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Part V : Osho's interaction with Mystics and Disciples
J. Krishnamurti is enlightened, and he is not orthodox - but
he has gone to the other extreme: he is anti-orthodox. Anti should
be underlined....
He hates orthodoxy, he hates all that has passed in the name of
religion. Remember the difference: I criticize it but I don't
hate it. I don't even hate it! Krishnamurti has a relationship
with it - I don't have any relationship with it - and that is
where he has missed....
One time it happened, I was in Bombay, he was in Bombay, and
he wanted to meet me. One of his chief disciples in India came
to me and asked me - he knew me and he used to listen to me -
"J. Krishnamurti wants to see you."
I said, "I have no problem - bring him."
But he said, "That is not the Indian way."
I said, "Krishnamurti does not believe in Indian or European
or American ways."
He said, "He may not believe in them but everybody else does."
I said, "I am not going to meet everybody else. You say J.
Krishnamurti wants to meet me: bring him. If I wanted to meet
him, I would go to him, but I don't see the need."
But again and again his emphasis was: "He is older, you
are younger" - l must have been only forty at the time, and
Krishnamurti was almost double my age.
I said, "That's perfectly true, but I don't see any need
to meet him. What am I going to say to him? I have no questions
to ask, I have only answers to give. It will look very awkward
if I start answering him when he has not asked anything. He will
be expecting a question from me. That is impossible - I have never
asked. I have only answers, so what can I do?
"And of course he is enlightened, so what is the need?
- at the most we can sit silently together. So why unnecessarily
take me ten or twelve miles?" And in Bombay ten or twelve
miles sometimes means two hours, sometimes three hours. The roads
are continuously blocked with all kinds of vehicles. Bombay is
perhaps the only city which must have all models of cars. The
ancientmost, that God used to drive Adam and Eve out of paradise
- that too will be in Bombay. There is no other possibility; it
cannot be anywhere else.
I said, "I am not interested in taking three hours, unnecessarily
bothering.... And I have had such experiences before: it is absolutely
futile. You go and ask him; if he wants to ask me something perhaps
I may think about coming just because of his old age. But I have
nothing to ask. If he just wants to see me, then he should take
the trouble of coming here." Of course Krishnamurti was very
angry when he heard it. He gets angry easily. That anger is due
to his past; he is angry with the past....
In Bombay he has been speaking for his whole life, and he comes
only one time a year, for two or three weeks. In a week he speaks
only twice, or at the most thrice; still there are only three
thousand people. And the strangest thing is that you will find
almost the same people, most of them very old because for forty
years they have been listening to him - the same old fogeys.
Strange: for forty years you have been listening to this man,
and neither he seems to get anywhere nor you seem to get anywhere.
It has become just a habit: it seems that he has to come to Bombay
and you have to listen to him, every year. By and by old people
go on dying and a few new people replace them, but the number
has never gone beyond three thousand. The same is the situation
in New Delhi; the same is the situation in Varanasi...because
I have been speaking at his school in Varanasi.
At his school there I asked, "How many people come here?"
They said, "Fifteen hundred at the most, but they are always
the same people."
What impact! And this man has made an arduous effort....
He is anti-orthodox, anti-tradition, anti-convention; but his
whole energy has become involved in this hatred.
It is a hate relationship with the past, but it is a relationship
all the same. He has not been able to cut himself totally from
the past. Perhaps that would have released his energy; it would
have opened his charismatic qualities, but that has not been the
case.
The people who become interested in him are mere intellectuals
remember, I say mere intellectuals - who don't know they have
a heart too. These intellectuals become interested in him, but
these intellectuals are not the people who are going to be transformed.
They are just sophists, arguers; and Krishnamurti is unnecessarily
wasting his time with these intellectual people of the world.
Remember, I am not saying intelligent people of the world - that
is a different category. I am saying mere intellectuals who love
to play with words, logic...it is a kind of gymnastics. And Krishnamurti
just goes on feeding their intellect.
He thinks that he is destroying their orthodoxy, that he is destroying
their tradition, that he is destroying their personality and helping
them to discover their individuality. He is wrong, he is not destroying
anything. He is just fulfilling their doubts, supporting their
skepticism, making them more articulate - they can argue against
anything. You may be able to argue against everything in the world,
but is your heart for anything, just one single thing?
You can be against everything - that won't change you.
Are you for something too?
That something is not coming from him.
He just goes on arguing.
And the trouble is - this is why I feel sorry for him - that what
he is doing could have been of tremendous help, but it has not
helped anybody. I have not come across a single person - and I
have met thousands of Krishnamurti-ites, but not a single one
of them is transformed. Yes, they are very vocal. You cannot argue
with them, you cannot defeat them as far as argument is concerned.
Krishnamurti has sharpened their intellect for years and now they
are just parrots repeating Krishnamurti.
This is the paradox of Krishnamurti's whole life. He wanted them
to be individuals on their own, and what has he succeeded in doing?
They are just parrots, intellectual parrots.
This man, Raosaheb Patvardhan, who wanted me to see Krishnamurti,
was one of his old colleagues. He came to know me just in 1965
when I spoke in Poona; he lived in Poona. He is no longer alive.
I asked Raosaheb Patvardhan - he was a very respected man - "You
have been so close to Krishnamurti all your life, but what is
the gain? I don't want to hear that tradition is bad, conditioning
is bad, and it has to be dropped - I know all that. Put that all
aside and just tell me: what have you gained?"
And that old man, who died just six or seven months afterwards,
told me, "As far as gaining is concerned, I have never thought
about it and nobody ever asked about it."
But I said, "Then what is the point? Whether you are for
tradition or you are against tradition, either way you are tethered
to tradition. When are you going to open your wings and fly? Somebody
is sitting on a tree because he loves the tree; somebody else
is sitting on the same tree because he hates the tree, and he
will not leave the tree unless he destroys it. One goes on watering
it, the other goes on destroying it, but both are confined, tethered,
chained to the tree."
I asked him, "When are you going to open your wings and fly?
The sky is there. You have both forgotten the sky. And what has
the tree to do with it anyway?"...
I don't hate any religion.
I simply state the fact:
Religions are nothing but crimes against humanity.
But I am not saying it with any hate in me. I have no love for
them, I have no hate for them: I simply state whatsoever is the
fact.
So you will find much similarity between what I am saying and
what J. Krishnamurti is saying, but there is a tremendous difference.
And the difference is that while I am talking to your intellect,
I am working somewhere else...hence the gaps. Hence the discourse
becomes too long! Any idiot can repeat my discourse in one hour
- not me, because I have to do something else too.
So while you are waiting for my words, that is the right time:
You are engaged in your head, waiting.
And I am stealing your heart.
I am a thief! person07
*Note: Many people who were with Krishnamurti also came to be
with Osho, this took place over many years, see also Parts VI
to X.
One of India's greatest seers of this age, Raman Maharishi, had
only one message to everyone. He was a simple man, not a scholar.
He left his house when he was seventeen years old - not even
well educated. It was a simple message. To whoever would come
to him - and from all over the world people were coming to
him - all that he said was, "Sit down in a corner, anywhere...."
He lived on a hill, Arunachal, and he had told his disciples to
make caves in the hills; there were many caves. "Go and sit
in a cave, and just meditate on, Who am I? All else is just explanations,
experiences, efforts to translate those experiences into language.
The only real thing is this question, Who am I?"
I have come in contact with many people, but I never came in contact
with Raman Maharishi; he died when I was too young. I wanted to
go, and I would have reached him, but he was really far away from
my place, nearabout fifteen hundred miles. I asked my father many
times, "That man is getting old and I am so young. He does
not know Hindi, my language; I don't know his language, Tamil.
Even if somehow I reach there - which is difficult...."
It was almost a three-day journey from my place to Arunachal...changing
so many trains. And with each change of train, the language changes.
As you move from the Hindi language territory, which is the biggest
in India, you enter the language of Marathi. As you pass from
Marathi, you enter the state of the Nizam of Hyderabad, where
Urdu is the language. As you go further you enter Telugu-and Malayalam-speaking
areas, and finally you reach Raman Maharishi who spoke Tamil....
I could not manage to see Raman, but I met many people who had
been his disciples, later on when I was traveling. When I went
to Arunachal I met his very intimate disciples, who were very
old by then, and I did not find a single person who had understood
that man's message.
It was not a question of language, because they all knew Tamil;
it was a question of a totally different perspective and understanding.
Raman had said, "Look withinwards and find out who you are."
And what were these people doing when I went there? They had made
it a chant! They would sit down, chanting, "Who am I? Who
am I? Who am I?" - just like any other mantra.
There are people who are doing their japa, "Rama, Rama, Rama,"
or "Hari Krishna, Hari Krishna, Hari Krishna...."
At Arunachal they were using this same technology for a totally
different thing, which Raman could not have meant. And I said
to his disciples, "What you are doing is not what he meant.
By repeating, 'Who am I?' do you think somebody is going to answer?
You will continue to repeat it your whole life and no answer will
be coming."
They said, "On the one hand we are doing what we have understood
him to mean. On the other hand we cannot say you are wrong, because
we have been wasting our whole life chanting, 'Who am I? Who am
I? Who am I?'" - in Tamil of course, in their language - "but
nothing has happened."
I said, "You can go on chanting for many more lives; nothing
is going to happen. It is not a question of chanting 'Who am I?'
You are not to utter a single word, you have simply to be silent
and listen. At first you will find, just like flies moving around
you, thousands of thoughts, desires, dreams - unrelated, irrelevant,
meaningless. You are in a crowd, buzzing. Just keep quiet and
sit down in this bazaar of your mind."
Bazaar is a beautiful word. English has taken it over from the
East, but perhaps they don't know that it comes from 'buzzing':
a bazaar is a place which is continuously buzzing. And your mind
is the greatest bazaar there is. In each single mind in such a
small skull, you are carrying such a big bazaar. And you will
be surprised to know that so many people reside in you - so
many ideas, so many thoughts, so many desires, so many dreams.
Just go on watching and sitting silently in the middle of the
bazaar.
If you start saying, "Who am I?" you have become part
of the bazaar, you have started buzzing. Don't buzz, don't be
a buzzer; simply be silent. Let the whole bazaar continue; you
remain the center of the cyclone.
Yes, it takes a little patience. It is not predictable at what
time the buzzing will stop in you, but one thing can be said certainly:
that it stops sometime or other. It depends on you how much of
a bazaar you have, for how many years you have carried it, for
how many lives you have carried it, how much nourishment you have
given to it, and how much patience you have to sit silently in
this mad crowd around you - maddening you, pulling you from
every side. person06
Just in this century, one of the most important men was Meher
Baba. He remained silent his whole life. Although he again and
again announced that he was going to speak at a certain date,
when the date came it was postponed.
His closest disciple, Adi Irani, used to come to see me. All Meher
Baba's books are written by Adi Irani. His name is not on those
books as the author; the author is Meher Baba.
I asked him, "Why, again and again, do you declare that this
year Meher Baba is going to speak? This has been going on for
thirty years, and people gather on that date and he does not speak."
He said, "I don't have any explanations."
I said, "My own experience says that perhaps he has forgotten
language."
Adi Irani was not aware of Mahavira and his state that had happened
after twelve years of silence. Perhaps he was trying, but he was
failing again and again. The silence is so much, and the words
are so small they cannot contain it. The truth is so big and the
language is so trivial.
I told Adi Irani, "Drop the hope that he will ever speak."
And he did not speak; he died without speaking. But with Adi Irani
he had a telepathic, non-linguistic communion.
I asked Adi Irani, "Do you feel sometimes suspicious whether
what you are saying is exactly what he means?"
He said, "Not for a single moment. It comes with such force;
it comes with such inner certainty that even if he says, `That
is not right,' I am not going to listen. How it happens I don't
know, but just sitting by his side, something starts becoming
so solid, so absolutely certain that there is not even a slight
doubt about it. I know it is not from me, because I have no idea
what I am saying. I could not have said it, left alone by myself.
"Certainly it is coming from him; and it is not coming as
language. I am not hearing the words, but I am feeling surrounded
by a certain energy, a presence, which becomes words within me.
The words are mine, but his presence triggers them. The meaning
is his, I am only a hollow bamboo flute. He sings his songs; my
only function is not to hinder. Just let him sing his song. I
am totally available to him as a vehicle."
And by the way, I would like you to remember that Meher Baba comes
from the same heritage as Zarathustra.*
It is the fate of all the mystics to be misunderstood by their
own people. Neither Zarathustra was understood by his own people,
nor Meher Baba was understood by his own people. It seems something
like a law of nature, that you cannot tolerate the idea that someone
who comes from you has reached home, and you are still wandering.It
hurts the ego. zara213
*Note: Zoroastrians, known in India as Parsis
The Gospel of Ramakrishna is a strange man's book. He calls himself
'M'. I know his real name, but he never allowed anyone to know
it. His name is Mahendranath. He was a Bengali, a disciple of
Ramakrishna.
Mahendranath sat at Ramakrishna's feet for many many years, and
went on writing down whatsoever was happening around his master.
The book is known as The Gospel of Ramakrishna, but written by
M. He never wanted to disclose his name, he wanted to remain anonymous.
That is the way of a true disciple. He effaced himself utterly.
The day Ramakrishna died, you will be surprised, M died too. There
was nothing more for him to live for. I can understand...after
Ramakrishna it would have been far more difficult to live than
to die. Death was more blissful than to live without his master.
There have been many masters, but there has never been such a
disciple as M to report about the master. He does not come into
it anywhere. He was just reporting - not about himself and
Ramakrishna, but only about Ramakrishna. He no longer exists in
front of the master. I love this man and his book, and his tremendous
effort to efface himself. It is rare to find a disciple like M.
Ramakrishna was far more fortunate in this than Jesus. I know
his real name because I have traveled in Bengal, and Ramakrishna
was alive at the end of the last century, so I could find out
the name of this man Mahendranath. books16
Ramakrishna.... His words were not reported correctly, because
he was a villager and used the language of a villager. All those
words which people think should not be used by any enlightened
person have been edited out. I have wandered in Bengal, asking
people who are still living how Ramakrishna used to speak. They
all said he was terrible. He used to speak as a man should speak - strong,
without fear, without any sophistication. glimps06
I have been in contact with Ramakrishna's disciples. They feel
a little embarrassed that Ramakrishna had to be a disciple to
a master, that only then he became enlightened. They simply don't
want that part. They would like Ramakrishna himself to be the
origin, the source of a new tradition - the Ramakrishna order.
And in Bengal there are thousands of sannyasins who belong to
the Ramakrishna order, and there are many more who are not monks
but who are deeply devoted to Ramakrishna - but they are all
concerned with the wrong Ramakrishna. And whenever I said this
they were very much shocked.
In the beginning they used to call me to speak at their conferences,
and when I started focusing on this point they stopped inviting
me - because I was destroying their whole joy. They were not
people who wanted to sit silently doing nothing, and the spring
comes and the grass grows by itself. They wanted chanting, ritual,
dancing, an image of God, a belief in God. transm43
Bhuribai is very closely connected with me. I have come to know
thousands of men, thousands of women, but Bhuribai was unique
among them.
Bhuribai's mahaparinirvana - her death attaining the highest
liberation - happened just recently. Count her with Meera,
Rabiya, Sahajo, Daya - she is qualified to be among these
few selected women.
But as she was illiterate, perhaps her name won't ever become
known. She was a villager, she belonged to the country people
of Rajasthan. But her genius was unique; without knowing scripture
she knew the truth.
It was my first camp. Bhuribai was a participant in it. Later
she also participated in other camps. Not for meditation, because
she had attained meditation. No, she just enjoyed being near me.
She asked no question, I gave no answer. She had nothing to ask,
there was no need to answer. But she used to come, bringing a
fresh breeze along with her.
She became inwardly connected to me in the very first camp. It
happened. It wasn't said, it wasn't heard. The real thing happened!
She attended the first lecture...the words and events of the
camp that Bhuribai participated in are collected in a book called
The Path of Self-Realization. It was the first camp; only fifty
people participated. It was in Muchala Mahavir, an isolated uninhabited
ruin in far Rajasthan. Kalidas Bhatiya, a High Court advocate,
was with Bhuribai. He served her. He had left all: law practice,
law court. He washed Bhuribai's clothes, he massaged her feet.
Bhuribai was aged, some seventy years old.
Bhuribai had come, and Kalidas Bhatiya and ten or fifteen of her
devotees came. A few people recognized her. She listened to my
talk, but when the time to sit in meditation came, she went to
her room. Kalidas Bhatiya was surprised, as they had come for
meditation. He ran over there and asked Bhuribai, "You listened
so attentively to the talk; now when the time to do it has come,
why did you leave?" Then Bhuribai said, "You go, you
go! I understood it."
Kalidas was very surprised. If she has understood, then why doesn't
she meditate?
He came and asked me, "What's the matter, what's going on?
Bhuribai says she understands, so why doesn't she meditate? And
when I asked her she said, 'You go, ask Baapji himself" - Bhuribai
was seventy years old, but still she called me Baapji, father - "'You
go, ask Baapji.' So I have come to you," Kalidas said. "She
doesn't say anything, she smiles. And when I started to go, she
added, 'You don't understand a thing. I understood it!"'
Then I said, "She is right, because I explained meditation - it
is non-doing. And you went and told Bhuribai to come and do meditation.
She will just laugh - doing meditation? How to do it, when
it is non-doing? I explained also that meditation is just becoming
quiet, so she must have thought it's easier to be quiet in her
room than in this crowd. She understood well. And the truth is
she doesn't need to meditate. She knows silence. Although she
doesn't call it meditation, because meditation has become a scholarly
word. She's a simple direct village woman, she says, chup! - silence!"
When she returned home after the camp, she asked someone to write
this sutra on the wall of the hut:
Silence the means, silence the end, in silence, silence permeates.
Silence, the knowing of all knowing: understand it, you become
silence.
Silence is the means, silence is the end, in silence only silence
permeates. If you would understand, if you want to understand,
then only one thing is worth understanding-silence. The moment
you know it, you become silent. There is nothing else to do: Silence,
the knowing of all knowing.
Her disciples told me, "She doesn't listen to us. If you
tell Bai, she'll accept what you say. She'll never refuse you,
she'll do what you say. You tell her to have her life's experience
written down - she can't write because she's unschooled. Still,
whatever she has known, have it written down. Now she's old, the
time for her to depart is coming now. Have it written down; it
will be helpful for people coming later."
I asked, "Bai, why don't you have it written down?"
Then she replied, "Baapji, if you say so, it is good. When
I come to the next camp, you yourself can release it. I'll bring
it written down."
At the next camp her disciples waited eagerly, with great excitement.
She had put the book in a chest and had it sealed. She had a lock
put on it and brought the key.
Her disciples lifted the chest on their heads and brought it to
me. They asked me to open it. I opened it and took out a booklet,
a tiny little booklet of some ten or fifteen pages; and tiny - about
three inches long by two inches wide. And black pages without
any white!
I said, "Bhuribai, you have written well. Other people write,
but they blacken the page only a little bit. You wrote so there's
no white left at all." She had written and written and written.
She said, "Only you can understand. They just don't get it.
I told them, 'Look. Other people write. They write a little - they
are educated, they can write only a little. I am unschooled, so
I wrote on and on, wrote out the whole thing. I didn't leave any
space.' And how to have someone else write it? So I just went
on writing, went on marking and marking and marking - made
the whole book totally black! Now you present it."
And I did present it. Her disciples were very surprised.
I said, "This is real scripture. This is the scripture of
scriptures. The Sufis have a book, it is a blank book. They call
it The Book of the Books. But its pages are white. Bhuribai's
book has gone beyond this. Its pages are black."
Bhuribai never used to say anything. When someone used to come
and ask her, "What should I do?" she would just make
the gesture of touching her finger to her lips - "Just
remain silent. Nothing else needs to be done."
Her love was amazing. She had her own way, unique! She doesn't
have to return to this world. She has gone forever. In silence,
silence permeates. She has dissolved. The river has diffused into
the ocean. She didn't do anything, she just remained silent. And
whoever went to her house she served them. She served them in
every way - and silently, quietly.
She was an amazing woman. early08
You don't know thousands of enlightened people who have lived
and died because they had no special talents so that they became
visible to the ordinary man. They may have had something unique;
for example they may have had the immense quality of being silent,
but that would not be noticed much.
I knew an enlightened man who was in Bombay when I was in Bombay
and his only talent was to make beautiful statues out of sand.
I have never seen such beautiful statues. The whole day he would
make them on the beach, and thousands of people would see them
and would be amazed. And they had seen Gautam Buddha's statues,
Krishna's, Mahavira's, but there was no comparison. And he was
not working in marble, just with the sea sand. People would be
throwing rupee notes; he was not at all bothered. I have seen
others taking the notes away; he was not concerned about that
either. He was so absorbed in making those statues. But those
statues didn't last. Just an ocean wave would come and the Buddha
was gone.
Before his enlightenment he was earning that way, moving from
one city to another city and making sand statues. And they were
so beautiful that it was impossible not to give something to him.
He earned much, enough for one man.
Now he had become enlightened but he had only one talent: to make
sand statues. Of course he will not make sand statues that don't
indicate towards enlightenment - but that is the only offering
he can give. Existence will use that. His statues are more meditative.
Just sitting by the side of his sand statues you could feel that
he has given a proportion to the statue, a certain shape, a certain
face that creates something within you.
I asked him, "Why do you go on making Gautam Buddha and Mahavira?
You can earn more - because this country is not Buddhist and
Jainas are very few. You can make Rama, you can make Krishna."
But he said, "They will not serve the purpose; they do not
point to the moon. They will be beautiful statues - I have
made all those statues before - but now I can make only that
which is a teaching, even though it will be invisible to millions
of people, almost to all."
Whenever I used to come to Bombay...When I came permanently
he had died, but before that whenever I used to come I made it
a point to go and visit him. He worked on Juhu beach at that time.
It is silent there the whole day. People only came in the evening
and by that time his statue was ready. The whole day, no disturbance.
I told him, "You can make statues. Why don't you work in
marble? They will remain forever."
He said, "Nothing is permanent" - that is a quotation
of Buddha - "and these statues represent Gautam Buddha
better than any marble statue. A marble statue has a certain permanence
and these statues are momentary: just a strong wind and they are
gone, an ocean wave and they are gone. A child comes running and
stumbles on the statue, and it is gone."
I said, "Don't you feel bad when you have been working the
whole day, and the statue was just going to be complete, and then
something happens and the whole day's work is gone?"
He said, "No. All of existence is momentary; there is no
question of frustration. I enjoyed making it, and if an ocean
wave enjoys unmaking it, then two persons enjoyed! I enjoyed making
it, the wave enjoyed unmaking it. So in existence there has been
a double quantity of joy - why should I be frustrated? The
wave has as much power on the sand as I have; perhaps it has more."
When I was talking to him he said, "You are a little strange
because nobody talks to me. People simply throw rupees. They enjoy
the statue, but nobody enjoys me. But when you come I feel so
blissful that there is somebody who enjoys me, who is not concerned
only with the statue but with its inner meaning, with why I am
making it. I cannot do anything else. My whole life I have been
making statues; that is the only art I know. And now I am surrendered
to existence; now existence can use me."
These people will remain unrecognized. A dancer may be a buddha,
a singer may be a buddha, but these people will not be recognized,
for the simple reason that their way of doing things cannot become
a teaching. It cannot help people really to come out of their
sleep. But they are doing their best; whatever they can do, they
are doing.
The very few people who become masters are those who have earned
in their many lives a certain articulateness, a certain insight
into words, language, the sound of words, the symmetry and the
poetry of language. It is a totally different thing. It is not
a question of linguistics or grammar, it is more a question of
finding in ordinary language some extraordinary music, of creating
the quality of great poetry in ordinary prose. They know how to
play with words so that you can be helped to go beyond words.
It is not that they have chosen to be masters, and it is not
that existence has chosen them to be masters. It is just a coincidence:
before enlightenment they had been great teachers and they became
masters because of enlightenment. Now they can change their teaching
into mastery - and certainly that is the most difficult part.
Those who remain silent and disappear peacefully with nobody
knowing them have an easy way, but a man like me cannot have an
easy way. It was not easy when I was a teacher - how can it
be easy when I am a master? It is going to be difficult. mystic14
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