Question – Osho, you were saying that the new will be victorious. Will it really be the new, or will it be the old polished up here and there. There are publications now in germany that use you. Some mention you in the list of literature as the source, but others use you and don’t mention you — or they even condemn you. I am really afraid of those people. What is their intention? Can you please take away that fear?
Osho : There is no need to be afraid of those people. That is happening in every language all over the world. People are taking my statements and not mentioning my name. There is no harm in it, because my name is not important; what is important is the statement. Even if these people are stealing, there is no harm. That statement may start something in somebody which these people cannot fulfill. That statement may trigger a process in somebody who will have to come to the original source.
They are not mentioning my name for two reasons. One reason is, they would like to appear original. Secondly, they are afraid that if they mention my name they will be condemned — then their book is not going to be praised, respected. But don’t be afraid of these people, whatever their reason. Anything taken from me is fire, and it does not matter in what way the fire reaches to somebody’s heart. These people who are doing such things cannot be great writers, poets, creative thinkers; otherwise they would not do such an act of stealing.
These people are third rate. So if they have stolen something from me it is going to stand out in their whole book as separate, unrelated, out of context. Anybody who has a little intelligence, will see that this part has not come from the same man who has written the book, because the book has a third class flavor; there is no originality, there is no understanding of the deeper problems of life, and there is no courage to say the truth as it is.
So anything that they have stolen to decorate their books, to make their books valuable, unknowingly that very part is going to destroy their whole book. They have stolen fire and put it into their book. In India, one radio station was reading my statements every day, for ten minutes in the morning, without mentioning my name — but passages from books, stories. Hundreds of letters came to me saying, “These people are stealing from your books.”
I said, “Don’t be worried. My name is not significant, my message is. They are cowards, or perhaps they love me but they are government servants.”
In India radio is owned by the government, television is owned by the government. If they use my name, they may lose their jobs. And certainly during that series, which was continuing for six months, even ministers, cabinet ministers and the prime minister, were quoting from those statements, thinking that they have nothing to do with me. But the people who were listening knew that those statements were not coming from Indira Gandhi — they could not be, they had no relevance with the person — they were stolen.
And they started searching for the place from where the statements had been stolen. Finally I met the person, the director of that radio station. He was a lover of me, and he said, “I have been condemned. Hundreds of letters are coming to me, saying, `You are stealing. You are not mentioning Osho’s name. But if I mention your name then the series will be stopped that very day. I will continue as long as they don’t discover…
`”And the moment it was discovered, immediately the series was stopped and the man was removed. He told me, “It happened because of that series. People started writing letters to the prime minister saying, `This man is stealing passages from Osho.'”
The prime minister herself had been stealing. Her lectures have been sent to me, and word for word, long passages have been stolen from me. But I have always taken the standpoint: let the truth reach to people by any means, by anyone.
I have been thinking that if the great powerful governments of the world are so afraid that they will not allow me entry into their country — just as a tourist for three or four weeks — if they are so impotent with all their power that they will not even allow me an overnight stay at the airport, which is legally my right…
In England my jet plane was standing at the airport, and the pilots had to rest. According to the law, after a certain period they cannot fly, so only in the morning would they be able to fly. I had every right to stay in the lounge at the airport, but they refused — as if with me there are different laws! One of my friends who was traveling with me just happened to see the file of the man who was preventing me, because he went to the bathroom, leaving the file on the table.
And my friend just looked and was surprised, because there were government instructions…. I had just arrived, but the file was ready, saying that if I try to stay even overnight I should not be allowed to stay in the first class lounge, but I should be put in jail; I am a dangerous person.
In the airport lounge, from where I cannot get into the country… there is no way to get into the country from the lounge. Every instruction was there about how they had to treat me. In England we had to stay for one night in jail, without any crime — just because the pilots could not fly overtime. And the government was ready beforehand. It was not a spontaneous decision, it was well-planned. Now there are countries who have decided in their parliaments that I should not be allowed into their country.
And they have a certain European parliament… Just the other day I was informed that now they are considering in the European parliament — which is just a combined body of all the parliaments of Europe — a decision that I should not be allowed even to land my plane at any airport in Europe. Today they will be doing this in Europe — America has done it already.
Tomorrow they will be doing it in Asia, in Australia, in Africa. It is possible, very possible, that if they are so much afraid of me, they will start banning my books. And it may become necessary that my books go without my name, or with any name — like Holy Ghost!
The name does not matter. But the message has to reach. It is unprecedented. The whole world against a single man — a man who has no power, no nuclear weapons, who cannot do any harm to anybody. The whole world is at war with a single person. It simply shows that I am hitting at their very roots.
You need not be worried. If somebody has taken some passage, that passage will prove more important than his whole book. And I would like more and more writers, poets, film makers to steal as much as they can, because truth is not my property, I am not its owner. Let it reach in any way, in anybody’s name, in any form, but let it reach.”
Source – from Osho book “Beyond Psychology”