All Quotes

"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."

"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."

"Just before twenty-first March, 1953, seven days before, I stopped working on myself. A moment comes when you see the whole futility of effort. You have done all that you can do and nothing is happening. You have done all that is humanly possible. Then what else can you do? In sheer helplessness one drops all search. And the day the search stopped, the day I was not seeking for something, the day I was not expecting something to happen, it started happening. A new energy arose — out of nowhere. It was not coming from any source. It was coming from nowhere and everywhere. It was in the trees and in the rocks and the sky and the sun and the air — it was everywhere. And I was seeking so hard, and I was thinking it is very far away. And it was so near and so close."

"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."

"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."

"Don't say this is good and that is bad. Drop all discrimination. Accept everything as it is."

"Liberation cannot be desired because desire is the bondage. When you are desireless, you are liberated."

"Tantra accepts everything, lives everything. That's why tantra never could become a very accepted ideology. It always remained a fringe ideology."

"Tantra is a great yea-sayer; it says yes to everything."

"Tantra says there is nobody above you whom you have to follow, through whom you have to get your pattern."

"The ordinary society is like a paperweight on you: it won't allow you to fly."

"The tantra masters are simply wild flowers, they have everything in them."

"When you are no more, only then for the first time will you be."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"For seven years I remained undisturbed—no one to nag me, to prepare me for the world of business, politics, diplomacy. My grandparents were more interested in leaving me as natural as possible—particularly my grandmother. She is one of the causes—these small things affect all your life patterns—she is one of the causes of my respect for the whole of womanhood. She was a simple woman, uneducated, but immensely sensitive. She made it clear to my grandfather and the servant: "We all have lived a certain kind of life which has not led us anywhere. We are as empty as ever, and now death is coming close." She insisted, "Let this child be uninfluenced by us. What influence can we have? We can only make him like us, and we are nothing. Give him an opportunity to be himself.""

"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."

"Nobody should lie — to a child, at least — it is unforgivable. Children have been exploited for centuries just because they are willing to trust. You can lie to them very easily and they will trust you. If you are a father, a mother, they will think you are bound to be true. That’s how the whole of humanity lives in corruption, in a very slippery mud of lies told to children for centuries. If we can do just one thing, a simple thing — not lie to children and to confess to them our ignorance — then we will be religious and we will put them on the path of religion. Children are innocent: leave them not your so-called knowledge. But you yourself must first be innocent, unlying, true."

"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."

"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."

"‘Only a whole person can be a holy person.’ (p. 19)"

"The new man will not be either/or; he will be both/and. The new man will be earthly and divine, worldly and other-worldly. The new man will accept his totality and he will live it without any inner division, he will not be split. His god will not be opposed to the devil, his morality will not be opposed to immorality; he will know no opposition. He will transcend duality, he will not be schizophrenic. With the new man there will come a new world, because the new man will perceive in a qualitatively different way and he will live a totally different life which has not been lived yet. He will be a mystic, a poet, a scientist, all together. (p. 19)"

"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)."

"My trust in existence is absolute. If there is any truth in what I am saying, it will survive…The people who remain interested in my work will be simply carrying the torch, but not imposing anything on anyone…I will remain a source of inspiration to my people. And that’s what most sannyasins will feel. I want them to grow on their own qualities like love, around which no church can be created; like awareness, which is nobody’s monopoly; like celebration, rejoicing, and maintaining fresh, childlike eyes…I want my people to know themselves, not to be according to someone else. And the way is in. (p. 22)"

"Never born, Never died: only visited this planet earth between December 11, 1931 and, January 19, 1990."

"Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, given a hero's welcome by his Indian disciples after returning from a U.S. jail, denounced the United States Sunday and said the world must "put the monster America in its place." "The real enemy is no more the Soviet Union, it is America," said the 53-year-old guru, who returned to New Delhi after pleading guilty to violating U.S. immigration laws by arranging sham marriages so his followers could stay in the U.S. In his first press conference since he was arrested last month in Charlotte, N.C., Rajneesh declared, "Either America must be hushed up or America will be the end of the world.""

"Reading his discourses made me realize that Rajneesh was a sad loss. He had an extraordinary range of knowledge and a vision of how life should be lived, but he proved incapable of following his own precepts."

"...‘Osho is the greatest incarnation after Buddha in India. He is a living Buddha.’... - Joshi, Vasant. Osho, The Luminous Rebel (p. 8)."

"With regards to Osho, the controversy is more intense because he speaks his truth against governments, religions and old beliefs publicly and without fear. He declares that 'he is a category by himself'. - Joshi, Vasant. Osho, The Luminous Rebel (p. 18)."

"Osho's mother, Saraswati, about Osho, ‘I wonder why he (Osho) took birth in this simple family (of ours), because people go on asking so many meaningful questions, and Osho talks with such wisdom…and (here) we are full of amazement at why should he have taken birth in this family! If we had been more talented parents we could have described so many things about (his life)…would have complimented him in so many ways. But we cannot. We feel stunned when these questions come. People pour questions, but we do not feel capable of answering them.’ - Joshi, Vasant. Osho, The Luminous Rebel (p. 29)."

"(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."

"‘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)."

"I have not come to teach, I have come tto awaken. - Joshi, Vasant. Osho, The Luminous Rebel (p. 17)."

"‘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)."

"‘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)."

"‘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)."

"I have a "Task": To foster all mankind and ensure for all of them lives full of ananda (bliss). I have a "Vow": To lead all who stray away from the straight path again into goodness and save them. I am attached to a "work" that I love: To remove the sufferings of the poor and grant them what they lack. I have a "reason to be proud", for I rescue all who worship and adore me, aright. I have my definition of the "devotion" I expect: Those devoted to me have to treat joy and grief, gain and loss, with equal fortitude. This means that I will never give up those who attach themselves to me."

"There is no one who can change My course or affect My conduct to the slightest extent. I am the Master over all."

"Life is a song - sing it."

"My construction will cover the entire Universe."

"Christ declared. Sathya means Truth. 'He will wear a robe of red, a blood-red robe.' (Here the baba pointed to the red colored robe he happened to be wearing that day!). He will be short, with a crown (here he points to his hair). The lamb is the sign and symbol of love. Christ did not declare that he will come again, he said, 'He who made me will come again.' That ba ba (bleating of the sheep or lamb) is this Baba, and Sai, the short, curly-hair-crowned red-robed Baba, is come. He is not only this Form, but, he is every one of you, as the Dweller in the Heart."

"The same Divine Compassion that blessed Dharma; saved Gajendra; restored Kuchela; and stood by Prahlada, has come to the Earth as the Refuge of the refugeless; as the Lord of Peace, Harmony and Righteousness; as the Lord of all the Worlds; as the Sath-Chith-Anandamurthi; and as the Puttaparthi Sathya Sai Sath-Chakravarthi - the King of Kings."

"My power is immeasurable; My truth inexplicable, unfathomable."

"I am all deities in one. You may endeavour your best for thousands of years and have all mankind with you in your search. But you cannot understand My Reality."

"There was no one to understand Me until I created the whole world"

"What is it that brings to It the adoration of millions from all over the world? You will be convinced that the basic reason for this is the fact that this is the Supra-worldly Divinity in Human Form."

"This is a human form in which every Divine entity, every Divine principle, that is to say, all the names and forms ascribed by man to God, are manifest... You are very fortunate that you have the chance to experiences the bliss of the vision of the form, which is the form of all gods, now, in this life itself."

"God can do anything. He has all power in the palm of His Hand. My Body, like all other bodies, is a temporary habitation; but, My Power is eternal, all-pervasive, ever-dominant."