Come Follow To You: Reflections on Jesus of Nazareth

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There is fear in being alone. One likes to belong - to a nation, to a church, to a society, because when you belong to the crowd you forget your loneliness. It does not disappear, but you become oblivious to it. You deceive yourself, you create a dream around you, as if you are note alone. You remain alone all the same; this is just an intoxicant. Religion is not an intoxicant. It does not give you unconsciousness, it give you unconsciousness, it gives you awareness, and awareness is rebellious.

I will speak on Christ, but not on Christianity. Christianity has nothing to do with Christ. In fact, Christianity is anti-Christ - just as Buddhism is anti-Buddha and Jainism anti-Mahavira. Christ has something in him which cannot be organized: the very nature of it is rebellion and a rebellion cannot be organized. The moment you organize it, you kill it. Then the dead corpse remains. You can worship it, but you cannot be transformed by it. You can carry the load for centuries and centuries, but it will only burden you, it will not liberate you. That’s why, from the beginning, let it be absolutely clear: I am all for Christ, but not even a small part of me is for Christianity. If you want Christ, you have to go beyond Christianity. If you want Christ, you have to go beyond Christianity.

Preface

I am Absolutely for the Individual. I can sacrifice every society and every religion and every civilization - the whole history of mankind - just for a single individual. The individual is the most valuable phenomenon, because the individual is part of existence.

You will have to drop you fear. It has been imposed on you; it is not natural. Watch every small child: he accepts himself perfectly; there is no condemnation, there is no desire to be anybody else. But everybody, as he grows, is distracted. You will have to gather courage to come back to yourself. The whole society will prevent you; you will be condemned. But it is far better to be condemned by the whole world than to remain miserable and phony and false and live a life of somebody else.

You can have a blissful life and there are not two ways, only one single way. This is: you have just to be yourself, whatever you are. From there, from that deep acceptance and respect for yourself, you will start growing. You will bring flowers of your own - not Christian, not Buddhist, not Hindu - just absolutely your own, a new contribution to existence.

But it needs immense courage to go alone on a path leaving the whole crowd on the highway. To be in the crowd one feels cozy, warm; to go alone, naturally one feels afraid. The mind goes on arguing within that, “the whole of humanity cannot be wrong, and I am going alone.” It is better just to be part of the crowd because then you are not responsible if things go wrong.

Everybody is responsible. But the moment you depart from the crowd you are taking your responsibility in your own hands. If something goes wrong, you are responsible. But remember one very fundamental thing: responsibility is one side of the coin and the other side is freedom. You can have both together or you can drop both together. If you don’t want to have responsibility, you cannot have freedom, and without freedom there is no growth.

So you have to accept responsibility for yourself and you have to live in absolute freedom so that you can grow, whatever you are. You may turn out to be a rosebush, you may turn out to be just a marigold flower, you may turn out just to be a wild flower that has no name. But one things is certain: whatever you turn out to be, you will be immensely happy. You will be utterly blissful.

Back of the Book

Jesus is beautiful in his parables. A parable tries to show something, not to say it. It indicates very indirectly; the conclusion has to be supplied by you. It baffles the reason….it leaves a gap…it is creative. If you try to understand it, your understanding will become higher than it was before you heard it. Parables should be like puzzles which challenge you, and through challenge you grow.

“As a former orthodox Christian, I felt a continual sense of both joy and apprehension at this new possibility for approaching jesus. Doubt and trust pulled me in two directions. Until finally I fell in love with the words of [Osho] and his view of jesus.”

About Osho

Osho defies categorization, reflecting everything from the individual quest for meaning to the most urgent social and political issues facing society today. His books are not written but are transcribed from recordings of extemporaneous talks given over a period of thirty-five years. Osho has been described by The Sunday Times in London as one of the “1000 Makers of the 20th Century” and by Sunday Mid-Day in India as one of the ten people - along with Gandhi, Nehru and Buddha - who have changed the destiny of India.

Osho has a stated aim of helping to create the conditions for the birth of a new kind of human being, characterized as “Zorba the Buddha” - one whose feet are firmly on the ground, yet whose hands can touch the stars. Running like a thread through all aspects of Osho is a vision that encompasses both the timeless wisdom of the East and the highest potential of Western science and technology.

He is synonymous with a revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation and an approach to meditation which specifically addresses the accelerated pace of contemporary life. The unique Osho Active Meditations^TM are designed to allow the release of accumulated stress in the body and mind so that it is easier to be still and experience the thought-free state of meditation.