I condemn all those scriptures which have condemned women as the source of evil. Those scriptures are the source of evil!

-Rajneesh

Democracy means everybody has the right to think in his own way, to live in his own way.

Democracy means that the government is not going to impose its own ideology on everybody, that the government will keep away from interfering in people's freedom.

What I am saying, what I am, has nothing to do with [Morarji Desai] or his government. But this is how it happens to every politician: when he is out of power he talks about democracy; when he is in power he becomes a fascist. Morarji Desai is another illustration of Lord Acton's famous statement: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Just within one and a half years he has forgotten all about democracy? It always happens.

It is something strange that power changes people. My own observation is that power does not change them, in fact, but only exposes them. It brings whatsoever is real in their being to the surface. When a person is not in power, he cannot be fascist; he has to hide that trait. He cannot be arrogant, he has to create a facade around himself so nobody comes to know about it; otherwise he will never be able to get into power. Once he gets into power, then there is no need; he is no more afraid of the people, now he is in power. Now he can do whatsoever he always wanted to do but was not capable of doing.

-Rajneesh

Curiosity is good as a triggering point for a quest, but there are many people who simply remain curious their whole life. Their life is a wastage; they are rolling stones - they never gather any moss.

They remain childish, they never become mature. They ask a thousand and one questions, but they are not really interested in answers. By the time you have answered them, they have prepared another question. In fact, when the Master is answering the question, if the disciple is only a curious one, he is already thinking about other questions to ask. He is not listening to the answer at all. He is not interested in the answer, he has enjoyed asking the question.

And then your curiosity can get you hooked on something utterly nonsensical. There are people who are curious as to who made the world. Now this is utter nonsense. Buddha said it so many times, that "How is it going to affect your life? It is not going to deepen your meditation, it is not going to help you become enlightened, it is not going to give you freedom, it is not going to give you any light; why are you concerned with who made the world?" Whether it was A or B or C, a Christian God, a Hindu God or a Mohammedan God, how does it matter to you? Even if it is decidedly known that A made the world, what are you going to do then? Then you will start asking something else; that question is finished.

But these questions are never finished, because these questions are utterly meaningless, absurd - so they are never finished. One can go on asking and asking and asking, and the whole life can become just a wastage.

-Rajneesh

We are so obsessed with the idea of the right. No wrong should ever be committed. Why not?

And the person who never commits any wrong never grows. Growth needs that you should go astray sometimes, that you should start playing around, fooling around, that you should find original things - they may be wrong; and you should come to the right by your own efforts, by your own growth; then there is intelligence.

To be simple means to be intelligent. Simplicity is intelligence, living without ideals, without guides, without maps, just living moment to moment without any security.

Our concern with the right and our fear of the wrong is nothing but our fear of the insecure. The right makes us secure, the wrong makes us insecure, but life is insecurity. There is no security anywhere.

You may have a bank balance, but the bank can go bankrupt any day. You may have the security of having a husband or a wife, but the wife can leave you any moment, she can fall in love; or the husband may die.

Life is insecure. The security is only an illusion that we create around ourselves, a cozy illusion. And because of this cozy illusion we kill our intelligence. The man who wants to live simply will have to live in insecurity, will have to accept the fact that nothing is secure and certain, that we are on an unknown journey, that nobody can be certain where we are going and nobody can be certain from where we are coming.

-Rajneesh

Look at small children, how intelligent they are, how alive, how fresh, how tremendously ready to learn. And look at older people, dull, insipid, not ready to learn a thing, clinging to all that they know, clinging to the known, never ready to go in any adventure.

-Rajneesh