Osho,
I have heard you say that you would like to sever our relationships with all “isms.” Does this include Rajneeshism as well?

Certainly. But you don’t understand one thing – Rajneeshism is not an “ism.” It is just because of the poverty of language that we had to call it Rajneeshism. It is not an “ism” because it has no theology, no ideology, no philosophy – which are basic needs for an “ism” to exist.

You are absolutely free individuals. You don’t belong to a certain concept about existence, about God, heaven and hell. You simply don’t have any conceptualization.

We are existential: the “ism” is a mind thing. Our approach to reality is not a mind approach, it is a communion of heart to heart. All “isms” have belief systems: we don’t have any belief system. You are not required to believe in anything unless you know it; and when you know something you don’t believe, there is no need. You believe only things which you don’t know.

Belief grows only in ignorance.

Knowing something is enough, there is no need to believe. We are seekers, searchers, not believers. We don’t have any idea beforehand about what we are going to get in the end, when the search is over. Hence, I say to you, it is just poverty of language that our approach to reality is called Rajneeshism.

But it is not an “ism” at all, because it does not fulfill the requirements to make it an “ism.” Communism is, socialism is, fascism is; all religions are. They are not existential. They are not trying to discover individually, in a very intimate and personal way, what this life is all about. They have taken for granted words of others – and words are just words, containers without any content.

Words have a strange quality. You can go on and on building big palaces, castles in the air, through words, but there is no base to your castle in the air. The base is provided by your own experiencing. You can become a Christian just by believing in The Bible. You can become a Hindu just by believing in the Vedas.

You cannot become a Rajneeshee by believing in my words. You become a Rajneeshee when you also start feeling the same song I am feeling, you start the dance that is happening within me, you become full of the fragrance…. It is not wordy, it is existential.

To call it Rajneeshism was just a necessity enforced by poor language – it has no word for the existential approach. Even the philosophy of existence is called existentialism – the same stupid idea. Those philosophers are saying that there is no way to find the truth through argument, intellect.