Osho,
Many of your sannyasins, some of whom have been with you for many years, have left you to follow the teachings of channels or psychic clairvoyants.
I have visited some of these people, partly out of curiosity and partly through the recommendation of friends, and have found nothing that comes even close to the love and benediction in being with you.
Osho, what is the attraction to these dead masters or so-called entities when you are here, a living enlightened master?

The question you have raised has many layers and a simple answer won’t be justified. But I would like to go into it as deeply as possible, because it is something of much concern to each of you.

I am not in any way a bondage. I do not create a program in you, a belief system. I don’t ask you to surrender; in fact, I don’t ask anything from you. All I want is to help you to be yourself. This is one of the reasons a few are bound to leave me, because they are in search of someone who can take their responsibility. But they are not aware that the moment you lose your responsibility you also lose your freedom. The moment you surrender to anyone, dead or alive, you destroy yourself – you commit a suicide as far as your individuality is concerned.

But there are people who will feel much relief, relief in being free of responsibilities. Somebody has taken the burden on himself; he is your savior. Now it is easier for you just to believe in him. There is nothing easier in the world than belief, because you don’t have to do anything at all.

With me there is no possibility of any belief. I will destroy all your beliefs so that you can be a freedom, a bird on the wing in the open sky. But very few are the people who are in search of freedom. Those who are not in search of freedom are bound to leave me; it is natural. And I don’t prevent anyone, because even to interfere is against my approach and my respect for individual dignity.

Secondly there are many who are not interested in understanding existence, their own being, but are very much interested like small children in puzzles, esoteric ideologies, occult phenomena. Just because something is irrational, illogical does not mean that it is truth, does not mean that it is going to give you your innermost being and its treasure. There are thousands of esoteric schools, theologies, theosophies and they are very interesting in a way – but they are interesting because you are retarded! They look very magical and there are people who exploit your retardedness.

The founder of the Theosophical movement, Madame Blavatsky, was found guilty of strange kinds of things; you cannot call them crimes, you can simply call them fraud. She had a servant named Damodar. While she was traveling by train she would be in first class and Damodar would be in third class. Suddenly Damodar would fall flat on the floor of the compartment, unconscious, foaming.

Naturally, the train was stopped, people gathered and then Madame Blavatsky would come and do some abracadabra. Damodar would immediately open his eyes and everybody would see “what a tremendously spiritual powerful woman…” And nobody knew that he was her servant and that was his only job. Finally in a court case Damodar was forced to admit that he had played a part in many kinds of frauds.