[NOTE: This was published in THE RAJNEESH TIMES, 24th August 1984 while Osho was in silence.]
EXCERPTS FROM THE WORDS OF OSHO DURING HIS DEPOSITION WITH MR. MCMURRAY
Your Honor, before I take the oath, I have to say few things, otherwise the oath will be a fraud. The first thing - I have always been against the ritual of oath-taking for the simple reason that if a man is capable fo lying he can lie even while he is taking the oath. His oath can be a lie, and if a man is a man of truth, the oath creates a dilemma for that man. For the man of truth to take the oath means that he is capable of lying. Without the oath he will lie and with the oath he will say the truth. You are putting me into a dilemma, but I am not a serious man. In life I never take anything seriously, except the jokes. I will take this oath just to play the game of this deposition. I will follow the rule, but I would like you to remember that by taking the oath I am lying in the first place. It is against my philosophy of life and you are forcing me to take the oath, that means you are freeing me, giving me the freedom to lie later on although I am not going to lie. The oath allows me to lie, but in spite of that freedom I will only say the truth, because I am incapable of lying. That is impossible, that is against my being and my existence. Now, just to play the game, I will take the oath. You can repeat what you want.
...
I take the oath on the book of Rajneeshism that I will speak only the truth. It is good that you have allowed me to take the oath on the book of Rajneeshism because these are my own words, but this is such ridiculousness that I am taking oath on my own words. These dead words on the paper mean more to you than my living words. But if it was a Bible, I would have refused immediately, or
Koran, or Gita, or any so-called holy book, because they are full of lies, out-of-date, un-scientific, sub-status.
...
When Christ is alive it is a religion, when Christ is dead then it is a cult because those who are believing are not knowing their belief is just blind belief. so there has been only one Christian, and that was Jesus who was crucified, after him there has not been a single Christian again. All other Christians are bigots. I have rarely come across a person who is not a bigot. He may not consciously accept it, but deep down either he is a Christian or a Mohammedan, or a Hindu, and all those beliefs make him a bigot, because he already has made his mind without knowing the truth. Jesus may not be a bigot, but Christians are, Buddha may not be a bigot, but Buddhists are, because Buddha is speaking his own experience and Buddhists are only believing that his experience is true. So they know who is a bigot, and who is a fascist and who is a racist. that is so simple they need not come to me and ask about it, I have said it all, I stopped speaking only because I have said everything possible that they will need. I have answered 10,000 questions and I cannot think you can bring any questions more than that concerning religion, mind, philosophy, psychology, but there is no need now, I am a silent man, I am not in any way active.
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Please don't waste the time of the honorable judge, and don't show that you don't have enough intelligence to understand simple things. Ask me some intelligent question. I was hoping some intelligent person is going to be there, don't be so mediocre. don't you have anything else?
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I trust my people, that is my whole way of life.
A SELECTION FROM A DISCOURSE GIVEN BY OSHO IN 1978 IS READ AND THEN OSHO CONTINUES:
It is absolute nonsense to read that big passage - you simply ask me the question. These are my own words, but they were spoken six years before, they were spoken in India; they were spoken in a totally different context. I have been in different phases of work. First, I was working on myself, then I was working to find the right expression to allow people to know what I have known, so for 20 years I have been travelling all over India; third, when I have found my people then I remain in one place, in Poona. That was a special experiment. it was not a political place, so the question of democracy does not arise at all. Jesus was not a democrat, not was Buddha a democrat, nor was Moses a democrat. These people who have known the truth cannot depend on voting whether it is true or not. It is their own experience. I am not a democrat as far as my religion is concerned but that does not imply politics at all. Democracy is a political phenomenon. And democracy takes care of the last person in the society, the most ignorant. Democracy is really for the most ignorant.
It is mobocracy. Religion takes care of the highest man, the Buddha, the enlightened, the Christ, who has known the truth. Now there is no question of deciding whether it is true or not by voting, by people who know nothing about it. In that experiment there was no question of democracy. That does not mean that I am against democracy. In politics democracy is okay, but politics is a lower
field. Religion is the highest phenomenon on the earth. In religion it can only be dictatorial, and by dictatorial I don't mean the dictatorship of masses, communists, by dictatorial I mean simply the master dictates and the disciple follows, there is no question of whether it is right or wrong. This was my third phase of work. When that phase was over I moved out of India and I moved into silence.
Now the situation and the context is totally different. I am no more concerned with the Commune, its day to day work, its details, its economics, its finance. I am not concerned at all with any mundane worldly affairs. Now my disciples are prepared enough to take care of the Commune. I am just an outsider. they can ask only their spiritual questions to me, nothing else. and if you want to ask me spiritual questions you have to come here like a disciple, sit on the ground in total acceptance, not like the way you are sitting here, interrogating me. This is a different situation.