osho's biography

Osho’s first day at school, and Shambhu Dube

The first thing my own father taught me - and the only thing that he ever taught me - was a love for the small river that flows by the side of my town. He taught me just this - swimming in the river. That's all that he ever taught me, but I am tremendously grateful to him because that brought so many changes in my life. Exactly like Siddhartha, I fell in love with the river. Whenever I think of my birthplace I don't remember anything except the river.

The day my father died I only remembered the first day he brought me to the riverbank to teach me swimming. My whole childhood was spent in a close love affair with the river. It was my daily routine to be with the river for at least five to eight hours. From three o'clock in the morning I would be with the river; the sky would be full of stars and the stars reflecting in the river. And it is a beautiful river; its water is so sweet that people have named it Shakkar - shakkar means sugar. It is a beautiful phenomenon.

I have seen it in the darkness of the night with the stars, dancing its course towards the ocean. I have seen it with the early rising sun. I have seen it in the full moon. I have seen it with the sunset. I have seen it sitting by its bank alone or with friends, playing on the flute, dancing on its bank, meditating on its bank, rowing a boat in it or swimming across it. In the rains, in the winter, in the summer....

I can understand Herman Hesse's Siddhartha and his experience with the river. It happened with me: so much transpired, because slowly slowly, the whole existence became a river to me. It lost its solidity; it became liquid, fluid.

And I am immensely grateful to my father. He never taught me mathematics, language, grammar, geography, history. He was never much concerned about my education. He had ten children...and I had seen it happen many times: people would ask, "In what class is your son studying?" - and he would have to ask somebody because he would not know. He was never concerned with any other education. The only education that he gave to me was a communion with the river. He himself was in deep love with the river.

Whenever you are in love with flowing tIn India in those days, the educational structure began with four years of primary education - it was a separate phenomenon, under the local authorities - then three years more if you wanted to continue in the same direction. That is seven years; and then you would get a certificate...
But there was another way too, and that is what actually happened. After four years you could either continue in the same line or change: you could go to the middle school. If you continued in the same line you never learned English. Primary education ended after seven years, and you were fully educated in only the local language - and in India there are thirty recognized languages. But after the fourth year there was an opening and you could change gear. You could go to the English school; you could join the middle school as it was called.

Again it was a four-year course, and if you continued in that line then after another three years later you became a matriculate. My God! What a wastage of life! All those beautiful days wasted so mercilessly, crushed! And by the time you were a matriculate, you were then capable of going to university. Again it was a six-year course! In all, I had to waste four years in primary school, four years in middle school, three years in high school, and six years in university - seventeen years of my life!

I think, if I can make any sense out of it, the only word that comes to me, in spite of Beelzebub and his disciples doing great work - ex-disciples, I mean - the only word that comes to me is 'nonsense'. Seventeen years! And I was eight or nine when I started this whole nonsense, so the day I left the university I was twenty-six, and so happy - not because I was a gold medalist but because I was free at last. Free again. glimps21

I remained in my father's village for eleven years, and I was forced almost violently to go to school. And it was not a one-day affair, it was an everyday routine. Every morning I had to be forced to go to school. One of my uncles, or whosoever, would take me there, would wait outside until the master had taken possession of me - as if I was a piece of property to be passed from one hand to another, or a prisoner passed from one hand to another. But that's what education is still: a forced and violent phenomenon.

Each generation tries to corrupt the new generation. It is certainly a kind of rape, a spiritual rape - and naturally the more powerful, stronger and bigger father and mother can force the small child. I was a rebel from the very first day that I was taken to school. The moment I saw the gates I asked my father, "Is it a jail or a school?"

My father said, "What a question! It is a school. Don't be afraid."
I said, "I am not afraid, I am simply inquiring about what attitude I should take. What is the need for this big gate?"
The gate was closed when all the children, the prisoners, were inside. It was only opened again in the evening when the children were released for the night. I can still see that gate. I can still see myself standing with my father ready to register at that ugly school.
The school was ugly, but the gate was even uglier. It was big, and it was called "The Elephant Gate," Hathi Dwar. An elephant could have passed through it, it was so large. Perhaps it would have been good for elephants from a circus - and it was a circus - but for small children it was too big.
I will have to tell you many things about these nine years... glimps19

I am standing before the Elephant Gate of my primary school...and that gate started many things in my life. I was not standing alone of course; my father was standing with me. He had come to enroll me at the school. I looked at the tall gates and said to him, "No."
I can still hear that word. A small child who has lost everything... I can see on the child's face a question mark as he wonders what is going to happen.
I stood looking at the gates, and my father just asked me, "Are you impressed by this great gate?"
Now I take the story into my own hands:

I said to my father, "No." That was my first word before entering primary school, and you will be surprised, it was also my last word on leaving the university. In the first case, my own father was standing with me. He was not very old but to me, a small child, he was old. In the second case, a really old man was standing by my side, and we were again standing at an even larger gate...

The first gate was the Elephant Gate, and I was standing with my father not wanting to enter. And the last gate was also an Elephant Gate, and I was standing with my old professor*, not wanting to enter again. Once was enough; twice would have been too much.
The argument that had begun at the first gate lasted up till the second gate. The no that I had said to my father was the same no that I had said to my professor, who was really a father to me...

That 'no' became my tone, the very stuff of my whole existence. I said to my father, "No, I don't want to enter this gate. This is not a school, it's a prison." The very gate, and the color of the building... It is strange, particularly in India, the jails and the schools are painted the same color, and they are both made of red brick. It is very difficult to know whether the building is a prison or a school. Perhaps once a practical joker had managed to play a joke, but he did it perfectly.

I said, "Look at this school - you call it a school? Look at this gate! And you are here to force me to enter for at least four years." That was the beginning of a dialogue that lasted for many years; and you will come across it many times, because it runs criss-cross through the story.
My father said, "I was always afraid..." and we were standing at the gate, on the outside of course, because I had not yet allowed him to take me in. He went on "...I was always afraid that your grandfather, and particularly this woman, your grandmother, were going to spoil you."
I said, "Your suspicion, or fear, was right, but the work has been done and nobody can undo it now, so please let us go home."
He said, "What! You have to be educated."
I said, "What kind of a beginning is this? I am not even free to say yes or no. You call it education? But if you want it, please don't ask me: here is my hand, drag me in. At least I will have the satisfaction that I never entered this ugly institution on my own. Please, at least do me this favor."
Of course, my father was getting very upset, so he dragged me in. Although he was a very simple man he immediately understood that it was not right. He said to me, "Although I am your father it does not feel right for me to drag you in."
I said, "Don't feel guilty at all. What you have done is perfectly right, because unless someone drags me in I am not going to go of my own decision. My decision is 'no.' You can impose your decision on me because I have to depend on you for food, clothes, shelter and everything. Naturally you are in a privileged position."

What an entry! - being dragged into school. My father never forgave himself. The day he took sannyas, do you know the first thing he said to me? "Forgive me, because I have done so many wrong things to you. There are so many I cannot count, and there must be more which I don't know at all. Just forgive me."...

A great dialogue started with my father on that day, and it continued on and off, and ended only when he became a sannyasin. After that there was no question of any argument, he had surrendered. The day he took sannyas, he was crying and holding my feet. I was standing, and can you believe it...like a flash, the old school, the Elephant Gate, the small child resisting, not ready to go in, and my father pulling him - it all flashed by. I smiled.
My father asked, "Why are you smiling?"
I said, "I am just happy that a conflict has ended at last."
But that is what was happening. My father dragged me; I never went to school willingly...
I am happy that I was dragged in, that I never went on my own, willingly. The school was really ugly - all schools are ugly, in fact. It is good to create a situation where children learn, but it is not good to educate them. Education is bound to be ugly.

And what did I see as the first thing in the school? The first thing was an encounter with the teacher of my first class. I have seen beautiful people and ugly people, but I have never seen something like that again! - and underline something; I cannot call that something someone. He did not look like a man. I looked at my father and said, "This is what you have dragged me into?"

My father said, "Shut up!" Very quietly, so that the "thing" did not hear. He was the master, and he was going to teach me. I could not even look at the man. God must have created his face in a tremendous hurry. Perhaps his bladder was full, and just to finish the job he did this man and then rushed to the bathroom. What a man he created! He had only one eye, and a crooked nose. That one eye was enough! But the crooked nose really added great ugliness to the face. And he was huge! - seven feet in height - and he must have weighed at least four hundred pounds, not less than that.

How do these people defy medical research? Four hundred pounds, and he was always healthy. He never took a single day off, he never went to a doctor. All over the town it was said that this man was made of steel. Perhaps he was, but not very good steel - more like barbed wire! He was so ugly that I don't want to say anything about him, although I will have to say a few things, but at least not about him directly.

He was my first master, I mean teacher. Because in India schoolteachers are called "masters"; that's why I said he was my first master. Even now if I saw that man I would certainly start trembling. He was not a man at all, he was a horse!
I said to my father, "First look at this man before you sign."
He said, "What is wrong with him? He taught me, he taught my father - he has been teaching here for generations."
Yes, that was true. That's why nobody could complain about him. If you complained your father would say, "I cannot do anything, he was my teacher too. If I go to him to complain, he could even punish me."
So my father said, "Nothing is wrong with him, he is okay." Then he signed the papers.
I then told my father, "You are signing your own troubles, so don't blame me."
He said, "You are a strange boy."
I said, "Certainly we are strangers to each other. I have lived away from you for many years, and I have been friends with the mango trees and the pines and the mountains, the oceans and the rivers. I am not a businessman, and you are. Money means everything to you; I cannot even count it."...
I told my father, "You understand money, and I don't. Our languages are different; and remember, you have stopped me from going back to the village, so now if there is a conflict, don't blame me. I understand something you don't, and you understand something that I neither understand nor want to. We are incompatible. Dada, we are not made for each other."

And it took nearly his whole life to cover the distance between us, but of course, it was him who had to travel. That's what I mean when I say that I am stubborn. I could not budge even a single inch, and everything started at that Elephant Gate.

The first teacher - I don't know his real name, and nobody in the school knew it either, particularly the children; they just called him Kantar Master. Kantar means "one-eyed"; that was enough for the children, and also it was a condemnation of the man. In Hindi kantar not only means "one-eyed," it is also used as a curse. It cannot be translated in that way because the nuance is lost in the translation. So we all called him Kantar Master in his presence, and when he was not there we called him just Kantar - that one-eyed fellow.

He was not only ugly; everything he did was ugly. And of course on my very first day something was bound to happen. He used to punish the children mercilessly. I have never seen or heard of anybody else doing such things to children. I knew of many people who had left school because of this fellow, and they remained uneducated. He was too much. You would not believe what he used to do, or that any man could do that. I will explain to you what happened to me on that very first day - and much more was to follow.

He was teaching arithmetic. I knew a little because my grandmother used to teach me a little at home - particularly a little language and some arithmetic. So I was looking out of the window at the beautiful pipal tree shining in the sun. There is no other tree which shines so beautifully in the sun, because each leaf dances separately, and the whole tree becomes almost a chorus - thousands of shining dancers and singers together, but also independent. The pipal tree is a very strange tree because all other trees inhale carbon dioxide, and exhale oxygen during the day... Whatever it is you can put it right, because you know that I am not a tree, nor am I a chemist or a scientist. But the pipal tree exhales oxygen twenty-four hours a day. You can sleep under a pipal tree, and not any other because they are dangerous to health. I looked at the tree with its leaves dancing in the breeze, and the sun shining on each leaf, and hundreds of parrots just jumping from one branch to another, enjoying, for no reason. Alas, they didn't have to go to school.
I was looking out of the window and Kantar Master jumped on me.
He said, "It is better to get things right from the very beginning."
I said, "I absolutely agree about that. I also want to put everything as it should be from the very beginning."
He said, "Why were you looking out of the window when I was teaching arithmetic?"
I said, "Arithmetic has to be heard, not seen. I don't have to see your beautiful face. I was looking out of the window to avoid it. As far as the arithmetic is concerned, you can ask me; I heard it and I know it."

He asked me, and that was the beginning of a very long trouble - not for me but for him. The trouble was that I answered correctly. He could not believe it and said, "Whether you are right or wrong I am still going to punish you, because it is not right to look out of the window when the teacher is teaching."
I was called in front of him. I had heard about his punishment techniques - he was a man like the Marquis de Sade. From his desk he took out a box of pencils. I had heard of these famous pencils. He used to put one of those pencils between each of your fingers, and then squeeze your hands tight, asking, "Do you want a little more? Do you need more?" - to small children! He was certainly a fascist. I am making this statement so it is at least on record: people who choose to be teachers have something wrong with them. Perhaps it is the desire to dominate or a lust for power; perhaps they are all a little bit fascist.

I looked at the pencils and said, "I have heard of these pencils, but before you put them between my fingers, remember, it will cost you very dearly, perhaps even your job."

He laughed. I can tell you it was like a monster in a nightmare laughing at you. He said, "Who can prevent me?"
I said, "That is not the point. I want to ask: is it illegal to look out of the window when arithmetic is being taught? And if I am able to answer the questions on what was being taught and am ready to repeat it word for word, then is it wrong in any way to look out of the window? Then why has the window been created in this classroom? For what purpose? - because for the whole day somebody is teaching something, and a window is not needed during the night when there is nobody to look out of it."
He said, "You are a troublemaker."
I said, "That's exactly true, and I am going to the headmaster to find out whether it is legitimate for you to punish me when I have answered you correctly."

He became a little more mellow. I was surprised because I had heard that he was not a man who could be subdued in any way.
I then said, "And then I am going to the president of the municipal committee who runs this school. Tomorrow I will come with a police commissioner so that he can see with his own eyes what kind of practices are going on here."

He trembled. It was not visible to others, but I can see such things which other people may miss. I may not see walls but I cannot miss small things, almost microscopic. I told him, "You are trembling, although you will not be able to accept it. But we will see. First let me go to the headmaster."
I went and the headmaster said, "I know this man tortures children. It is illegal, but I cannot say anything about it because he is the oldest schoolteacher in the town, and almost everybody's father and grandfather has been his pupil once at least. So no one can raise a finger against him."
I said, "I don't care. My father has been his student and also my grandfather. I don't care about either my father or my grandfather; in fact I don't really belong to that family. I have been living away from them. I am a foreigner here."

The headmaster said, "I could see immediately that you must be a stranger, but, my boy, don't get into unnecessary trouble. He will torture you."
I said, "It is not easy. Let this be the beginning of my struggle against all torture. I will fight."

And I hit with my fist - of course just a small child's fist - on his table, and told him, "I don't care about education or anything, but I must care about my freedom. Nobody can harass me unnecessarily. You have to show me the educational code. I cannot read, and you will have to show me whether it is unlawful to look out of the window even though I could answer all the questions correctly." He said, "If you answered correctly then there is no question at all about where you were looking." I said, "Come along with me."

He came with his educational code, an ancient book that he always carried. I don't think anybody had ever read it. The headmaster told Kantar Master, "It is better not to harass this child because it seems that it may bounce back on you. He won't give up easily."
But Kantar Master was not that type of man. Afraid, he became even more aggressive and violent. He said, "I will show this child - you need not worry. And who cares about that code? I have been a teacher here my whole life, and is this child going to teach me the code?"
I said, "Tomorrow, either I will be in this building or you, but we cannot both exist here together. Just wait until tomorrow."
I rushed home and told my father. He said, "I was worried whether I had entered you in school just to bring trouble upon others and upon yourself, and to also drag me into it."

I said, "No, I am simply reporting so that later you don't say you were kept in the dark."
I went to the police commissioner. He was a lovely man; I had not expected that a policeman could be so nice. He said, "I have heard about this man. In fact my own son has been tortured by him. But nobody complained. It is illegal to torture, but unless you complain nothing can be done, and I cannot complain myself because I am worried that he may fail my child. So it is better to let him go on torturing. It is only a question of a few months, then my child will go into another class."

I said, "I am here to complain, and I am not concerned about going into another class at all. I am ready to stay in this class my whole life."
He looked at me, patted me on the back and said, "I appreciate what you are doing. I will come tomorrow."
I then rushed to see the president of the municipal committee, who proved to be just cow dung. Yes, just cow dung, and not even dry - so ugly! He said to me, "I know. Nothing can be done about it. You have to live with it, you will have to learn how to tolerate it."
I said to him, and I remember my words exactly, "I am not going to tolerate anything that is wrong to my conscience."
He said, "If that is the case, I cannot take it in hand. Go to the vice president, perhaps he may be more helpful."
And for that I must thank that cow dung, because the vice president of that village, Shambhu Dube, proved to be the only man of any worth in that whole village, in my experience. When I knocked on his door - I was only eight or nine years old, and he was the vice president - he called, "Yes, come in." He was expecting to see some gentleman, and on seeing me he looked a little embarrassed.

I said, "I am sorry that I am not a little older - please excuse me. Moreover, I am not educated at all, but I have to complain about this man, Kantar Master."*
The moment he heard my story - that this man tortures little children in the first grade by putting pencils between their fingers and then squeezing, and that he has pins which he forces under the nails, and he is a man seven feet tall, weighing four hundred pounds - he could not believe it.

He said, "I have heard rumors, but why has nobody complained?"
I said, "Because people are afraid that their children will be tortured even more."
He said, "Are you not afraid?"
I said, "No, because I am ready to fail. That's all he can do." I said I was ready to fail and I was not insisting on success, but I would fight to the last: "It is either this man or me - we both cannot be there in the same building."
Shambhu Dube called me close to him. Holding my hand he said, "I always love rebellious people, but I never thought a child of your age could be a rebel. I congratulate you."

We became friends, and this friendship lasted until he died. That village had a population of twenty thousand people, but in India it is still a village. In India, unless the town has one hundred thousand people it is not considered a town. When there are more than fifteen hundred thousand people then it is a city. In my whole life I never came across another in that village of the same caliber, quality or talent as Shambhu Dube. If you ask me, it will look like an exaggeration, but in fact, in the whole of India I never found another Shambhu Dube. He was just rare...

He just loved me, and this love started at that meeting, on that day when I had gone to protest against Kantar Master.
Shambhu Dube was the vice president of the municipal committee, and he said to me, "Don't be worried. That fellow should be punished. In fact, his service is finished. He has applied for an extension but we will not give it to him. From tomorrow you will not see him in that school again."
I said, "Is that a promise?"
We looked into each other's eyes. He laughed and said, "Yes, it is a promise."
The next day Kantar Master was gone. He was never able to look at me after that. I tried to contact him, knocked at his door many times just to say goodbye, but he was really a coward, a sheep under a lion's skin. But that first day in school turned out to be the beginning of many, many things. glimps20

*Note: Professor Saxena, at Sagar University, see Part IV

Kantar Master was never seen at the school again. He was immediately sent on leave, because there was only one month before his retirement, and his application for an extension had been canceled. This created a great celebration in the village. Kantar Master had been a great man in that village, yet I had had him thrown out in just a single day. That was something. People started respecting me. I would say, "What nonsense is this? I have not done anything - I simply brought the man and his wrongdoing to the light."

I am surprised how he continued torturing small children his whole life. But that is what was thought to be education. It was thought then, and many Indians still think, that unless you torture a child he cannot be taught - although they may not say so clearly. glimps21

The second day was my real entry into the school, because Kantar Master had been thrown out and everybody was joyous. Almost all the children were dancing. I could not believe it, but they told me, "You did not know Kantar Master. If he dies we will distribute sweets for the whole town, and burn thousands of candles in our houses." I was received as if I had done a great deed...

The second day at school was as if I had done something great. I could not believe that people had been so oppressed by Kantar Master. It was not that they were rejoicing for me; even then I could see the distinction clearly. Today too, I can remember perfectly that they were rejoicing because Kantar Master was no longer on their backs.

They had nothing to do with me, although they were acting as if they were rejoicing for me. But I had come to school the day before and nobody had even said, "Hello." Yet now the whole school had gathered at the Elephant Gate to receive me. I had become almost a hero on just my second day.
But I told them then and there, "Please disperse. If you want to rejoice go to Kantar Master. Dance in front of his house, rejoice there. Or go to Shambhu Babu, who is the real cause of his removal. I am nobody. I did not go with any expectation, but things happen in life that you had never expected, nor deserved. This is one of those things, so please forget about it."

But it was never forgotten in my whole school life. I was never accepted as just another child. Of course, I was not very concerned with school at all. Ninety percent of the time I was absent. I would appear only once in a while for my own reason, but not to attend school. glimps46

The man I was talking about, his full name was Pandit Shambhuratan Dube. We all used to call him Shambhu Babu. He was a poet, and rare in that he was not eager to be published. That is very rare in a poet. I have come across hundreds of the tribe, and they are all so eager to be published that poetry becomes secondary. I call any ambitious person a politician, and Shambhu Dube was not ambitious.

He was not an elected vice president either, because to be elected you have to at least stand for election. He was nominated by the president, who was just holy cow dung as I have said before, and he wanted some men with intelligence to do his work. The president was an absolute cow dung, and he had been in office for years. Again and again he had been chosen by other cow dungs.

In India, to be a holy cow dung is a great thing - you become a mahatma. This president was almost a mahatma, and as bogus as they all are, otherwise they would not be mahatmas in the first place. Why should a man of creativity and intelligence choose to be a cow dung? Why should he be at all interested in being worshipped? I will not even mention the name of the holy cow dung; it is filthy. He had nominated Shambhu Babu as his vice president, and I think that was the only good thing that he did in his whole life. Perhaps he did not know what he was doing - cow dungs are not conscious people.
The moment Shambhu Babu and I saw each other, something happened: what Carl Gustav Jung calls "synchronicity." I was just a child; not only that, wild too. I was fresh from the woods, uneducated and undisciplined. We had nothing in common. He was a man of power and very respected by the people, not because he was a cow dung but because he was such a strong man, and if you were not respectful to him, some day you might suffer for it. And his memory was very very good. Everybody was really afraid of him and so they were all respectful, and I was just a child.

Apparently there was nothing in common between us. He was the vice president of the whole village, the president of the lawyers' association, the president of the Rotary Club, and so on and so forth. He was either the president or the vice president of many committees. He was everywhere, and he was a well-educated man. He had the highest degrees in law, but he did not practice law in that village...

He never published his poetry while he was still alive. He was a great story writer too, and by chance a famous film director became acquainted with him and his stories. Now Shambhu Babu is dead but a great film has been made using one of his stories, Jhansi ki rani - "The Queen of Jhansi." It won many awards, both national and international. Alas he is no more. He was my only friend in that place. glimps21

He was a great poet. He was also great because he never bothered to publish his work. He never bothered to read at any gathering of poets. It looked strange that he would read his poetry to a nine-year-old child, and he would ask me, "Is it of any worth, or just worthless?" Now his poetry is published, but he is no more. It was published in his memory. It does not contain his best work because the people who chose it, none of them were even poets, and it needs a mystic to choose from Shambhu Babu's poetry. I know everything he wrote. There was not much - a few articles, and very few poems, and a few stories, but in a strange way they all connect with a single theme.

The theme is life, not as a philosophical concept but as it is lived moment to moment. Life with a small 'l' will do, because he would never forgive me if you wrote life with a capital 'L'. He was against capital letters. He never wrote any word with capitals. Even the beginning of a sentence would always be written with small letters. He would even write his own name in small letters. I asked him, "What is wrong with capital letters? Why are you so against them, Shambhu Babu?"

He said, "I am not against them, but I am in love with the immediate, not the faraway. I am in love with small things: a cup of tea, a swim in the river, a sunbath... I am in love with little things, and they cannot be written with capital letters."glimpse21

Shambhu Babu was well-educated, I was uneducated, when the friendship began. He had a glorious past; I had none. The whole town was shocked by our friendship, but he was not even embarrassed. I respect that quality. We used to walk hand in hand. He was my father's age, and his children were older than me. He died ten years before my father. I think he must have been about fifty at that time. This would have been the right time for us to be friends. But he was the only man to recognize me. He was a man of authority in the village, and his recognition was of immense help to me...
My father used to ask Shambhu Babu, "Why are you so friendly to that troublesome boy?"

And Shambhu Babu would laugh and say, "One day you will understand why. I cannot tell you now." I was always amazed at the beauty of the man. It was part of his beauty that he could answer by saying, "I cannot answer. One day you will understand." One day he said to my father, "Perhaps I should not be friendly to him, but respectful." It shocked me too. When we were alone, I said to him, "Shambhu Babu, what nonsense were you telling to my father? What do you mean by saying that you should respect me?"

He said, "I do respect you because I can see, but not very clearly, as if hidden behind a smokescreen, what you are going to be one day."
Even I had to shrug my shoulders. I said, "You are just talking rubbish. What can I be? I am already it." He said, "There! That's what amazes me in you. You are a child; the whole village laughs at our friendship and they wonder what we talk about together, but they don't know what they are all missing. I know" - he emphasized it - "I know what I am missing. I can feel it a little, but I can't see it clearly. Perhaps one day when you are really grown up, I may be able to see you."glimps21

I was talking to you about my strange friendship with Shambhu Babu. It was strange on many counts. First, he was older than my father, or perhaps the same age - but as far as I remember, he looked older - and I was only nine years old. Now, what kind of friendship is possible? He was a successful legal expert, not only in that small place, but he practiced in the high court and in the supreme court. He was one of the topmost legal authorities. And he was a friend of a wild, unruly, undisciplined, illiterate child. When he said, on that first meeting, "Please be seated," I was amazed.

I had not hoped that the vice president would stand to receive me and would say, "Please be seated." I said to him, "First, you be seated. I feel a little embarrassed to sit before you do. You are old, perhaps even older than my father." He said, "Don't be worried. I am a friend of your father. But relax and tell me what you have come for."

I said, "I will tell you later on why I have come here. First..." He looked at me, I looked at him; and what transpired in that small fragment of a moment became my first question. I asked him, "First, tell me what happened just now, between your eyes and mine." He closed his eyes. I think perhaps ten minutes must have passed before he opened them again. He said, "Forgive me, I cannot figure it out - but something happened."

We became friends; that was sometime in 1940. Only later on, years afterwards, just one year before he died - he died in 1960, after twenty years of friendship, strange friendship - only then was I able to tell him that the word he had been searching for had been invented by Carl Gustav Jung. That word is 'synchronicity'; that is what was happening between us. He knew it, I knew it, but the word was missing.
Synchronicity can mean many things all together, it is multidimensional. It can mean a certain rhythmic feeling; it can mean what people have always called love; it can mean friendship; it can simply mean two hearts beating together without rhyme or reason it is a mystery. Only once in a while one finds someone with whom things fit; the jigsaw just disappears. All the pieces that were not fitting suddenly fit on their own accord. glimps22

I was telling you about a certain relationship that happened between a child of about nine years of age and an old man of perhaps fifty. The difference in age was great, but love can transcend all barriers. If it can happen even between a man and a woman, then what other barrier could be bigger? But it was not, and cannot be described as just love. He could have loved me like a son, or like his grandson, but that was not it.
What happened was friendliness - and let it be on record. What happened was friendliness - and let it be on record: I value friendliness higher than love. There is nothing higher than friendliness. I know you must have noticed that I have not used the word 'friendship'. I was using it, but now is the time to tell you of something greater than friendship - friendliness.

Friendship can also be binding, in its own way, like love. It can also be jealous, possessive, afraid that it may be lost, and because of that fear, so much agony and so much struggle. In fact people are continuously fighting those whom they love - strange, just strange...unbelievably strange.
Friendliness rises higher, to all that man knows and feels. It is more a fragrance of being, or you can say a flowering of being. Something transpires between two souls, and suddenly there are two bodies, but one being - that is what I call flowering. Friendliness is freedom from all that is small and mediocre, from all that we are acquainted with - in fact, too acquainted with. glimps23