Only a madman, Friedrich Nietzsche, had the idea – but who listens to madmen? – particularly when they are talking real sense, then it is even more difficult to listen to them. Nobody ever took Nietzsche seriously, but I think his declaration was one of the greatest moments in the history of consciousness: “God is dead!” He had to declare it; not because God died – he had never been there, never been born in the first place, how could he be dead? Before you can be dead you have to suffer at least seventy years of so-called life. God has never been. It is good, because existence is enough unto itself. No outside agency is needed to create it.
But I was not going to talk about it. You see, each moment opens up so many ways, and you have to walk; whichever you choose you will repent, because who knows what was on the other paths that you have not chosen?
That’s why nobody is happy in the world. There are hundreds of successful people, rich people, powerful people, but you don’t find a crowd of happy people unless you meet my people. They are a different kind altogether.
Ordinarily everybody is going to be frustrated sooner or later. The more intelligent, the sooner; the more stupid, the later; and if utterly stupid, then never. Then he will die sitting on the merry-go-round, in Dinseyland.
How do you pronounce it, Ashu?
“Disneyland, Osho.”
Disnay? Disney. Disney. Good. No woman can hide her feelings from me. A man can do that. I immediately became aware I had said something wrong. But you need not have worried about it. I am a wrong type of man. It is only rarely, by accident, that I will say something right; otherwise, I am always wise.
Now let us continue the story. This was a little diversion, and this is going to be a collection of thousands of diversions, because that’s what life is….
Masto was not present to convince Indira Gandhi to work for me, but he tried his best with the first prime minister of India. Perhaps he did succeed, but only in convincing him that here is a man who should not in any way be in the political life of the country. Perhaps Jawaharlal was thinking for my sake, or for the country’s sake; but he was not a cunning man, so the second cannot be the case. I have seen him so I know. Not just seen, but really have felt in deep empathy, a deep harmony, synchronicity with him.
He was old. He had lived his life and succeeded, and was frustrated. That was enough for me not to want to succeed in any worldly sense, and I can say I have kept myself intact from any success. In a strange way I have remained as if I have not been in the world at all.
Kabir has a beautiful song which describes what I am saying in a far more poetic way. He was a weaver, so of course his song is that of a weaver, remember.
He says, “Jhini jhini bini chadariya: I have prepared a beautiful cover for the night…. Jhini jhini bini chadariya, ramnam ras bhini: but I have not used it. I have not in any way made it second hand. It is as fresh at my death as it was at my birth.”
And can you believe? – he sang the song and died. People were thinking he was singing the song to them – he was singing the song to existence itself. But those words were from a poor man, and yet so rich that even the whole of life had not been able to make a single scratch on him. And he has given back to existence what had been given to him by existence, exactly as it was given.