. The word majnu means mad, mad for God. And laila is the symbol of God. Sufis think of God as the beloved; laila means the beloved. Everybody is a Majnu, and God is the beloved. And one has to open one’s heart, the eye of the heart.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have withdrawn the red dress, the mala, because thousands of people wanted to be sannyasins but just because of the clothes and the mala they felt difficulties in the world — their job, their family, their wife, their parents, their friends — and it was too much of a trouble. I have withdrawn everything. Now whatsoever remains is something inner which neither the wife can detect nor the father nor the job nor the friends.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nature has come to a point where now, unless you take individual responsibility, you cannot grow. More than this nature cannot do. It has done enough. It has given you life, it has given you opportunity; now how to use it, it has left up to you. Meditation is your freedom, not a biological necessity. You can learn in a certain period of time every day to strengthen meditation, to make it stronger — but carry the flavor of it the whole day.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you really want to know who I am, you have to be as absolutely empty as I am. Then two mirrors will be facing each other, and only emptiness will be mirrored. Infinite emptiness will be mirrored: two mirrors facing each other. But if you have some idea, then you will see your own idea in me.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Come Follow To You, Vol. 2, Chapter 4; in Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic (2000), Part 2.
“Democracy basically means government by the people, of the people, for the people; but the people are retarded. So let us say government by the retarded, for the retarded, of the retarded.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Is Democracy the Best Way of Government? (1981) YouTube video of the lecture
“The first thing to be understood about a man like Jesus is that whatsoever the church that is bound to grow around such a man says about him, it is bound to be wrong. What the Christian church says about Christ cannot be true. In fact the Christian priest does not represent Christ at all. He is the same old rabbi in new garments, the same old rabbi who was responsible for Jesus murder.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jesus is a rebel, just as Buddha or Lao Tzu is. When the church starts establishing itself it starts destroying the rebelliousness of Jesus, Buddha, because rebellion cannot go with an establishment.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Christian priest is not interested in God: he is interested in creating a business. He has to claim that Jesus is the only way, that all other ways are wrong. He is in search of customers.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Near about twelve my eyes suddenly opened — I had not opened them. The sleep was broken by something else. I felt a great presence around me in the room. It was a very small room. I felt a throbbing life all around me, a great vibration — almost like a hurricane, a great storm of light, joy, ecstasy. I was drowning in it. It was so tremendously real that everything became unreal. The walls of the room became unreal, the house became unreal, my own body became unreal. Everything was unreal because now there was for the first time reality.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The whole day was strange, stunning, and it was a shattering experience. The past was disappearing, as if it had never belonged to me, as if I had read about it somewhere, as if I had dreamed about it, as if it was somebody else's story I have heard and somebody told it to me. I was becoming loose from my past, I was being uprooted from my history, I was losing my autobiography. I was becoming a non-being, what Buddha calls anatta. Boundaries were disappearing, distinctions were disappearing.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don't say this is good and that is bad. Drop all discrimination. Accept everything as it is.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Liberation cannot be desired because desire is the bondage. When you are desireless, you are liberated.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tantra accepts everything, lives everything. That's why tantra never could become a very accepted ideology. It always remained a fringe ideology.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tantra is a great yea-sayer; it says yes to everything.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tantra says there is nobody above you whom you have to follow, through whom you have to get your pattern.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ordinary society is like a paperweight on you: it won't allow you to fly.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The tantra masters are simply wild flowers, they have everything in them.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you are no more, only then for the first time will you be.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Find moments when you are not, and those will be the moments when you will be for the first time...really. So I am the white cloud, and the whole effort is to make you also white clouds drifting in the sky. Nowhere to go, coming from nowhere, just being there this very moment — perfect. I don't teach you any ideals, I don't teach you any oughts. I don't say to you be this, become that. My whole teaching is simply this: Whatsoever you are, accept it so totally that nothing is left to be achieved, and you will become a white cloud.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Look for the mysterious in life. Wherever you look — in the white clouds, in the stars in the night, in the flowers, in a flowing river — wherever you look, look for the mystery. And whenever you find that a mystery is there, meditate on it. Meditation means: dissolve yourself before that mystery, annihilate yourself before that mystery, disperse yourself before that mystery. Be no more, and let the mystery be so total that you are absorbed in it. And suddenly a new door opens, a new perception is achieved.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only a ripe fruit falls to the ground. Ripeness is all. An unripe ego cannot be thrown, cannot be destroyed. And if you struggle with an unripe ego to destroy and dissolve it, the whole effort is going to be a failure. Rather than destroying it, you will find it more strengthened in new subtle ways. This is something basic to be understood: the ego must come to a peak, it must be strong, it must have attained an integrity — only then can you dissolve it. A weak ego cannot be dissolved.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man has nothing else to do but surrender — in deep trust, in deep love. Don’t be a doer, just surrender. Let there be a let-go.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Art of Dying (osho.com; retrieved August 2012), Chapter 6, 14.
“And my grandparents became very aware of one thing—that I enjoyed my aloneness. They had seen that I had no desire to go to the village to meet anybody, or to talk with anybody. Even if they wanted to talk, my answers were yes or no; I was not interested in talking either. They became aware of one thing—that I enjoyed my aloneness and it was their sacred duty not to disturb me.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you believe in any religion you cannot meditate. Religion is an interference in your meditation. Meditation needs no God, no heaven, no hell, no fear of punishment, and no allurement of pleasure.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The so-called mahatmas and saints are all cowards. I have never come across a single mahatma—Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Buddhist—who can be said to be really a rebellious spirit. Unless one is rebellious, one is not religious. Rebellion is the very foundation of religion.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My grandfather ... had raised me with absolute freedom, no inhibitions, no suppressions, and no commandments.Love with freedom—if you have it, you are a king or a queen. That is the real kingdom of God—love with freedom. Love gives you the roots into the earth, and freedom gives you the wings.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘Only a whole person can be a holy person.’ (p. 19)”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People may understand today or tomorrow or day after tomorrow— that doesn’t matter—but one day they will understand it. One thing I can say that, whatever I am saying is going to be the future philosophy, the future religion, of the whole humanity. (p. 22).”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(I am) one man against the whole history of humanity. People have always misunderstood me -- perhaps that is my destiny.’) - Joshi, Vasant. Osho, The Luminous Rebel (p. 10). Wisdom Tree.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘I am the beginning of a totally new religious consciousness, please don’t connect me with past; it is not even worth remembering.’ - Joshi, Vasant. Osho, The Luminous Rebel (p. 17).”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have not come to teach, I have come tto awaken. - Joshi, Vasant. Osho, The Luminous Rebel (p. 17).”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘I teach utter rebellion. I am not here to compromise. I have decided to be utterly honest and truthful whatsoever the cost.’ - Joshi, Vasant. Osho, The Luminous Rebel (p. 17).”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘This is true. Seven hundred years ago, in my previous life, there was a spiritual practice of twenty-one days, to be done before death. I was to give up my body after a total fast of twenty-one days, but I could not complete those twenty-one days…When only three days remained in that life, I was killed…and those three days were omitted. In this life, those three days were completed (by taking milk only on the fourth day).’ Joshi, Vasant. Osho, The Luminous Rebel (p. 33).”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘That killing became valuable. At the time of death, those three days were left. After all my strenuous efforts for enlightenment during that life, I was able to achieve in this life, after a period of twenty-one years, that which would have been possible to achieve during those three days. For each of those three days in that life, I had to spend seven years in this life.’ Joshi, Vasant. Osho, The Luminous Rebel (pp. 33-34).”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would like that what I am doing is not lost. So I am trying in every possible way to drop all those things which in the past have been barriers for the revolution to continue and grow. I don't want anybody to stand between the individual and existence. No prayer, no priest... you alone are enough to face the sunrise, you don't need somebody to interpret for you what a beautiful sunrise it is... And this is my attitude: you are here, every individual is here, the whole existence is available. All that you need is just to be silent and listen to existence. There is no need of any religion, there is no need of any God, there is no need of any priesthood, there is no need of any organization. I trust in the individual categorically. Nobody up to now has trusted in the individual in such a way.”
Rajneesh (1931–1990) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Last Testament : Interviews with the World Press (1986)