The second question

Question 2

OSHO,

THE SHANKARACHARYA OF SHARDAPEETH, DWARKA, IS REPORTED TO HAVE SAID THAT YOUR IDEAS ABOUT SPIRITUALITY DO NOT CONFORM WITH THE SANATAN DHARMA WHICH GIVES GREAT IMPORTANCE TO SELF-CONTROL AND PRESCRIBES RULES OF CONDUCT GIVEN IN THE ANCIENT SCRIPTURES. THE SHANKARACHARYA ALSO REMARKED THAT WHEREVER YOU AND YOUR ASHRAM WILL MOVE, IT WOULD SPOIL THE SPIRITUAL ENVIRONMENT OF THAT PLACE.

OSHO, THIS IS PERHAPS THE FIRST TIME THAT THE SHANKARACHARYA HAS OPENLY CRITICISED YOU AND THE ASHRAM. WOULD YOU KINDLY SAY SOMETHING?

Satya Vedant,

THE SHANKARACHARYA is right in a way: I do not conform with his ideas about spirituality. Why should I conform to anybody else's ideas of spirituality at all? Spirituality is not an ideology, in fact. It has nothing to do with ideas. It is a state of no-mind. How it can be an ideology? The Shankaracharya has no experience of meditation at all, otherwise he would not have spoken this way.

Spirituality simply means that you have gone beyond the mind, and in that transcendence all ideas are transcended -- Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, communist -- all ideas. Ideas as such are transcended. There is only silence, and two silences can never be different. They are like two zeros. What difference can there be?

Buddha in his deep meditation is not different from Mahavira. Mahavira in his deep meditation is not different from Zarathustra. Zarathustra in his deep silence is not different from Lao Tzu. And I call THIS the Sanatan Dharma.

The word SANATAN means eternal, and DHARMA means Tao -- the law, the ultimate law. Ais DHAMMO SANANTANO, Buddha repeats again and again: This is the eternal law of life. But by Sanatan Dharma the Shankaracharya means Hindu religion. Hindus think that their religion is the eternal religion; that is sheer nonsense.

Religiousness is eternal, but no religion is eternal. Every religion is born and dies in its own time. No religion is beginningless and no religion is endless. Everything that is born in time is bound to die sooner or later, and it is good that it dies because it creates space for something new to arise. Sanatan Dharma -- eternal religion -- cannot be identified with any religion in particular.

Jainas believe that their religion is far older than the religion of the Hindus, and it may be far older because their first TEERTHANKARA, Adinath, is remembered in the Rig Veda, the first Hindu scripture, with great respect. That shows two things: that Adinath must have been already an established, accepted spiritual leader; he must have preceded the Rig Veda, and the Rig Veda is the ancientmost scripture of the Hindus. Jainas say their religion is far older, but older does not mean eternal.

Thousands of religions have existed on the earth and have died, and when they were alive they had millions of followers, but now they have completely disappeared. The followers have disappeared, the priests have disappeared, their gods have disappeared. When they were alive they also used to think they were eternal. But whatsoever happens in time always dies; nothing can be eternal in time.

My meaning of Sanatan Dharma, eternal religion, is: religiousness is eternal. For example, LIFE IS eternal... people come and go. We were not here a few years before and after a few years we will not be here, but PEOPLE were here and people will be here. Life will continue. The forms will go on disappearing and appearing, but that which appears and disappears, that which becomes sometimes manifest and sometimes unmanifest, is eternal. It is religiousness.

Jesus becomes Christ through that religiousness. Buddha becomes Buddha -- enlightened -- through that religiousness. It cannot be identified with Hinduism.

The Shankaracharya is right: if Sanatan Dharma means Hinduism, then I cannot conform with its ideas. But if Sanatan Dharma means eternal religiousness then there is no question of conforming -- I am living it, I AM it. And my whole effort here is to help you to BE religious -- neither Hindus nor Christians nor Mohammedans nor Jainas.

Now this may be the only place in the whole world where all religions are meeting and merging into a new kind of religiousness, a totally different quality. Nobody bothers here whether you are a Christian or a Parsi, whether you are a Taoist or a Buddhist, because we have found the source. And once you know the source it does not matter from what shore you drink, in what kind of bucket you draw the water from the source. The bucket is non-essential; the water is essential. We have found the eternal religion: it can only be a religiousness, a quality, a fragrance.

My meaning of Sanatan Dharma is totally different from the Shankaracharya's meaning. The Shankaracharya of Shardapeeth, Dwarka, simply represents a tradition, a convention which is already dead. All traditions are dead!

What I represent is a living experience.

The Shankaracharya is only an imitator of the Adi Shankaracharya, the original Shankaracharya. One thousand years have passed. The original Shankaracharya had experienced; now this Shankaracharya is only a priest. These people are the people who destroy spirituality, but they will condemn me, they will criticize me, because I don't conform to their stupid ideas about spirituality. As far as I see, their spirituality is nothing but hypocrisy. They go on saying one thing and they go on doing just the opposite.

The original Shankaracharya has said: The world is illusory, it is maya. If the world is illusory, if it is maya, if it does not exist at all, then why do these priests go on preaching to people to renounce it? That is their whole life work: to tell people to renounce the world -- the world which does not exist in the first place! It is like telling people to renounce their shadows. If you are right, there is no world to renounce; if there is a world to renounce, then you are not right.

Because of such stupid ideas people become hypocrites. They go on condemning the world on the one hand, and on the other hand they go on grabbing the same world.

You will not find more greedy people anywhere in the world than you will find in India, and the Indian goes on condemning the whole world as materialist.

One of our sannyasins, Kamal Bharti, had gone to America and traveled all over the world. He wrote a letter to me saying, "It is strange, Osho, that I traveled all over the world without any money, just sannyasins and friends were supporting me, and I never ran out of money. I never was in any difficulty anywhere in the whole world. But the moment I landed at the Bombay airport my money and my things were all stolen!" This is a religious land! People are spiritual!

Kamal Bharti, that shows that somebody who thinks the world is maya has taken your things. What does it matter? Why allow you to carry such illusory things? He has helped you to unburden!

These people have created such a hypocrisy by telling people to do something anti-life. The Shankaracharyas, the priests of the Hindus, go on condemning life and go on also praising God for creating the world. And they don't see the illogicality of it, the ridiculousness of it. They are blind people! They cannot understand me because what they think is spirituality is nothing but hypocrisy.

The Pope lay dying. His doctor called the cardinals together and announced: "We can only save his life with a heart transplant."

"We must tell the people," said one of the cardinals. "Perhaps a donor will volunteer to give his heart for the Pontiff.

The announcement was made and thousands gathered beneath the Pop's balcony, shouting, "Take-a my heart! Take-a my heart!"

The cardinals now had to decide on the person who would donate his heart to the Holy Father. "We will drop a feather from His Holiness' hat," said the head cardinal. "Whoever it lands upon will be the lucky person."

The feather floated down from the balcony. From the multitude below came: "Take-a my heart! Phoo, phoo! Take-a my heart! Phoo, phoo!"

They were doing both things: "Take-a my heart!" and blowing the feather as far away as possible! That's what these people call spirituality.

"The world is illusory." And these temples of Shankaracharya accumulate as much money as possible. And "Money is dirt"... and they collect gold. And gold is nothing, it is dust. These people are against everything, and yet from the back door they go on doing the same as anybody else.

My spirituality is not hypocrisy; it is authentic living. I don't tell you to be life-negative. I tell you to be life-loving, life-affirmative, because God is nothing but life. The aliveness of existence is what God is all about.

These people are afraid that I may destroy the spiritual atmosphere -- as if the spiritual atmosphere exists! I have traveled all over India -- there exists no spiritual atmosphere. Spiritual atmosphere exists only around a Buddha. It is like light: if there is a flame, there is light around it. Once the flame is gone, the light disappears.

When Gautam the Buddha was alive there was a spiritual atmosphere that surrounded him. Wherever he went that spiritual atmosphere went with him; it was his light. There was light when Krishna was alive, when Christ was alive, but now Christianity is only talking about light.

Maybe they have paintings about light, of light, but those paintings will not give light in darkness.

The Mother Superior of the convent awoke in a happy mood, dressed and set off to visit her flock. "Good morning, Sister Augusta, God bless you! Are you happy at your work?

"Yes, Reverend Mother, but I am sorry to see you got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.

The Mother Superior ignored the remark and passed on to another nun. "Good morning, Sister Georgina, you look pleased with yourself!"

"I am, Reverend Mother, but it is a pity you got out of bed on the wrong side today."

The Mother Superior, greatly puzzled, moved on to a young novice. "Tell me, little Sister, do you also feel I got out of bed on the wrong side?"

"I am afraid so," said the nun.

"But why? Am I not as happy as a song-bird and pleasant to you all?"

"Yes, Mother, but you are wearing Father Vincenzo's house slippers!"

These are the people who go on talking about spirituality, celibacy, renunciation! And if you look deep down into the world that surrounds you and these spiritual -- so-called spiritual -- people, you will be very much puzzled they live a double kind of life.

Yes, I will destroy this double kind of life wherever I go! He is right in that way. Whatsoever he calls "spiritual environment" exists nowhere. Whatsoever exists is hypocrisy, and I am going to destroy it, certainly, because that is the only way to create a spiritual atmosphere. Something that is destroying people's very life has to be ruthlessly uprooted. All the weeds have to be uprooted so we can grow roses.

He says that Sanatan Dharma -- by which he means Hindu Dharma, Hindu religion -- gives Great importance to self-control. I don't give any importance to self-control, because all control is ugly, because all control is repressive. Life should be spontaneous, not controlled. Yes, your inner world should be so clear and transparent that you can see what is right and what is wrong, and you should live according to it, not by any dictates in any scriptures.

He says: Hindu Dharma lives according to prescribed rules. All prescribed rules create slavery.

I don't prescribe any rules for my sannyasins. I don't give you a character from the outside, but I give you something far more valuable: I give you meditativeness, out of which a character arises which is your own, out of which you start living a life full of insight. Then you know what is right and what is wrong and you live accordingly, but not according to Krishna or Manu or Rama. They may have been right -- that was THEIR intuition -- but to live according to any prescribed rule is to live the life of a slave. And I am against slavery.

I teach people rebellion. In that way the Shankaracharya of Shardapeeth is right: that wherever I go I will destroy their so-called spiritual atmosphere. He has not really criticized me, he has praised me -- unknowingly of course, unconsciously of course, because these people have no consciousness.