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SEX GURU     Q: It has been written, and people have talked about you as a “free sex guru,” believing in promiscuous sex with violent encounter sessions and mind control. True or false? A: Do you think sex should be charged for? Should it not be free? Should it be paid for? To me, sex is a simple, beautiful, natural phenomenon. If two persons want to share energy with each other, it is nobody’s business to interfere. And to say “free sex” implies that you want sex also to be a commodity, that is has to be purchased—either from a prostitute for one night, or from a wife for the whole life, but it has to be purchased and paid for. Yes, I believe in free sex. I believe that sex is everybody’s birthright to share, to enjoy. It is fun. There is nothing serious about it. The people who have been talking about me as teaching “free sex” are really pathetic. They are sexually repressed people.   from an interview with Ken Kashiwahara, Good Mooning America

SEXUAL ORGASM. ACCORDING TO ME, GIVES YOU THE FIRST GLIMPSE of meditation—because the mind stops, time stops. For those few moments there is no time and there is no mind, you are just utterly silent and blissful. I say it—it is my scientific approach to the subject, because there was no other way for man to find out that if there is no mind and no time, you enter into a blissful state. Except for sex there was no other possibility for the mind to understand that there is some way of going beyond mind, beyond time. It was certainly sex that gave the first glimpse of meditativeness. And I am being condemned all over the world because I am telling people the truth. Nobody has come up with any other idea to explain how you have found meditation. You cannot find it by just walking on the side of the road—it is lying there and you go over and pick up meditation. Where have you found meditation?

The opponents can be forgiven, but the supporters cannot be forgiven. Because I have said that sex is stupid, many angry questions have come to me. One of my sannyasins has written to me, “You have some nerve to say that sex is stupid!” She must have felt hurt. And I can understand: when you are living in a certain way you don’t want it to be described as stupid. Nobody wants to be called stupid. It is not over the question of sex that you are disturbed—it is your life; if it is stupid and you are living it, then you are being stupid. That hurts. But I have to say it even if it hurts, because that is the only way to make you aware that there is something more in life, something higher, something greater, something far more blissful, far more orgasmic. Sex is only a beginning—not the end. And nothing is wrong if you take it as a beginning. If you start clinging to it, then things start going wrong. After making love, at least for one hour sit in zazen and you will see what I am saying. You will understand what I mean when I say sex is stupid. After making love, make it a point to sit in zazen for one hour just watching what has happened. Were you the master of it or just a slave? If you were the master of it, then it is not stupid. If you were a slave, it is stupid—because by repeating it you are making your slavery stronger and stronger, you are feeding your slavery.

I HAVE NEVER TAUGHT “FREE SEX.” WHAT I HAVE BEEN TEACHING IS the sacredness of sex. I have been teaching that sex should not be degraded from the realm of love to the realm of law. The moment you have to love a woman because she is your wife, and not because you simply love her, it is prostitution, legalized prostitution. I have been against prostitution, whether it has been legalized or illegalized. I believe in love. If two persons love each other they can live together as long as they love. The moment love is gone, they should gracefully separate.

All the literature of Tantra is my proof. And this is the only country where something like Tantra has existed. Nowhere else in the world has any effort been made to transform sexual energy into spiritual energy—and that’s what I was doing. But the journalists are not interested in reality; they are interested in sensationalism.

YOU ARE CERTAINLY BRAINWASHED. I USE A DRY CLEANING MACHINE, I am not old-fashioned. And naturally you are addicted. Who will not be? Addiction is not always bad. If you are addicted to beauty, to poetry, to drama, to sculpture, to painting, nobody tells you to drop the addiction. Addiction has to be dropped only when it makes you unconscious. Alcoholics are told to drop the addiction, but here my teaching is of consciousness—be addicted to it more and more. And what is wrong in being brainwashed? Wash it every day, keep it clean. Do you like cockroaches? When I brainwash people, I find cockroaches. Cockroaches are very special animals. It has been found scientifically that wherever you find man you find cockroaches, and wherever you find cockroaches you find man. They are always together, they are the oldest companions.

I am a brainwasher. And those who come to me should come with the clear conception that they are going to a man who is bound to brainwash, to clean their minds of all kinds of cockroaches. Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian—they are all against me for the simple reason that they go on putting in their cockroaches, and I go on washing people’s minds. It is just an up-to-date religious laundry.

MY EFFORT IS TO TAKE AWAY ALL TRADITIONS, ORTHODOXIES, SUPERSTITIONS, and beliefs from your mind, so that you can attain a state of no-mind, the ultimate state of silence, where not even a thought moves—not even a ripple in the lake of your consciousness. And the whole thing has to be done by you. I am not saying, “Just follow me, I am the savior. I will save you.” All that is crap. Nobody can save you, except yourself. And spiritual independence is the only independence worth calling independence. All other independences—political, economic—are just so-so, superficial. The real and authentic independence is that you are not dependent on anybody for your inner growth.

Those who have come to me have become more and more independent, more and more themselves. That’s why they love me. I am not making them a crowd, I am making them absolutely individuals. I am not even giving them ideologies to be practiced, disciplines to be practiced—I am simply sharing my own experience. Out of that experience they have to find their own discipline. This is a company, not of a master and disciples, this is a company of a master and potential masters.

CON MAN     I have to work on two levels: one is the level where you live, where you are, and one is the level where I am and I want you also to be. From the top of a hill I have to come into the valley where you are; otherwise you won’t listen, you won’t believe the sunlit top. I have to take your hand in my hand and persuade you—and on the way, tell stories that are not true! But they keep you engaged, and you don’t create any trouble in walking; you go on, engaged with the story. And when you have reached the hilltop, you will know why I was telling long stories, and you will feel grateful that I told those stories; otherwise you would not have been able to travel that long, that far uphill. It is something to be remembered: All the masters of the world have been telling stories, parables—why? The truth can be simply said, there is no need to give you so many stories. But the night is long, and you have to be kept awake; without stories you are going to fall asleep. Till the morning comes there is an absolute necessity to keep you engaged, and the stories the masters have been telling are the most intriguing things possible. The truth cannot be said, but you can be led to the point from where you can see it.

AI Summary

Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic by Osho presents key insights from the Tibetan Buddhism tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.

Core Themes:

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Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.

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