Buddha: One of the virgin souls on earth

An exquisite marble statue of Buddha at the entrance of Meera area at the Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune

Today is Buddha's enlightenment day. Osho has spoken beautifully about Gautama Buddha's life and has commented on his inimitable work: The Dhammapada. When Osho speaks on Buddha it feels as if Buddha himself is reborn and is elaborating on his words in the light of the contemporary world. Here is one excerpt from Osho's talks.

"Gautama Buddha is one of the most virgin souls, one of the very rare phenomena on this earth. The rarity is that Buddha is the scientist of the inner world -- scientist of religion. That is a rare combination. To be religious is simple, to be a scientist is simple -- but to combine, synthesize these two polarities is incredible. It is unbelievable, but it has happened.
Buddha is the richest human being who has ever lived; rich in the sense that all the dimensions of life are fulfilled in him. He is not one-dimensional.
There are three approaches towards truth. One is the approach of power, another the approach of beauty, and the third the approach of grandeur.
The scientific approach is the search for power . Science has made man very powerful, so much so that man can destroy the whole planet earth. For the first time in the history of consciousness man is capable of committing a global suicide, a collective suicide. Science has released tremendous power. Science is continuously searching for more and more power. This too is an approach towards truth, but a partial approach.
Then there are poets, mystics, people with the aesthetic sense. They look at truth as beauty -- Jalaludin Rumi and Rabindranath Tagore and others, who think that beauty is truth. They create much art, they create new sources of beauty in the world. The painter, the poet, the dancer, the musician, they are also approaching truth from a totally different dimension than power.
A poet is not like the scientist. The scientist works with analysis, reason, observation. The poet functions through the heart -- irrational... trust, love. He has nothing to do with mind and reason.
The greater part of religious people belong to the second dimension. The Sufis, the Bauls -- they all belong to the aesthetic approach. Hence so many beautiful mosques, churches, cathedrals, temples -- Ajanta and Ellora -- they were created by religious people. Whenever religious activity predominates, art is created, music is created, great painting is created; the world becomes a little more beautiful. It doesn't become more powerful, but it becomes more beautiful, more lovely, worth living.
The third approach is that of grandeur. The old Bible prophets -- Moses, Abraham; Islam's prophet Mohammed; Krishna and Ram -- their approach is through the dimension of grandeur... the awe that one feels looking at this vastness of the universe. The Upanishads, the Vedas, they all approach the world, the world of truth, through grandeur. They are full of wonder. It is unbelievably there, with such grandeur, that you can simply bow down before it -- nothing else is possible.
These are the three dimensions ordinarily available to approach towards truth. The first dimension creates the scientist; the second, the artist; the third, the prophets. The rarity of Buddha consists of this -- that his approach is a synthesis of all the three, and not only a synthesis but it goes beyond the three.
He is a rationalist. Any scientist will be immediately convinced of his truth. His approach is purely logical, he convinces the mind. You cannot find a loophole in him.
You need not be a religious person to be convinced by Buddha, that's his rarity. You need not believe at all. You need not believe in god, you need not believe in the soul, you need not believe in anything -- still you can be with Buddha, and by and by you will come to know about the soul and about the god also. But those are not hypotheses.
No belief is required to travel with Buddha. You can come with all scepticism possible. First he convinces your mind, and once your mind is convinced and you start travelling with him, by and by you start feeling that he has a message which is beyond mind, he has a message which no reason can confine. But first he convinces your reason.
Because of this rational approach he never brings any concept which cannot be proved. He never talks about god. H. G. Wells has said about Buddha, 'He is the most godly and the most godless man in the whole history of man.'
Because he has never talked about god, many think that he is an atheist -- he is not. He has not talked about god because there is no way to talk about god. "
Excerpted from Dhammapada The Way of the Buddha