The second question:

Question 2

OSHO, DO YOU EVER COMMIT MISTAKES? AND IF SO, THEN WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST MISTAKE OF LIFE?

I don't commit anything else, I ONLY commit mistakes. I live through them, I survive through them. And I don't like small things; I am simply against the small scale. I only love great things.

And you ask me, "WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST MISTAKE OF LIFE?"

Giving sannyas to you. Now I have 50,000 alive mistakes moving around the world. I will stand with them and fall with them. Krishnamurti is far safer: he stands on his own. He has not committed a single mistake in giving initiation to anybody.

I go on initiating people. Each time I give initiation to a person, now it will depend: if he becomes enlightened, then I was not wrong; if he does not become I was wrong. What will the criterion be of whether I committed a mistake in giving initiation to a person or not? -- only one: if he becomes enlightened then I was right in initiating him. If he does not become enlightened then I was wrong, I initiated a wrong person.

But I am not worried about mistakes. I am going to commit even more and more and more.Who cares? Even if one person becomes enlightened out of thousands of sannyasins, it is a great blessing to the world. And remember, the same is the way of God.

Do you know that a single male can populate the whole earth? He has so many seeds of human beings -- a single male! In a single lovemaking the male releases millions of seeds. Actually he will become father of, at the most, a dozen children, but he could have become father of millions of children. The whole population of the earth today can be fathered by a single man.

A single tree brings millions of seeds. All those seeds are not going to become trees, but God is always working through abundance. God is a spendthrift, He is not a miser. He knows that only a few seeds will become the tree, so what is the point of making so many seeds? He makes millions of seeds. The whole life is an overflowing life, it is not a miserly phenomenon.

God is very indulgent. Even if a single human being becomes enlightened, I am immensely fulfilled. The remaining ones will prove my mistakes. They will remain as mistakes, but that risk has to be taken.

The moment you trust me.... You don't know, you are not even aware that I have trusted you more than you have trusted me. I have risked more than you have risked. You have nothing to risk, really.When you say "I surrender", what have you got to surrender? Except misery, what have you got? Anxieties, anguishes, agonies -- what else have you got to surrender? Your darkness, your hell? -- what else have you got to surrender? What risk are you taking? You think that you are taking a great risk in trusting me. You have nothing to lose! Really, I am taking a risk with you!

Christ took the risk when he accepted those twelve apostles, and he must still be thinking, "Why did I accept those twelve apostles?" If he had not accepted those fellows there would have been no church, no Christianity and all that nonsense. Buddha must be thinking again and again, "Why did I accept so many people as my BHIKKUS, as my disciples?" because they created much nuisance. But that risk has to be taken.

It is good that Jesus took the risk because without it it is certain that there would have been no church and there would have been no wars between Christians and Mohammedans and there would have been none of the ugliness that the Christian church has been doing down the ages; but there would have been no Eckhart either and no Francis either, no Jakob Boehme either. Out of the whole church-history, even if one Meister Eckhart is born it is enough, it is worth taking the risk. If Buddha had not risked, had not committed the mistake of initiating people, there would have been no Bodhidharma, no Mahakashyapa, no Nagarjuna, no Vimalkirti -- and the world would have been immensely poorer.

Yes, there have been wrong things, MILLIONS of wrong things, but a single phenomenon like Bodhidharma is enough to counterbalance. All those million wrongs are nothing; a single Bodhidharma is enough!

You ask me, "WHAT IS MY GREATEST MISTAKE?"

That is not only my greatest mistake, that has always been the greatest mistake of all the Masters: they initiate people and they take the risk. Now it depends on you. This is what I call commitment. Now this is your commitment to become enlightened, this is your commitment that you have to grow. Don't remain stuck. Start moving. You have a great destiny, you are entitled to miracles. Don't be satisfied with small things. You can possess the whole, so don't be contented with small, small things and tiny things -- a certificate, a medal, a degree. Don't be stupid. Be intelligent and work diligently. Go on hammering yourself so all that is wrong is chiseled out. You will have to pass through fire. That's why I have chosen the orange color, the color of fire: you will have to pass through fire. But only those who pass through fire become pure gold.

Let me be your alchemy. Allow me to change your baser metal into pure gold. It is a risky game. Always the greater possibility is of failure; the higher you aim, the more the possibility of failure. If you want to become a rich man you can become easily. If you want to become a politician you can become easily; intelligence is not needed.

I have heard....

A politician had a tumor in the head; it was operated upon. When they were removing the tumor they felt that the whole brain had to be cleaned because the tumor had affected the whole brain system. So they took out the whole brain. The cleansing was going to take a few days. And it is an old story: in those days the anaesthesia was not so strong.

The next day the politician was lying in the bed. A man came and he said, "What are you doing here? You have been chosen the prime minister of the country!"

He heard it, almost in a sleep -- but when you hear that you have become the prime minister, no anaesthesia can work. He simply jumped out of the bed and started moving out.

The doctor said, ' Where are you going? Your brain is The man said, "Now I won't need one. I have become the prime minister!"