Osho,
A monk asked Choro, who had been a disciple of Tanka, “The buddhas of the past, present and future turn the great wheel of dharma in flames of fire – is it correct or not?”
Choro said, laughing, “I have doubts, after all.”
The monk asked, “Why do you doubt?”
Choro said, “The fragrance of wildflowers fills the pathways, but the hidden birds don’t know it is spring. Is there anyone who is not defiled by mystic wonder?” After a long silence, Choro concluded, “This one spot could not be washed away even if you dumped the waters of the ocean on it.”

Friends,

First, the questions from sannyasins.

The first question:

These Zen sutras seem to come from a time when there were many enlightened ones in this world. What broke the chain of enlightenment, and left our planet with a single precious and unhidden flame of buddha nature?
How is it we have evolved into such an unenlightened planet when we were once blessed with so many masters?

The question is significant, and many of you may have wondered about it. What happened to human consciousness that it has fallen deep into darkness? Why don’t we see so many buddhas?

The reason is very clear: the little man we talked about yesterday destroyed every possibility for enlightenment.

It is not just in one country. Around the world, whenever there was a man of immense consciousness, the masses were against him, the masses were violent.

One Christian was asking me – an old friend – “Do you think Jesus will come again?” I said, “I don’t think, I am absolutely certain if he is intelligent, he will not come again. What you did with him last time – that’s enough to prevent him from coming back. You have poisoned Socrates, Anaxagoras, you have crucified Jesus, al-Hillaj Mansoor, Sarmad…”

The masses have never been respectful to the living buddha. So many attempts were made on the life of Gautam Buddha, and finally he died from poisoning. This misbehavior of the ordinary, unconscious, but the majority of people, simply prevents.

I have been poisoned, jailed, for no reason at all – fined four hundred thousand dollars, and I don’t have a single dollar with me. Twenty-one countries have closed their doors by law, saying that I cannot enter.

Sometimes it seems the politicians are the most stupid people around. They have passed laws in their parliaments that my jet airplane cannot even land and refuel on their airports, because my presence – in my airplane, on the airport – can contaminate and destroy their morality, their religion of two thousand years’ standing!


From Osho, The Zen Manifesto: Freedom from Oneself, Chapter 9

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