Lars Mogansen,

Norres Kane, Hasselholm, Sweden

Glad to see you.

Osho,
It’s nice to be here. I work for a newspaper in southern Sweden, a small newspaper, and I’ve got quite a lot of questions.

Good.

So if you would be as brief as possible in your answers…
Unfortunately I haven’t read any of your books, so maybe some of my questions, or all of them, are unnecessary in a sense.

It is good that you have not read any. And you can ask the same question a thousand times, but my answer will again and again be different. So there is no problem.

I was reading on the back of a book called The Book and you’re saying, “I teach a sensuous religion; beauty is far more valuable than truth. Beauty is God himself, truth is just an aspect of beauty.” And I’d like to ask you three questions about those quotes:
Are you actually teaching a religion?
Is there a God? Do you believe in God, or maybe you’re even some kind of God to your disciples yourself?
And you’re saying beauty is far more valuable than truth. Is that why – from what I see – most of the people here are young, good-looking people?

That is my way of disposing of God. When I say beauty is God, I’m saying there is no God, but only beauty. And I am making a distinction between truth and beauty because truth is more a question of the head. It is a more logical, philosophical inquiry. Beauty is of the heart. It is not logical, not philosophical; it is more poetic, more aesthetic. You can feel it, but you cannot prove it. You can experience it, but you cannot explain it.