A great teacher is one who uses all kinds of living situations to provoke awareness in you - but then there are bound to be problems. Then society feels angry. It is perfectly happy if you go on talking about the Koran, the Bible, the Vedas, because it doesn't do anything in the world; the reality remains the same, the vested interests remain the same. Nothing is harmed; on the contrary, all this spiritual talk helps the vested interests. It is safer if people are religious, because the so-called religious people are afraid people. They can't make any revolution, they can't move in any rebellion.

They can't disobey, because all these religious teachers and commentators go on teaching them the beautiful world of absolute obedience, conformity, contentment. They always go on teaching you how to become imitators, they don't teach you how to become authentic.

The authentic person will always be in conflict with the vested interests. If he wants to be authentic and true, he is bound to come in conflict with a false society. With whatsoever is false, he is bound to come in conflict.

-Rajneesh

Drop all kinds of idealisms; that's the revolution I am initiating you into. You have to forget the future, you have to forget what should be. You have to only watch that which is; and that can be done right now, you need not postpone it. At any moment you can watch what you are. Don't condemn, because if you condemn then you cannot watch. Don't judge; if you judge you have already taken a prejudice. Don't be in a hurry to conclude. Life never comes to a conclusion; it cannot, because there is no death. It goes on and on, it is an eternal process, it never comes to a conclusion. Only stupid people come to conclusions.

The intelligent person goes on moving, flowing, growing. There is no end to it; even the sky is not the limit. The intelligent person goes on learning. He is a learner, and a learner forever. He never becomes knowledgeable.

-Rajneesh

Meditation means you are so conscious of whatsoever you are doing; in that very consciousness the quality of doing changes. You need not have ideals. Ideals are simply postponing the revolution, the mutation.

Just a few days before somebody was asking me, "I feel I am stupid. What can I do to become intelligent?" Now, I had to tell him that if a stupid person tries to become intelligent, he will remain stupid. At the most he will become an intellectual, but never intelligent.

That's how intellectual people are: hiding their stupidity behind words, knowledge, information. If a stupid person tries to be intelligent, how can he become intelligent? In the first place, he will be doing everything out of his stupidity; and when you do something out of your stupidity your stupidity is going to be strengthened. But he can do one thing: he can gather information, he can gather knowledge, he can start having an illusion of knowing through knowledge. That's how people become pundits, scholars, learned professors; that's how it happens, but the stupidity remains there.

In their very foundation, the stupidity goes on remaining as an undercurrent. They just have a good show on the outside; deep down they are still stupid.

Then what to do? How to get out of stupidity? The only way is, watch your stupidity. Go into its working, its mechanism. Go into how you act, go watchfully into it. See it, how it is there, how it affects your behavior. Watch it in its multidimensional reality, and in that very watching you are becoming intelligent - because watching is intelligence.

-Rajneesh

Those who are moving on the path have to be aware of this stupid ideological camouflage. It is very easy to have beautiful ideals. And you will be surprised if you watch people: if you know their ideals you can be certain that they will be just the opposite of their ideals. Knowing their ideals, you can deduce logically that their life must be the very opposite of it. The ideal only proves that there is something that they are hiding behind it.

A conscious person has no ideals at all. A conscious person lives through his consciousness. He is one; his inner and outer are not divided.

But all kinds of idealism divide the outer and the inner. It does not allow you to be natural, spontaneous; it forces you to be something other than you are. It gives you shoulds - you should do this, you should do that. Because of those shoulds you start believing that you are aspiring very high, that you are soaring very high: "Look what beautiful ideals I have got" and behind that empty talk your reality is just the opposite. The greedy person wants to become non-greedy. The angry person wants to become compassionate. The unloving person has the ideal of love. All the religions talk about love, and all that they do on the earth is create hate. All the nations of the world talk about peace, and all that they do is prepare for war.

See it. This is what we have become: pseudo, hypocrites.

-Rajneesh

MAN IS UNCONSCIOUS, ALTHOUGH HE BELIEVES HE IS CONSCIOUS. That very belief protects his unconsciousness. Man is ignorant, although he believes he knows. That very belief keeps the ignorance intact. Man is just the opposite of what he thinks he is. To understand this is the beginning of a great revolution.

To see where you are, what you are in actuality, needs courage. It is nice to believe in beautiful ideals. All ideals function only for one thing: they hide your reality; that's why we go on creating beautiful ideals. Not that we are really interested in those great ideals; our real interest is how to hide the ugly facts.

-Rajneesh