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Osho’s growing library
But I have been collecting books from my high school days. You
will be surprised that by the time I was a matriculate I had read
thousands of books and collected hundreds of books of my own - and
great masterpieces. I was finished with Khalil Gibran, Dostoevsky,
Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, Turgenev - the best as far as writing
is concerned. When I was finishing my intermediate I was finished
with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Bertrand Russell - all the
philosophers that I could find in any library, in any bookshop,
or borrow from anybody. person04
I have been interested in communism from my very childhood...communist
literature - perhaps there is no book that is missing from my
library. I have signed and dated each book before 1950. I was
absolutely concerned to know about communism, everything. For
three years, 1948, 1949, and 1950, I had collected all the literature
possible. And I stopped at 1950. I have not read anything after
1950 about communism, for or against.
It is very strange...I go on forgetting small things. I cannot
count up to five - after the third finger I start hesitating,
whether it is fourth or third. But in these forty years I have
not forgotten a single name of the communist revolutionaries.
Small details are so vivid before me, because that was my first
entry into the intellectual world. It got deeply rooted in me.
But I never became a member of a communist party, because I could
see something was missing.
It is a grand plan for humanity, but something central is missing:
it has no soul, it is a corpse.
Because nothing new was happening, I stopped reading. And nothing
new has happened since then, except Gorbachev.....
First I was deeply interested in communism, but finding that it
is a corpse I became interested in anarchism - that was also a
Russian phenomenon - Prince Kropotkin, Bakunin, Leo Tolstoy. All
three were anarchists: no state, no government in the world. But
I saw the point that they have a beautiful dream but with this
criminal humanity, with this stupid mass, if there is no government
and no court and no police there will be simply chaos, not anarchism.
I have been always very scientific in my approach, either outside
or inside. Communism can be the base. Then spiritualism has to
be its growth, to provide what is missing. fire04
No child has asked for respect. You ask for toys sweets, clothes,
a bicycle, and things like that. You get them, but these are not
the real things which are going to make your life blissful.
I asked him (my father) for money only when I wanted to purchase
more books; I never asked money for anything else. And I told
him, "When I ask for money for books you had better give
it to me."
He said, "What do you mean?"
I said, "I simply mean that if you don't give it to me
then I will have to steal it. I don't want to be a thief but if
you force me then there is no way. You know I don't have money.
I need these books and I am going to have them, that you know.
So if money is not given to me then I will take it; and remember
in your mind that it was you who forced me to steal."
He said, "No need to steal. Whenever you need money you
simply come and take it."
And I said, "You be assured it is only for the books,"
but there was no need for the assurance because he went on seeing
my library growing in the house. Slowly there was no place in
the house for anything other than my books.
And my father said, "Now, first we had a library in our
house, now in the library we have a house! And we all have to
take care of your books because if something goes wrong with any
book you make so much fuss, you create so much trouble that everybody
is afraid of your books. And they are everywhere; you cannot avoid
stumbling on them. And there are small children...."
I said, "Small children are not a problem to me; the problem
is the older children. The smaller children - l respect them so
much that they are very protective of my books."
It was a strange thing to see in my house. My younger brothers
and sisters were all protective of my books when I was not there:
nobody could touch my books. And they would clean them and they
would keep them in the right place, wherever I had put them, so
when I needed any book I could find it. And it was a simple matter
because I was so respectful to them, and they could not show their
respect in any other way than to be respectful to my books.
I said, "The real problems are the older children - my
uncles, my aunts, my father's sisters, my father's brothers-in-law
- these are the people who are the trouble. I don't want anybody
else to mark my books, underline in my books, and these people
go on doing that." I hated the very idea that somebody should
underline in my books.
One of my father's brothers-in-law was a professor, so he must
have been in the habit of underlining. And he found so many beautiful
books, that whenever he used to come he would write notes on my
books. I had to tell him, "This is simply not only unmannerly,
uncivilized, it shows what kind of mind you have.
"l don't want books from the libraries, I don't read books
from the libraries, for the simple reason that they are underlined,
marked. Somebody else has emphasized something. I don't want that,
because without your knowing, that emphasis enters your mind.
lf you are reading a book and something is underlined with red,
that line stands out. You have read the whole page but that line
stands out. It leaves a different impact on your mind.
"l have an aversion to reading somebody else's books, underlined,
marked. To me it is just like somebody going to a prostitute.
A prostitute is nothing but a woman underlined and marked - notes
all over her from different people in different languages. You
would like a woman fresh, not underlined by somebody else.
"To me a book is not just a book, it is a love affair.
If you underline any book then you have to pay for it and take
it. Then I don't want that book here, because one dirty fish can
make the whole pond dirty. I don't want any book prostituted -
you take it."
He was very angry because he could not understand. I said, "You
don't understand me because you don't know me much. You just talk
to my father."
And my father said to him, "lt was your fault. Why did you
underline his book? Why did you write a note in his book? What
purpose did it serve to you? - because the book will remain in
his library. In the first place you never asked his permission
- that you wanted to read his book.
"Nothing happens here without his permission if it is his
thing; because if you take his thing without permission then he
starts taking everybody's things without permission. And that
creates trouble. Just the other day one of my friends was going
to catch the train and he took away his suitcase...."
My father's friend was going crazy: "Where is the suitcase?"
I said, "I know where it is, but in your suitcase there
is one of my books. I am not interested in your suitcase, I am
simply trying to save my book." I opened it - l had said,
"Open the suitcase," but he was very reluctant because
he had stolen the book - and the book was found. I said, "Now
you pay the penalty, because this is simply barbarious.
"You were a guest here; we respected you, we served you.
We did everything for you - and you steal a book of a poor boy
who has no money: a boy who has to threaten his father that 'if
you don't give me money then I am going to steal. And then don't
ask, Why did I do it? - because then wherever I can steal, I will
steal.'
"These books are not cheap - and you just kept it in your
suitcase. You cannot deceive my eyes. When I enter my room I know
whether my books are all there or not, whether something is missing."
So my father said to the professor who had underlined my book,
"Never do that to him. Take this book and replace it with
a fresh one."
My approach is simple:
Everybody has to be assertive, not aggressive. misery15
One of my brothers, my fourth brother, Niklanka, has been collecting
everything concerning me from his very childhood. Everybody laughed
at him. Even I asked him, "Niklanka, why do you bother to
collect everything about me?"
He said, "I don't know, but somehow there is a deep feeling
in me that someday these things will be needed."
I said, "Then go ahead. If you feel like that, go ahead,
do it." And it is because of Niklanka that a few pictures
of my childhood have been saved. He has collected things which
now have significance.
He was always collecting things. Even if I threw something away
in the wastepaper basket, he would search to see if I had thrown
away something I had written. Whatsoever it was, he would collect
it because of my handwriting. The whole town thought he was mad.
People even said to me, "You are mad, and he seems to be
even more mad!" But he loved me as nobody in my whole family
did - although they all loved me, but nobody like him.... Glimps50
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