Patanjali is one of the most extraordinary men; I am not. Patanjali is just the opposite. If you tell Patanjali to speak on me he will not be able to; he is too full of himself. But if you ask me to speak on Patanjali, on Tilopa, on Bodhidharma, on Buddha, on Mahavira, Jesus Christ – simple, it is very simple. Because I am absolutely empty I can become available to anybody, I can allow anybody to speak through me. Just a hollow bamboo – anybody can sing a song through it; it can become a flute.

So I am not a combination of poetry, mysticism, or logic, or anything. I am not a balance at all. But remember, I am not an imbalance also. I am a neti, neti – what the Upanishads call “neither this nor that.” That’s why I am available to anybody. If Patanjali insists he can speak through me; there is no trouble, there is no resistance.

That’s why you are always puzzled when I speak on Patanjali. He becomes the very climax of all existence. Then I forget about Buddha and Mahavira and Jesus and Mohammed – as if they never existed, as if only Patanjali has existed because in that moment I am available to Patanjali in my totality. Only nothingness can do that. So this is for the first time it is happening. Otherwise, you will not find Jesus to speak on Krishna, or Krishna to speak on Buddha.

Mahavira and Buddha lived in the same time, in the same country, in the same part of the country. They moved in a small territory in Bihar continuously, for forty years. Contemporaries, sometimes they were together in the same village. Once they stayed in the same dharmashala, but never spoke to each other. They have something within them. They have to say something of their own; they are not available to others.

I have nothing to say of my own – just a hollow bamboo. If you ever want to make statues of me, there is a very simple process: put a hollow bamboo. That will be my statue; you can remember me through it. No need to make anything of it – just an emptiness, just a vast sky. Any bird can fly, and the sky has no conditions that only swans from Mansarovar will be allowed – and crows? No, they are not allowed. The sky is available to everybody, swan or crow. A beautiful bird or an ugly bird, the sky makes no conditions.

Patanjali has a message; I have none. Or, you can say, nothingness is my message. And in being nothing you will be closer to me, in being nothing, you will attain to me. In being nothing you will be able to understand me.

The fourth question:

Osho,
Many people feel quite hopeless about love. Is there not another way to reach prayerfulness?

No. If you feel quite hopeless about love, you should have to feel absolutely hopeless about prayerfulness because prayerfulness is nothing but the very essence of love. Love is like a flower and prayerfulness is like a fragrance. If you cannot attain to the flower, how can you attain to the fragrance? Nobody can bypass love. And nobody should try, because there awaits failure and nothing else.