Monday, August 15, 2005

Osho on Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Prize for her charitable work in India, which Osho criticizes. At the end of December 1980, Mother Teresa writes to Osho.

The politicians and the priests have always been in deep conspiracy, they have divided man. The politician rules the outside and the priest rules the inside: the politician the exterior and the priest the interior. They are joined in a deep conspiracy against humanity—they may not even be aware of what they are doing. I don't suspect their intentions; they may be absolutely unconscious.Just the other day I received a letter from Mother Teresa. I have no intention of saying anything against her sincerity; whatsoever she wrote in the letter is sincere, but it is unconscious. She is not aware of what she is writing; it is mechanical, it is robot-like. She says, 'I have just received a cutting of your speech. I feel very sorry for you that you could speak as you did. Reference: the Nobel Prize. For the adjectives you add to my name I forgive you with great love.'


She is feeling very sorry for me…I enjoyed the letter! She has not even understood the adjectives that I have used about her. But she is not aware, otherwise she would have felt sorry for herself.


The adjectives that I have used—she has sent the cutting also with the letter—the first is 'deceiver', then 'charlatan' and 'hypocrite'….


Now I have criticized her and said that the Nobel Prize should not have been given to her, and she feels offended by it. She says in her letter, 'Reference: the Nobel Prize.'
This man Nobel was one of the greatest criminals possible in the world. the First World War was fought with his weapons; he was the greatest manufacturer of weapons….
Mother Teresa could not refuse the Nobel Prize. The same desire to be admired, the same desire to be respectable in the world—and the Nobel Prize brings you the greatest respect. She accepted the prize….


That's why I have called the people like Mother Teresa 'deceivers'. They are not deceivers knowingly, certainly, not intentionally, but that does not matter; the outcome, the end result is very clear. Their purpose is to function in this society like a lubricant so that the wheels of the society, the wheels of exploitation, oppression can go on moving smoothly. These people are lubricants! They are deceiving others and they are deceiving themselves.


And I call them 'charlatans' because a really religious person, a man like Jesus…Can you conceive of Jesus getting the Nobel Prize? Impossible! Can you conceive of Socrates getting the Nobel Prize or Al-Hillaj Mansoor getting the Nobel Prize? If Jesus cannot get the Nobel Prize and Socrates cannot get the Nobel Prize—and these are the true religious people, the awakened ones—then who is Mother Teresa?…


The really religious person is rebellious; the society condemns him. Jesus is condemned as a criminal and Mother Teresa is respected as a saint. There is something to be pondered over: if Mother Teresa is right then Jesus is a criminal, and if Jesus is right then Mother Teresa is just a charlatan and nothing else. Charlatans are always praised by the society because they are helpful—helpful to this society, to this status quo.


Whatsoever adjectives I have used I have used very knowingly. I never use a single word without consideration. And I have used the word 'hypocrites'. These people are hypocrites because their basic life style is split: on the surface one thing, inside something else.
She writes: 'The Protestant family was refused the child not because they are Protestant but because at that time we did not have a child that we could give them.'


Now, the Nobel Prize is given to her for helping thousands of orphans and there are thousands of orphans in the homes she runs. Suddenly she ran out of orphans? And in India can you ever run out of orphans? Indians go on creating as many orphans as you want, in fact more than you want!


And the Protestant family which has been refused was not refused immediately. If there was no orphan available, if all the orphans had been disposed of, then what is Mother Teresa doing with seven hundred nuns? What is their work? Seven hundred nuns…then whom are they mothering? Not a single orphan—strange!—and that too in Calcutta! You can find orphans anywhere on the road—you find children in the dustbins. They could have just looked outside the place and they would have found many children. You can just go outside the ashram and you can get orphans. They will come themselves, you need not find them!


Suddenly they ran out of orphans…And if the family had been refused immediately it would have been a totally different matter. But the family was not refused immediately; they were told, 'Yes, you can get an orphan. Fill in the form.' So the form was filled in. Till they came to the point where they had to state their religion, up to that moment, there were orphans, but when they filled in the form and wrote 'We belong to the Protestant Church,' immediately they ran out of orphans!


And this reason was not given to the Protestant family itself. Now, this is hypocrisy! This is deception! This is ugly! The reason given to the family itself was that because these children…because the children were there, so how could she say, 'We don't have any orphans'? They are always on exhibition!She has invited me also: 'You can come any time and you are welcome to visit our place and see our orphans and our work.' They are constantly on exhibition!In fact, those Protestants had already chosen the orphan, the child that they wanted to adopt, so she could not say to those people, 'It is because there are no more orphans. We are sorry.'
She said to them, "These orphans are being raised according to the Roman Catholic Church and it will be bad for their psychological growth because it will be such a disruption. Now, giving them to you will make them a little disturbed and it will not be good for them. That's why we cannot give the child to you, because you are Protestant."


Exactly that was the reason given to them. And they are not stupid people. The husband is a professor in a European university—he was shocked, the wife was shocked. They had come from so far away just to adopt a child, and they were refused because they are Protestants. Had they written 'Catholic' they would have been given the child immediately.


And one thing to be understood: these children are basically Hindu. If Mother Teresa is so concerned about their psychological welfare then they should be brought up according to the Hindu religion, but they are brought up according to the Catholic Church. And then to give them to Protestants, who are not different at all from Catholics…What is the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant? Just a few stupid things!…


Just a few days ago there was a bill in the Indian Parliament Freedom of Religion. The purpose of the bill was that nobody should be allowed to convert anybody to another religion: unless somebody chooses it out of his own free will no conversion should be allowed. And Mother Teresa was the first one to oppose it. In her whole life she has never opposed anything; this was the first time, and maybe the last. She opposed it. She wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, and there was a heated controversy between her and the Prime Minister: 'The bill should not be passed because it goes against our whole work. We are determined to save people, and people can be saved only if they become Roman Catholics.' They created so much uproar all over the country—and the politicians are always concerned about votes, they cannot lose the Christian votes—so the bill was dropped, simply dropped….


If Mother Teresa is really honest and believes that converting a person disturbs his psychic structure, then she should be against conversion unless a person chooses it by himself.
For example, you have come to me, I have not gone to you. I don't even go outside the door….
I have not gone to anybody, you have come to me. And I am not converting you to any religion either. I am not creating any ideology here, I am not giving you any catechism, any doctrine. I am simply helping you to be silent. Now, silence is neither Christian or Hindu nor Mohammedan; silence is silence. I am teaching you loving. Now, love is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Mohammedan. I am teaching you to be aware. Now, awareness is simply awareness; it belongs to nobody. And I call this true religiousness.


To me Mother Teresa and people like her are hypocrites: saying one thing but doing something else behind a beautiful facade. It is the whole game of politics—the politics of numbers.
And she says, 'For the adjectives you add to my name I forgive you with great love.' First of all, love need not forgive because in the first place it is not angered. To forgive somebody first you have to be angry; that is a prerequisite.I don't forgive Mother Teresa at all, because I am not angry at all. Why should I forgive her? She must have been angry. This is why I want you to start meditating on these things. It is said that Buddha never forgave anybody for the simple reason that he was never angry. How can you forgive without anger? It is impossible. She must have been angry. This is what I call unconsciousness: she is not aware of what she is writing,…she is not aware of what I am going to do with her letter!


She says, 'I forgive you with great love'—as if there is small love and great love, and things like that. Love is simply love; It cannot be great, it cannot be small. Do you think love is a quantitative thing?—one kilo of love, two kilos of love. How many kilos of love makes it great? Or are tons needed?


Love is not a quantity at all, it is a quality. And quality is immeasurable: it is neither small nor great. Whenever somebody says to you, 'I love you very greatly,' beware! Love is just love; it cannot be less than that, it cannot be more than that. There is no question of less and more.
And what crime have I committed that she is forgiving me for? Just old Catholic stupidity—they go on forgiving! I have not confessed any sin, so why should she forgive me?


I stick to all the adjectives, and I will add a few more: that she is stupid, mediocre, idiotic! And if anybody needs to be forgiven it is she, not I, because she is committing a great sin. She is saying in this letter, 'I am fighting through adoption the sin of abortion.' Abortion is not a sin; in this overpopulated world abortion is a virtue. And if abortion is a sin then the Polack Pope and Mother Teresa and company are responsible for it because they are against contraceptives, they are against birth control methods, they are against the pill. These are the people who are the cause of all the abortions; they are responsible. To me they are great criminals!
In this overpopulated world where people are hungry and starving to be against the pill is just unforgivable! The pill is one of the most significant contributions of modern science to humanity—it can make the earth a paradise….


I would like to destroy poverty, I don't want to serve poor people. Enough is enough! For ten thousand years fools have been serving poor people; it has not changed anything. But now we have enough technology to destroy poverty completely.


So if anybody has to be forgiven it is these people. It is the Pope, Mother Teresa, etcetera, who have to be forgiven. They are criminals, but their crime is such that you will need great intelligence to understand it.


And see the egoistic 'holier than thou' attitude. 'I forgive you,' she says. 'I feel sorry for you,' she says. And she asks, 'May God's blessings be with you and fill your heart with his love.' Just bullshit!

I don't believe in any God as a person, so there is no God as a person who can bless me or anybody else. God is only a realization, God is not somebody to be encountered. It is your own purified consciousness. And why should God bless me? I can bless all your gods! Why should I ask for anybody's blessing? I am blissful—there is no need! And I don't believe that there is any God. I have looked in every nook and corner and he does not exist! It is only in ignorant people's minds that God has existence. I am not an atheist, remember, but I am not a theist either.
God is not a person to me but a presence, and the presence is felt when you reach to the climax of your meditativeness. You suddenly feel a godliness overflowing the whole existence. There is no God, but there is godliness.I love the statement of H. G. Wells about Gautam the Buddha. He has said that Gautam the Buddha is the most godless person yet the most godly too. You can say the same thing about me: I am the most godless person you can find, but I know godliness.
Godliness is like a fragrance, an experience of immense joy, of utter freedom. You cannot pray to godliness, you cannot make an image of godliness, you cannot say, 'May God's blessings be with you'—and that too with a condition: 'May God's blessings be with you during 1981.' Such misers! And what about 1982? Great courage! Great sharing! Such generosity!


'…and fill your heart with his love.' My heart is full with love! There is no space for anybody else's love in it. And why should my heart be filled with anybody else's love? A borrowed love is not love at all. The heart has its own fragrance.But this type of nonsense is thought to be very religious. She is writing with this desire that I will see how religious she is, and all that I can see is simply that she is an ordinary, foolish person, just the same as you can find anywhere among the mediocre people.


I have been calling her Mother Teresa, but I think I should stop calling her Mother Teresa because I am not very gentlemanly but I have to respond adequately. She calls me Dear Mr Rajneesh, so from now onwards I will call her Dear Miss Teresa—just to be gentlemanly, mannerly!


The ego can come in from the back door. Don't try to throw it out. I have received a newscutting from Calcutta. The reporter says that he went to Mother Teresa with a cutting from a newspaper about my statement that she is idiotic. She became so mad she tore the cutting and threw it away. And she was so angry that she was not even willing to make any comment. But she has made the comment, tearing the newspaper cutting.


And the reporter said, "I was puzzled. I asked that, 'the cutting belonged to me. I had just come to show it to you and to know your comment?'"


And these people think they are religious people. In fact, by tearing the cutting she simply proved what I have said was right: she is idiotic—this is idiotic. I receive so many "compliments"—in inverted commas—from all over the world that if I start tearing them it will be enough exercise for me—and I hate exercise!

15 Comments:

At April 27, 2006 5:43 PM, Anonymous Anonymous Said ...

Yes dear OSHO. your comments are stupids but from a stupid point of view. the so called religious people don't know even what they are doing. they are not having bad intentions but they are stupid gentlemen. they serve one or the other organisation, system ou tradition and hence are esclave. and how can an esclave make a way of liberation for the others.

 
At June 29, 2006 2:14 AM, Anonymous Anonymous Said ...

நீ ஒரு பார்ப்பன மிருகம்.

 
At August 09, 2006 12:15 PM, Anonymous Anonymous Said ...

Forgiveness is much more that some conscious notation. It must be thorough, through and through, from the inside out. There is a powerful free tool to help with this at www.innertalk.com.

 
At September 11, 2006 11:23 AM, Anonymous Anonymous Said ...

Forgiving, letting go--releasing fear and so on can be so difficult and yet so easy if the mind just attends to a little re-training. There are some free subliminal and hypnosis programs for these issues at www.innertalk.com and they helped me.

 
At September 15, 2006 11:52 AM, Anonymous Anonymous Said ...

The blog world is a great source of info. There are some free subliminal tools for fear and promoting forgiveness at www.innertalk.com/ They work for me.

 
At April 29, 2007 12:07 PM, Anonymous Anonymous Said ...

lol....osho was such a funny guy

 
At June 27, 2007 12:21 PM, Anonymous Anonymous Said ...

From another blog:

-------------------------------------------

OSHO International received the following letter - which was sent to the Publisher and to Christopher Hitchens in response to the Osho chapter in his book. In his correspondence to us Mr. Allanach gave us permission to circulate his response.


Jack Allanach
29 Blaxland Road
Wentworth Falls NSW 2782 Australia


May 31, 2007


Christopher Hitchens
c/o TWELVE
Hachette Book Group USA
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10169


Christopher Hitchens:


I am writing in relation to a particular chapter in your book God is not Great – the chapter entitled There Is No “Eastern” Solution. I wish to point out, more to your publisher than to you – who should be aware of the fabrications and fallacies it contains – of how dishonest this chapter truly is.

Let’s get right down to it.

You say you donned “orange garb” to attend the ashram of a “celebrated guru”, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh “in order to help make a documentary film for the BBC” which, you also say, “did have a standard of fairness and my mandate was to absorb as much as I could.”

I remember your visit well. At that time I was ashram Press Officer. I am also blessed with near-photographic memory recall, and here is what I remember about your visit “to absorb as much as I could”:

I was in the press office with my colleague Vadan when one of the receptionists ushered you in. You informed us the BBC’s Tony Isaacs, whom I had met, had asked you to script a show on us for The World About Us. You certainly weren’t wearing orange.

For the next hour or so, Vadan and I filled you in on ashram activities. By morning tea time, I noticed one of your hands was shaking. I asked if there was something I could get for you.

“I have a little confession to make,” you said. “This is the first time in ten years I haven’t downed a fifth of scotch by this time. What I really need is a drink.”

“Apart from the bar at the Blue Diamond Hotel,” I said, “I doubt if you’ll find a bottle of scotch for miles.”

“Some in my room,” you muttered. “So if you chaps don’t mind, I’ll toddle off now and come back tomorrow.” You held up the literature we’d given you.”Enough homework to keep me busy until then.”

The next day we waited for you, but you didn’t show. The following day either. By the third afternoon it was apparent you weren’t coming back at all. So much for absorbing as much as you could.

Secondly, you say we were urged “to part with all material possessions,” and that this money went to purchasing a “fleet of Rolls-Royce motorcars.” Absolute fabrication. How deeply you delved into the Pune commune is clear from this single statement. Where was the fleet housed on that overcrowded six acres? The only time there was a Rolls-Royce on that property was at the very end of our first stay in Pune when, following an assassination attempt by a Hindu fundamentalist, we imported a metal detector and an ancient bullet-proof Rolls. The fleet came a lot later, in America.

Next, you talk about the film by Wolfgang Dobrowolny – or Veet Artho as we knew him – that was shot in “secret.” More invention on your part. Laxmi, Osho’s secretary and the Foundation’s managing trustee, fell for Veet Artho’s sweet talk and, despite repeated and vociferous warnings from me and others that it would come back to haunt us, gave him permission to shoot footage of an encounter group in which physical expression was allowed – an initiative of encounter group leader Teertha which Osho immediately instructed be dropped as soon as someone got hurt.

Laxmi’s mandate was, as she put it, that “word (of Osho’s availability in Pune) must reach all the corners of the world” and in her naivety (she’d never been outside India) she thought people would see how liberating it was to free themselves from repressed emotions and traumas and flock to Pune. It came as a shock to her to learn that the majority of people back in the 1970s, when faced with a reflux of suppressed emotion or childhood pain chose, rather than dealing with it, to have another fag and pour another couple of stiff drinks.

By the way, Dobrowolny never owned the rights to the film. They were retained by the Foundation, and the BBC’s use of the footage was illegal.

I also found your insinuation extremely offensive that a “German princeling of the House of Windsor” met a shady end as a result of participating in a therapy group. Vimalkirti, as we knew him, collapsed suddenly one morning, doing his daily martial arts exercise routine on his own, from an aneurysm in the brain – hereditary I gather. He was taken immediately to an intensive care facility at Jehangir Nursing Home in Pune where he died, without recovering consciousness, a few days later. There was nothing suspicious, as you imply. Imagine how his wife, who is still involved with our worldwide community, and his daughter will feel when/if they read what you’ve written. Shame on you.

Finally, I find it odd that of all the supporters of organized religions on the vast Indian spiritual scene, you pick the one man who consistently criticized the religions for the damage they have done – through promoting blind belief, blind faith and generating blind fear – down the ages. Osho’s attacks on Mother Teresa of Calcutta (is that where you got the idea for your book?) and her boss, whom he called “The Polack Pope” are well documented. His series of talks in America so often focused on the dangers of Christian fundamentalism that today they seem prophetic. Among the last series of talks he gave in public, two titles come to mind — Christianity, the Greatest Poison and Zen, the Antidote to All Poisons – as well as a series illustrating where Nietzsche and other atheists missed the boat, God is Dead: Now Zen is the Only Living Truth.

To illustrate your premise that “there is no Eastern solution,” why pick a mystic who, his entire life, through discourses and books, tried to alert mankind to the fact, as you say, that “religion poisons everything.” And why pick one who left his body in 1990? Did he have that big an impact on you, or was it because you couldn’t be bothered updating the “research” – and I use the term facetiously – you pretend to have conducted 30 years ago?

In closing, permit me a footnote. After your completely unprofessional behaviour and lack of integrity in Pune all those years ago I often wondered whether I would have a chance one day to tell the truth about your visit and to expose the shallowness of the effort you put into the documentary for the BBC.

Whether anyone else but you and your publisher read this letter, I am pleased that, at long last, I’ve had an opportunity to say what really happened. It’s comforting to know that even after 30 years, chickens still come home to roost.

Jack Allanach/Krishna Prem
cc: Jonathan Karp, Publisher and Editor-in Chief, TWELVE
cc: Osho International Foundation, Bahnhofstr. 52, 8001 Zürich, Switzerland
cc: Osho International, 80 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011

--------------------------

There is another post here

http://lists.asu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9805&L=meaning&P=52

which would suggest that Hitchens has, well, taken inspiration from Osho for his earlier writings on Mother Teresa.

 
At August 10, 2007 3:37 AM, Blogger K.R.அதியமான் Said ...

yin-yang & siva-sakthi

to : Thiru Sujatha

Dear Sir,

The booklet "Oru Vingana Parvayilirundhu" (1984) is
important and lucidly written. I consider it as one of your best works.

Only one matter has not been mentioned. Dual nature of particles (uncertainity principle) which tells about wave/matter state or nature of particles ;
can be co-related to our Siva Sakthi (and ardhanareeshwarar) ; matter becomes energy and vice
versa ; sakthi (energy) becomes sivam (matter) ;and sivasakthi is the nature of universe. (..movie :
Thiruvilayadal and the famous dual between sivam and sakthi)

All things and actions in this universe are co-related in distance and time. Saravam Brahma mayam. For e.g a wave in a beach is the net result of all forces and parameters of ocean and land ,wind and time.

Astrological perspective too can be fit into thisview. The postions and movements of planets affect and
control life events.

Thanks & regards
Athiyaman

 
At September 11, 2007 9:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous Said ...

so damm right, no trulier words could ever be spoken

 
At February 25, 2008 3:02 PM, Anonymous Anonymous Said ...

Its nice to see that not only are there people out there that can see the deception and hypocricy of the functions of people like mother teresa but having the ability to explain these observations in such a clear manner is truely rare. Im not saying mother teresa was consciously trying to decieve anyone. I think she was truely trying to do good and she did good. but none the less the deception was happening.As an example it is much more important to be "aware" of poverty and the causes of poverty only then can see it in its totality and only then can we work to eradicate it serving poverty is important but serving poverty does not neccesarily eradicate it. To me service is like paying the interest portion of a large monetary debt this is needed to keep the debt in good standing but the problem of the debt remains, and awareness is the part that works to pay that debt of. You gotta be aware of the debt to tackle it. Mother Teresas religon which she held so dearly seemed to be the cause of her great service to poverty but unfortunetly it was the root of opression and ignorance aswell.

 
At November 23, 2009 10:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous Said ...

Woow osho, full of ego and scared about the truth, you knew your thoughts were wrong same as lucifer knew when he plotted against God, you had same ego as lucifer and lead the people in the wrong path to receive happiness. you call Mother Teresa hypocrite, look at you, what good have you done for your own Indian people, i remember crossing your commune and how the security guard spoke to us as if we were trying to enter your hell... your commune has never invited ordinary Indians and I would say you were number one GUDDAR... what have you given to your country... you tell that you do not believe in existence of God yet you are called bhagwan... you made joke of yourself. You said you were not angry with Mother Teresa but Mother Teresa was angry as she said "I forgive you..." look at your words how you have described Her... your words are words of angry and ego person.

 
At November 23, 2009 10:19 PM, Anonymous Anonymous Said ...

"At worst, she is a sadistic opportunist who exploits the suffering and helplessness of the poor for her own gain."
So it was not osho but Mother Teresa who had Rolls-Royce hahah what a joke osho

 
At January 10, 2010 10:52 AM, Anonymous Anonymous Said ...

Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!

 
At April 19, 2010 3:36 PM, Anonymous Anonymous Said ...

osho was a 7th plane shaktipat master, there arent more than a dozen enlightened masters on the planet, i suggest that you first try to understand the basics of energy through the universe and what an enlightened master stands for and then post your beliefs or opinions about human mental or instinctual tragedy, the states of nonenlightenment that create conditional relationships and the misconceptions of benevolen intentions as default behavior, ignoring karmic defects.

 
At August 11, 2011 3:02 AM, Anonymous Anonymous Said ...

i never knew how foolish i could be when i started thinking like osho,even at the top of blissfulness people still like to remain as foolish as ever. blissfulness gets another meaning when i think about someone like Osho......i being a human, try to express in degrees which of course is contrary to who thinks he is not otherwise rather wise....u Great Osho....

 

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