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Osho is born in the village of Kuchwada
The East has never bothered about birthdays. The East simply laughs
at the whole absurdity of it. What has chronological time to do
with Krishna's birth? We don't have any record. Or we have many
records, contradictory, contradicting each other.
But, see, I was born on eleventh December. If it can be proved
that I was not born on eleventh December, will it be enough proof
that I was never born? yoga907
I was incarnated into this body on this day. This is the day
I saw for the first time the green of the trees and the blue of
the skies. This was the day I for the first time opened my eyes
and saw God all around. Of course the word 'God' didn't exist
at that moment, but what I saw was God. body01
You can ask my mother something.... After my birth, for
three days I didn't take any milk, and they were all worried,
concerned. The doctors were concerned, because how was this child
going to survive if he simply refused to take milk? But they had
no idea of my difficulty, of what difficulty they were creating
for me. They were trying to force me in every possible way. And
there was no way I could explain to them, or that they could find
out by themselves.
In my past life, before I died, I was on a fast. I wanted to
complete a twenty-one day fast, but I was murdered before my fast
was complete, three days before. Those three days remained in
my awareness even in this birth; I had to complete my fast. I
am really stubborn! Otherwise, people don't carry things from
one life to another life; once a chapter is closed, it is closed.
But for three days they could not manage to put anything in
my mouth; I simply rejected it. But after three days I was perfectly
okay and they were all surprised: "Why was he refusing for
three days? There was no sickness, no problem-and after three
days he is perfectly normal." It remained a mystery to them.
But these things I don't want to talk about because to you they
will all be hypothetical, and there is no way for me to prove
them scientifically. And I don't want to give you any belief,
so I go on cutting all that may create any belief system in your
mind.
You love me, you trust me, so whatever I say you may trust it.
But I insist, again and again, that anything that is not based
on your experience, accept it only hypothetically. Don't make
it your belief. If sometimes I give an example, that is sheer
necessity-because the person has asked, "How did you manage
to be so courageous and sharp in your childhood?"
I have not done anything, I have simply continued what I was
doing in my past life. And that's why in my childhood I was thought
to be crazy, eccentric-because I would not give any explanation
of why I wanted to do something. I would simply say, "I want
to do it. There are reasons for me, why I am doing it, but I cannot
give you those reasons because you cannot understand."...
misery09
I am reminded again of the small village where I was born. Why
existence should have chosen that small village in the first place
is unexplainable. It is as it should be. The village was beautiful.
I have traveled far and wide but I have never come across that
same beauty. One never comes again to the same. Things come and
go, but it is never the same.
I can see that still, small village. Just a few huts near a
pond, and a few tall trees where I used to play. There was no
school in the village. That is of great importance, because I
remained uneducated for almost nine years, and those are the most
formative years. After that, even if you try, you cannot be educated.
So in a way I am still uneducated, although I hold many degrees.
Any uneducated man could have done it. And not any degree, but
a first-class master's degree-that too can be done by any fool.
So many fools do it every year that it has no significance. What
is significant is that for my first years I remained without education.
There was no school, no road, no railway, no post office. What
a blessing! That small village was a world unto itself. Even in
my times away from that village I remained in that world, uneducated.
I have read Ruskin's famous book, Unto This Last, and when I
was reading it I was thinking of that village. Unto This Last...that
village is still unaltered. No road connects it, no railway passes
by, even now after almost fifty years; no post office, no police
station, no doctor-in fact nobody falls ill in that village, it
is so pure and so unpolluted. I have known people in that village
who have not seen a railway train, who wonder what it looks like,
who have not even seen a bus or a car. They have never left the
village. They live so blissfully and silently. My birthplace,
Kuchwada, was a village with no railway line and no post office.
It had small hills, hillocks rather, but a beautiful lake, and
a few huts, just straw huts. The only brick house was the one
I was born in, and that too was not much of a brick house. It
was just a little house.
I can see it now, and can describe its every detail...but
more than the house or the village, I remember the people. I have
come across millions of people, but the people of that village
were more innocent than any, because they were very primitive.
They knew nothing of the world. Not even a single newspaper had
ever entered that village. You can now understand why there was
no school, not even a primary school...what a blessing! No
modern child can afford it.
I remained uneducated for those years and they were the most
beautiful years....
Kuchwada was surrounded by small hills and there was a small pond.
Nobody could describe that pond except Basho. Even he does not
describe the pond, he simply says:
The ancient pond
Frog jumps in
Plop!
Is this a description? The pond is only mentioned, the frog too.
No description of the pond or the frog...and plop!
The village had an ancient pond, very ancient, and very ancient
trees surrounding it-they were perhaps hundreds of years old-and
beautiful rocks all around...and certainly the frogs jumped.
Day in and day out you could hear "plop," again and
again. The sound of frogs jumping really helped the prevailing
silence. That sound made the silence richer, more meaningful.
This is the beauty of Basho: he could describe something without
actually describing it. He could say something without even mentioning
a word. "Plop!" Now, is this a word? No word could do
justice to the sound of a frog jumping into the ancient pond,
but Basho did it justice.
I am not a Basho, and that village needed a Basho. Perhaps he
would have made beautiful sketches, paintings, and haikus....
I have not done anything about that village-you will wonder why-I
have not even visited it again. Once is enough. I never go to
a place twice. For me number two does not exist. I have left many
villages, many towns, never to return again. Once gone, gone forever,
that's my way; so I have not returned to that village. The villagers
have sent messages to me to come at least once more. I told them
through a messenger, "I have been there once already, twice
is not my way." But the silence of that ancient pond stays
with me. glimps01
I was a lonely child because I was brought up by my maternal
grandfather and grandmother; I was not with my father and mother.
Those two old people were alone and they wanted a child who would
be the joy of their last days. So my father and mother agreed:
I was their eldest child, the first-born; they sent me.
I don't remember any relationship with my father's family in
the early years of my childhood. With these two old men-my grandfather
and his old servant, who was really a beautiful man-and my old
grandmother...these three people. And the gap was so big...I
was absolutely alone. It was not company, it could not be company.
They tried their hardest to be as friendly to me as possible but
it was just not possible.
I was left to myself. I could not say things to them. I had nobody
else, because in that small village my family were the richest;
and it was such a small village-not more than two hundred people
in all-and so poor that my grandparents would not allow me to
mix with the village children. They were dirty, and of course
they were almost beggars. So there was no way to have friends.
That caused a great impact. In my whole life I have never been
a friend, I have never known anybody to be a friend. Yes, acquaintances
I had.
In those first, early years I was so lonely that I started enjoying
it; and it is really a joy. So it was not a curse to me, it proved
a blessing. I started enjoying it, and I started feeling self-sufficient;
I was not dependent on anybody. I have never been interested in
games for the simple reason that from my very childhood there
was no way to play, there was nobody to play with. I can still
see myself in those earliest years, just sitting.
We had a beautiful spot where our house was, just in front of
a lake. Far away for miles, the lake...and it was so beautiful
and so silent. Only once in while would you see a line of white
cranes flying, or making love calls, and the peace would be disturbed;
otherwise, it was almost the right place for meditation. And when
they would disturb the peace-a love call from a bird...after his
call the peace would deepen, it would become deeper.
The lake was full of lotus flowers, and I would sit for hours
so self-content, as if the world did not matter: the lotuses,
the white cranes, the silence....
And my grandparents were very aware of one thing, that I enjoyed
my aloneness. They had continuously been seeing that I had no
desire to go to the village to meet anybody, or to talk with anybody.
Even if they wanted to talk my answers were yes, or no; I was
not interested in talking either. So they became aware of one
thing, that I enjoyed my aloneness, and it was their sacred duty
not to disturb me.
So for seven years continuously nobody tried to corrupt my innocence;
there was nobody. Those three old people who lived in the house,
the servant and my grandparents, were all protective in every
possible way that nobody should disturb me. In fact I started
feeling, as I grew up, a little embarrassed that because of me
they could not talk, they could not be normal as everybody is.
It was just the opposite situation....
It happens with children that you tell them, "Be silent because
your father is thinking, your grandfather is resting. Be quiet,
sit silently." In my childhood it happened the opposite way.
Now I cannot answer why and how; it simply happened. That's why
I said it simply happened-the credit does not go to me.
All those three old people were continuously making signs to each
other: "Don't disturb him-he is enjoying so much." And
they started loving my silence.
Silence has its vibe; it is infectious, particularly a child's
silence which is not forced, which is not because you are saying,
"I will beat you if you create any nuisance or noise."
No, that is not silence. That will not create the joyous vibration
that I am talking about, when a child is silent on his own, enjoying
for no reason; his happiness is uncaused. That creates great ripples
all around. In a better world, every family will learn from children.
You are in such a hurry to teach them. Nobody seems to learn from
them, and they have much to teach you. And you have nothing to
teach them.
Just because you are older and powerful you start making them
just like you without ever thinking about what you are, where
you have reached, what your status is in the inner world. You
are a pauper; and you want the same for your child also? But nobody
thinks; otherwise people would learn from small children. Children
bring so much from the other world because they are such fresh
arrivals. They still carry the silence of the womb, the silence
of the very existence.
So it was just a coincidence that for seven years I remained
undisturbed-no one to nag me, to prepare me for the world of business,
politics, diplomacy. My grandparents were more interested in leaving
me as natural as possible-particularly my grandmother. She is
one of the causes-these small things affect all your life patterns-she
is one of the causes of my respect for the whole of womanhood.
She was a simple woman, uneducated, but immensely sensitive. She
made it clear to my grandfather and the servant: "We all
have lived a certain kind of life which has not led us anywhere.
We are as empty as ever, and now death is coming close."
She insisted, "Let this child be uninfluenced by us. What
influence can we...? We can only make him like us, and we are
nothing. Give him an opportunity to be himself."
My grandfather-I heard them discussing in the night, thinking
that I was asleep-used to say to her, "You are telling me
to do this, and I am doing it; but he is somebody else's son,
and sooner or later he will have to go to his parents. What will
they say?-You have not taught him any manners, any etiquette,
he is absolutely wild."
She said, "Don't be worried about that. In this whole world
everybody is civilized, has manners, etiquette, but what is the
gain? You are very civilized-what have you got out of it? At the
most his parents will be angry at us. So what?-let them be angry.
They can't harm us, and by that time the child will be strong
enough that they cannot change his life course."
I am tremendously grateful to that old woman. My grandfather
was again and again worried that sooner or later he was going
to be responsible: "They will say, We left our child with
you and you have not taught him anything."
My grandmother did not even allow...because there was one man
in the village who could at least teach me the beginnings of language,
mathematics, a little geography. He was educated to the fourth
grade-the lowest four; that is what was called primary education
in India. But he was the most educated man in the town.
My grandfather tried hard: "He can come and he can teach
him. At least he will know the alphabet, some mathematics, so
when he goes to his parents they will not say that we just wasted
seven years completely."
But my grandmother said, "Let them do whatsoever they want
to do after seven years. For seven years he has to be just his
natural self, and we are not going to interfere." And her
argument was always, "You know the alphabet, so what? You
know mathematics, so what? You have earned a little money; do
you want him also to earn a little money and live just like you?"
That was enough to keep that old man silent. What to do? He
was in a difficulty because he could not argue, and he knew that
he would be held responsible, not she, because my father would
ask him, "What have you done?" And actually that would
have been the case, but fortunately he died before my father could
ask.
But my father continuously was saying, "That old man is
responsible, he has spoiled the child." But now I was strong
enough, and I made it clear to him: "Before me, never say
a single word against my maternal grandfather. He has saved me
from being spoiled by you-that is your real anger. But you have
other children-spoil them. And at the final stage you will say
who IS spoiled."
He had other children, and more and more children went on coming.
I used to tease him, "You please bring one child more, make
it a dozen. Eleven children? People ask, "How many children?"
Eleven does not look right; one dozen is more impressive."
And in later years I used to tell him, "You go on spoiling
all your children; I am wild, and I will remain wild." What
you see as innocence is nothing but wildness. What you see as
clarity is nothing but wildness. Somehow I remained out of the
grip of civilization.
And once I was strong enough.... And that's why people insist,
"Take hold of the child as quickly as possible, don't waste
time because the earlier you take hold of the child, the easier
it is. Once the child becomes strong enough, then to bend him
according to your desires will be difficult."
And life has seven-year circles. By the seventh year the child
is perfectly strong; now you cannot do anything. Now he knows
where to go, what to do. He is capable of arguing. He is capable
of seeing what is right and what is wrong. And his clarity will
be at the climax when he is seven. If you don't disturb his earlier
years, then at the seventh he is so crystal clear about everything
that his whole life will be lived without any repentance.
I have lived without any repentance. I have tried to find: Have
I done anything wrong, ever? Not that people have been thinking
that all that I have done is right, that is not the point: I have
never thought anything that I have done was wrong. The whole world
may think it was wrong, but to me there is absolute certainty
that it was right; it was the right thing to do.
So there is no question of repenting about the past. And when
you don't have to repent about the past you are free from it.
The past keeps you entangled like an octopus because you go on
feeling, "That thing I should not have done," or, "That
thing which I was supposed to do and did not do...." All
those things go on pulling you backwards.
I don't see anything behind me, no past. If I say something
about my past, it is simply factual memory, it has no psychological
involvement. I am telling you as if I am telling you about somebody
else. It is just factual; it has nothing to do with my personal
involvement. It might have occurred to somebody else, it might
have happened to somebody else. So remember, a factual memory
is not enslaving. Psychological memory is, and psychological memory
is made up of things that you think, or you have been conditioned
to think, were wrong and you did them. Then there is a wound,
a psychological wound. dark02
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