Osho,
What are the reasons why very few persons in the world are interested in transforming their inner heat into spiritual light? Do you feel that the present generation is capable of creating enlightened ones like Krishna, Lao Tzu and Christ?

Man is freedom, absolute freedom. So spirituality is a choice. There is no force compelling you to be spiritual. There is no cause forcing you to transform. If there is any cause forcing you to transform, then no spirituality is possible.

Causality is materialism. You seek food because hunger is there. It forces you, there is no choice. You cannot choose whether to seek or not – you have to. Spirituality is not that type of seeking. No one is forcing you. You alone have to choose.

Spirituality is a choice. It is not causality. Everything else is causality: there is a cause and the effect follows. The effect has no freedom. It is caused. Spirituality is beyond causality. It is not caused by anything, it is your inner choice. You can choose, you may not choose. For lives together you may not choose it – no one is going to force you.

This has to be understood. And this is a very significant thing, because if everything is caused, then I say there is no spirituality. Then science can cause you to become spiritual. If the cause is present, then the effect will follow. Then a buddha can be caused: we can create the cause and then you will be a buddha.

But we cannot create any situation in which you can become a buddha. And we cannot create any situation in which you can be stopped from becoming a buddha. You are free. Any moment you can choose to be, and you may not choose for lives together.

This has been a long discussion between materialism and spirituality. This is the basic debate, not whether God exists or not. That is not the basic debate, because one can be spiritual without any God. Buddha never believed in any God, Mahavira denies any existence of God, but no one is as spiritual as Mahavira or Buddha.

So God is not the most significant thing, even the soul is not the most significant thing. Buddha says there is no self, no soul, and he is spiritual par excellence. Then what is the basic thing in spirituality? It is the concept of freedom: whether man is free to go beyond humanity or not.