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Part V : Osho visits his family, his father wants him to marry
My village which was eighty miles from the university. Once
in a while I would drive to the village just to see my father
because he was so much attached to me that if I did not come for
eight or ten days, then he would come to see me; he would not
be satisfied that everything was okay without seeing me. He was
always afraid that something was going to be wrong.
So rather than troubling him I used to drive there... ignor10
My father was a very simple man. He was not even aware - because
he had eleven children - who was in which class and where. If
some visitor, some guest asked him, he would have to call me and
ask,
"In what class are you?" He never asked me, "Have
you passed or failed?"
When I came first in the whole university, I thought, "He
will be happy, I should inform him." I told him, "I
have come first in the whole university."
He said, "So what! That simply means your whole university
is full of stupid people; otherwise, how could you manage to come
first?"
I said, "That seems to be right" - and I threw the gold
medal given to me by the university into the well.
My father said, "What are you doing?"
I said, "I am simply destroying the gold medal, because I
don't want to be first amongst thousands of stupid people. I am
perfectly okay as I am."
He said, "But don't burn your certificates. You will need
them for employment."
I said, "Okay. For employment I will need them, but the moment
I leave employment, the first thing I am going to do is to burn
them all" - and that's what I did. false06
Naturally, my father wanted me - I was his eldest son - he
wanted me to help him. He wanted me, after my education, to come
and take charge of the shop. The shop he had managed well; it
had become a big place, slowly, slowly. He said, "Of course,
who else is going to look after it? I will be getting old; do
you want me continually to be here?"
I said, "No, I don't, but you can retire. You have your younger
brothers who are interested in the shop, in fact too interested - even
afraid that you may give the shop to me. I have told them, 'Don't
be afraid of me; I am no one's competitor.' Give this shop to
your younger brothers."
But in India the tradition is that the eldest son inherits everything.
My father was the eldest son of his father; he inherited everything.
All that he had now was for me to take care of Naturally he was
worried...but there was no way. He tried in every possible
way, somehow to get me interested. misery01
I am very grateful to my brother, Vijay. He could not go to the
university just because of me, because I was not earning, and
somebody had to provide for the family. My other brothers went
to university too, and their expenses had also to be paid, so
Vijay stayed at home. He really sacrificed. It is worth a fortune
to have such a beautiful brother. He sacrificed everything. I
was not willing to marry, although my family was insistent.
Vijay told me, "Bhaiyya" - bhaiyya means brother - "if
they are torturing you too much, I am ready to get married. Just
promise me one thing: you will have to choose the girl."
It was an arranged marriage as all marriages are in India.
I said, "I can do that." But his sacrifice touched me,
and it helped me tremendously. Once he was married I was completely
forgotten, because I have other brothers and sisters. Once he
was married, then there were the others to be married. I was not
ready to do any business.
Vijay said, "Don't be worried, I am ready to do any kind
of work." And from a very young age he became involved in
very mundane things. I feel for him immensely. My gratitude to
him is great. glimps30
In my family there must have been fifty to sixty people - all
the cousins, uncles, aunts, living together. I have seen the whole
mess of it. In fact, those sixty people helped me not to create
my own family. That experience was enough.
If you are intelligent enough, you learn even from other people's
mistakes. If you are not intelligent, then you don't learn even
from your own mistakes. So I learned from my father's mistake,
my mother's mistake, my uncles', my aunts'. It was a big family,
and I saw the whole circus, the misery, the continuous conflict,
fights about small things, meaningless. From my very childhood
one thing became decisive in me, that I was not going to create
a family of my own.
I was surprised that everybody is born in a family.... And
why does he still go on creating a family? Seeing the whole scene,
he again repeats it. socrat05
When I came back home from the university my parents were concerned
about my marriage - naturally. My mother asked me first, because
my father was always very cautious about asking me anything, because
once I have said anything then there is no way to change it. So
first he tried through my mother, that she should find out what
he feels about marriage, because once he has said no to me we
have to drop the subject completely! So just to feel his mind....
When I was going to sleep my mother came and sat on my bed and
asked me, "Now you have finished your education, what do
you think about marriage?"
I said, "I would like to ask you, because I have never been
married before so I don't have any experience. You have been married,
you have raised eleven children. You are an experienced person - I
seek your advice. Has this life been a life of blessings? Have
you not thought many times in your life that if you had not married
it would have been better? And I don't ask you to answer right
now; I give you fifteen days to think it over."
She said, "This is really strange. I was going to give you
time to think about it, and you are telling me to think about
it!"
I said, "Yes, because I don't know. I trust you. If after
fifteen days you say that yes, your life has been a life of tremendous
joy and ecstasy, of course I will get married. But remember, I
am trusting you so much, I am giving my whole life in trust into
your hands. And remember also that I know your life - there
has never been any ecstasy, any blessing. It was a continuous
fight, a struggle - with the father, with the children...."
And in India it is a joint family. My family consisted at least
of sixty people: my uncles, their wives, their children. "And
you have been continuously miserable - that I know. Perhaps
inside you may have experienced something that I am not aware
of. You think it over for fifteen days. And I leave it to you:
if you say "Get married," I will get married.
After fifteen days she said, "No. Don't get married."
She said, "You tricked me. You trusted me so deeply that
I cannot betray you, and I cannot cheat you and cannot lie to
you. You are right; many times I have thought what the hell am
I doing? - just giving birth to children, raising children.
This has been my whole life from early in the morning at four
o'clock to late, twelve o'clock in the night. I am continuously
working. I have never known a single moment of my own.
"These fifteen days," she said, "have been of great
turmoil in me. I have never thought about my whole life the way
you forced me to think. And I love you, and I take my question
back. It was not really my question; your father was trying to
find out the answer."
I said, "Tell him that he should ask me directly."
She told my father, "As far as I am concerned, it is finished.
I have told him not to get married."
My father said, "My God! You have advised him not to get
married?"
She said, "Yes, because he trusted me so much, and he asked
me to think it over for fifteen days. He was willing, but now
I cannot cheat and I cannot live with the guilt my whole life.
You do whatever you want to do."
Now he was even more afraid - even my mother was gone out
of his hands. But somehow the answer had to be found, what I want
to do. He asked one of his friends, a Supreme Court advocate,
very famous, very logical and rational, and he thought that that
man might be the right man to argue with me. And of course that
man said, "Don't be worried. I have been arguing my whole
life in the Supreme Court. Do you think I cannot convince your
boy who has just come from the university? What does he know?
What is his experience? I will come tomorrow."
The next day was Sunday, the courts were closed. He came to my
house, and I told him, "Before you start - because my
father has told me you are coming to meet me about my marriage - before
you start I would like to make a clear statement that if you convince
me, then I am ready to get married, but if you cannot convince
me you will have to divorce your wife. You have to stake something.
And I trust you, so I don't ask for a judge. I have loved and
respected you just as I have loved and respected my father. You
have been such bosom friends, I have never thought of you as anything
else than my father. So I don't ask for a judge because that will
be distrusting you. I trust your abilities and I am ready for
the arguments, but this condition should be remembered."
He said, "Then just give me a little time, because I have
never thought about this alternative. The truth is that I have
suffered my whole life because of my marriage, but I have never
given a thought to it. And you are proposing that I divorce if
I cannot convince you in favor of marriage. Let me think it over.
I have children, I have a wife, I have my whole respectability
in the society. I cannot divorce so easily."
I said, "And you think I don't have anything? All that you
have is past and all that I have is future. The past is already
dead and finished. I am risking the living, the coming, and you
are risking only the gone, the finished. Do you think you are
risking more than I am risking?"
And he informed me the second day, "I don't want to argue
about it at all."
I used to go to his house every day, and he would tell his wife,
"Just tell him that I am not in the house."
Finally the wife said, "Why are you afraid of that boy? Why
do you go into the bathroom and lock it from inside? The moment
you see him coming, why are you afraid?"
He said, "You don't know. The problem is that either he has
to get married or I have to get divorced from you. It is a question
of life and death. You simply go on telling him that I am not
at home!"
Before I was going to leave the city and join the university as
a lecturer, the last day I went and I told his wife, "I know
he has always been in, and you know also why he is not coming
to face me. Just tell him that he may be an advocate of long experience
in the Supreme Court, but he has lost this case as far as I am
concerned. Tell him he should stop bragging that he has never
lost a case. He has lost an actual, existential case and even
without a judge. He was both. I had given him the chance to be
both the client and the judge. He could have cheated me, he could
have been insincere to me. But I know that it is very difficult
when somebody trusts so deeply in you...."
He came out while I was talking to his wife and he said, "Just
forgive me. You are right. I have always been in but I was afraid.
I was never afraid of anybody but I was afraid of you, because
I cannot tell a lie when I look at you, at your eyes, at your
trust, your love towards me. I cannot tell a lie, and I cannot
divorce my wife. There is so much involvement and there is so
much investment - that I cannot do. My suggestion is you talk
to your father directly and tell him that there is no other way.
He will have to talk directly to you."
My father never did that. I asked him many times, "Why don't
you ask about my marriage? You have been trying to inquire from
other ways; why don't you ask directly?"
He said, "I know that your answer will create trouble for
me. Your answer is not going to become a marriage for you, but
it is going to become a nightmare for me. You simply forget the
matter. Whatever you want to do, you do. If you want to get married,
you get married; if you don't want, just drop the subject. As
far as I am concerned, I have dropped it." last212
Marriage is one of the ugliest institutions man has invented.
But it has been invented with deep concern, goodwill. I do not
suspect the goodwill, I only suspect people's wisdom. Their intention
is right, but their intelligence is very mediocre. unconc18
A real man of understanding never promises for tomorrow, he can
only say, "For the moment." A really sincere man cannot
promise at all. How can he promise? Who knows about tomorrow?
Tomorrow may come, may not come. Tomorrow may come: "I will
not be the same, you will not be the same." Tomorrow may
come: "You may find somebody with whom you fit more deeply,
I may find somebody whom I go with more harmoniously." The
world is vast. Why exhaust it today? Keep doors open, keep alternatives
open.
I am against marriage. It is marriage that creates problems. It
is marriage that has become very ugly. The most ugly institution
in the world is marriage, because it forces people to be phony:
they have changed, but they go on pretending that they are the
same. wlotus10
I have been staying with thousands of families - everybody
is miserable. And because I have been loved by so many people,
the husband could open his heart to me, the wife could open her
heart to me. Both are beautiful people, but together they are
continuously at war. Every house has become a battlefield. And
children are growing in this poisonous atmosphere. They will learn
the same techniques and strategies and they will repeat them.
That's how every generation goes on giving its diseases to the
new generation. Generations change, diseases have become permanent.
Now we have to drop the diseases, so that the future humanity
can be free from all this ugliness.
Don't just give it a new name, change it from the very foundations.
dawn20
I have lived with many people, in many places. I was surprised
- why are people so much anxious to create trouble for other people?
If somebody is unmarried they are worried: "Why don't you
get married?" - as if marriage is some universal law that
has to be followed.
Tortured by everybody, one thinks it is better to get married
- at least these people will stop torturing. But you are wrong:
once you get married they start asking, "When is the child
coming?"...
I am sitting, silent in my room my whole life. I am not bothering
anybody, I have never asked anybody, "Why are you not married,
why have you not produced a child?" Because I don't think
that it is civilized to ask such questions, such queries; it is
interfering in somebody's freedom. yaahoo18
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