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Yes
Length: 135 mins
Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
YOU HAVE OFTEN USED THE WORD "EXISTENTIALISM," AND YOU HAVE REFERRED TO YOURSELF AS AN EXISTENTIALIST. PLEASE DEFINE THESE WORDS.
There has been a contemporary school of philosophy in Europe called existentialism. I have nothing to do with it. That is only a philosophy, a mind game. These people were talking about existence, but they knew nothing of what it means to be existential. I also use the word "existentialist" for myself, but the difference between Jean-Paul Sartre, Jaspers, Marcel, and me is vast, unbridgeable.
When I say I am an existentialist, I am not saying that I believe in the philosophy of existentialism.
Existence needs no philosophy. Birds don't need philosophy, flowers don't need philosophy, rivers and oceans don't need philosophy -- but they are all existential; they exist, and they exist with totality and intensity.
I am not a philosopher. To be a philosopher is just to be a "foolosopher." It is a sheer waste of time. Down the centuries philosophers have been struggling intellectually to find the truth. Not a single one of them has found it, for the simple reason that intellect and its way goes round and round, about and about, but it never penetrates to the center.
To love, you do not have to be a philosopher of love. Love needs no philosophy; love is an existential experience.
I call myself an existentialist. I call you existentialists. But it has nothing to do with those dodos in France. It is not a philosophy but a way of life -- not according to any dogma, cult, doctrine, discipline, no! -- just living without any idea of how to live. The moment the "how" enters, it opens the door for all the philosophies to come in, all the theologies to come in.
I want you to live like the trees, like the birds, like the clouds. Without man, do you think existence will disappear? Without man, after the third world war, do you think the sun will not rise? And the nights will not rejoice in millions of stars?
My insistence is: live spontaneously without any discipline. Live in freedom and live in totality, because one never
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