In June 1978, Osho coins the phrase Zorba the Buddha. The name becomes a trademark for sannyasin enterprises around the world, for example, restaurants and discoteques

Have you read Kazantzakis' Zorba the Greek: Read it!...

Allow me to coin the term 'spiritual hedonism', because ordinarily you think of hedonism as very earthy. "Eat, drink, be merry"--that is earthy hedonism. In spiritual hedonism that is there, and more also. "Eat, drink, be merry" is there--plus God. Eat, drink and be merry in the name of the holy, in the name of your God, your Father who is in heaven.

Eat, drink, be merry--make them your prayer. Let your eating and drinking and merrying be a sort of ritual, a sort of prayer--a gesture of happiness that "I am okay, and I am happy that you have given birth to me. I am happy that I am, and my whole thankfulness goes to you."

Zorba is one of my love affairs. I love strange people. Zorba is a very strange man--not even a real man, only fictitious, but to me he has become almost a reality because he represents Epicurus, Charvaka, and all the materialists of the world. He not only represents them, but represents them in their best form.

In one place Zorba says to his boss, "Boss, you have everything but still you are missing life, because you don't have a little madness in you. If you can manage a little madness you will know what life is."

I can understand him; not only him, but I can understand all the Zorbas down the ages, with their 'little madness'. But I don't believe in a little of anything. I am as mad as one can be, totally mad. If you are only a little mad, of course you will understand only a little of life, but it is better than not knowing at all.

Zorba, poor Zorba, illiterate Zorba, a laborer...he must have been huge, strongly built, and a little mad. But he gave great advice to his master: "Be a little mad," he said. I say being a little mad won't do; be totally mad! But you can allow total madness only in meditation, otherwise you will freak out. You won't be able to consume it; on the contrary, it will consume you. If you don't know what meditation is you will be burned. Hence I have coined a new name: Zorba the Buddha.

I am teaching my people to live a single, unitary life. There is no need to postpone. Be natural. I want Buddha, Gautam the Buddha, and Zorba the Greek to come closer and closer--to become one. My sannyasin has to be "Zorba the Buddha." Bring earth and heaven closer; let God and his world be joined together. Let your body and your soul be one--a song sung in togetherness, a dance where body and soul meet and merge.