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Part V : Colleagues and academics
My colleagues—while I was a student or while I was a lecturer
in the university—never felt that I belonged to their generation.
In the university common room…it was just by chance, the
first day I entered the common room a corner chair was empty.
So I went to that chair. Strangely enough, I always found it empty.
I inquired of the peon, "What is the matter?"
He said, "Since you have sat on that chair, not only that
chair is empty, but a few chairs on both sides are empty. Nobody
wants to disturb you, nobody wants to discuss with you. There
is a certain fear."
I said, "Strange, because I am absolutely harmless!"
The old peon said, "You are harmless, but there is no common
ground between you and the other professors in the university.
They are professors but they are talking only about girls in their
classes, gossips…. They are always talking about how to
pull somebody's leg. They are always interested in politics—university
politics, inside politics. They cannot do that in front of you,
they feel embarrassed."
Rarely did it happen that somebody would come and sit by my
side, asking my permission, "Can I sit here?"
I would say, "This is a common room. The seat is empty and
I don't own…."
"No," they would say, "somehow these three seats
on this side and three seats on that side…you are occupying
seven seats. People keep away. I also keep away," the person
would say, "but today all the seats are full. I am sorry
to disturb you, but can I sit here?"
I would say, "You can sit happily. And if you want to talk
about all your gossips, all your love affairs, you can talk with
me."
He would say, "No, I don't want to talk about anything with
you. I want just to sit silently here."
I said, "That's great, because that is my teaching: Sit silently."
Just a single unconditioned person, and you create a center of
the cyclone. Wherever he will be, he will have his uniqueness,
and only a very few courageous people will be able to come close
to him.
You will not find my photo in any of the photos of the university,
for the simple reason that when for the first time the philosophical
association was going to have its annual photograph, the head
of the department asked me to come.
I said, "You are so old—and still interested in photographs!"
Since then, nobody asked me. They understood it perfectly well,
that it is a childish game. And the man was almost sixty years
old—what are you doing with a photograph? dless38
I met Ranade*. He was retired, very old. I said to him, "Perhaps
you will remember a man who deserved one hundred percent, but
you gave him only ninety-nine percent."
He said, "Of course I remember, because this happened only
once in my life. I had never gone beyond thirty-three percent.
Are you the person?"
I said, "Of course I am the person. And I have come to say
to you that you did not prove your greatness. You should have
given me one hundred and one percent. What was your fear? Were
you afraid that people would think you were favoring me? You didn't
even know me."
He said, "Nobody talks to me this way. I am an old, retired,
respected professor."
I said, "That does not matter. You showed your weakness in
cutting me by one percent."
He said, "You are strange. Nobody fights with me, especially
after ten years. Now what can I do?"
I said, "You can at least say `I'm sorry.'"
There were at least twenty professors who were sitting with him.
He had become almost a holy place, where every kind of professor
and intellectual gathered. They were all shocked.
I said, "Don't be worried about these idiots; it's because
of them you cut my one percent."
He looked at me and he said, "I am sorry, and I say it publicly.
You deserved one hundred and one percent."
I said to him, "Now I can forgive you."
I was speaking in Allahabad University. He had never come to listen
to any lecturer visiting the university, but he was sitting just
in front of me when I entered the hall. Everybody was surprised
that Professor Ranade also had come to listen. I hit hard on the
education system and on the professors who were supporting it.
He listened carefully, and as I came down from the podium he came
to me and said, "Son"—he was almost ninety years
old—"you are right. We did not have the courage to
fight. We all know that our educational system is producing only
clerks, secretaries, postmasters, stationmasters. Our whole education
is based on the idea of creating servants. And what you want is
to create masters. I absolutely agree with you." miracl03
*Note: Dr Ranade was Osho's examiner for his written MA degree,
see Part IV
A great philosopher of India, a contemporary man, Dr. Ranade
was the most respected and the most learned scholar, logician;
he was a professor of philosophy at the University of Allahabad.
In his days, the department of philosophy at the University of
Allahabad had become the most prominent department of philosophy
in India, and India has almost one thousand universities.
I had seen him just a few days before he died. He was very old,
retired, but still people used to come from far and wide—not
only from this country but from all over the world—to ask
questions, to inquire.
I was sitting with him. He said to me: "What are your questions?"
I said, "I know not."
"Then why have you come to me?"
I said, "Just to see you and to see the people who are continually
coming to you from morning till night."
I watched him for almost six hours, and all the people who came
had come with abstract questions: "Does God exist? Is the
soul a reality? Is there life beyond death?" And he was answering
them.
After six hours, I said to him: "You are old, and I'm too
young—it doesn't look right for me to say, but perhaps we
may not see each other again; forgive me if it hurts you: You
have wasted your whole life. In these six hours, I have seen in
what way you have wasted it. I have not heard a single question
or a single answer that really concerns life. And these people
have come from faraway places and you have lived a long life but
as far as I am concerned…don't feel that I'm not respectful
to you, I am saying this because I am respectful. Whatever small
time you have left, don't waste it. At least in the evening of
your life, inquire into something which is authentic."
He was shocked, because nobody had ever told him this. But he
was an honest man. He said, "I am old, and you are young
but you are right."
The real question is not whether life exists after death. The
real question is whether you are alive before death. mess109
Sir Saiyad* was very happy, and later on whenever I used to go
to Aligarh, he forced me to stay with him. I said, "You don't
understand: the trouble is I am being invited by the Jains, and
if I stay in the Mohammedan's house that creates trouble."
He said, "You can face trouble perfectly well—that
I know—but you have to be my guest." While he was alive,
I was always his guest, and the people who were inviting me were
very much concerned because they even started asking me, "Have
you dropped vegetarianism too?—because staying with that
Mohammedan, you must be eating with him."
I said, "Yes, I eat with him, but I eat my food. And you
will not believe it—he calls in a brahmin cook to prepare
food for me. And the food is far better than you will be able
to manage because he takes every care that in a non-vegetarian
house I should not feel in any way inconvenienced. He takes so
much care that I start feeling a little uncomfortable—because
of his care. I tell him, `You need not worry about me, I can manage
things myself,' but he won't listen." dark12
*Note: Sir Saiyad was the examiner for Osho's MA oral exams, see
p.
It is very difficult for a professor to relax back, to see things
again as they are. He knows so much. He has accumulated so much
knowledge, so many screens are there on his eyes. It is difficult
to find more blind people than professors.
I have been a professor, that's why I say so—I know. I know
from within. I have lived with professors for many years. They
are the most unintelligent people in the world. Even a farmer
in a village seems to be more intelligent, because he is more
responsive to the reality. A professor never responds to reality.
He is always reacting out of his knowledge.
So whatsoever I am saying, the professor will be interpreting
it in his own ways. Right now, whatsoever I am saying, he will
be interpreting and classifying and he will be saying yes or no.
And he will be classifying me: to what school I belong, to what
ideology, what I am talking about. He is not listening! It is
very difficult for a professor to listen: he is so full of inner
noise, inner chattering. The noise is so much that nothing ever
enters in him. thund10
I came across a man in Varanasi. He was the only man in the whole
world…and that was his only achievement, useless, but he
was praised—perhaps I was the only man who condemned him
in front of him…he had seventeen M.A. degrees in seventeen
subjects.
All that he has been doing his life was moving from one subject
to another, and attaining another M.A. to prove that he is, in
the world, the only man who has seventeen M.A. degrees. And the
people who had brought him to me had brought him with great praise.
They told me, "He is a rare individual."
And I looked at him and I told him that, "You are absolutely
idiot. What are you going to do with your seventeen degrees? You
have wasted your whole life. Now collect all your papers and keep
on your chest and move in your grave. Perhaps God may be very
impressed seeing seventeen masters' degrees…."
First the man was shocked and then tears came to his eyes and
he said, "Perhaps you are the first man who has told me the
truth. I have wasted my life, I have never loved—I had no
time, I never got married—I had no time, I was running from
one department to another department, my whole idea was to have
all masters' degrees that are available in the university of Varanasi.
But your attitude shocks me, hurts me, but still I do understand—I
have wasted my life." last530
But what about the unknowable? The scientist himself is unknowable.
He knows everything, but he does not know who is the knower. In
fact, he denies the knower—and that is so stupid….
I asked one of the Indian scientists, Khorana, who got a Nobel
prize, that, "You are a Nobel prize-winning scientist. Have
you ever bothered that you go on searching, discovering new areas,
but who is the seeker? Who is the searcher? Have you ever thought
about yourself?"
He said, "I don't have time for that."
I said, "But this is strange, because whatsoever you can
find cannot be more valuable than you, the finder. Whatever you
can know, howsoever valuable it is, cannot be more valuable than
the knower. It remains an object of knowledge. And you say you
don't have time for yourself? This is not a scientific answer.
This is trying just to avoid the subject. You cannot avoid it.
I at least will not allow you to avoid it. You have to say something
definite. You have to say whether you exist or not. If you exist,
then what are you—just matter? or something more?"
He said, "You are putting me into trouble, because if I say
I am just matter, it simply does not feel right. How can matter
discover matter? How can matter know the mysteries of matter?
That matter has no consciousness, I can understand. So I have
to accept that there is something more than matter. But please
don't insist, because science is not willing to accept the knower.
Science's whole approach is: unless something is experimented
through scientific methods in a scientific lab, it cannot be accepted."
I said, "Naturally, then the scientist will remain unknowable
forever."
And that is the arena, the area of religion.
And this unknowability of consciousness, this mysterious phenomenon
in you—in everybody—is the most precious thing. last209
Once a psychologist and a professor of Jaipur University came
to see me. He said, "I am a man of science and I have decided
to prove through scientific methods and inquiry, the reality,
the truth of reincarnation."
I told him, "Do you know what scientific inquiry means? Scientific
inquiry means that you have not decided anything at all in the
beginning. The inquiry is open. You say, 'I am a man of science.'
You are not. And you say, 'I have decided to prove through scientific
methods the existence, the reality, the truth of reincarnation.'
If you have not already proved it, how can you accept it? And
if you have proved it already, then what are you going to prove,
then what is the point of your inquiry? Either you know the truth
of reincarnation—then there is no need to inquire, or you
don't know the truth of reincarnation—then how can you decide
from the very beginning that you are going to prove it? This is
a prejudiced inquiry; this is not inquiry."
Inquiry means you move without any conclusion. Maybe it is true,
maybe it is not; maybe something else is true. You simply keep
your doors open. Whatsoever the truth, you allow the truth to
have its say.
I told the professor, "You are just a Hindu, already prejudiced,
believing in reincarnation. Just as Christians don't believe in
it, you believe in it. A Christian also starts a "scientific
inquiry" to prove that there is no reincarnation. Will it
be scientific? It will only be a Christian inquiry, an effort
to use science to prove your prejudices. Your inquiry will be
a Hindu inquiry, not a scientific inquiry."
The scientist cannot be a Hindu or a Christian or a Mohammedan;
the scientist has simply to be a scientist. He can only inquire.
Inquiry means you have not arrived at any conclusions, no a priori
conclusion. That is the fundamental of all inquiry.
You cannot inquire and search for God. You can only inquire into
the reality that is already available: these trees, these rocks,
these rivers, these people—you. You have to go into it.
No scripture is going to help you, because all scriptures will
make you prejudiced and all scriptures will only be borrowed.
You will become a donkey. secret08
I have come into contact with almost all kinds of religious scholars,
and on one point they are the same, whether Hindu, Mohammedan,
Christian, Jew. That point is that they are perfectly at ease,
feeling very good, in whatever they are doing—they are doing
God's work, and they are spreading wisdom. They don't even know
the meaning of wisdom. They have never tasted anything like that;
they have heard about it, they have read about it, they have crammed
hundreds of scriptures….
I am against all these scholars, not because their intentions
are bad but because the outcome of their very good intentions
is disastrous. They have destroyed millions of people on the earth;
they never allowed them to grow, they gave them a false notion
that they know already. This is pure poison…. psycho03
I gave the book The Prophet (by Khalil Gibran) to one of my colleagues
in the department of philosophy of the university. He was teaching
religion. He looked at the content and he said, "Why have
you given this book to me? It is not about religion. Love, freedom,
creativity, the relationship between parents and children—I
don't see anything," he said to me, "about religion
in it."
I said, "You don't know what religion is, and you have been
teaching for almost twenty years! Not only are you in darkness,
you have been spreading darkness amongst other people. These are
the authentic religious questions. God is not; neither is hell
nor heaven."
On his table I saw one book that he was reading—it was Swedenborg's
Heaven and Hell. That is "religion." Now what does this
fellow Swedenborg know about heaven and hell? Fictions! So the
first thing to remember is, religion is not a fiction. Don't get
caught in fictitious ideas.
Religion is a reality, a day-to-day reality, a moment-to-moment
reality that you are living. You can live your life religiously,
you can live your life irreligiously; but again remember—the
definition should not come from the priests, the definition should
come from the mystics. mess216
I was brought to Poona for the first time by a man who was a
close contact of Mahatma Gandhi, Rishabhdas Ranka. Mahatma Gandhi's
basic theme was that all religions are equal, although it was
not his practice; it was only theoretical, verbiage. And Rishabhdas
Ranka lived in his ashram, so he was very much influenced by the
idea that all religions are equal.
He was by birth a Jaina, so obviously he thought to write a book
of synthesis between Buddha and Mahavira. He showed me the manuscript.
I simply looked at the title and I returned it back. He said,
"You have not looked inside even one page?"
I said, "The title is enough." The title was Bhagwan
Mahavir and Mahatma Buddha.
I said, "Either you call both the people Mahatma or you call
both the people Bhagwan."
He said, "That is difficult. I cannot call Mahavira Mahatma
because there are millions of mahatmas. And I cannot call Buddha
Bhagwan, because I am a Jaina by birth. I believe only in the
twenty-four tirthankaras as Bhagwan, nobody else."
You will not believe that the Jainas have thrown Krishna into
the seventh hell, because he created the greatest war India has
ever known. He is the ultimate criminal.
And the same is true about Hindus…. The Hindus have not
even mentioned this great splendor, this great religious man,
this great beauty of Mahavira. They have not even mentioned his
name in their scriptures anywhere.
No contemporary source, except Buddha, even mentions the name
of Mahavira. If he was so great, such a splendor, omnipotent,
omniscient, omnipresent, do you think the contemporary literature
would have completely missed him? And Buddha has mentioned him
only to criticize him. It is only in the words of Buddha that
we have a certainty that a man called Mahavira ever lived.
But the same is done to Buddha by the Hindus. He was certainly
a very influential man, a very rational and logical man. Hindus
could not deny him, but they could not accept him either, because
he was against the caste system, he was against the Vedas, against
the whole tradition of the Hindus. He was born a Hindu. poetry05
One of my friends, a professor of Sanskrit, Doctor Rajbali Pandey,
wanted to go to Tibet. He was doing certain research on a few
Sanskrit scriptures which have disappeared from India, but their
translations exist in Tibet. He wanted to translate them back
into Sanskrit.
Those were very important scriptures, particularly concerned with
Gautam Buddha. Perhaps Hindus have burned those scriptures in
India, but because Tibet became Buddhist, before they were destroyed
they were translated into Tibetan. They exist in Chinese, they
exist in Japanese; only in Indian languages they don't exist—and
Buddha was born in this land, he was speaking the language of
the people of this land.
So this man's research was really very significant in bringing
Buddha back to his own land. But he was a high-caste brahmin,
and he had learned Tibetan with great effort. Of course Sanskrit
was his family language. He belonged to a very learned family;
they used Sanskrit in their family instead of any other language
of the people, so he was perfectly capable of translating from
Tibetan into Sanskrit.
But I told him, "I expect to see you back within three days."
He said, "What are you saying? It will take at least three
years."
I said, "Forget all about it. I know you—and I know
something about Tibet."
He said, "I don't understand, you always make strange statements."
He went to Tibet. He was a high-caste brahmin with all the superstitions
of the brahmins. The brahmin has to take a cold bath in the river
before sunrise; then he has to do his religious worship—and
only after that he can take his breakfast. As he reached Tibet,
he remembered me. My statement was not wrong. He took only one
bath and that was enough; he forgot all about translations.
By the third day I had to receive him at the airport. I said,
"What do you think about my statement?"
He said, "I would have been killed in three years. Just one
day was enough. Even now I am still shivering; the coldness has
entered into my bones. Without taking a bath before sunrise I
cannot even take my breakfast. So the choice was either to live
without food or to have a cold bath before sunrise."
I said, "That's why I had said what I said. You are a fanatic
brahmin; you will not drop your stupid idea. It is perfectly good
in India…In fact the best time to take a bath is before
the sun rises; only then it is cool. As the sun rises things become
hotter. The moments before sunrise are the most beautiful in India.
But that is not the case with Tibet." satyam07
Once I went to Varanasi and a great scholar of the Vedas invited
me to his home. He was very happy to show me his parrot, because
the parrot could recite many things from the Vedas, from the Gita,
from the Upanishads. I laughed. The pundit* said, "What's
the matter? Why are you laughing?"
I said, "I am laughing because I don't see any difference
between this parrot and you. The parrot is a scholar and you are
a parrot." He has been angry since then. foll402
*Note: a pundit is a religious scholar.
I had one colleague in the university who was very much curious
about enlightenment. Even while I was teaching in the university
I was moving around the country, finding people who can belong
with me one day…but his interest in enlightenment was only
that of a student. One day he came to me and I said, "This
day is very special."
He asked, "What do you mean?"
I said, "Today, if you want to be enlightened, I can manage
it."
He looked worried. He said, "But I have a wife and children…"
I said, "Enlightenment does not prohibit you from having
a wife or children."
He said, "If this is a day of such a strange quality I should
come on some other day."
But I asked, "What about enlightenment?"
He said, "Forgive me, I am only curious. I love you and I
feel to be close to you, but enlightenment right now…? There
are so many things to be done, and moreover do you think as a
buddha I will look adequate?"
I said, "You don't be worried about it. Enlightenment has
nothing to do with whether you look like a buddha or not. Certainly
you will be a special buddha." He had very strange eyes—one
looking this way, one looking that way. I said, "Don't be
worried because I don't think that is a hindrance for enlightenment.
It will be really very hilarious for people to see a buddha…"
If he was talking to you he was looking another way. I said, "It
will be a little strange when you are delivering sermons, but
your eyes can be fixed. You don't be worried; that is my responsibility.
First you become enlightened."
He said, "It is not only eyes. There are many things…I
have false teeth. Do you think it will look right for a buddha
to have false teeth? And if somebody comes to know…?"
I said, "You don't be worried about these trivia."
But he stood up. He said, "I am going home. First I have
to ask my wife. I never do such strange things without asking
her; she is a very pragmatic woman."
I said, "It is up to you, but it has never happened in the
whole history that somebody who becomes enlightened first asks
the permission of his wife. You become enlightened; then you simply
go and declare your enlightenment."
He said, "At least give me some time to think."
Then I said, "But such a day may not come again so soon.
Today everything is ready."
He said, "I can wait. It will do even if it comes two or
three years later."
And from that day he started avoiding me. If I was sitting in
the common room he would not enter. He made sure that I was not
in the university; then he would move everywhere freely. He would
make sure that I was not in the library; then he would go to the
library.
One day I arrived at his home. I said, "The day has come
again."
He said, "My God, I have been avoiding you all this time,
and just within three months the day has come again? My wife is
absolutely against it!"
And then his wife came out and she said, "You should not
make him enlightened. He is already a trouble, a nuisance. If
he becomes enlightened our whole family's life will be disturbed.
Even in his ignorance he is not what a husband should be and if
he becomes enlightened I can visualize troubles and more troubles.
You just leave him alone! He has been avoiding you for three months
because of my advice. Now this is too much that you have started
coming to our house."
And you will not believe that the next day he went to the capital
and got himself transferred from that university to another university.
After two or three days—I had been looking for him—I
went again to his home and the neighbor said, "They are gone!"
I asked, "What was the problem?"
He said, "You were the problem."
I said, "I was simply trying to make him enlightened."
Enlightenment is such a simple thing that nobody needs to be worried
about it. But it has become such…Down the ages religions
have been insisting that it is a very great phenomenon; it is
not for ordinary mortals, it is only for those who have some special
dispensation from God. Ordinary mortals should not try for it
because that is trying for the impossible. It is good for a Gautam
Buddha because he is an incarnation of God. It is good for Krishna
because he is an incarnation of God, but ordinary people are not
incarnations of God.
And I have been arguing my whole life with people that Gautam
Buddha was not an incarnation of God before he became enlightened.
Enlightenment came to him first; then you recognized him as an
incarnation of God. tahui15
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