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Part V : Osho's Garden
One of the most fragrant flowers in India is the Night Queen.
It is a very small flower, but it comes in thousands, simultaneously - the
whole tree becomes just flowers. And it is so fragrant...in
one place I had a tree in front of my bungalow. My neighbors started
complaining against the tree, saying, "You have to cut it
down, because we cannot sleep; the fragrance is too much."
The whole neighborhood used to become full of fragrance.
I had asked many gardeners, "This is a flower which is
called Night Queen; there must be a parallel plant which opens
its flowers in the day. If there is such a flower as Night Queen,
there must be a flower known as Day King." But no gardener
could help me to find it.
I found it in Kashmir. I was certain that there must be a parallel
flower because in existence there is always balance; this Night
Queen is a woman, so there must be a man, a male flower. And I
was surprised to see, the male was very poor. It was exactly the
same kind of flower - a bigger size, male chauvinistic size.
It blossomed in thousands in the day. But there was no fragrance.
dawn07
I have, my whole life, loved trees. I have lived everywhere with
trees growing wild around me. I am a lazy man, you know, so somebody
had to look after my trees. And I had to be careful about those
people who were looking after them, because they were all prophets,
messiahs, messengers of God: they all tried to do something to
the tree, they wouldn't allow the tree to be itself. They would
prune it, they would cut it.
I had one gardener in Jabalpur - a beautiful old man - but
I told him, "The moment I catch you cutting anything, you
are fired. I love you, I respect you, but I love and respect my
trees more, so be careful! Don't be caught."
He said, "What kind of garden is this? And I am a gardener - I
HAVE to cut. I cannot allow trees to go wild, the whole garden
will be destroyed. And if I don't cut" - he was just
working on a rosebush. He said, "If I don't prune this rosebush
then the flowers will be small. I have to go on cutting many buds,
then there will be few flowers but really big. And I have been
winning prizes my whole life for my flowers' bigness."
I said, "You will have to forget about your prizes now,
I am not interested in your prizes. I don't care whether the flower
is big or small. If the tree wants to blossom in a hundred flowers,
who are you to manage just to create one flower? I understand,
your logic is simple: if all the buds are cut then the whole juice
of the tree moves into one flower; it certainly becomes big."
He had been winning prizes. Each year there was a state-wide
competition and he was always winning the prizes. In fact I got
hold of him just because of that, because that year he had won
the prizes, and I saw his flowers and I could not believe....
So I told him, "You just come and be my gardener."
He said, "What about my salary?"
"Salary" I said, "you decide; gardening I will
decide." Poor man - he was getting only seventy rupees
per month, wherever he was working. Now a poor man cannot even
imagine much.
I told him, "You decide."
He must have stretched his whole imagination, and he came up with
one hundred and forty - double. He could not believe that
I was going to say yes.
He said, "If it is too much then...."
I said, "No, it is not too much. I was wondering how far
you could stretch your imagination: only seventy rupees more?
Seventy has become a fixed idea in your mind, and asking for one
hundred and forty you are feeling guilty. That is decided - if
you had asked any amount I was going to give it to you. But now
I am sorry - you have asked one hundred and forty, you get
one hundred and forty. But gardening you have to do according
to me. No more big flowers, no more exhibitions, because the rosebushes
are not interested in exhibition. And they don't get the prize,
you get the prize."
Perhaps Jesus gets the prize because he has cut so many buds
and made so many Catholics and so many Christians. Perhaps Krishna
gets the prize. But what about these people you are cutting in
the name of saving them?
I said, "This is your last year of prizes. Now - if my
garden goes wild, let it go wild; that's what nature wants it
to be."
But his whole life.... Whenever I was out - I would go
to the university and he would start doing his thing. I had to
come in the middle of the day when he was not expecting me. I
had to leave my car far away so he could not see the car coming.
And then I would come and I would catch the old man. He would
say, "Excuse me - just an old habit! I cannot see this
garden being destroyed. And I feel guilty that I am getting double
the salary - for what? Just letting this garden get destroyed?"
I said, "It is not destroyed. You have to understand. This
is the way it would have been if we were not here; if all men
disappeared, it would be this way. Let it be the way it would
be if man had not interfered. You can support, you can help, you
can be a friend, but don't be a savior." dark30
I had a gardener, an authentic gardener, who really loved flowers,
who loved the plants. And I would see him sitting by the side
of the roses and other flowers. Sometimes I heard him talking
to the flowers. At first I thought he looked a little crazy, but
every year he was winning the first prize in the city for growing
the biggest flowers. He was with me for almost twelve years.
I asked him, "What is your secret?"
He said, "Nothing, I am just a little crazy. When there
is nobody around, I talk to the flowers: `Don't let me down this
time. The time for the exhibition is coming close - grow as
big as you can.' And I have been winning for twenty years continuously.
No flower has ever let me down."
Just the attention, just a loving attention to a flower, makes
him immensely happy. There is someone who will be happy: the flower
will do everything for him to make him happy. There is someone
who is watching and waiting for his growth; he is not alone, he
is not unneeded. turnin04
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