Osho – Man lives in illusion. Man lives through illusion. Man lives for illusion. In short, man lives because of illusion. Hence the fear of truth. Nobody wants truth, although everybody goes on seeking for it. That seeking is a deception, that seeking is an avoidance. To seek truth means to avoid truth.
It has to be understood – how the seeker goes on avoid-ing truth. To seek means to look far away, to seek means to look somewhere else, to seek means to go on a trip. To seek means to postpone – to seek means it will happen tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, it is not happening right now. It is not here, it is there. It is not this, it is that.
Man goes on living in illusion. But to live in illusion one needs to avoid truth, because if truth comes it will shatter all your illusions and all your so-called life and all your so-called love. Truth looks like a calamity. And Friedrich Nietzsche is right in a sense when he says: Please don’t give truth to humanity. Otherwise you will destroy people’s joy, you will destroy their enthusiasm, you will destroy their gusto. Don’t give truth to humanity, otherwise all that they have will disappear. Because all that they have is a kind of dream. Don’t wake humanity, otherwise the dreams will be shattered. And they may be seeing beautiful dreams – or hoping to see, somewhere, sometime.
That’s why Christ is crucified, Socrates is poisoned, Buddha is stoned. They bring truth to people who have become almost illusory. They bring light to people who live in darkness and dream in darkness. And their dreams depend on darkness – when somebody brings light into the darkness the darkness disappears and the dreams and the desires.
One feels hurt by a Buddha or a Christ. The Christ looks not like the saviour but like the enemy. Otherwise why should you crucify Christ? There is no other reason. The basic reason is: he uproots you, he shatters you. This has to be understood very deeply. And when you live in illusion, you search for truth. That is a double deception, so that you can go on telling yourself and consoling yourself that ’I am searching. Look what great efforts I am making, how much I am putting my energy into the search – look!’
The search for truth arises out of your lie. It is the lie that puts you on the search for truth. It is a protection for the lie, it is the way of the lie to survive. It says: Go and search for truth. It is there far away in some distant land. You will have to travel, and the travel is long and the travel is not going to be finished soon. It will take lives and lives, it will take millennia, but go! Go on searching, one day you will find it. The lie gives you hope, it gives you a future, it gives you future dreams. Your God is somewhere far away. It has to be far away, because close by He will be dangerous.
So you can respect a dead master but you cannot respect an alive master. It is too close, it is too dangerous. Christ is worshipped now, almost half the earth has become Christian. And when he was here, not more than twelve people were following him – and they too, half-heartedly. And they too betrayed him in the last moment. And the day he died he became God, he became divine. And millions and millions started coming to his feet, and down the ages they have been coming and increasing.
Why does a dead Christ seem to be more important than an alive Christ? The reason is: an alive Christ can prove fatal to your illusions. A dead Christ cannot do anything to you. A dead Christ is in your control, an alive Christ cannot be controlled by you. A dead Christ is just a name, a word – empty, impotent. An alive Christ is a fire. You can play with the word ’fire’ but you cannot come close to fire itself. It will burn you, it will destroy you.
But in your very destruction is the possibility of a new birth. Out of the ashes the new is going to be born. The myth of the phoenix is not a myth, it is a metaphor for man’s rebirth. You have to die first to be reborn. An alive Christ is like death. A dead Christ is a consolation, a comfort, a security.
Just the other night, a woman was there and she says she loves my meditations and much is happening through the meditations. Not only that, she has started teaching my meditation to other people and much is happening to them. But she cannot be initiated by me. I asked why. She says because of religious reasons – she may be a Christian or a Jew or somebody. She cannot leave the dead Christ for an alive Christ. She calls it ’for religious reasons’. The real reason is: to come close to me can be fatal to her. Christ is perfectly okay, it is just a picture on the wall or a name in the book or a word in your mouth. It means nothing, it is noise.
But if you come close to me – and initiation means coming close, initiation means coming as close as possible – you will be burned. You will be burned to ashes. You will disappear. But that is the only real hope. If you disappear as you are, you will be born as you really ARE. Only the disappearance of the lie that you have become can be the birth of truth. And truth is not far away, it is just hiding within you. And you are clinging to the lie. Your personality is the lie. And because of the personality you cannot move towards the essence. The personality is taught by the society; the society creates lies. Lies are very very convenient. Lies function like lubricants, lies make life smooth. You see somebody and you smile. And the smile is a lie – because it is not coming from your heart, it is just painted there on the lips. You have created it, you have managed it, it is a kind of exercise of the lips. But it lubricates relationship, the other man starts smiling.
If you are true, if you are as you are, it will be difficult, the relationship will become difficult. Psychologists say that if every person starts revealing what is in his heart, friendship will disappear from the earth, love will disappear from the earth. That is true. It will be impossible to find friends if you simply say what is in your heart. If you say what is in your heart your beloved will leave you and your lover will leave you.
Source – Osho Book “This Very Body the Buddha”