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Part V : Osho's interaction with Mohammedans
For twenty years I lived in a city which was proportionately
divided, half and half, into Hindus and Mohammedans. They were
equally powerful, and almost every year riots happened. I used
to know a professor in the university where I was teaching. I
could never have dreamed that this man could put fire to a Hindu
temple; he was such a gentleman - nice, well educated, well cultured.
When there was a riot between the Hindus and the Mohammedans I
was watching, standing by the roadside. Mohammedans were burning
a Hindu temple, Hindus were burning a Mohammedan mosque.
I saw this professor engaged in burning the Hindu temple. I
pulled him out and I asked, "Professor Farid, what are you
doing?"
He became very embarrassed. He said, "I'm sorry, I got lost
in the crowd. Because everybody else was doing it, I forgot my
own responsibility - everybody else was responsible. I felt for
the first time a tremendous freedom from responsibility. Nobody
can blame me. It was a Mohammedan crowd, and I was just part of
it."
On another occasion, a Mohammedan's watch shop was being looted.
It was the most precious collection of watches. An old Hindu priest
- the people who were taking away those watches and destroying
the shop, had killed the shop owner, were all Hindus - an old
priest I was acquainted with was standing on the steps and shouting
very angrily at the people, "What are you doing? This is
against our religion, against our morality, against our culture.
This is not right."
I was seeing the whole scene from a bookstore, on the first
story in a building just in front of the shop on the other side
of the road. The greatest surprise was yet to come. When people
had taken every valuable article from the shop there was only
an old grandfather clock left, very big, very antique. Seeing
that people were leaving, the old man took that clock on his shoulders.
It was difficult for him to carry because it was too heavy. I
could not believe my eyes! He had been preventing people, and
this was the last item in the shop.
I had to come down from the bookstore and stop the priest. I
said to him, "This is strange. The whole time you were shouting,
`This is against our morality! This is against our religion, don't
do it!' And now you are taking the biggest clock in the shop."
He said, "I shouted enough but nobody listened. And then
finally the idea arose in me that I am simply shouting and wasting
my time, and everybody else is getting something. So it is better
to take this clock before somebody else gets it because it was
the only item left."
I asked, "But what happened to religion, morality, culture?"
He said this with an ashamed face, but he said it: "When
nobody bothers about religion, culture and morality, why should
I be the only victim? I am also part of the same crowd. I tried
my best to convince them, but if nobody is going to follow the
religious and the moral and the right way, then I am not going
to be just a loser and look stupid standing there. Nobody even
listened to me, nobody took any notice of me." He carried
that clock away.
I have seen at least a dozen riots in that city, and I have
asked individuals who have participated in arson, in murder, in
rape, "Can you do it alone, on your own?" And they all
said, without any exception, "On our own we could not do
it. It was because so many people were doing it, and there was
no responsibility left. We were not answerable, the crowd was
answerable."
Man loses his small consciousness so easily into the collective
ocean of unconsciousness. That is the cause of all wars, all riots,
all crusades, all murders. rebel17
I have seen politicians...just a dead cow, they will put in front
of a Hindu temple. Naturally the Hindus will think it must have
been done by Mohammedans, and immediately there is a riot. And
then these same politicians start speeches for peace, for brotherhood.
We are living in a really mad world.
I know the politicians - who have been creating the riots and
when hundreds of people have been burned and killed, and mosques
and temples have been destroyed, then they will call a public
meeting of all the religions and will talk about peace, humanity,
progress. And they are the people who are hindering all progress.
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In Mohammedanism they went to the very logical end: either you
have to be ready to be saved or be ready to die. They don't give
you any other choice, because they believe that if you go on living
unsaved you may commit sins and you will suffer in hell. By killing
you they are at least taking away all the opportunities of falling
into hell.
And to be killed by a savior is almost to be saved. That's what
Mohammedans have been saying, that if you kill somebody in order
to save him, he is saved; God will look after it. He is saved
and you are accumulating more virtue in saving so many people.
Mohammedans have killed millions of people in the East. And the
strange thing is that they believed they were doing the right
thing. And whenever somebody does a wrong thing believing that
it is right, then it is more dangerous. You cannot persuade him
otherwise, he does not give you a chance to be persuaded. In India
I tried in every possible way to approach Mohammedan scholars,
but they are unapproachable. They don't want to discuss any religious
matter with somebody who is not a Mohammedan.
They have a word of condemnation for the person who is not a
Mohammedan. Just as Christians call him a heretic, Mohammedans
call him kaffir - which is even worse than heretic. Kaffir comes
from a word, kufr; kufr means sin, a sinner. Kaffir means a sinner:
anybody who is not a Mohammedan is a sinner. There are no other
categories, only two categories. Either you are a Mohammedan,
then you are a saint.... Just by being a Mohammedan you are a
saint, you are saved, because you believe in one God, one prophet
- Mohammed - and one holy book, the Koran. These three things
believed is enough for you to be a saint. And those who are not
Mohammedans are all kaffirs, sinners....
India, although a Hindu country, has the biggest number of Mohammedans.
Still it is impossible to communicate. I have tried my best, but
if you are not a Mohammedan then how can you understand? There
is no question of any dialogue: you are a kaffir.
I had a professor as my colleague in the university, who loved
me very much. He was a Mohammedan. I asked him, "Farid, can't
you manage...?" Because Jabalpur is one of the big centers
of Mohammedans and it has great scholars. One very famous scholar,
Burhanuddin, was there. He was old, and famous all over India
and outside India also as a scholar of Mohammedanism. I asked
Farid, "find some way for me to have a dialogue with him."
He said, "it is really difficult - unless you can pretend
to be a Mohammedan."
I said, "that too is very difficult, because then you have
to teach me a few basic things of Mohammedanism - their prayer
and what they do. And moreover that Burhanuddin knows me - we
have spoken many times from the same platform - so it will be
very difficult for me to act. I can try, there is no harm. At
the most we may get caught and we can laugh at the whole thing."
He said, "You can laugh, but my position will be very bad.
They will kill me because 'you are a Mohammedan and you are supporting
a kaffir, and deceiving one of your great masters.'" But
he was willing to do it. He started teaching me the language,
Urdu. It was difficult to learn because it is just absolutely
the opposite of any language that is born of Sanskrit. An Urdu
book starts from the back and the sentence starts from the right
corner and goes towards the left.
It is so difficult to get adjusted: it is just upside down,
the whole thing. You have to open the book from the end; that
is the beginning. And then the sentence starts from the right
and moves towards the left. And because of the way the Urdu language
is written a perfect way has not yet been found to print it or
type it. The way it is written is not scientific at all; most
of it has to be guessed. So those who are accustomed to read it,
they can read it because they can guess what it will be. But for
somebody who is learning, it is very difficult to guess.
But for six months I tried. I learned enough so that I could
deceive somebody into thinking that I was not very educated, but
a little bit. I learned their prayers; Farid managed to get a
wig for me and cut my beard like the Mohammedans cut theirs. And
their beard is so strange that even when I think of it again now
my stomach starts churning. But I went through it; they cut my
mustache off completely and left just my beard.
I said, "my God" If you had told me before then I
would not have wasted these six months!" In a way they were
right, because I know that a mustache is such a difficult thing
- particularly a mustache like mine which is not trimmed but is
wild. I don't allow anyone to trim it. It is difficult even to
drink tea or to drink fruit juice because half of it will remain
on the mustache. So Mohammedans have found a way: they cut off
the mustache, they shave the mustache, and they keep the beard.
But that looks so ugly.
But I said, "okay, we will do it. Now, for a few days I
will not leave my house. Just give me a wig and let me see Burhanuddin."
It certainly changed my face completely when Farid cut my beard
like the Mohammedans' - very thin along the jawline and just a
little bit of beard on the chin - like Lenin's, a little less.
Without a mustache and with a wig I looked different.
We went there, but the old man detected something about my eyes.
He said, "I have seen those eyes somewhere."
I said, "My God! Farid, where could Maulana" - maulana
means master; he was known as Maulana Burhanuddin - "have
seen me? - because I have never been to this city."
Farid was trembling, he was having a nervous breakdown: we had
never thought about the eyes. That old man continued to look,
and he said, "I suspect something."
I said, "Farid, he suspects something." Farid just fell
at his feet and he said, "There is no need to suspect - you
know this man. And forgive me, I was just trying to help him because
he wanted to have a dialogue with you."
But he said, "First tell me who he is, because as far as
I can remember, I have known the man and I have seen him many
times. You have just cut off his mustache."
I said; "Now it is better, Farid, that you tell the whole
thing, that not only have you cut off my mustache...." I
took off the wig and I said, "Look at the wig."
The moment I was without the wig, Burhanuddin immediately recognized
me, and he said, "You!"
I said, "What else to do? You know me perfectly but you will
not have a personal talk with me. Do you think that just being
a Mohammedan is enough to be a saint? And what sin have I committed?
"Certainly I am not a Mohammedan, but Mohammed himself was
not a Mohammedan when he was born. Was he a kaffir, a sinner?
And can you tell me who converted Mohammed to Islam? He was never
converted. Just as Jesus remained a Jew, Mohammed remained a pagan
all his life; Mohammedanism is something that started after his
death. So if Mohammed, a kaffir, can become the messenger of God,
can't I discuss the message?"
Burhanuddin said, "This is what I was afraid of. That is
why we don't encourage any dialogue between Mohammedans and non-Mohammedans."
I said, "That simply shows your weakness. What is the fear?
I am opening myself to you, to be saved by you. Save me - and
if you cannot save me then let me try to save you."
But that man simply turned towards Farid and said, "Take
him away. I don't want to talk any more. And you have to come
tomorrow to see me."
And Farid was punished, beaten. I could not believe it: he was
a professor at the university, a well-known scholar who was a
guide to many research students working on Mohammedanism, on Urdu
literature, the Koran. Burhanuddin had a few hooligans there -
they gave Farid a good beating. He showed me his body; all over
his body were signatures of the Mohammedan attitude.
He said, "I told you before, that if something goes wrong....
They have only beaten me because I am a well-known person. If
I were somebody else they would have killed me." person20
I have commented on hundreds of mystics, many of them Sufis who
are in revolt against the orthodox Mohammedan structure. When
Sufis heard about my commentaries on Sufism, at least two or three
times a year I received beautiful printed copies of the Koran,
with letters saying, "You are the only person who can write
a commentary, because you are not a Mohammedan. Mohammedans cannot
do anything against you; they cannot expel you." satyam20
If you ask Mohammedans, they will say I have no right to talk
on Sufis or on the Koran. Once in a town I was talking about Sufis,
and the maulvi of the town approached me and he said, "You
have no right. You are not a Mohammedan, you don't know Arabic.
How can you talk on the Sufis and on the Koran?"
I said, "The Koran has nothing to do with Arabic. It has
something to do with the heart, not with the language." until10
I have enjoyed thousands of encounters; Jaina, Hindu, Mohammedan,
Christian, and I was ready to do anything just to have a good
argument.
You will not believe me, but I went through circumcision at the
age of twenty-seven, after I was already enlightened, just to
enter a Mohammedan Sufi order where they would not allow anybody
in who had not been circumcised. I said, "Okay, then do it!
This body is going to be destroyed anyway, and you are only cutting
off just a little piece of skin. Cut it, but I want to enter the
school."
Even they were unable to believe me. I said, "Believe me,
I am ready." And when I started arguing they said, "You
were so willing to be circumcised and yet you are so unwilling
to accept anything we say at all!"
I said, "That's my way. About the nonessential I am always
ready to say yes. About the essential I am absolutely adamant,
nobody can force me to say yes."
Of course they had to expel me from their so-called Sufi order,
but I told them, "Expelling me, you are simply declaring
to the world that you are pseudo-Sufis. The only real Sufi is
being expelled. In fact, I expel you all."
Bewildered, they looked at each other. But that's the truth. I
had gone to their order not to know the truth; I knew that already.
Then why had I entered? Just to have good company to argue with.
Argument has been my joy from my very childhood. I will do anything
just to have a good argument. But how rare it is to find a really
good milieu for argument! I entered the Sufi order - this I am
confessing for the first time - and even allowed those fools to
circumcise me. They did it by such primitive methods that I had
to suffer for at least six months. But I didn't care about that;
my whole concern was to know Sufism from within. Alas, I could
not find a real Sufi in my life. But that is true not only about
the Sufis; I have not found a real Christian either, or a real
Hassid. glimps09
I have been with Sufis and I have loved those people. But they
are still one step away from being a buddha. Even though their
poetry is beautiful - it has to be, because it is coming out
of their love - their experience is a hallucination created
by their own mind. In Sufism, mind is stretched to the point that
you become almost mad for the beloved. Those days of separation
from the beloved create the sensation of burning. rinzai02
It happened that one Sufi master was brought to me. He was master
of thousands of Mohammedans, and once a year he used to come to
the city. A few of the Mohammedans of his group had become interested
in me and they wanted a meeting. They highly appreciated that
their master sees God everywhere, in everything, and he is always
joyful: "We have been with him for twenty years and we have
never seen him in any other state except ecstasy."
I told them, "It will be good that he becomes a guest in
my house. For three days you leave him with me. I will take care
of your master." He was an old man, a very good man.
I asked him, "Have you used any technique for this constant
ecstasy, or has it come on its own without any technique?"
He said, "I have certainly used a technique. The technique
is to remember, looking at everything, that there is God in it.
In the beginning it looked ridiculous, but slowly slowly the mind
became accustomed: now I see God everywhere in everything."
Then I said, "You do one thing...How long have you been practicing
it?"
"Forty years" - he must have been nearabout seventy.
I asked, "Can you trust your experience of ecstasy?"
He said, "Absolutely."
Then I said, "Do one thing: for three days you stop the technique...no
more remembering that God is in everything. For three days look
at things as they are; don't impose your idea of God. A table
is a table, a chair is a chair, a tree is a tree, a man is a man."
He asked, "But what is the purpose of it?"
I said, "I will tell you after three days."
But not even three days were needed; after only one day he was
angry at me, ferociously angry that, "You have destroyed
my forty years' discipline. You are a dangerous man. I have been
told that you are a master, and rather than helping me...Now
I see in a chair nothing but a chair, in a man nothing but a man;
God has disappeared, and with the disappearance of God my ecstasy
that I am surrounded by an ocean of God has also disappeared."
I said, "This was the specific purpose. I wanted you to
understand that your technique has produced an hallucination;
otherwise forty years' discipline cannot disappear in one day.
You had to continue the technique, so it would continue to create
the illusion. Now it is up to you: if you want to live your remaining
life in an hallucinatory ecstasy, it is up to you. But if you
want to wake up, then no technique is needed."...
The Sufi master could not stay with me for three days, but leaving
me he finally said to me, "I am grateful. I will have to
start my journey again. I can see what has happened: first I just
started projecting. I knew that a table is a table, a chair is
a chair, but I started projecting that it is God, that it is luminous
with God's existence. And I knew that it is just my idea. But
forty years! Slowly slowly it became the reality. But you have
shown me that that technique was simply creating an hallucination."
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