Osho
Never have you seemed so human, dancing, laughing and celebrating with us. But never have you told it to us quite so straight, without catering to our unenlightened mortal stupidities. Is this the twenty-first century vibe?

You got it! This is the twenty-first century for me, and I am trying to push you towards it.

Sannyasins should live ahead of time. The people who are burdened with the past live five thousand years ago, ten thousand years ago, and they are stuck there.

You cannot live with the past. The past is dead, and to live with the past is to be dead. The only life possible is in the present, and the future is always changing into the present. It is always making the twenty-first century in the twentieth century. The farther ahead you can live in the moment, the more alive you will feel. And remember, it is better to be red than dead!

I had to wait for you to behave humanly. I was waiting for my people, because only they will understand that to be human is the highest value there is.

I was talking to the Christians, to the Hindus, to the Mohammedans, to the Jainas, to the Buddhists, and it was a difficult job. I could not behave humanly with them. They wanted me to be their messiah, their prophet, their messenger.

Just the other day I received two letters. One was from a woman in California. She said, “I have loved you for many years. I have been reading all your books – how beautiful it was when you spoke on Jesus! And now after three years of silence, what you are saying has enraged me so much that I have burned all your books. I will pray to Jesus Christ and God to forgive you. Perhaps you should go into silence again. And if you don’t go into silence, then there is only one possibility for you to be saved: that is, when you expire the silence will descend on your grave.”

Now this woman had all my literature, had loved me, she thinks. But do you think she loved me? She loved Jesus Christ, and because I had spoken on Jesus Christ, putting myself behind him. putting my gun on his shoulder, she was happy, immensely happy and grateful. The poor woman is not aware of the fact that she had never been in tune with me. Because I was speaking on Jesus as no one had spoken before, I was supporting her mind, her tradition, and she was feeling immensely happy. I was fulfilling her ego.

Now she is so against me, she has burned all the books, and she is praying to Jesus Christ, the God, to forgive me. She should also burn the house in which my books have been. They have already infected the air and the house.

Whenever you feel that you are supported in some way, you are happy. Hindus were happy, Mohammedans were happy, Christians were happy – everybody was happy. And I am not here to make you happy.

I want you to be blissful. I want you to know yourself, to know this vast existence. And you cannot know it being a Christian or a Hindu. Your eyes are covered with layers of dust that centuries have poured over you.