Religions follow dead masters; one needs to discard such spiritual bondage, says OSHO
As you enter beyond enlightenment into nothingness, there must be a possibility of coming out of nothingness back into form, back into existence — renewed, refreshed, luminous — on a totally different plane. Because nothing is destroyed, things can only go into a dormant state. Then in the morning they wake up again. This is how the existence goes on.
My approach to your growth is basically to make you independent of me. Any kind of dependence is slavery, and the spiritual dependence is the worst slavery of all. Your growth is something intrinsic to your being. It does not come from outside; it is not an imposition, it is an unfolding.
All the meditation techniques that I have given to you are not dependent on me. It is not my presence, but your presence that is needed for them to work. It is not my being here but your being here, your being in the present, your being alert and aware that is going to help.
The whole past of man is, in different ways, a history of exploitation. And even the so-called spiritual people could not resist the temptation to exploit. Out of a hundred masters, 99 per cent were trying to impose the idea that, “Without me you cannot grow, no progress is possible. Give me your whole responsibility.” But the moment you give your whole responsibility to somebody, unknowingly you are also giving your whole freedom.
In the East we have a conception of circles of existence and non-existence, just like day and night. Creation is followed by de-creation, everything goes into nothingness, just as day is followed by night and everything goes into darkness. And the period is going to be the same: as long as the creation is, so is the resting period going to be; and again there will be a creation of a higher order. There has never been any beginning, and there will be no end.
After enlightenment, you have to disappear. The world is left behind, the body is left behind, the mind is left behind; just your consciousness, as individuality, is still there.
And naturally, all those masters had to die one day, but they have left long lines of slaves: Christians, Jews, Hindus, Mohammedans. What are these peopleIJ Why should somebody be a ChristianIJ If you can be someone, be a Christ, never be a Christian. Are you absolutely blind to the humiliation when you call yourself a Christian, a follower of someone who died 2000 years agoIJ
The whole of humanity is following the dead. Is it not weird that the living should follow the dead, that the living should be dominated by the deadIJ None of them has come to save you.
As far as I am concerned, I am simply making every effort to make you free from everybody — including me — and to just be alone on the path of searching. People have judged you; you have accepted their ideas without any scrutiny. The whole humanity is suffering from it. If you want to get out of it, the first thing: don’t judge yourself.
Excerpts taken from Osho’s discourses