Question – Do you have any kind of personal strategy for the future, any message to leave? Do you have any idea of Rajneeshism and Rajneeshpuram after you? Do you have any successor?
Osho – No, because all the religions who have followed those lines have turned poisonous, have turned into curses on humanity. I don’t want to be a curse to humanity. I am a blessing and I want to remain a blessing.
So nobody is going to succeed me.
And my message for my people is that the moment I am gone, your religion is gone. Then whatever remains is just a corpse. Don’t start worshipping the corpse. I am a free man and I want every sannyasin to be a free man. My love is the only binding force between them; otherwise, there is no theology, no belief system, no agreement on anything.
Only one thing is keeping them together around the world, and that is their love for me. When I am not there, nothing can keep them together. There is no bridge. Each sannyasin is individually connected to me. You don’t ask the sun, “If one day you stop rising, what is going to happen to the rays?” You know that the rays will not be there the moment I am dead and gone.
They have lived with me, they have danced with me, they have enjoyed with me — now they know the secret of how to enjoy life, how to live life. And there is no need to go on making a church, popes, successors… because they have done so much harm. I will not allow my people to do that.
When I am gone, then you disperse. What is the point? my love was keeping you together, and I am no more there. It is good that I am no more, because now your last attachment is also dropped. I was the last attachment to be broken, now you are totally free. You were free from your family, from your nation, from your religion, but a small thin thread of love was binding you with me. Now I am no more there; I give you the last, the final taste of freedom.
And then whatever happens, happens. I am not responsible for it. The people who will be coming after me will have the responsibility. And I never think about the future. I am so totally involved with the present… I am talking to you, and at this moment only you exist for me. The whole space has disappeared and the whole time has stopped. Just you and me… only then can there be some communication.
And I don’t think about what is going to happen tomorrow. I am not thinking what you are going to write about me, and I am not going to read it, whatever you write! It doesn’t matter at all. What matters is that we enjoyed this moment together, loved this moment, laughed together, felt each other’s humanity.
I cannot see anybody as a journalist, as a doctor, as an engineer. Those are not your realities, they are just your jobs. When I look at you, I put aside your journalist, I am talking directly to you. Journalism is just your way of earning bread and butter. What importance does it have? I cannot love bread and butter, but I love you as a person, as an individual, and whatsoever I am saying is totally different from what you would have found in the past with the many other people you have interviewed. Even in the future you may not come across a man like me.
My whole interest in this moment is how to help you enjoy the time you have been with me. Your magazine, your writing, does not come between me and you, so when you started introducing the magazine, I was going to stop you, but just out of politeness I listened. What concern do I have with magazines, newspapers?
My concern is purely with the individual, and then it is up to him. Whatsoever he wants to make out of it, he will make out of it. I trust in my love, and I trust in the dignity of the individual that is sitting before me, and the trust will take care of everything. I never think of tomorrow.
Source – Osho Book “The Last Testament, Vol 1”