From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 18. ONE GOD, ONE MESSENGER, ONE BOOK – ONE BIG LIE
But you will not fit with anybody else’s idea of religion.
They are going to call you all kinds of names. For them, cult is a condemnation, so they call you a
cult.
Just the other day I was looking at a panel on the TV with one rabbi and two Christian priests – one
must have been Catholic, one Protestant or something, different denominations – discussing me
and what is happening here. And the rabbi said, ”It is a cult.”
The coordinator asked, ”What is a cult? – and what is the difference between a cult and a religion?”
And what the rabbi said, I agree with, but for a totally different reason.
The rabbi said, ”A cult is when there is a charismatic person and people are hypnotized, magnetized
by him, surround him; and when the man dies the people disperse – no tradition is created. That is
a cult.”
What he is saying, I am also saying – exactly the same but for different reasons. He says, ”If the
cult survives the death of the founder, then it becomes a religion.” When Jesus is alive it is a cult,
because it is his charismatic personality.... When Jesus is dead then it becomes a religion... a very
strange idea: religion being born out of a cult. The cult should not be a condemnatory thing; it is the
mother of religion, it is the womb from where the religion comes. It is a potential religion.
But he was saying, ”The cult is bound to disappear because it was only the charismatic person, it
was his charisma, his magic that kept people together. Once he is gone, then there is nothing to
hold onto. Then people disperse and the cult dies.” I say this is actually the definition of religion.
In a more intelligent world there will be no tradition. Religious people will be born, and with a
religious person a religion will happen. Many more people will come, become close to him and will
drink out of his well. Jesus says, ”Eat me, drink me.” Yes, they will eat, they will drink and they will
be transformed in the whole process. And when the religious person is gone, certainly there is no
need to make a tradition, because tradition will be dead.
Yes, you loved your father but when he died you took him to the grave. You didn’t say, ”He was
my father, how can I take him to the grave or to the funeral pyre? I am going to keep him in my
house. I loved him, he loved me....” No, when your father is dead it is sad but a natural phenomenon.
Everybody who is born is going to die. You say goodbye to him with all your gratitude. The same
should be the case with every religious teacher.
Jesus is perfectly good, but Christianity is a disease. Moses is perfectly good, but Judaism is a
curse. And the same is true about all of the religions. The people at the very source were really
beautiful, but every beautiful flower dies. Even beautiful stars die and disappear, and don’t leave
even a single trace behind. So what is the need for any religious person to leave a tradition behind
him?
I am not going to leave a tradition behind me.
While I am here, enjoy the moment.
From Ignorance to Innocence 258 Osho