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Part V : Osho attracts Controversy
This is one of the greatest problems for the mystics: "Who
can I tell about this, who will understand?"
I was travelling in this country for fifteen years, day in, day
out, year in, year out, talking to thousands of people. Slowly,
slowly I became aware that I was talking to walls. These people
could not understand what I was saying. They could hear, but they
could not listen. The words reached them but the meaning was left
behind. I tried in every way, but it was impossible. Then I had
to decide to stay in one place and only to talk to those few who
really wanted to understand - and not only to understand,
but who were ready to be transformed. guest01
Once I was talking on Krishna in a meeting, and people were sitting
with their backs towards me, talking with each other, gossiping - their
backs towards me! That was the last day, the last straw on the
camel. In the middle I left. The president of the meeting said,
"Where are you going?" I said, "I am going forever!
I am finished with these stupid people. I am talking about Krishna,
they have invited me to talk to them, and nobody seems to listen."
wisdom06
If I see people silently sitting, attentive, drinking in every
single word, focused, meditative, I can say far higher things;
far more complicated things can be explained to them.
But if no friends are sitting in front of me, I always have to
begin from abc. Then the plane can never take off; then the plane
has to function like a bus. You can use a plane like a bus. It
can take off only when it gains speed; a certain situation is
needed for it to gain speed.
I used to talk to millions of people in this country; then I
had to stop. I was talking to thousands - in a single meeting,
fifty thousand people. I traveled around this country for fifteen
years, from one corner to another corner. I simply became tired
of the whole thing, because each day I would have to start from
abc. It was always abc, abc, abc, and it became absolutely clear
that I would never be able to reach xyz. I had to stop traveling.
wisdom06
I have been moving in the masses for years. I have not decided
in a hurried way to drop out of the mob - I saw that it was
absolutely absurd: you go on talking to people who are not ready
to listen; you go on talking to people who are not seekers, who
are not in any search; you go on talking to people who have come
just for entertainment. Why should I waste my energy and time?
I tried in every way to be available to bigger crowds, but then
I found it was impossible. They come here as an entertainment,
and they hear through one ear and from the other it is lost....
I looked into thousands of people, and I found that only a very
few are there who will take the seed to the heart, who will become
soil to it, who will absorb it. And others are just curiosity-mongers,
just entertaining themselves. Maybe the entertainment is religious,
but it is meaningless. trans410
I am not interested in the masses, because if you are interested
in the masses you have to be manipulated by the masses. I am not
in any way a mass man, because I am very individual. I have my
own way, my own life, my own style, and I don't allow anybody
to interfere with it. If you want to become a man of the masses,
the whole mass interferes with you. They teach you how you should
sit and how you should stand and what you should say and what
you should not say and what you should eat and what you should
not eat and when you should go to bed and when you should get
up. They teach you everything. This is very ironical that the
people who think they are leaders of the masses and gurus of the
masses in fact are the slaves of the masses. The masses teach
them how to be. They don't have any freedom. And the masses go
on looking from everywhere: "Are you really following what
the mass wants to be followed? Are you really following the idea
of the mass, what a saint should be like?" Or if you are
not following, then you become a fallen saint; then you are a
sinner.
I don't allow anybody to dictate my life. I don't allow anybody's
life to be dictated by me. That's why I don't give any discipline
to my people. I simply confer freedom on them and a responsibility
to be free. Never interfere with anybody's life, and don't allow
anybody to interfere with your life. Be individualistic. I am
not a socialist, I am not a communist. I believe in the individual.
I am absolutely an unashamed individualist.
I was moving around the country, I was moving among the masses
for many years, but I was surprised to see the fact that the masses
try to manipulate you. Rather than learning anything from you,
rather than taking anything from you, they try to manipulate you.
ecstas06
People try...hundreds of people have tried even with me,
with all good intentions: what I should say, what I should not
say. Their ignorance is such that they don't understand that if
they are wiser than me, then why are they following me? They are
my followers, advising me - what I should say and what I should
not say, what I should do and what I should not do. They have
come to me to be transformed and they are trying in every way
to transform me! razor15
When you come near a master you have to decide, because it is
no ordinary affair. It is a great risk, your whole life is at
risk. So if you move around in India you will find either my friends
or my enemies, those who are madly in love with me or those who
are madly in hate with me. That is bound to happen. The reason
is simple. Those who are madly in love with me and those who are
madly in hate with me - they both had to decide. justlt02
I have experienced it my whole life. Thousands of people have
come to me and disappeared. If they find that some of their superstitions
are fulfilled by my statements they remain with me, but the moment
they see that they were not right - I am not in support of
their superstitions, on the contrary, I am against them - they
immediately become my enemies. When I was supporting their death
they were with me, they were paying great respect and reverence
to me. And when I started to be really a friend to them, a health,
a wholeness, they turned into enemies. zara201
In India it happened, one man wrote a book against me and he
sent me the proof copy. I looked into it - it was all rubbish,
lies, fictitious stories with no evidence. Still, I sent him my
blessings and told him to print it on the first page of the book.
He could not believe it; he was so disturbed: what kind of man
is this?
He lived in Baroda, a thousand miles away from me, but he came
to see me - he had never seen me. He was just collecting third-rate
yellow newspapers and cuttings and gossips, rumors...and he
managed to make a book. And he asked me "Have you seen inside
or have you simply sent blessings?"
I said, "I have gone through it word for word; it is all
bullshit, but you have done so much work collecting bullshit,
you need blessings."
He said, "But this looks strange - with your blessings.
I know this book: even while I was collecting and writing....
My purpose is to earn money - this book is going to become
a bestseller - but now seeing you and your response, I feel
perhaps I should not have done this."
I said, "No, you continue. Let this book go into the market.
Collect more, because while I am alive more and more lies will
be there, more and more gossips, rumors - you can always earn
money; this is a good way. It is not doing any harm to me. And
the picture you have chosen for the cover is really beautiful."
He said, "My God! I was thinking you would be angry, ferocious."
I said, "Why should I be angry, why should I be ferocious?
Life is too short to be angry, to be ferocious. Even if we can
manage to be blissful, that's enough; if we can manage to bless,
that's enough. What you do is your business, but you have done
it well. Your writing is good; what you have written is nonsense,
but the way you have put it and presented it is really good. And
you devoted almost one year to my service. I cannot pay you, but
I can give you my blessing."
And the book was published with my blessings and every criticism
that appeared in newspapers about the book mentioned it: "It
is strange that Osho blesses it." And just that simple blessing
cancels the whole book. psycho29
In India, one radio station was reading my statements every day,
for ten minutes in the morning, without mentioning my name - but
passages from books, stories. Hundreds of letters came to me saying,
"These people are stealing from your books."
I said, "Don't be worried. My name is not significant, my
message is. They are cowards, or perhaps they love me but they
are government servants."
In India radio is owned by the government, television is owned
by the government. If they use my name, they may lose their jobs.
And certainly during that series, which was continuing for six
months, even ministers, cabinet ministers and the prime minister,
were quoting from those statements, thinking that they have nothing
to do with me. But the people who were listening knew that those
statements were not coming from Indira Gandhi - they could
not be, they had no relevance with the person - they were
stolen. And they started searching for the place from where the
statements had been stolen.
Finally I met the person, the director of that radio station.
He was a lover of me, and he said, "I have been condemned.
Hundreds of letters are coming to me, saying, `You are stealing.
You are not mentioning Osho's name. But if I mention your name
then the series will be stopped that very day. I will continue
as long as they don't discover....'"
And the moment it was discovered, immediately the series was stopped
and the man was removed. He told me, "It happened because
of that series. People started writing letters to the prime minister
saying, `This man is stealing passages from Osho.'"
The prime minister herself had been stealing. Her lectures have
been sent to me, and word for word, long passages have been stolen
from me. But I have always taken the standpoint: let the truth
reach to people by any means, by anyone. psycho03
It used to happen: thousands of people were listening to me;
I was traveling around the country. A gathering of fifty thousand
people would be there in the cities. And on one side people who
were against me shouting, and people who were for me would also
be shouting - and I was speaking! And the police standing
there continuously, so that those people who were for and against
didn't start clashing.
It was almost impossible to work; that's why I stopped traveling.
Now I don't go anywhere. Those who are really interested in truth
will have to come to me. unio204
For many years I traveled alone all over India talking to all
kinds of people. And slowly, slowly, troubles started arising.
Politicians started becoming afraid. They cannot tolerate anybody
who has power over millions of people. It was difficult for politicians
to collect a few people to listen to them, and I was speaking
before a hundred thousand people or two hundred thousand people.
This became a great problem for them, that if this man turns towards
politics he can prove a great danger.
They started disturbing my meetings. They started creating chaos
in the meetings, blocking the roads so I could not reach to the
place in time, even trying to prevent me from stopping at a station.
They would collect their people and they wouldn't let me step
down from the train to the platform. This was the terminus - the
train could not go ahead - but they were insisting that I
should be taken back, that I cannot stop here in their city. mystic27
I would be speaking in an Indian city, and the electricity would
be cut off. And this was happening so often, again and again,
that it could not be just accidental. The fifty thousand people
would be sitting in darkness for half an hour, one hour, and the
electricity wouldn't come on. And finally I would have to inform
them, "Now it is pointless - you please go home. I will
stay a little longer in the city so you will not miss any lecture
of the series." And as the people were leaving, as I was
leaving, the electricity would come on. psycho23
Shoes have been thrown at me, stones have been thrown at me.
I am speaking, and in the crowd a band is playing so nobody can
hear what I am saying. Poison has been given me twice, to kill
me. And the last thing before I left was an attempt on my life.
last128
The awakened man understands humanity so deeply. By understanding
himself he has understood the miserable state of all human beings.
He feels sorry for people; he is compassionate. He does not return
evil for evil for the simple reason that he does not feel offended
in the first place. Secondly, he feels sorry for you; he does
not feel antagonistic towards you.
Once it happened in Baroda:
I was talking to a big crowd. Somebody sitting just in the front
row became so disturbed by what I was saying, he became so disturbed
by it he went out of control, he lost his senses. He threw one
of his shoes at me. At that moment I remembered that I used to
play volleyball when I was a student, so I caught hold of his
shoe in the middle and asked him for the other one. He was at
a loss.
I said, "You throw the other one too! What am I going to
do with one? If you want to present something...." He
waited. I said, "Why are you waiting? Throw the other one
too, because this way neither will I be able to use the shoe nor
will you be able to use it. And I am not going to return it, because
evil should not be returned for evil! So you please give the other
one too."
He was so shocked because he could not believe it...first,
what he had done he could not believe - he was a very good
man, a scholar, a well-known Sanskrit scholar, a pundit. He was
not expected to behave like that, but it had happened - people
are so unconscious. If I had acted the way he was unconsciously
expecting, then everything would have been okay. But I asked for
the other shoe, and that shocked him very much. He was dazed.
I told somebody who was sitting by his side, "You pull off
his other shoe. I am not letting him off, I want both the shoes.
In fact, I was thinking of purchasing some shoes, and this man
seems to be so generous!" And the shoe was really new.
The man came in the night, fell at my feet, and asked to be forgiven.
I said, "You forget all about it, there is no question...I
was not angry, so why should I forgive you? To forgive, one first
has to be angry. I was not angry, I enjoyed the scene. In fact,
it was something so beautiful that many people who had fallen
asleep were suddenly awakened! I was thinking on the way that
it is a good idea, that I should plant a few of my followers,
so once in a while they can throw a shoe so all the sleepers wake
up. At least for a few moments they will remain alert because
something is happening! I am thankful to you."
For years he went on writing to me, "Please forgive me! Unless
you forgive me I will go on writing."
But I told him, "First I have to be angry. Forgiving you
simply means that I accept that I was angry. How can I forgive
you? You forgive me, because I am unable to be angry with you,
unable to forgive you - you forgive me!"
I don't know whether he has forgiven me or not, but he has forgotten
me. Now he writes no more. dh1109
Everyone is afraid of danger. There is no need to be afraid.
In danger there is no thought, only thoughtlessness. Many times
I have moved into danger. I love danger. Thousands of times I
have been in real danger.
Once I was traveling in Rajasthan. I was in a first class compartment.
In the middle of the night a man attacked me with a dagger as
I was sleeping. I opened my eyes and looked at the man. He looked
into my eyes, my childlike eyes. You can understand the whole
story if you just look into my eyes. He looked into my eyes, saw
the child, and stopped. He dropped the idea.
I said to him, "What is the matter? Why are you not doing
your thing? I am doing my thing so you can do yours. I dare you!"
He said, "You are the only man ever to dare me. Excuse me,
I cannot stab you. I want to be your disciple." He is now
one of my disciples. notes01
Many attempts have been made on my life, but I have never felt
insecure. There is no insecurity for me.
When I was a professor in the university, insurance people used
to come to me saying that I should get insured. I said, "That
is stupid, because I never feel any insecurity. Why should I get
insured?" "No," they would say, "for your
children." I would say, "I am unmarried. Do you want
me to produce children the way Jesus was produced? Just for your
insurance policy, I have to produce children?"...
There was a time for thirty years when I was traveling alone around
India, not even a single person with me, facing hostile crowds
of thousands of people. But I have never felt insecure for the
simple reason that if I am saying the truth, how long can you
remain hostile? last207
So I immensely enjoy people's negativity and I take it as a challenge - a
challenge to my love. If I can still love them, only then do I
know what love is. If I can love only people who love me, then
it is business, a bargain. If I can even love people who don't
love me, who certainly are hateful towards me, who would like
to destroy me, then it is true love, it is unconditional love - it
makes no demands on them.
I have experienced as much negativity as one can ever experience,
and from my very childhood because my attitude has been that of
a rebel. I have been disobedient, rebellious. I have annoyed almost
everybody: my relatives, the people of my village, my teachers,
my professors. I have annoyed everybody - I enjoyed it! - but
I have never hated anybody. Even the people I annoyed, the people
who took every kind of revenge on me...I have been expelled
from colleges, from universities, but I have never hated anybody.
Even the people who were the cause of my expulsion, my love for
them has remained the same.
And they were puzzled by it, they were very much at a loss, because
they were expecting that I would be angry. But I was never angry - rebellious
certainly, but angry never; disobedient certainly, but disrespectful
never. With all my respects I disobeyed! I remained always 'humbly
yours' - rebelling, fighting, annoying them, doing every kind
of thing that they would not like, but always 'sincerely yours'.
About that even they were certain - that I was sincerely respectful.
I have experienced all kinds of negative reactions from others;
that has not destroyed my love. In fact, on the contrary, it has
made my love more integrated; it has made my love so centered
and grounded that now I can say nothing can shake it, nothing
can change it. Even if somebody kills me I will die loving him.
ultas10
There are friends who hurl insults at me and then go away. My
heart is genuinely grateful to them for through the abuses I can
feel my love flowing towards them, and it spreads a peace that
is not of this world throughout my entire being. long06
Just think of me for thirty years continuously wandering in India,
and in return getting stones, shoes and knives thrown at me. And
you don't know Indian railways, waiting rooms, you don't know
the way Indians live. It is unhygienic, ugly, but they are accustomed
to it. I had suffered for those thirty years as much - perhaps
more - than Jesus suffered on the cross. To be on the cross
is a question only of a few hours. To be assassinated is even
quicker. But to be a wandering master in India is no joke.
I was the healthiest person you could find. Before I started these
journeys, knowing perfectly well my health was going to be destroyed....
I had to eat all kinds of food, and in India the food pattern
changes just within a few miles. I had to live with dirt, uncleanliness,
and I had to be ready for all these rewards - stones, shoes,
knives being thrown at me. And India is a vast country, almost
a continent - I was always on the train.
There are places which take forty-eight hours to reach by the
train. And aeroplanes reach only to a few capital cities. If you
want to reach the people you have to go in a train. And if you
want to enter the very central parts of the country, you have
to use even worse trains. Of course, I went on and on destroying
my health, knowing perfectly well what I was doing.
But what I had found I wanted at any cost - at the cost of
my life - to share with a few people, to make them afire.
My body may die in the effort, but I have made a few other bodies
lighted with the same flame, and they will go on spreading the
fire around the earth.
People used to say to me, "Your body is like a marble statue."
It was. My weight was one hundred and ninety pounds, and it was
not fatness - I have never been fat. It was immensely solid,
like a rock. I was never sick, I was unaware what it means to
be sick. But as my body went on deteriorating, I became aware
what headache is, what migraine is, what stomach upset is, what
finally became my diabetes and my asthma. Now I am only one hundred
and thirty-one pounds, down from one hundred and ninety. false24
When I used to travel in India, for twenty years continuously,
I came across many things. In India people have the idea, particularly
the villagers - and eighty percent of India consists of villages - that
if you serve a saint you earn tremendous virtue, punya, merit,
and you will be rewarded greatly in heaven, so you have to serve
a saint. Now whether the saint wants to be served or not, that
is not the point at all! So many times I had to force people to
go out of my room because they wanted to serve me. And "service"
in India means they will massage your feet...I would say,
"But I want to sleep!"
And they would say, "You can sleep, but you cannot prevent
us from serving you. Otherwise how are we going to earn merit?"
They would force themselves upon me.
It is out of those twenty years of experience that in my ashram
there were guards because the people have served me so much, I
am tired of it! They would start massaging my body and I would
say, "I don't like massage at all!" But that is not
the point, that is irrelevant, whether you like it or not. In
the middle of the night, somebody would enter the train at a station
and start serving me. I would be fast asleep - he would wake
me up. He would say, "You can rest, but the train is going
to stay here for one hour, so I did not want to lose this opportunity."
And for one hour I had to suffer! They would go on doing whatsoever
they wanted to do. theolo04
It has happened so many times, in different ways. I was traveling
from Calcutta to Varanasi. I had a fever; I was utterly tired - seven
days camp in Calcutta. I simply wanted to take some medicine and
go to sleep, and a man entered. I asked, "What do you want?"
He said, "I don't want anything. I will just sit on the floor;
I always wanted to sit by your feet, and now I have got the chance."
I said, "Listen, I am having fever and I want to go to sleep,
and your presence will be a disturbance to me." But he wouldn't
listen.
In India, the idea is that spiritual people don't suffer from
fever, they don't need to sleep, they don't need to rest. They
should be available twenty-four hours a day, to all kinds of idiots.
And this is not only uneducated people. One afternoon, when I
was sleeping in Jaipur, suddenly I saw that somebody is walking
on the roof. And then he pulled out a tile and looked at me. I
said, "What are you doing there?"
He said, "Nothing...I have never seen you from very close.
There are always fifty thousand people in your meetings, and I'm
so far away that I cannot see your face. You can rest, you can
go to sleep - but I will wait here."
But the gardener of the bungalow had seen the man, so he came
rushing in, forcing him to get down. I inquired of the gardener,
"Do you know this man?"
He said, "I know him. He is a government official, well-educated."
But in India, it is thought to be that just darshan, seeing the
saint, is earning great virtue. What happens to the saint is not
the question - that is his problem. Now how can you rest and
sleep if somebody is sitting just on your head, looking at you?
rebel25
I was surrounded by thousands of people for twenty-four hours
each day. There was no possibility of any intimacy, mm? - I
might be talking to you and somebody would come and jump on my
feet, and hold me and I would have to stop talking to you....
It was impossible even for me to sleep...because people
were there. It was impossible for me even to eat - people
were there - and they were taking prasad from my food....
It was impossible to eat! They would have killed me! They almost
killed me; they destroyed my health utterly. door12
I lived for twenty years without any organization, but then it
was so impossible to work. Even in the night when I was asleep
there were fifty people sitting in my room; everywhere there was
a crowd. Even to talk to me was impossible; one could not ask
anything. It became so impossible to give attention to individuals,
to help them to grow, to share my joy with them. And the crowd
was absolutely useless, because I am not a person who can have
anything to do with a crowd.
My work is basically concerned with the individual because only
the individual has the capacity to grow. The crowd never grows;
it remains always the same. It was the same when it crucified
Jesus, it was the same when it poisoned Socrates. it was the same
when it killed Mansoor*, it is the same with me. The crowd is
absolutely useless; the crowd belongs to the lowest stratum of
intelligence.
And what I am saying can be understood only by very highly intelligent
people; that is the possibility of only a few individuals, a few
chosen individuals. Just to make it possible for chosen individuals
to be with me I had to create a formal organization. zzzz11
*Note: Mansoor was an enlightened master killed by orthodox Mohammedans
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