Just being your fellow traveler, I will infect you

Beloved Osho,
    You say that we, your disciples, are not followers but fellow travelers. It is true that we are wandering and seeking, but your travelings came to an end long ago. You have nowhere to go, nothing to achieve; you are utterly fulfilled. So why don't you accept your right position of being our guide? Why confuse and confound your donkeys and camels?

//Osho://
    I AM GOING TO CONFUSE AND CONFOUND all the Yankees, all the monkeys, all the donkeys, all the camels -- because there is no other way to make them lions, and finally to create the child.

    Yes, it is true that I have nowhere to go. I HAVE GOT IT, that which you are seeking and searching for. But still I will not accept the idea of being your leader, guide, because those words have very wrong connotations with them. THE RELIGIOUS LEADERS AND GUIDES HAVE EXPLOITED THE WHOLE HUMANITY SO MUCH that I don't want to be associated with them in any way -- and those words make me associated with them.

    I AM UTTERLY CONTENTED, there is nothing more. But I go on walking, moving, just to destroy the idea that I am the leader and you are the follower. You are seeking, I have found it. But can't I play and seek with you just to help you feel that you are not followers but fellow travelers?

    I DO NOT WANT TO INSULT YOU BY CALLING YOU FOLLOWERS; I respect you. A small device I had to maintain: that is, just to go on seeking and searching with you, knowing perfectly well that there is nothing for me to seek. And there is nothing for you to seek either. It is just that I know it and you don't know it.

    JUST BEING YOUR FELLOW TRAVELER, I WILL INFECT YOU. I am contagious! Sooner or later you will realize my play, and you will be grateful, remember. YOU WILL BE GRATEFUL that I never became your leader, never reduced you to be the led, never gave you any guidance -- that is humiliating.

    But just being with you -- and I know you have got it, just the way I have got it -- in some proper moment I WILL SHAKE YOU AND WAKE YOU UP.

    IT IS NOT GUIDANCE, it is just shaking and waking. Guidance is needed for a goal somewhere far away -- what path to follow. I want you to remember that it is not only you who respect me, I ALSO RESPECT YOU.

    BUDDHA COULD NOT SAY THAT, Mohammed could not say that, Jesus could not say that. And I feel there is some weakness in these fellows. Somehow they are feeling a gratification from being the leader, the guide, the prophet, the messiah, the savior. Something of the ego is there -- very subtle, sophisticated, refined, slippery; you cannot catch hold of it, but it is there in their declaration of being higher than you, better than you. They have arrived and you are miles away, with miles to travel, arduous miles.

    Buddha and Mahavira say, "Where we are, you will take lives to reach." They are creating such a big distance between you and themselves. That's the way of the ego.

    I AM TRYING IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY to close any gap between me and you, knowing perfectly well that there is a little difference: I am awake, you are asleep.

    Playing with you, singing and dancing with you, I am certain I WILL MAKE YOU AWAKE WITHOUT BEING YOUR LEADER, without being your guide. Don't be worried, I am not renouncing you. When I say that I am not your leader, don't think that I am abandoning you. Don't think that if you are not my followers, then what the hell are you doing here?  I TAKE LIFE VERY NONSERIOUSLY. It is really a great joke!

    I know more jokes than anybody in the whole world, and I can say with absolute certainty that THERE IS NO JOKE WHICH IS BIGGER THAN LIFE ITSELF. What a joke -- that you are it, and you are seeking it! You are where you are meant to be, and you are running all around, searching for the right place. Not only that, you are suggesting to me that I should take my right position as the guide. I AM IN MY RIGHT POSITION -- not as the guide, but just as a playmate. Can't you accept it?

    That means your ego comes in between. YOUR EGO WANTS ME TO BE THE MASTER OF MASTERS, the greatest master in the whole history of the world, because only then can you say, "I am the follower of the greatest master in history; certainly I am one of the greatest followers in the whole history."

    I AM NOT GOING TO HELP YOU IN STRENGTHENING YOUR EGO. I am perfectly aware what hurts you. You would like me to fulfill the image and all kinds of expectations so that you can feel, "This is the right guide, and I am the person who has found the right guide. All other leaders are pygmies, and their followers, of course, are even worse."

    No, I am not going to help you in that way. I will play the role of being a very ordinary man. I know, and you know, that I AM NOT AN ORDINARY MAN, but what to do! I don't guide you, I help you. You don't need guidance, you need just a little help, a hit... just a little cold water thrown against your eyes so that you wake up.

    YOU WILL BE GRATEFUL ONE DAY that I never accepted the idea of the leader and the led. Because once you accept the idea of the leader, you free the led from all responsibility. Once you accept that the savior is here, it means you have nothing to do; you have just to be faithful, believing. And I am destroying all your beliefs and all your faiths -- how can I be the leader? The leader needs believers.

    I am something utterly different from the people you have known before: Jesus, Moses, Mahavir, Krishna, Buddha. I am not part of their company.

    WITH ME BEGINS A NEW ERA IN ENLIGHTENMENT, where the master will be just playing games with you, where the master will not allow you to be behind him, but drag you by his side. I can put you ahead of me, but I cannot put you behind. It is a subtle device.

    So don't feel depressed, I am not abandoning you. I AM YOUR MASTER, YOU ARE MY FOLLOWER. But don't tell it to anybody, keep it a secret!

OSHO
From the False to the Truth
Ch #29: Freedom from blind biology
am in Rajneeshmandir