Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries - Chapter-07

Zorba is my past: buddha is my present

QUESTIONS FROM AP, VPI AND REUTERS NEWS AGENCIES.

Question 1:

CAN YOU TELL US WHY, AS AN ADMIRER OF SOCRATES, YOU DON'T PRACTICE THE SOCRATIC METHOD OF DIALOGUE?

Dialogue is possible between two blind men; they can discuss ad infinitum about light without coming to any conclusion. Dialogue is impossible between two persons who can see light: the dialogue is unnecessary; light is the experience of both. The third possibility is that one man may be able to see light, and the other may be blind. What kind of dialogue do you think is possible between these two?

Socrates was not an enlightened person - a great philosopher, a great logician, but not an enlightened person, not a man with eyes. Gautam Buddha has no dialogue; he knows, there is no question of discussing it. You can sit silently with him. Even in his silence there will be a communication. Or you can ask him a question and he will respond spontaneously.

No enlightened person in the whole world has ever used Socrates' method of dialogue. That's the reason why I cannot use it. If you know, if you have experienced the truth, then we can sit in silence - there is no need to say anything.

Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries - Chapter-06

If you can get it, get it

QUESTIONS FROM NBC TELEVISION, AMERICA.

Question 1:

COULD YOU PORTRAY BRIEFLY: WHO ARE YOU? PEOPLE SAY YOU ARE A CROOK. ARE YOU A CROOK?

I am just a mirror. When a crook looks at me, he sees a crook in me. It all depends on you.

As far as I am concerned, it is impossible to portray me... just a clean, empty mirror. That is my whole effort, to teach meditation to people.

Meditation is the art of cleaning your mirror from all the dust that the society, the religion, the educational system has poured on you, to take away everything that has not been born with you, to bring you to your absolute innocence as you were born as a child.

I call this rebirth. And after rebirth you are just a mirror. There are people who see a god in me, and there are people who see a crook in me, and there are people who see a monkey in me, and there are people who see a donkey in me, and there are people who see a yankee in me - it depends on them.

It is their own face.

I simply reflect.

Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries - Chapter-05

Existence does not like carbon copies

QUESTIONS FROM "TA NEA", GREECE.

Question 1:

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO INTRODUCE YOURSELF TO THE GREEK PEOPLE?

My God! Can't you recognize me? I am the same person you have poisoned twenty-five centuries ago. You have forgotten me, but I have not forgotten you. And just being here for two days, I was thinking that in twenty-five centuries Greece would have evolved towards some better qualities, towards more humanity, towards more truth. But I am feeling sad, because in just two days there have been articles in the Greek newspapers telling absolute lies about me, making allegations which have no foundation in reality, absurdities.

For example, one newspaper was saying that I am hiding here from the American government, and the American government is after me to catch me and bring me back to America for crimes like manslaughter, sex orgies, drug dealing - you name it, and it is there. The reality is that America is afraid of my entering into America. Their court has given me their decision that for five years I cannot enter America.

From where did this newspaper get the idea that I am hiding here...? And is this a way of hiding?

Thousands of people will be coming here. Every day morning and evening news media will be here... is this a way of hiding? But that newspaper and others have convinced one bishop here, who is calling meetings of local people to protest against my stay here - and it is only two days that have passed. Last time they allowed me my whole life; only in the end they poisoned me. I don't think I can last here more than two months at the most.

Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries - Chapter-04

The art of not planning life

QUESTIONS FROM QUICK MAGAZINE, GERMANY

Question 1:

DO YOU THINK THE GERMAN CHANCELLOR IS AFRAID OF YOU?

Absolutely - otherwise there is no reason to make a law that I cannot enter Germany. I have never been in Germany; I have never committed any crime against German law. I have not even applied for any tourist visa, so from my side there has been no question of entering Germany. It must be his own phobia.

He is certainly afraid; that can be said categorically. And the reason for his fear is that the German youth is deeply in love with me. The German youth is finished with the politicians. The day Adolf Hitler died an ignominious death, German politicians died for the younger generation; all politics became ugly.

German priests are also afraid. They may be behind the chancellor in a joint conspiracy, because this is the first time in the whole of history that Christians are facing a man who is taking the youth, the very cream, the intelligent people, educated people, the talented people, out of their fold. Christians have been trying to do it for centuries around the world, but they have never been successful in changing the cultured, the educated, the intelligent, the talented. They have been successful only in changing the beggars, the starving, the orphans.

Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries - Chapter-03

The well is going to the thirsty

QUESTIONS FROM TROS TV, HOLLAND.

Question 1:

THIS IS A KIND OF A PARADISE YOU HAVE FOUND AGAIN.

HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO FIND THESE BEAUTIFUL PLACES OVER AND OVER AGAIN?

IS IT A DIFFICULT QUESTION? YOU HAVE BEEN THINKING SUCH A LONG TIME..

It is a difficult question, because I never try to find any place. It is not a question of managing.

This has been my experience, that if inside you are in paradise, the outside synchronizes with it automatically. If you try to manage, you will simply mismanage. If you try to find paradise, you are not going to get it.

Question 2:

IS THE ISLAND OF CRETE AN ENLIGHTENED ISLAND? - BECAUSE FIRST ZEUS AND NOW OSHO.

I am not a god, nor was the first one a god. God is simply a fiction. But godliness can be experienced anywhere, in any part of the world. This is one earth. This island is not separate.

Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries - Chapter-02

Time knows only the present tense

Question 1:

BELOVED OSHO,

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LOVE AND HATRED, BETWEEN GOOD AND BAD?

They are the two sides of the same coin; there is not much difference. Love can change into hate, hate can change into love. And this change is possible only if they both have the same quality.

When you are in love, hate is the repressed part waiting to take revenge. Out of that revengefulness comes jealousy, and all kinds of fights between lovers. Sooner or later the repressed hate is going to destroy the very phenomenon of love. Once you are not lovers, you become enemies. The most difficult thing in this world is to love someone, then to fall out of love and still be friends.

And the same is true about good and evil, God and the devil; they exist together. It is surprising that nobody has taken any note that there are religions which do not believe in a devil but they are also the religions which do not believe in God. They cannot believe in God without a devil. The devil is almost like a shadow of God. There are religions who believe in God and have wanted to destroy the devil for thousands of years. But they cannot destroy him because to destroy the devil would be to destroy God himself.

It will be significant to remember that the word 'devil' comes from a Sanskrit root deva, which means 'god'. They are two sides of the same coin, helping each other and nourishing each other, even though they are just pure imagination. Even in imagination you cannot separate them.

Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries - Chapter-01

I belong to the whole world

QUESTIONS FROM The Rajneesh Times, GERMANY.

Question 1:

YOU ARE TRAVELING LIKE THE POPE. DO YOU WANT EVERYBODY TO BECOME A SANNYASIN?

The first thing to be remembered: you cannot compare me to the pope. He represents Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ he represents God.

I represent no one.

I represent only myself.

He is a carbon copy; I am an original.

The whole idea that somebody else can represent the truth, the experience of somebody else, is basically false. Either you know the truth or you don't know it. Those who know it will not represent anybody else. Those who do not know it, their representation is a lie, is a fundamental falsehood.

They are pretending to be somebody they are not.