Osho: The Rebellious Spirit?..Interesting

Up to now this is how man has lived: your yesterdays prepare you for your tomorrows. The very preparation becomes a hindrance. You cannot breathe freely, you cannot love freely, you cannot dance freely -- the past has crippled you in every possible way. The burden of the past is so heavy that everybody is crushed under it.

The rebel simply says goodbye to the past.

It is a constant process; hence, to be a rebel means to be continuously in rebellion -- because each moment is going to become past; every day is going to become past. It is not that the past is already in the graveyard -- you are moving through it every moment. Hence, the rebel has to learn a new art: the art of dying to each moment that has passed, so that he can live freely in the new moment that has come.

A rebel is a continuous process of rebellion; he is not static. And that is where I make a distinction between the revolutionary and the rebel.

The revolutionary is nothing but a reactionary.

He may be against a certain society, but he is always for another society. He may be against one culture, but he is immediately ready for another culture. He only goes on moving from one prison into another prison -- from Christianity to communism; from one religion to another religion -- from Hinduism to Christianity. He changes his prisons.

The rebel simply moves out of the past and never allows the past to dominate him. It is a constant, continuous process. The whole life of the rebel is a fire that burns. To the very last breath he is fresh, he is young. He will not respond to any situation according to his past experience; he will respond to every situation according to his present consciousness.

To be a rebel, to me, is the only way to be religious, and the so-called religions are not religions at all. They have destroyed humanity completely, enslaved human beings, chained their souls; so on the surface it seems that you are free, but deep inside you, religions have created a certain conscience which goes on dominating you. A rebel is one who throws away the whole past because he wants to live his own life according to his own longings, according to his own nature -- not according to some Gautam Buddha, or according to some Jesus Christ, or Moses.

The rebel is the only hope for the future of humanity.

The rebel will destroy all religions, all nations, all races -- because they are all rotten, past, hindering the progress of human evolution.

They are not allowing anybody to come to his full flowering: they don't want human beings on the earth -- they want sheep.

A rebel respects you, respects life, has a deep reverence for everything that grows, thrives, breathes. He does not put himself above you, holier than you, higher than you; he is just one amongst you. Only one thing he can claim: that he is more courageous than you are. He cannot save you -- only your courage can save you. He cannot lead you -- only your own guts can lead you to the fulfillment of your life.

Rebellion is a style of life. To me, it is the only religion which is authentic. Because if you live according to your own light you may go astray many times, and you may fall many times; but each fall, each going astray will make you wiser, more intelligent, more understanding, more human. There is no other way of learning than by making mistakes. Just don't make the same mistake again.

There is no God, except your own consciousness.

There is no need for any pope, or for Ayatollah Khomeini, or for any shankaracharya, to be mediators between you and God. These are the greatest criminals in the world, because they are exploiting your helplessness.

All the priests are pretending that they are mediators between you and the ultimate source of life. They know nothing of the ultimate source of life. Only you are capable of knowing your source of life. But your source of life is also the ultimate source of life -- because we are not separate. No man is an island; we are a vast continent underneath. Perhaps on the surface you look like an island -- and there are many islands -- but deep down in the ocean, you meet. You are part of one earth, one continent. The same is true about consciousness.

But one has to be free from churches, from temples, from mosques, from synagogues. One has to be just oneself, and take the challenge of life wherever it leads. You are the only guide.
You are your own master.