Many readers have been wondering which are Osho’s most favourite mystics. It happened once the great Hindi poet, Sumitranandan Pant, asked, who are the 12 brightest shining stars in India? Osho gave him the list: Krishna, Patanjali, Buddha, Mahavira, Nagarjuna, Shankara, Gorakh, Kabir, Nanak, Meera, Ramakrishna and Krishnamurti. The poet further asked Osho, “Could you just give me seven names?” Osho said: Krishna, Patanjali, Buddha, Mahavira, Shankara, Gorakh and Kabir. The poet requested again to shorten the list to five?” Osho said: Krishna, Patanjali, Buddha, Mahavira and Gorakh. The poet was surprised that Gorakh was not being dropped. Osho said: “Because Kabir is merged into Gorakh. Gorakh is the root. Gorakh cannot be left out.” Then the poet said: “If only four are to be kept?” Osho said: Krishna, Patanjali, Buddha and Gorakh... The poet requested: “Just one more time... please choose three.”
Osho replied: “Now it is impossible. I cannot drop any of these four.”
These four individualities are like the four directions. These four are like the four dimensions of time and space. These four arms are like the four-armed aspects of God. In fact, there is only one, but that one has four arms. The poet wondered why Gorakh was not dropped. Osho remarked: “Gorakh cannot be dropped because Gorakh became a new beginning for this country... Gorakh is the first link of a chain. Through him a new type of religion was born. Without Gorakh, there could be no Kabir, no Nanak, no Dadu, no Vajid, no Farid, no Meera — without Gorakh none of these are possible. The basic root of all of them is in Gorakh. Since then the temple has been built high. On this temple many golden spires have been raised... but the foundation stone is the foundation stone.” He concluded: Gorakh had a rare individuality, similar to Einstein. Einstein gave such penetrating methods for investigating the truth of the universe, as no one before him had given. Yes, now they can be further developed, now a finer edge can be put on them. In the inner world the same situation exists with Gorakh.”
