From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 18. ONE GOD, ONE MESSENGER, ONE BOOK – ONE BIG LIE
A cult is a business, a religious kind of business.
It has a religious jargon.
It has no experience.
Yes, once somewhere in the past there may have been a flower, but it is gone. Centuries have
passed, and since then the priest goes on pretending that he is the representative of that fragrance.
Nobody can represent fragrance: it comes with the flower and goes with the flower.
But the priest can create a plastic flower, can even put French perfume on it. And that’s what he has
been doing in all the religions.
Religion is rebellious, is bound to be so, because religion starts saying things which the tradition will
oppose, because only one of these two can exist: either the mass, unintelligent crowd – mind which
makes the tradition, or a man like jesus or Buddha or Mahavira.
They are alone.
And what they are saying can be understood only by the chosen few.
What they bring to the world is something so otherworldly, that unless you can have a heart to heart
contact with them, there is no way of understanding them – you will misunderstand.
jesus is misunderstood.
Socrates is misunderstood.
Al-Hillaj Mansoor is misunderstood. Whenever you find a religious man, it will be simply ascertained
that all around him there will be misunderstanding. But once he dies, things settle down. Once he
dies the priesthood makes a new business.
Now, Jews have been suffering almost a heart attack for nearly two thousand years, for the simple
reason that they missed the business. Christianity is now the biggest business in the world... and
they missed. And Jews are not the people to miss when there is a business; they have the eye to
see it.
I have heard a story... it has been happening for centuries that every year on a particular day in the
Vatican, the chief rabbi of the city comes with roll in his hand to Saint Peter’s Square where the pope
waits for him. Jews and Christians gather in thousands to see this meeting of the pope and the chief
rabbi, but what transpires between them, nobody knows. The rabbi bows down, gives the roll to the
pope. The pope bows down – that’s all.
The next morning, the roll is sent back to the rabbi to keep for the next year. For two thousand years
no pope bothered to look into it, but this polack pope became curious: what is this? What kind of
convention is this that has been going on and on? And every time the rabbi gives it to the pope and
the next morning it has to be sent back, ceremoniously – the same roll goes back. What exactly
From Ignorance to Innocence 249 Osho