The fourth question:

Question 4

WHY DO YOU HAVE A BEARD?

Ashoka, who told you? Somebody must be creating rumors. I don't have a beard; you have to look at me again. In fact, the right question would have been: Why DON'T you have a beard?

That has been one of the koans in Zen.

Bodhidharma had a great beard, and Zen people, Zen Masters, give their disciples this koan to meditate on: Why does Bodhidharma have no beard?

Now they beat their heads, because Bodhidharma's picture is given also, with the same koan to meditate on, and the picture is there with that great beard. He had a really great beard, his whole face was covered. That's why he was known in China as a 'barbarian Buddha'.

The Chinese don't have big beards, they have tiny goat-like beards. Bodhidharma was very strange there. The Chinese have only a few hairs really. You can count them on your fingers... not much of a beard. So Bodhidharma must have looked like a barbarian.

The picture was given. The picture had to be hung in the meditation cell, and you had to look at the picture and think about this problem: Why does Bodhidharma have no beard?

Do the same with me too: hang a picture and think "Why does Osho have no beard?" and great revelations will happen through it. It will be difficult, but a moment will come when you will see that Osho has no beard. That is satori! -- when the visible disappears and the invisible appears.

How can I have a beard? -- the beard belongs to the body. You are not your body, you are the consciousness that hovers in and around. It can't have any beard.