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Part X : 1987-1990 Poona-Two : The Police Commissioner’s
Conditions
Later that day, the Order is stayed by the High Court. Negotiations
begin with Police Commissioner Misar to allow Osho to stay. Misar
demands that the ashram agrees to a number of conditions.
I am not going to tolerate this police commissioner here. Either
I am going to be here or he is going to be here! I don't believe
in compromising….
His conditions…and he has not even the guts to say, "These
are my conditions." He persuaded the office, the ashram in-charge,
Svabhav, to sign saying that "These are our ideas,"
that "we will abide by the following norms." And you
just look at the norms.
About two norms, I talked this morning. But then I found it
is a long list. You have to understand it, and you have to make
the whole city understand it.
First: only for two hours a discourse is allowed. Is this the
freedom for which thousands of people died? Is this the freedom
for which Bharat Singh was crucified? Is this the freedom for
which, for one hundred years continuously, the country was struggling?
And it goes against the constitution of India. A third-rate government
servant violating the constitution of India—who is he to
tell me that my discourse should be only for two hours? It will
never be. But his stupidity knows no limits.
Second: only five meditations, one hour each. In the country
where meditation was born, in the country where there are one
hundred twelve meditations, in the country where all the geniuses
for almost ten thousand years have done nothing but meditate…a
police commissioner ordering us that we will abide, and we will
do only five meditations, each meditation only for one hour. How
much does he know about meditation? If he has any guts, he should
come here and first let us decide how much he knows about meditation.
I don't think he can even give the names of one hundred twelve
meditations; to know about meditation is a totally different thing.
And the constitution gives us religious freedom. Why only for
us?—if you are making it a law, then it should be for the
whole country; for all the temples, for all the mosques, for all
gurudwaras. This is a temple of God.
Nobody can say to us that we cannot meditate for more than one
hour. Today he is saying…. I warn the people of Poona: this
insane person should be removed immediately, because today he
is imposing himself on a small, nonviolent group of people who
have done no harm to anybody—"You should meditate only
one hour." My discourse should be only for two hours. Soon
he will be imposing on you—"Your intercourse should
be only for two hours." What about intercourse? What about
himself? What is the limit he has imposed upon himself? How long,
three minutes?
And Third: discourses will be open to police officers. Why?
Discourses are for the disciples. This is not a police academy.
And do you think your police officers will be able to understand
the discourses? Only idiots enter into the service of police.
And why should discourses be open to police officers? If they
are interested, they should come here as disciples; they are open
to all. But we cannot allow specifically police officers—they
can come here as human beings. Have they lost their humanity completely?
And not only police officers—their men accompanying them…Who
are these "men"? Shiv Sena people? Hindu chauvinists?
Who are these "men" who are going to accompany police
officers? Why can't they come by themselves? Last time also—when
the same person, Vilas Tupe, had thrown a dagger at me—they
had asked for twenty police officers for my protection. It is
strange…now things are more clear, looking retrospectively….
The same man and the same group—and again the same number
of policemen are asking to enter here. This is a simple, logical
inference: the men accompanying him are nobody else but Vilas
Tupe and his group. He should have also asked that at least one
of them should be allowed to carry a dagger!
Fifth: the discourses will not be provocative. Then what is the
purpose of the discourse? It has to provoke your sleeping souls,
it has to provoke your potential. It has to be provocative; otherwise
there is no purpose.
This is not a kindergarten school. This is a school of mysticism
and the effort is to provoke in you a longing, a tremendous desire
to see the truth.
But who is this man who is trying to destroy my freedom and your
freedom?
Sixth: they should not be against any other religion. Hindus can
be against Mohammedans; otherwise why don't they go to the mosques
for their prayers? Mohammedans can be against Hindus, Christians
can be against others.
I am against all religions, because I am a religious person and
a religious person is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian
nor Buddhist. I will speak against all religions because they
are pseudo—they are not true religions. And if he has any
intelligence to prove otherwise, he's welcome. If he can prove
that the organized religions are true religions…but destroying
the freedom of people to be religious is against all human JUSTIFY">I
am against all religions, because I am a religious person and
a religious person is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian
nor Buddhist. I will speak against all religions because they
are pseudo—they are not true religions. And if he has any
intelligence to prove otherwise, he's welcome. If he can prove
that the organized religions are true religions…but destroying
the freedom of people to be religious is against all human values.
I will speak against all religions. I have to, because I stand
for religiousness, not for religions.
Seventh: the number of foreigners residing in the ashram will
not be more than one hundred. We don't believe in countries and
we don't believe in nations. For us, nobody is a foreigner.
We are children of the same universe, of the same earth—who
is a foreigner? And what right has he got? Where in the constitution
is the right given to police commissioners to restrict the number
of foreigners listening to a master? From where did he get this
number one hundred?—why not ten thousand? How has he decided
for one hundred? It is arbitrary.
And as far as I am concerned and my people are concerned, here
nobody is a foreigner. The moment you enter this house of God,
you are simply human beings.
And I am not going to change because of these stupid, ordinary
public servants who know nothing of religion, who know nothing
of humanity, and still…. He has some nerve. But I am going
to put him right. He has got into trouble unnecessarily. Whoever
gets into trouble with me will repent for his whole life.
And their names will be informed to the police. Here, everybody's
name is a sannyas name. They are all rooted in the Sanskrit language.
How are you going to find that this name is a foreigner's? I have
my own ways….
Nine: the number of foreigners daily visiting the ashram for discourses
will not exceed one thousand. This man seems to be…something
is either loose in his head or something is too tight. But he
need not be worried; we have in our ashram all kinds of mind-mechanics.
He can come—either we will loosen his mind or tighten his
mind. Just one problem about which I am afraid, apprehensive:
if there is no mind inside?—then it is going to be trouble.
But we will find some solution.
He does not understand. This is a democracy; this is a free, sovereign
country. And if the government allows people from all over the
world to enter the country…he seems to be superior to the
government.
We are not going to abide by any nonsense, and if this man is
not removed, he will have to face me in court. And in court, I
am not going to have an advocate; I myself am going to face it.
Tenth: no member of the ashram or visitors is allowed to carry
firearms. What about the twenty police officers? They will have
to leave their firearms outside, according to his own dictates.
He seems to be having nightmares—nobody has any firearms
here. He wants twenty police officers to bring firearms.
My attorney, Tathagat, had told him: "Usually there were
seven thousand to ten thousand people from all over the world.
You cannot cut the number to one thousand."
And he said, "We don't have enough people to control ten
thousand people." This is said by a commissioner! He can
control the whole district and he has enough people for the whole
commissionery but just for a six-acre area of land, he does not
have enough people to control. And who is asking him to control?
We have been here from 1974 and there was never a need to control
our people. There has been no fight in the ashram. He does not
even understand that the people who have come here have not come
here to fight. They have come here to be more loving, to be more
honest, to be more sincere, to be more truthful—they are
seekers. There is no need of any control. Nobody controls here.
So he should remember: whoever comes to the doors of this temple—as
a seeker, not as a police officer—whether his skin is white
or black, whether his nose is long or short, he's welcome. And
if he has any problem with that, either he can come here…or
if he raises such nonsense questions again, I am dragging him
into court….
Eleventh: members of the ashram are prohibited from indulging
in any obscene behavior in the ashram or outside the ashram. Does
he know what the word "obscene" means? The temples of
Khajuraho should be demolished by the order of the commissioner
of Poona because they are obscene. The temples of Puri should
be demolished, the temples of Konark should be demolished. The
beautiful caves of Ajanta and Ellora should be demolished.
These are the things which attract the whole world—and if
they are not obscene, then he will have to show, in front of my
people, what obscenity is.
You have naked Jaina monks and that is not obscene. You have naked
Hindu monks and that is not obscene. And all over the country,
you have shivalingas. Shivalinga represents the penis of Shiva
and the vagina of Parvati, and they are all over the country—everywhere,
in every city, under any tree. They are not obscene.
I would love to know: Is this police commissioner born not of
a woman? Wasn't his father obscene? Wasn't his mother obscene?
And while his father was doing all kinds of obscenities to his
mother, if my sannyasins had entered the room to give him an invitation…"You
are invited for a discourse…. "
He is saying "inside the ashram or outside the ashram."
The whole of India is obscene. Their scriptures are obscene. He
should go to some library and just look into Shivapuran and he
will find out what obscenity is. And Shiva is one of the gods
of the Hindus.
These people are going to teach me? There is nothing obscene in
the world. Everything is natural—it is your interpretation.
Yes, I can understand if he had said, "They should not be
indulging in any behavior which is obscene outside the ashram."
I have no concern outside the ashram. It is their individual responsibility
what they are doing or not doing.
And it is for the police commissioner and his police to go to
the court and get a clear-cut definition of obscenity. Up to now,
all over the world, no court has been able to decide what is obscene
and what is not. But I think you have got a police commissioner
who knows what is obscene. We would love to see him just give
us a little show of his obscenity, so that we can also understand
that this is obscene behavior and we are not to do it outside
the ashram.
Twelve: the police officers will have the right to visit the ashram
during any time of day or night. Their lawful directions will
be complied with, without any hesitation.
Are my sannyasins also allowed to enter your houses during any
time of day or night? No sane person could ask that police officers
be allowed in the night. For what? We don't need them even in
the day! Their faces, their uniforms, their retarded minds—for
what do we need them? No. This is a temple of God, and you will
have to act according to our directions. You cannot order us unless
we indulge in any crime. If we are murdering people, of course
it is lawful for you to ask for permission to enter the premises.
You have seen what has happened in the gurudwara of Amritsar.
For three hundred years, the British people were more intelligent;
they never entered the temple of the Sikhs. A temple should be
respected.
It is our temple. Do you want to create another Amritsar? Then
certainly we will need ten thousand licenses for machine guns.
Of course they will be lawful. But if the police behave in such
a way, then I am not a Gandhian. I do not believe in violence;
but I also do not believe in anybody else doing violence to my
people.
We are nonviolent people. We don't need any police. And there
is no need for them to enter the premises of the ashram without
permission, behaving in the same way they would behave in their
own temples. They can come to the gate. That is the limit. Beyond
that, it belongs to God—not to the commissionery of the
police commissioner….
And we believe in love, we don't believe in machine guns. But
if you force us, you will find yourself destroying your constitution,
your democracy, your prestige in the whole world. mess107
In February, police arrive in the night, at 1:00 am. Eleven ashram
residents are arrested and jailed overnight. Telephone lines to
the commune are cut. In the morning, several busloads of police
come to aid Municipal Corporation demolish so-called 'unauthorised'
construction. The mayor arrives and tells the corporation authorities
to leave.
Support from the Mayor of Poona
Balasaheb R. Borade from the City Youth Congress has written
to me, saying that "We will fight for you."
And today, the Mayor of Poona, Ulhas Dhole Patil came, saying
that "Whatever has happened is so ugly that I have come just
to apologize. Forgive us; it should not have happened." He
has written a letter to me, saying, "You are welcome in the
city of Poona and I want you to stay here forever." And just
now he came again and told my secretary, Neelam: "I am going
to pass a resolution in the Poona Corporation that the Corporation
should ask forgiveness, and ask that you please don't leave Poona,
but remain here." mess107
Just yesterday I received another letter from the Mayor of Poona:
"With my deepest love and pleasure I wish to state that Osho,
presently residing at 17 Koregaon Park, Poona, in my home constituency,
is undoubtedly an enlightened person. His authoritative views
on religion are most needed in these turbulent times. He is one
of the well-versed, great mystics and a spiritual master of our
time. His conduct and loving behavior cannot and has never created
any legal problems, nor has he ever been found guilty in any provisions
of criminal law. In fact, his teachings are conducive to creating
a very peaceful and tranquil atmosphere in the present circumstances
when the country as a whole is passing through a very disturbed
state." mess117
A few days ago the mayor of Poona came to my room. He could not
restrain himself; he touched my feet. And when he was going out,
he told Neelam, "I have never been in such a silent room,
so cool, so fresh—it is really a temple. I am overwhelmed
by the atmosphere of the room."
Anybody who comes here will be overwhelmed. These trees are
no longer ordinary—they are sannyasins. The very air has
a different vibe: even when you go away, your song, your dance,
your joy go on vibrating here. This is how a temple is created.
A temple is not made of bricks, is not made of statues; a temple
is made of a different vibe—the vibration of silence, peace,
joy, and blissfulness. spirit16
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