Question – Beloved Osho, More than anything else i want your vision to happen. When i am not with you, and i am out in the world, alone, What part can i play in helping your vision to happen?
Osho – Just be yourself, utterly yourself. And never think in terms of how you can help my vision to happen in the world, because that’s what makes a missionary — and I am against missionaries. They are the poisoners. Their intention is good, they want to spread something which they feel is immensely valuable, but a missionary does not know that what he is trying to spread is not his own experience.
So I would like to make it clear that you just be yourself, and that will be the way of spreading my message to people, because that’s my message — to be yourself authentically, sincerely. It is not a question of saying something to somebody; it is a question of being somebody in a way that the vision radiates from you… that the people feel that something has happened to you that has not happened to them… that there is something in you that they are missing… that you are full and they are empty… that you can give and yet you will not be losing anything. And they are only beggars; they cannot give, they can only take. And whatsoever they take also disappears soon because it is not their own.
I would not like my people to be like Christian missionaries. I was in an American jail one morning… the jailer must have been a very fanatic Christian, and he came with a BIBLE, thinking that I am a religious man. And he said, “I would like to pray for you and I would like to present God’s word to you.” And before I could say anything, he started praying for me loudly, with closed eyes: “Jesus loves Bhagwan, Jesus will help Bhagwan. Jesus will save Bhagwan.”
I said, “Wait! You have gone too far!”
He opened his eyes; and he said, “Have I said anything wrong?”
I said, “Everything wrong… because Jesus could not save himself! And you are putting everything wrong: `Jesus loves Bhagwan.’ That’s not right. Put it: `Bhagwan loves Jesus, and Bhagwan will save Jesus.'”
He said, “I have prayed for many prisoners — what are you saying? You are in jail, you need to be saved.”
I said , “I am not in any difficulty. This whole world is a jail, so what difference does it make whether you are outside or inside? And you don’t understand anything of religiousness — you did not even ask my permission to pray for me.
“A prayer is trespassing my being. And to whom are you praying? I don’t have any god, so all your prayers are just stupid. And I don’t think that Jesus or anybody else can save anybody else. It is enough if you can save yourself. Without asking me you started praying! And who told you that this book is the word of God?”
He said, “It is written in the book itself.”
I said, “But it is written in so many other books too. It is written in the VEDAS, and Hindus believe the VEDAS are written by God. It is written in the GITA because Hindus believe it is spoken by the perfect incarnation of God himself. Mohammedans believe the KORAN is the word of God.
“What criterion have you got to choose which one is right? And I can write a book in which I can say, `These are the words spoken by God.’ Just because it’s printed, will you believe it?”
He was silent for a moment, and then he said, “I will think it over and I will come back to you. Because I used to think… I am a missionary and I always have five hundred prisoners in the jail, changing every day. So I have been preaching and helping them becoming real Christians.”
I said, “Are you a real Christian? Was Jesus Christ himself a real Christian? What do you mean by `real Christian?’ Jesus never behaved like a Christian. He was a very angry man. He teaches to love your enemy — and he curses a fig tree which is out of season. And it is not the fault of fig tree that it has no fruits! And he curses it in a very ugly way because it has not welcomed him and his disciples with fruits.
“Now, what can the fig tree do about it? And this man you think is a Christian, and this man you think can love his enemies! He cannot even be loving to a fig tree which has not done any harm to anybody. And the fruits come only in the season and it is not the season, so it is not the tree’s fault. This man is insane!
“And you are spreading his word. Have you tried to live his word? That would be the right way — live it! When somebody hits you on one cheek, give him the other cheek. Should I try,” I asked him, “hitting you on one cheek, and will you give me the other cheek? And I would like to do it before all five hundred prisoners.”
He said, “You are a dangerous man!”
I said, “I am not a dangerous man, I am simply saying that to be a missionary is something ugly. You are trying to interfere in somebody’s being, his thought processes, his existence, without ever trying all that you want others to be on yourself. And my feeling is, if you try it on yourself, there is no need to spread it — it will spread on its own.”
So I would like to say: Just be yourself. Be meditative, be loving, be human, be respectful, be accepting of everybody; don’t be judgmental. And something will start radiating from you, and that will be my word. And it will not be just an empty word, it will be full of meaning and full of fragrance.
Source – Osho Book “Light on the Path”