Osho,
I arrived in Pune a few days ago with so many fixed attitudes of cynicism on one hand, and so much hope on the other. All expectations and negativity have vanished, and I feel I am empty of all but a great sadness. I have been touched by your great love and the compassion of your sannyasins, but still I keep fighting again and again. I feel my heart close up and become ugly, and I feel isolated among friends.
What can I do to be more accepting of your love and of those around me?

It happens almost always to newcomers; one comes with fixed ideas, expectations. And those ideas and prejudices are given to you by the world; they are all based on lies. You would have been very happy if your prejudices and ideas had been fulfilled. If you had found this place exactly what you were expecting, there would have been no sadness. The sadness is arising in you because all your negativity has to disappear.

This is not the kind of place that…. All over the world religions, governments and news media are conspiring against us. They are spreading all kinds of lies without any foundation – this place is just the opposite of what they are propagating. But they have the power. We have only love.

It is a struggle between power and love. Ultimately love is going to win, but on the way, power may have a few battles – but a battle is not decisive. Those who have never come here, those who have never come in contact with me or my people, can go on living with their prejudices. And their prejudices are not going to make them happy or joyful or blissful; their prejudices are not going to make them blossom, sing and dance and enjoy all the fruits God has given to you.

They are all against me for the simple reason that I am for God, and not for the priests. The priest is the enemy of God, because he is selling God in the marketplace – and God is not for sale. You can surrender to God and he will be yours forever, but you cannot possess God – that is the way to kill him.

When I use the word god, I mean life, existence. I am not a theologian and I don’t believe in any God as a person sitting in heaven creating the world. Just look at this world: look at the madness of humanity. In three thousand years it has fought five thousand wars. If God has created this humanity then he must be mad, because a tree is known by the fruit. You can know everything about God by knowing the highest flowering and fruition of human consciousness.

But the priests are not concerned with life or existence; they are professionals. Their whole effort is how to make you more and more guilty, how to make you feel more and more degraded, humiliated; how to prove to you that you are sinners, you are born in sin. The more your pride and your dignity are taken away, the more you become vulnerable to their exploitation.

You say, “I arrived here a few days ago with so many fixed attitudes of cynicism on the one hand, and so much hope on the other. All expectations and negativity have vanished, and I feel I am empty of all but a great sadness.”