WHY ARE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD COMING TO YOU?
It is a very difficult question for me to answer. How can I answer on behalf of thousands of people who are coming to me? They have different reasons.
A few are coming to me because I have called them: they may know it, they may not know it. There is more possibility that they will not know it, at least not in the beginning. Only later on, as they become immersed into my commune, into my world slowly slowly, they will become aware that they have been called forth, just as Jesus called to Lazarus in his grave, "Lazarus, come out!" and he came out of his grave.
The life that you have lived has been life in a grave — and I have called you. A few of you are being called. That's why you are here. About these people I can say why they are here because I have called them. They have been with me for many lives: this is a long long love affair with them. This is not the first time that they are with me: this is the LAST time certainly, because I am not going to come again. I have called them because of certain promises made in the past.
But there are many kinds of people. A few have come just accidentally; but even though they have come accidentally they have a certain potential in them and their potential became involved with me. They were not coming consciously, they were not called — they were just passing by — but they got caught in the net.
A few have come for certain needs to be fulfilled. There are a few people who are in search of father figures; because Friedrich Nietzsche says, "God is dead," and once God is dead man feels empty. The West is feeling very empty: God is dead, and God was the father, the permanent, eternal father.
It is not an accident that Christian priests are called "father," although it is very strange because they don't have any children, they are unmarried. It is a strange world: unmarried priests are called "father"! But it is perfectly logical, because the Christian idea of God is also without a woman. How do they manage it? God the Father, Christ the Son — at least let the Holy Ghost be a woman! But they don't even allow the Holy Ghost! The trinity is not true: it is lacking something; it is missing something — the feminine energy is missing.
But at least God was there. If not the mother, God was there as the father, a protector. And people were feeling protected — whether there was a God or not was not the question, but people were feeling protected. And on the earth was the father, the priest and the pope — or PAPA — the great father, the highest priest. 'Pope' also means father — 'papa', 'popa', 'pope', or whatsoever you call him!
But the Vatican has lost its grip on the West; the relationship between the pope and the West is only formal. Christianity has become a Sunday religion. And exactly the same is the case in the East: all religions have become formal. Now people are in search of a father figure.
A few people come because they are missing protection, they need protection. Either they will escape from me, because I don't give protection… on the contrary, I take all security away. I give you insecurity, because to me insecurity is the right situation in which one grows. If there is no God, no father, the whole responsibility falls on your own shoulders — and it is good, it is perfectly good.
I absolutely agree with Friedrich Nietzsche. Buddha also agrees. Buddha says there is no God, Mahavira says there is no God, for the simple reason that the idea of God has been dangerous — dangerous in the sense that people feel protected and they stop growing. If you are unprotected, if you are under the sky, then you have to depend on your own self. Then you have to become stronger, more integrated. Then you are free to live in hell or in heaven; nobody can reward you and nobody can punish you.
A few people are coming because they are missing a father figure. If they stay with me I will transform this situation into a beautiful, positive phenomenon; if they escape, then it is up to them. It is very easy for them to escape, because they will see that I am destroying them. If any idea of protection is left in their minds I am destroying that too. I am taking away all patterns, structures, strategies of the mind.
I want you to be utterly alone, so alone that you have to fall upon yourself — there is nowhere else to go — that you have to stand on your own legs, that you can't use any crutches.
A few other people are coming to find some kind of consolation. They will also be shocked, because I don't give any kind of consolation.
A pretty model took her troubles to a psychiatrist. "Doctor, you must help me!" she pleaded. "It has gotten so that every time a man takes me out I wind up in bed with him, and then afterwards I feel guilty and depressed all day long."
"I see," nodded the psychiatrist, "and you want me to strengthen your willpower?"
"Heavens, no!" exclaimed the model. "I want you to fix it so I won't feel guilty and depressed afterwards!"
People, many people, consciously or unconsciously, are here to find some kind of consolation — some kind of consolation so they don't feel guilty, so that they don't feel unworthy. I am not here to give you consolations. Why give consolations when I can give you the real thing? Why give you plastic toys when I can help you to grow into a soul?
A few other people come because they are on the verge of going insane; psychology, psychoanalysis and psychiatry have not been of much help. It can help only up to a point. It can help a person to be normal if his madness is ordinary madness, but it cannot help a person if his madness has something spiritual in it.
People like R.D. Laing are becoming aware of it: that if a person's madness is because he is too sensitive, too alert and too aware of the misery in which people are living — and he himself is living; if he becomes aware of the meaninglessness of this whole life that we have created on this earth, he is bound to go berserk. He will not be able to bear it — it will be unbearable. Those people cannot be helped by psychiatry or psychoanalysis. Those people can only be helped if something like meditation starts happening in their being.
So if some ordinarily insane person comes here I send him back to the West, because psychiatry is perfectly capable of helping him. There is no need for me to waste my time on that kind of person: there are other plumbers who can do that! I do a special kind of plumbing. If your insanity is spiritual then I am here to help you. And spiritual insanity is really a beautiful beginning; it can become the greatest blessing in your life. It is a blessing disguised as a curse.
But still the question is difficult because there are so many people and each person comes with a different motive. But I am not much concerned about your motives — I know why I am here and I go on doing my thing, irrespective of why YOU have come here!
Those who have something significant growing in them are bound to remain with me — those who are courageous enough to move beyond the boundaries of the mind, beyond all boundaries and all limits. Those who are not courageous will leave of their own accord.
Many will be called; few will be chosen. Thousands will come, but only a few will be transformed. It is all up to you. You can use this opportunity that I am making available to you; you can miss it too. I cannot be forced upon you. I am available; you can share. You can look through my eyes. I have opened a door and I am standing at the door welcoming you.
Why you have come is not the point. Come in!
OSHO