Question – BELOVED OSHO, I HAVE HEARD YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE THE LAZIEST MAN IN THE WORLD. IS THIS THE REASON WHY IN YOUR COMMUNE THE SANNYASINS ARE SO BUSY, FAR MORE BUSY THAN PEOPLE IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD? PLEASE COMMENT.
Osho – It is true. I am the laziest man in the whole world. And to keep me lazy, my people have to work. To keep me poor, they have to give away all their fortunes. But they are enjoying it. The work they are doing is their love. Hence they have stopped calling it work; they call it worship.
And my laziness is just my way of saying to you that the ultimate happens only when you are in a state of non-doing. It does not mean lazy according to your dictionaries. I am busy from six in the morning to eleven in the night. Of course, busy without business – I don’t have any business.
I am lazy in my own meaning of the word; I am a non-doer. And that is my whole teaching to you, that even while you are doing something you remain a non-doer. Doing is not against your being a non-doer. The non-doer is your witnessing self.
You are digging a hole in the garden, perspiring in the hot sun, but there is something in you which is simply witnessing – relaxed, knowing the perspiration, feeling the hard labor, smelling the beautiful fragrance of the earth.
But there is a point in you which is absolutely a non-doer, only a watcher. When I say I am the laziest man in the world I simply mean that I am only my witness, my non-doer – just a watcher, a watcher on the hills.
I have done whatever I needed to do. Don’t you want me to retire at some point? And when I have so many lovers and friends around the world, why should I bother not to be lazy? You can afford it. One million sannyasins cannot afford one laziest man?
Source: from Osho Book “From Death to Deathlessness”
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