IN AMERICA MY CRIME WAS TO SPEAK THE TRUTH AND PROPAGATE INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM



THEIR SHOCK WAS THAT THEIR MOST CULTURED AND EDUCATED PEOPLE WERE ATTRACTED TOWARDS ME

"Their shock was that I was there and the most cultured and educated people of their country, doctors, surgeons, scientists, engineers were dropping Christianity and becoming sannyasins. And I am not a missionary; I have never told them... I have never promised them any salvation or any heavenly pleasures. I have not told them that"I will be your protector against hell." I was simply telling them what is true and what is divine and what is beautiful. Christianity has nothing to offer to the educated and the cultured. The shock was tremendous."


"Before me also there have been many people from the East, but they were all cunning, clever, and the Christians were not annoyed with them. For example, Vivekananda: he was the first Indian who was very much appreciated by the Christians, because he proclaimed that Christianity is teaching essentially what all religions are teaching. This was very ego-fulfilling."

"Before me there was Ramateertha, but he praised Christianity just as Vivekananda did. These are not authentically enlightened people; their whole interest is in how to get more admirers. And it is very easy to get admirers in a Christian country, if you admire Christianity; in the Mohammedan country, if you admire Mohammedanism you will have thousands of admirers. It is a very mutual conspiracy: they fulfil your ego, you fulfil their egos."


"I am a simple person and I simply say whatever is the truth. Whether it hurts you, shocks you or not, it does not matter. To me truth is what matters – and certainly only the very cultured cream of the society has been attracted towards me. I cannot attract the beggars, I cannot attract the orphans, and I cannot attract the aboriginals, because they will not even be able to understand what I am saying. Everybody is not capable of understanding the music of Mozart or Wagner; you will need very trained ears to understand those great masters."

"And as far as spirituality is concerned, it is the highest point of intelligence. Unless you have that intelligence you are bound to misunderstand. Authentic religion is only for very few people, because it requires a tremendous preparation beforehand."

"The American Christians were tremendously puzzled how to prevent their educated and cultured people from moving towards me, because that will become ultimately a movement where even less cultured people will start following the more cultured. That is human nature. When people see that all the geniuses, scientists, engineers, doctors, surgeons are moving towards a certain magnetic force, a certain charisma, the others also start following without even understanding. That was the danger."

"And the politician was also in difficulty. His difficulty was that I had created a commune of five thousand people according to my ideas, which go essentially against a Christian society, or a Hindu society, or a Mohammedan society – against any organized religion. I am against it because to me truth can never be organized. It is an individual affair – just between one individual and the cosmos. This was appealing to all those who had the intelligence. The commune became an alternative society in the eyes of the politicians. They could see the great success of the commune – it was the highest quality of communism – and they could not believe that five thousand people were living there, and there was no murder, no theft, no rape. Women could move in the middle of the night alone without any fear. And because my concepts about marriage, about family, about education, are absolutely against the traditional concepts, their fear was that if this commune went on succeeding, there would arise more communes."

"I am absolutely anti-political.
Deep down I am an anarchist."

"My ultimate goal finally is that there should be a humanity without any government. Government is a condemnation of every one of us. The very existence of the government and the police and the army shows that we are still not civilized; otherwise there is no need for courts, judges, police officers. What is the need of them?"

"If man is really man, if people become meditators and their criminal mind disappears, then the politician is naturally alerted. It is dangerous. If this commune succeeds, then there will be more communes arising in the country, and the politician will be in danger."

"I have been condemning the politicians and the priests together, because they are two sides of one coin. They are conspiring together against humanity. They have made a division: the politician will rule the body of man, and the priest will rule his soul. And they will support each other, because their interest is the same – domination over humanity." "My effort to make life absolutely based on freedom and to destroy all possibilities of domination by anybody, naturally brought the politicians and the Christian priests together." "This persecution was not the simple persecution that every religion does against any competitive religion. This was a very unprecedented persecution. All religions, all societies, all nations were against a single man who had no organization, but only friends and lovers and fellow travelers."


"It is a strange fact that Christians are against Hindus, Hindus are against Jainas, Jainas are against Buddhists, Buddhists are against Mohammedans – but as far as I am concerned they are all together. On one point at least I have created a unity: they are all my enemies, because I am hammering on the basic roots of every religion, which are the same."

"You are saying, Niren, "At the same time, it twists and breaks its own laws to persecute you who embody freedom and truth." That is my crime -- freedom and truth."



THE AMERICAN PRIESTS AND POLITICIANS TRIED TO KILL OSHO FOR SPEAKING TRUTH ABOUT THEM AND THEIR RELIGION

"The poison was given to me two years ago. Because it has not been able to kill me, the man who was responsible for prosecuting me has been fired from his job as Attorney General of Oregon in America. He has been fired because he could neither manage thirty to forty years of jail punishment for me, nor a good dose of poison to kill me, nor to put a bomb in my room and destroy me."

"One of my attorneys was here just a few days ago. He said, "That poor government attorney tried hard; he did his best." But I have not committed any crime – all is fiction. He had a list of thirty four crimes that I was supposed to have committed. It would have needed at least one thousand years of jail."

"That long," I said, "I would not be able to live! You should consider the fact: one thousand years of jail? It is hilarious; just think of something practical. The whole list is an absolute lie."

"They could not give me the poison in such a dose that I would have died in the jail. It became clear from the statement of the United States Attorney, Charles Turner, that they did not want to make me a martyr. They were afraid that if I were to die then again another Christianity will be born; then again another religion, another fanatic fundamentalist group of people will gather in sympathy with me."

"The court ordered that I leave the court, that I go to the airport immediately. My airplane was waiting; I had to leave immediately. Perhaps they were afraid that if I died before leaving then the sympathy of the whole world would be with me, and against Ronald Reagan and his company. Out of fear they could not give the whole dose; otherwise one dies within twelve hours."

"That's what the experts from England have informed me, who have presumed that the poison given to me was thallium. It kills within twelve hours, but if given in small doses it takes time. It may kill within six months, but now even that time has passed."
(Om Shantih Shantih Shantih # 6)

"Prem Niren, what happened with me in America and with my people has to become a historical fact, exposing both the religions and the politicians, and all their bogus talk and great words. Niren himself was one of my attorneys. In fact he was my chief attorney, because he was my sannyasin and all the other attorneys were chosen by him; he was the coordinator. The others were paid, only he was working for love. You cannot depend on the paid people because their interest is in money; they don't care what is true and what is not true." "And the first thing that came to my notice was that although they were fighting for me, their hearts were with the American government. Although they were fighting for me, their conditioning was for the Christian church, so deep down they were not for me. Except Niren, I could not feel any of the attorneys – and they were the best attorneys in America." "Because they were paid so much money, they were ready – but they were simply paid people, servants, and I could see that their arguments were half hearted, as if deep down they wanted that I should be persecuted, that I should be fined, that I should be jailed. Except Niren, I could not feel the sincerity and honesty in any of those attorneys." "Niren again became very shaken: If our attorneys are saying that they will only go so far, not more than that; they cannot annoy the magistrate; they cannot annoy the judge – even if he rules illegally, against the constitution..."

"And that's what happened finally. They did everything against their own constitution, against their own law."

"Just the other day I was informed by Barkha, who was an important sannyasin in the commune... She was the head of the commune police. Because the commune had become a city, was incorporated as a city, the government wanted the city to have a magistrate, a police department. We did not want non-sannyasins to be in the commune, because they would feel strange and our people would feel strange, so the only way was to train our own people as police, as magistrate. So one woman was the magistrate; Sangeet is here, she was the city attorney; and Barkha is here, she was the city's police chief."

"The day I was arrested and I was shown on all the television stations of America, the chief of police of Oregon phoned Barkha. Barkha was working under him as chief of police of the city of Rajneeshpuram. He phoned to tell her that this was absolutely illegal; you cannot arrest anybody without an arrest warrant. And even if you have to take somebody into custody in special cases when the warrant has not arrived yet, but you have been told to do so, then you cannot put handcuffs and chains on the person, because he is not yet confirmed by the magistrate as a criminal."

"But that's what was done. And the police chief said,"I am feeling so sad and sorry that they arrested Osho with twelve loaded guns, and they did not show any arrest warrant, they did not even show verbally what was the cause of arrest."


"When he saw the second day that I had been taken to another jail and I was descending from the staircase of the airplane with handcuffs, chains on my hands and feet, with another chain around my waist to which the handcuffs were also joined – I could not even scratch a fly which was sitting on my head – he said, "It is absolutely unprecedented. A man who has no warrant against him, a man who has done no wrong..."


"In three days the government attorney could not prove a single thing against me, and he accepted in his summarizing statement that "we have been unable to prove anything against Osho." Still, the way they were behaving was simply for humiliation."

"But you cannot humiliate me – and they felt it. Even the jailers said to me, "Everything is being done to humiliate you – but it is strange, we don't see any humiliation. You are taking it so coolly and so silently and so peacefully as if this has been your whole life's practice."

I said, "Who knows, it may be in the future. So I am training myself, because one never knows about tomorrow – this may be my whole lifestyle for the future, and I never miss a single moment of learning."

"Happy people can never be forgiven – and the commune was one of the happiest collections of people that has ever happened on the earth. You could not find a single person who was miserable; misery was simply sent away to other American cities."

"In five years not a single fight between two sannyasins... The whole of America, and particularly the politicians, became jealous. This is dangerous, because if people come to know more and more about it... And they were going to know because every day planes were landing in the commune with television reporters, all kinds of news media."


"For a time it looked as if Rajneeshpuram had become the capital of America. I was more on television than the president of America. Naturally, jealousy arises..."

"I was not even a tourist. Because my tourist visa expired in three months, I asked for an extension. That expired again in three months, and then I applied for a permanent resident-ship and the immigration department was in trouble. The trouble was that they could not say yes to me, because the government was pressurizing them, the church was pressurizing them, "This man should not be allowed in America."

"They could not say yes and they could not say no either, because if they had said no I could have gone to the court: on what grounds can they say no to me?"

"They could not say no, they could not say yes, so for five years I was there without any visa, without any permission. A man without a visa who is getting more attention than the president of a country is naturally going to create in these inferior beings, psychologically sick and almost retarded, a great violence. Then they forget all the constitutions and all the laws that they have themselves made."

"MY LEAVING AMERICA... YOU WILL SOON SEE IT FALLING FROM BEING A WORLD POWER"

"The day America deported me, I told a few of my friends who had come to send me off at the airport, "This is the beginning of their downfall."

"Existence functions in its own way, not according to human stupidities. After Socrates, what happened to Greece? It was at the highest peak of consciousness – but the day they poisoned Socrates, they poisoned themselves. Never again in these twenty-five centuries could they become a world power. What happened to Judea which crucified Jesus? It has disappeared from the map completely."

":The day they fined me without my having committed any crime, and forced me to leave America immediately, they were not aware that existence is more just than any human court or any human constitution can be. I told my friends, "My leaving America... you will soon see it falling from being a world power" – and it has come true. Now America is falling every day into a ditch, and I declare that it will never again be the world's greatest economical power as it has been."

"Existence supports even a single innocent man against a whole country, against a whole government, because existence has no fear of your atomic missiles, your nuclear weapons. It does not care about anything except innocence. The only value in the eyes of existence is the eyes of a sage, so utterly innocent and mystified and wondrous that for a single sage like Socrates or Jesus, the whole country can be removed, erased from history."

"America behaved with me and my people like utter cowards. If they had any guts, they could have called me to their senate and I was ready to answer all their questions and I was ready to defend all my ideas. That would have been dignified, rather than forcing me into a jail under loaded guns and then trying to poison me. And because they failed in sending me for twenty or thirty years to jail, they managed to have a bomb planted under my seat."

"But because there was no trial... The government was not ready to go for a trial, knowing perfectly well that they didn't have any evidence against me. They had seen the same government attorney general who was fighting for three days in the court of North Carolina conclude his speech, "We don't have any evidence against him." Now, what more they could do?"

"It was absolutely clear that if they went for trial they would be defeated. And they told my attorneys, "You should remember one thing: the case you can win, but it may take ten years or twenty years; we can go on postponing it. And the second thing you should remember is that the government of the United States of America is not going to be defeated by a single individual. If you are interested in saving Osho's life, it is better not to go for a trial."

"The American government may have the nuclear weapons, but it has a very cowardly soul. They could not encounter a single individual. That very day I thought, "How are these people going to manage in the third world war with the Soviet Union?" And now their situation is becoming worse every day."

"It will be good for you to be reminded that it was not Columbus who first discovered America. It has been discovered many times, and then it was found that it was not worth discovering. Then it was hushed up."

"In Turkey there exists a map eight hundred years old which has America on it, exactly as you have it on any modern map. That was four hundred years before Columbus discovered America – but that is also not very old."

"In Mahabharata, a great war that happened five thousand years ago in India, the hero of the war was Arjuna, the greatest archer perhaps of all time. He married many wives from different countries, and one of his wives was Mexican. Of course America was known... but it has been hushed up again and again. Perhaps the time has again come to hush it up."

OSHO (Satyam Shivam Sundram # 14)



AND THEY ALL SAID – THE MARSHALS, THE JAILORS -- "HE HAS NOT COMMITTED ANY CRIME. HIS CRIME IS THAT HE WAS TEACHING PEOPLE TO BE SILENT AND TO BE REJOICING"

"You can learn much from my own life. I have been talking about things which people cannot understand, and because they cannot understand they feel, in their unconscious, humiliated. And the only way they find to respond is to condemn me, without any evidence, without any proof, without any argument. But the masses are with them, because the masses also feel the same as they are feeling."

But to me it is a hilarious phenomenon, seeing the whole world in such a mess, in such a deep insanity that no intelligent communication is possible."

"I was talking to the pilot of the U.S. Marshal's plane, because that plane was taking me from one jail to another jail, and the pilots and the air hostess became deeply interested in me. They started feeling that injustice was being done to me."

"They said to me, "We are in the service of the government, but still we cannot see any justice. It is absolutely pointless – a six hour journey from North Carolina to Oregon was enough and they are taking you from one city to another city, for no reason at all." They took twelve days while the journey was only of six hours. And even the pilot, who was a well-educated man, started seeing the ugly strategy, that they wanted simply to harass me. They would bring me to the airport ... At five o'clock in the morning they would wake me up in the jail, saying, "Your plane is ready," and the plane would leave at five o'clock in the evening. And the plane was ready."

"The pilot said, "This seems to be absolutely absurd. The plane is ready. I am ready, I am waiting; you are ready, you are waiting, and they are simply delaying for twelve hours, for the simple reason that you can reach the next jail in the middle of the night. And orders are given to us: 'Go as slow as possible, there is no hurry.'"

"But they saw me on all these twelve days handcuffed, my feet chained, on my waist another chain. And because all over there was media, to prevent me from waving my hand to the media they put another chain on my handcuffs, a small chain, and joined it with my waist chain so I could not move even my hands."

"The pilot said to me, "This has never happened ... and particularly in the plane you cannot escape. Even criminals, even murderers are allowed to take their chains off, their handcuffs off, but they are not allowing you to take your handcuffs, your chains off. This is sheer revenge. But you look so calm and so quiet, almost enjoying the whole trip."

"And finally they started asking me, "What is the secret of your calmness? You are not angry, you are not criticizing, although everything that is being done is illegal."

I said, "This is an opportunity. I have never before in my life had a twelve-day holiday! They are very understanding people."

"Finally the air hostess said, "We have been asking, 'What crime can this silent man commit?' And they all said – the marshals, the jailors – 'He has not committed any crime. His only crime is that he was teaching people to be silent and to be rejoicing.'"

"The day they left me in Oregon they had tears in their eyes – the pilot, the air hostess, the co-pilot. They said, "Whenever we can get a holiday from our jobs, we are going to come to your commune, because you have made us, without saying anything, aware that we are missing something. We don't know what it is, but we are missing and we want to learn. We have gathered information from others that you call it meditation; we want to learn meditation."

"Every jailor had promised me that he will be coming with his whole family to the commune, just to learn meditation ... "Because we can see that we have everything, but inside we are hollow."
(The New Dawn # 24)


NOTE: Osho International Foundation has the copyrights of all above Osho's quotations.

OSHO FRIENDS TRUST