WHEN YOU ARE GONE, HOW CAN SANNYAS AVOID BECOMING JUST ANOTHER EMPTY
CHURCH? IS THERE ANYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT BESIDES THAT YOU WILL BE
COMING BACK?

I am not coming back. About that you must be absolutely certain: I am not coming back. That is also
a hope through which you would like to postpone, through which you would like to create a future,
so that you can go on avoiding the present. I am not coming. If you want to have any contact with
me, this moment you have to make it. Nobody knows about the tomorrow, I may not be here. And
I am not coming back. Don’t be tricky with me. You have been tricky with Jesus and Buddha and
everybody. Mm? You go on hoping that Jesus is coming, he will come and he will deliver you. Why
should he come to deliver you?

Can’t you stand on your own feet? Can’t you become responsible for your own self? If you are
not responsible for your own self you will not have any soul, because the soul arises only by taking
responsibility. Responsibility is of immense value, it gives you integration.

And why are you worried? WHEN YOU ARE GONE, HOW CAN SANNYAS AVOID BECOMING
JUST ANOTHER EMPTY CHURCH? Why should it avoid? And how can it avoid? And there is no
need. When I am gone it will be an empty church.

This is a trick again. You would like the empty church to still give you the protection and the shelter.
You would like the empty church to help you believe that it is not empty. That’s what goes on. Jesus
is gone. The day he left, the day he was crucified, Christianity also died with him – not only Christ.
How can there be Christianity without Christ? It is a deception. How can there be Buddhism without
Buddha? When the flower is gone the fragrance is gone.

You don’t ask a rosebush ’When your roses are gone how can we make the bush go on appearing
as if the roses have not gone? The bush will look empty, how can we avoid it?’ Yes, you can avoid it.
You can go to the marketplace and purchase plastic flowers and hang those plastic flowers on the
rosebush. That’s what your popes are, plastic flowers. The rose is gone, the rose died. And ail real
roses have to die. Only the unreal ones don’t die. Plastic flowers can remain for ever, they have a
kind of eternity and permanence. Real flowers can’t have that permanence, otherwise they will be
plastic.

The real flower is born in the morning, will have its day. Will whisper with the winds, will release
its fragrance, will have a dialogue with the sun and the birds, and by the evening will be gone. And
that’s how real flowers should be. It cannot go on, go on; then it will be a corpse.

Why should you be worried? When a Buddha is gone, Buddha is gone. When Christ is gone, Christ
is gone. But there is a reason why you ask the question. You cannot be here with me, you cannot
be here with me right now. You would like a promise from me that I will be coming back, that the
church will remain alive. If I am not there it will still be alive – my representatives will be there, I will
appoint popes and they will be there, and they will go on guiding you. So that you need not worry
about me. If I am gone nothing is gone, something will be available.

No, I want it absolutely clear, I want it to be recognized absolutely, that when I am gone I am gone.
And the church WILL be empty. And I am not going to appoint anybody. How can you appoint
anybody? Buddhas are not appointed. And nobody can represent me. How can anybody else
represent me? I don’t represent anybody, how can anybody else represent me? The church will
be empty. So if you want to have something from me, if you want the transmission from me, if you
want to enkindle your life through me, if you want to partake of my fire and my passion, then don’t
postpone.

You ask: WHEN YOU ARE GONE, HOW CAN SANNYAS AVOID?

There is no need to avoid. All avoidance is dangerous. That’s what Christianity has been doing for
two thousand years. Avoiding the fact that Jesus is gone, that the church is empty. Putting plastic
Jesuses instead. Trying to believe that he is still there. He is not there, he cannot be there.
So there is no need to avoid, the church WILL become empty. Before it becomes empty enjoy it.
Before it becomes empty pray in it. Before it becomes empty, drink of it, partake ofit.

Osho

This Very Body the Buddha 

CHAPTER 9. THE EMPEROR’S NIGHTMARE