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“One is not in love, one is love.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

“All the Buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact: Be — don't try to become.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

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

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

“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) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

“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) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

“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) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

“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) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

“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) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

“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.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

“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) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

“I am the rich man's guru.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

“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) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

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

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

“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) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

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

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

“Be realistic: Plan for a miracle.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

“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) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

“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) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

“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) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement