My Business

My God! My business? I am busy without business.

I have heard…. One Sunday morning a hippie-type young man with long hair entered the biggest church of New York. It was very early; the people of the congregation had not started to come, but the bishop was there. Looking at this man, he asked, “Who are you? And what is your business to be here?” The hippie-type person laughed, and he said, “Can’t you recognize me? I am Jesus Christ.”

And of course, Jesus Christ must have looked like a hippie – there is a similarity. Perhaps he was the first hippie. It is no coincidence that hippies go on turning into Jesus freaks; they have found the way.

The bishop got a little puzzled because he had never imagined in his life that Jesus Christ is going to appear in his church one morning. Now, how is he supposed to behave? He immediately had a long phone call with the pope. He said, “I am puzzled, confused, I don’t know what to do. A man here says he is Jesus Christ. And he says that he had promised to come back, and he has come back. What am I supposed to do?”

The pope was puzzled. For a moment there was silence, and then the pope said, “The most I can think of is, look busy. Who knows, he may be the Lord. Just look busy. And by the way, inform the police too.”

I don’t even look busy. I am just doing nothing, and spreading this infectious at-ease to everybody. My whole message is: Sitting silently, doing nothing, and the grass grows by itself. You cannot call it a business.

But in the world you have to give some name – then I can call it a great show business.

In fact, from my very childhood I wanted to create a big circus. And it has happened; I am running the biggest circus around the world!

I take life non-seriously.

It is a circus, it is a carnival.

Rejoice!

When Jesus says rejoice, those words do not sound right on his lips. Just look at his face — so British, so long, as if he has always been on the cross, crucified. He is so serious that there exists not a single description or any picture or any statue in which he is smiling or laughing. He was a serious businessman.

I am utterly non-serious. I don’t care whether this circus continues or stops; it does not matter. To me, what matters is this moment. This pause between me and you is the bridge.

I am not saying don’t work, I am saying transform your work into worship. Transform whatsoever you are doing into art, into music. Let it be a dance, not a burden and a duty. Let it be love, not marriage. Marriage is a serious affair; business people do it, with all the business considerations – financial, educational, social status. These are the considerations for marriage.

Love can even fall in love with a wildflower. Love is not serious, it is sincere; it is truer than anything in life. But all other religions have been doing business, great business, and doing it seriously. All their so-called missionaries are nothing but salesmen. In their theological colleges they are taught for six years nothing but salesmanship.

I am reminded of one person, Erhard, who created a little stir called EST. In the beginning the word “EST” meant Erhard Seminar Training. But later on, he found out from somebody that in the Greek language, EST means “is.” Then the meaning changed, he dropped the old meaning: he started talking about “is-ness.”

But before he started EST he was a salesman of dictionaries and encyclopedias. That is one of the most difficult jobs, to sell encyclopedias. Who wants encyclopedias? And even those who have them, they keep them just so that their drawing room looks a little literate; nobody turns the pages of the encyclopedia. And they are costly: thirty volumes, thirty-two volumes, thirty-six volumes – they cost a fortune.

This man selling encyclopedias was successful. He thought, “Even if I go on selling encyclopedias my whole life, how much am I going to get?” He gave it a little serious thinking, and he said, “If I can sell encyclopedias, why not do the real serious business of religion? Why not give people something which doesn’t exist – growth. Growth is just an American name for God.

People are fed up with God; enough is enough. They don’t want to think about God. But growth? – they immediately become interested. Just two weekends for two hundred and fifty dollars or so, and growth happens to you. In fact he left all other competitors far behind. Esalen started dying because the people were going to Erhard.

And you must know that Erhard is not his real name. The name sounds German. Whenever you want something to sound solid, real, a German name is good; it is just like steel. He is a Jew. He must have thought, “Who is going to get this commodity of growth from a Jew?” From the very beginning they will become suspicious, doubtful. A Jew selling growth? Jews have been selling all kinds of things, but about religion they have been failures. They missed the biggest business when they crucified Jesus. They repent; they don’t say it to anybody, but they know they missed the greatest business.

Nobody is going to purchase growth or such phony ideas from a Jew. He changed his name into a German name – solid, it makes sense. Then this man started teaching people other things. Once the business started moving he started bringing new commodities in: relationship, friendship, and all kinds of “ships.”

He had escaped from his own home, leaving his wife and children, old father, old mother – who were all dependent on him. And he is teaching other people how to relate, how to make your love flower, how to be an authentic individual. But now everything has become known about him, and EST has died.

If you become aware of all the religions and what they have done to man, there will be no need to kill them. Just a kick, a good kick, and the pope is gone. They are already dead, they just need a kick; they will fall down of their own accord.

You can call that my business.

Osho, From the False to the Truth, Ch 22, Q 2