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Part V : Development of Osho's Teaching
I was known all over the country as the acharya. The acharya
means a master, a teacher, and I was a teacher, and I was teaching
and travelling. That was just the introductory part of my work;
that was to invite people. trans204
In his last moments Vivekananda* said he had been calling for
one hundred people to come forward to work with him, but that
they had not come and that he was dying a very unhappy and disappointed
man. Vivekananda was convinced that he could have changed the
world if those hundred men had come forward. But they never came.
And Vivekananda died.
I have decided not to call but to go to the villages and search
out those hundred men. I will look deep into their eyes to fathom
the depths of their souls. And if they do not heed my call I will
bring them forward by force, by compulsion. If I am able to bring
together one hundred such men I assure you that the souls of those
hundred men will stand out like Mount Everest, casting their brilliance
on an erring mankind and leading it to the right path.
Those who accept my challenge and have the strength and courage
to walk that difficult path with me must remember that the path
is not only difficult, it is also unknown. It is like a tremendously
vast sea, and we have no map, no chart of its depths. But the
man who has the courage to enter the deep water should realize
that he only has that strength and power because God himself has
called on him. Otherwise he would never be so brave. In Egypt
it was believed that when a man called on God for strength and
guidance it was because God has already called on him and that
there would have been no call otherwise.
Those who have this inner urge have a responsibility towards
mankind. And today it is of the utmost urgency to go to the four
corners of the world, to sound the call for men to step forward
to sacrifice their whole lives to reaching the heights of spirituality
and enlightenment....
I am throwing out a great challenge to those who feel they have
something good to offer humanity. I intend to wander through as
many villages as necessary, and if I encounter eyes that can serve
as lights for others, or eyes in which I feel I can kindle the
burning flame of conviction, I will take those people with me
and I will work on them. I will make them able. I will impart
to them all the faculties necessary to enable them to hold high
the torch and illumine the dark path men tread to a brighter future,
to a future full of knowledge and light.
As for myself I am fully prepared, I do not intend to die like
Vivekananada saying I spent my life searching for a hundred men
and could not find them. long05
*Note: Vivekananda was the disciple of enlightened mystic Ramakrishna
I have been talking to ordinary people my whole life and I know
how it is difficult to manage some kind of communication, but
I can say with great humility that I have been able to succeed
in reaching thousands of hearts. last508
My occupation has always been, in a certain sense, personal.
Even if thousands of people are with me it is still a one-to-one
relationship between you and me. It is not an organization, and
it can never be. glimps37
When I was travelling in India for fifteen years continuously,
I used to remember thousands of people's names. For five years
I might not visit their town and then suddenly one day I would
be there and I would remember all those people! Hundreds of people - and
they were surprised how I could remember their names. But that
was not a problem at all. They thought it had something to do
with memory. It had nothing to do with memory - I have a very
lousy memory - but I had a deep interest in people!
So whenever I am talking to one person I forget the whole world.
Then that person is my whole world - at least for that moment,
only he exists. So if you meet me after many lives somewhere,
I will remember you. That one moment of total attention, that
one moment of love, that one moment of focussing on you, that
one moment when you become my world, is enough! You are engraved
forever, enshrined forever - it is impossible to forget! madmen20
I have been fighting on two fronts. I have to fight the old traditions,
old religions, old orthodoxies, because they will not allow you
ever to be healthy and whole. They will cripple you. The more
crippled you are the greater saint you become. So on one hand,
I have to fight with any kind of thinking or theology which divides
you.
Secondly, I have to work on the growth of your inner being.
Both are part of the same process: how to make you a whole man,
how to destroy all the rubbish that is preventing you from becoming
whole - that is the negative part; and the positive part is
how to make you aflame with meditation, with silence, with love,
with joy, with peace. That is the positive part of my teaching.
With my positive part there is no problem; I could have gone around
the world teaching people meditation, peace, love, silence - and
nobody would have opposed me.
But I would not have been of any help to anybody, because who
is going to destroy all that rubbish? And the rubbish has to be
destroyed first, it is blocking the way. It is your whole conditioning.
You have been programmed from your very childhood with absolute
lies, but they have been repeated so often that you have forgotten
that they are lies....
So my work begins with negativity - I have to destroy every
program that has been given to you. By whom, it does not matter - whether
it is Catholic or Protestant does not matter; I have to deprogram
you so you are clean and unburdened. Your doors and your windows
are opened.
And then the second part, the essential part, is to teach you
how to enter within. upan02
In my youth I was known in the university as an atheist, irreligious,
against all moral systems. That was my stand, and that is still
my stand. I have not changed even an inch; my position is exactly
the same. But being known as an atheist, irreligious, amoral,
became a problem. It was difficult to communicate with people,
almost impossible to bridge any kind of relationship with people.
In my communing with people, those words - atheist, irreligious,
amoral - functioned like impenetrable walls. I would have
remained so - for me there was no problem - but I saw
that it was impossible to spread my experience, to share.
The moment people heard that I am an atheist, irreligious, amoral,
they were completely closed. That I don't believe in any God,
that I don't believe in any heaven and hell was enough for them
to withdraw from me. Even very educated people - because I
was a professor in the university, and I was surrounded by hundreds
of professors, research scholars, intelligent, educated people - simply
avoided me because they had no courage to defend what they believed;
they had no argument for themselves.
And I was continually arguing on street corners, in the university,
in the panwallah's shop - anywhere that I could get hold of
somebody. I would hammer religion and try to clean people completely
of all this nonsense. But the total result was that I became like
an island; nobody even wanted to talk with me, because even to
say hello to me was dangerous: where would it lead? Finally I
had to change my strategy.
I became aware that, strangely, the people who were interested
in the search for truth had got involved in religions. Because
they thought me irreligious, I could not commune with them; and
they were the people who would be really interested to know. They
were the people who would be ready to travel with me to unknown
spaces. But they were already involved in some religion, in some
sect, in some philosophy; and just their thinking of me as irreligious,
atheistic, became a barrier. And those were the people that I
had to seek out.
There were people who were not involved in religions but they
were not seekers at all. They were just interested in the trivia
of life: earning more money, being a great leader - a politician,
a prime minister, a president. Their interests were very mundane.
They were no use to me. And they were also not interested in what
I had to offer to them because it was not their interest at all.
The man who wants to become the prime minister of the country
is not interested in finding the truth. If truth and the prime
ministership are both presented to him, he will choose the prime
ministership. He will say about truth, "There is no hurry.
We can do that - the whole of eternity is available - but
the opportunity of the prime ministership may or may not come
again. It rarely comes, and only to very very rare people, once
in a while. Truth is everybody's nature, so any day we can find
that. First let us do that which is momentary, temporal, fleeting.
This beautiful dream may not happen again. Reality is not going
anywhere, but this dream is fleeting."
Their interest was in dreaming, imagination. They were not my
people, and communication with them was also impossible because
our interests were diametrically opposite. I tried hard but these
people were not interested in religion, not interested in truth,
not interested in anything that is significant.
The people who were interested were either Christians, or Hindus,
Mohammedans, Jainas, Buddhists: they were already following some
ideology, some religion. Then it was obvious to me that I would
have to play the game of being religious; there was no other way.
Only then could I find people who were authentic seekers.
I hate the word religion, I have always hated it, but I had to
talk about religion. But what I was talking about under the cover
of religion was not the same as people understood by religion.
Now, this was simply a strategy. I was using their words - God,
religion, liberation, moksha - and I was giving them my meaning.
In this way I could start finding people; and people started coming
to me.
It took a few years for me to change my image in people's eyes.
But people only listen to words, they don't understand meanings:
people only understand what you say they don't understand what
is conveyed unsaid. So I used their own weapons against themselves.
I commented on religious books, and gave a meaning that was totally
mine.
I would have said the same thing without commenting - it would
have been far easier because then I would have been directly speaking
to you. There was no need to drag in Krishna, Mahavira, and Jesus,
and then make them say what they had never said. But such is the
stupidity of humanity that the same thing that I had been saying
before, and they were not ready even to hear it.... And now
thousands started gathering around me because I was speaking on
Krishna.
Now, what have I to do with Krishna? What has he done for me?
What relationship have I got with Jesus? If I had met him while
he was alive I would have said to him, "You are a fanatic
and you are not in your senses, I cannot say that the people who
want to crucify you are absolutely wrong, because they have no
other way to deal with you."
So this was the only way. When I started speaking on Jesus, Christian
colleges and Christian theological institutes started inviting
me to speak, and I was really continually giggling inside, because
those fools thought that this was what Jesus had said. Yes, I
used Jesus' words - one has just to understand a little game
with words and one can make any word mean anything - and they
thought that this was the real message of Jesus.... "Our
own Christian missionaries and priests have not done so much for
Jesus as you have done."
And I had to keep quiet, knowing that I have nothing to do with
Jesus, and that what I was saying Jesus might not have been able
to even understand. He was a poor fellow, absolutely uneducated.
Certainly he had a charismatic personality so it was not difficult
to gather a few uneducated people, fear-oriented and greedy for
the joys in heaven. This man was making promises and asking nothing.
So cheap: what was the harm of believing in him? There was no
danger, no harm. If there was no heaven and no God, you were not
losing anything. By chance if there were, and this man was the
begotten son of God, then you were gaining so much for nothing:
simple arithmetic!
But it is significant that not a single educated, cultured rabbi
became Jesus' disciple, because those rabbis knew far better expressions,
far better ways of philosophizing. And this man knew nothing.
He was not giving a single argument, he was simply stating things
which he had heard from others; and he was a stubborn type of
young man.
What I said in the name of Jesus, I had been saying before also,
but no Christian community, no Christian college, no Christian
theological institute would have invited me. What to say of invitation? - if
I had wanted to enter they would have closed the doors. That was
the situation: I was prohibited from entering my own city's central
temple, and they had the support of the police so that I should
not be allowed in. So whenever there was a Hindu monk speaking
inside, a policeman was on guard outside to prevent me coming
in.
I said, "But I want to listen to that man."
The police officer said, "We know, everybody knows, that
when you are there, everybody has to listen to you. And we have
been called here just to prevent you, not anybody else; everybody
else is allowed. If you stop coming we would not be bothered because
we are unnecessarily standing here for two or three hours every
day. While the discourse session continues I will be standing
here just for you, one person."
But now the same temple started inviting me. Again the police
were there - to prevent overcrowding! They said to me - one
officer who was still there said to me - "You are something!
We were standing here to keep you out, now we are standing here
because too much crowding is dangerous - the temple is old."
It had balconies and at least five thousand people could sit inside.
But when I used to speak there, nearabout fifteen thousand people
would turn up. So people would go on the balconies which were
usually never used. One day it became so serious that it was almost
possible the balconies would fall down - so many people on
the balconies, and it was an old temple. Then naturally they had
to arrange that from the next day only a certain number of people
were to be allowed in.
That created trouble. That officer said, "Now new trouble!
You speak for two hours there, but people start coming two hours
earlier, because if they come late they won't get in." He
said to me, "But you are something! You were against God."
I said in his ear, "I still am - don't tell anybody because
nobody will believe it. And I will always remain against God.
Before I depart from the world I will expose everything. But you
are not to tell because nobody is going to believe you, and I
will flatly deny that I have ever said anything to you."
He said, "You are something. You are against God and speaking
on God?"
But then I had to find my own ways. I would speak on God and then
tell people that godliness was a far better word. That was a way
of disposing of God. But because I was speaking on God, the people
who were involved - who were true seekers being exploited
by the religious priesthood - started becoming interested
in me. I found from all the religions, the cream.
There was no other way, because I would not have been able to
enter their folds, and they would not have been able to come to
me: just those few words would have been enough to prevent them.
And I could not have blamed them, I would have blamed myself I
had to find some way so that I could approach them. And I found
the way; it was very simple. I simply thought, "Use their
words, use their language, use their scriptures.
"And if you are using somebody else's gun, that does not
mean you cannot put your own cartridges in it. Let the gun be
anybody's, the cartridges are mine! - because the real work
is going to happen through the cartridges, not the gun. So what
harm?" And it was easy, very easy, because I could use Hindu
words and play the same game; I could use Mohammedan words and
play the same game; I could use Christian words and play the same
game.
Not only were these people coming to me, but Jaina monks, nuns,
Hindu monks, Buddhist monks, Christian missionaries, priests - all
kinds of people started coming to me. And you will not believe
it: you have not seen me laughing because I have laughed so much
inside that there was no need. I have been telling jokes to you,
but I have not been laughing because I have been playing a joke
my whole life! What can be more funny? And I managed to befool
all those priests and great scholars so easily.
They started coming to me and asking me questions. I just had
to be alert in the beginning to use their vocabulary, and just
between the lines, between the words, to go on putting the real
stuff in which I was interested. I learned the art from a fisherman.
I used to sit by the bank of the river for hours because that
was the most beautiful place in my village. The morning was beautiful,
the evening was beautiful; and even in the hot summer there were
spots where there were thick trees, just leaning over the river.
You could just sit in the river, in the water, and it was so cool
you could forget it was summer.
I was just sitting looking at the morning sun, and fishermen were
there. In India they put out a bait for the fish. Everywhere fishermen
put out bait, but in India it has to be non-vegetarian, because
the people who are catching fish and the people who are going
to buy fish, both are non-vegetarians. So the fishermen will cut
small insects into pieces which are delicious to the fishes and
hook them to their - what do you call it? Fishing line? - fishing
line, and the fishes will come and catch the insect. And with
the insect there is a hook; the hook will catch the fish. The
fish will come to get the insect, but inside the insect the hook
has been put, so once she swallows the insect, the fish is caught
by the hook and she can be pulled out immediately.
Looking at this fisherman I thought, "I have to find some
way that I can catch my people. Right now they are in different
camps, nobody is mine." I was alone: nobody was courageous
enough even to associate with me or to walk with me because people
would think that he was also gone, was lost. I found the bait:
use their words.
In the beginning people were really shocked. Those who knew me
for years, who knew that I had always been against God, were really
puzzled, absolutely puzzled....
This was happening again and again. Once I was speaking in a Mohammedan
institute in Jabalpur. One of my Mohammedan teachers had become
the principal of this institute; he was not aware that I was the
same person he knew. Somebody told him that they had heard me
speaking on Sufis and that it was something incredible: "We
had not thought about Sufis that way, and our institute will be
honored if he comes."
In India, or in any other country, if a Mohammedan comes and speaks
on the Bible you feel very flattered, your ego is tremendously
strengthened. Or if a Mohammedan, a Hindu, a Buddhist, is speaking
on Jesus, praising him and his words.... And particularly
in India where Mohammedans and Hindus are continuously killing
each other, if somebody who is not a Mohammedan can speak on Sufism....
My old teacher was very happy; he invited me to talk.
I was in search of all these invitations because I wanted to find
my people, and they were all hiding in different places.
When my teacher saw me he said, "I have only heard of miracles,
but this is a miracle! You are speaking on Sufism, on Islam, on
the fundamental philosophy of Islam?"
I said, "To you I will not lie - you are my old teacher.
I will be speaking only on my philosophy. Yes, I have learned
the art of throwing in the word Islam to people once in a while.
That much I will do."
He said, "My God! But now we are caught: people are waiting
in the auditorium. And you are the same mischievous person, you
have not changed. Are you kidding or something? - because
one of our trusted teachers who is an authority on Sufism has
praised you. Because of his praise I have invited you."
I said, "He has spoken rightly, and you will also praise
what I say. But remember always, I will say only what I want to
say. It does not matter, it is so simple a thing: if a Buddhist
calls me I have only to change a few words, and from Sufism I
talk about Zen, not about Sufis. I say the same thing; it is just
that Sufism is changed a little here and there. And I have to
be alert - I should not forget about whom I am speaking, that's
all."
And I spoke. Of course he had been sitting there very sad, but
when he heard me he was so joyous. He came and hugged me and he
said, "You must have been joking."
I said, "I am always joking - don't take it seriously."
"You are a Sufi" he said.
I said, "that's what people say!"....
I was speaking in Amritsar in the Golden Temple which is now creating
great trouble in India. This is the Sikh temple, and because of
this temple Indira Gandhi has been assassinated; the whole country
is shaken. I was speaking in this temple. Everywhere, all around
the country, people had asked me thousands of times, "Why
do you grow a beard?" I had become accustomed to the question
and I enjoyed answering in different ways to different people.
But in the Golden Temple when I was speaking on Nanak and his
message, a very old sardar came to me, touched my feet and said,
"Sardarji, why have you cut your hair?" That was a new
question, asked for the first time. He said, "Your beard
is perfectly okay, but why have you cut your hair? - and you
being such a religious man."
Only five things are needed to be a Sikh, very simple things;
you can manage them, anybody can. They are called the five K's
because each word starts with K. Kesh means hair, katar means
a knife; kachchha means underwear - that I have not been able
to figure out. It is the only question I cannot answer. What philosophy
is being taught? Strange, but there must be some reason.
I enquired of the Sikh priests and their high priest, "Everything
is okay - grow your hair and have a sword or a knife - but
this kachchha...? What theological, theosophical, philosophical
meaning does kachchha have?"
They said, "Nobody has ever asked about it; we just have
to follow these five K's."...
This old sardar thought that I was a sardar because nobody who
was not a sardar had ever spoken in the Golden Temple; so it was
unprecedented. He was certainly puzzled about why I, such a religious
man, had cut my hair. And I was only thirty at that time.
So I told him, "There is some reason in it. I don't feel
yet a perfect sardar, and I don't want to claim anything that
I am not. So I have kept four things but I have been cutting my
hair. I will grow my hair when I am a perfect sardar."
He said, "That's right. It is tremendously significant that
a man should think about this, that he should not pretend to be
a perfect sardar. You are a better sardar than us: we think we
are perfect because we have all five things."...
From among these people I found my people. It was not difficult,
it was very easy. I was speaking their language, their religious
idioms, quoting their scriptures and giving my message. The intelligent
people there immediately understood and they started gathering
around me.
All over India I started creating groups of my own people. Now
there was no need for me to speak on Sikhism, Hinduism, Jainism;
there was no need, but for ten years I had been continually speaking
on them. Slowly, when I had my own people, I dropped speaking
on others. After traveling for twenty years I stopped traveling
also, because there was no need. Now I had my people: if they
wanted to come to me they could come.
So it was an absolute necessity; there was no other way to hook
my people. Everybody is already divided. It is not an open world:
somebody is a Christian, somebody is a Hindu, somebody is a Mohammedan.
It is very difficult to find a person who is nobody. I had to
find my people from these closed flocks, but to enter their flock
I had to talk their language. Slowly, slowly, I dropped their
language. Proportionately as my message became more and more clear,
their language I slowly dropped....
In those days I had to speak in the name of religion, in the
name of God. It was compulsory. There was no alternative: it was
not that I had not tried it. I had tried it, but found it simply
closes people's doors. But I could see a simple way out.
Even my father was puzzled, more so than anybody else, because
he knew me from my very childhood - that I am an atheist,
a born atheist; that I am against religion, against the priests.
When I started speaking in religious conferences, he asked me,
"What is happening? Have you changed?"
I said, "Not a bit, I have just changed my strategy; otherwise
it is difficult to speak in the world Hindu conference. They won't
allow an atheist on their stage. An amoralist, a godless person,
they won't allow. But they invited me - and I said everything
against religion, in the name of religion."
The shankaracharya, the head of the Hindu religion, was presiding
over the conference. The King of Nepal - Nepal is the only
Hindu kingdom in the world - inaugurated the conference. The
shankaracharya was in great difficulty because what I was saying
was absolutely sabotaging the whole conference. But the way I
was presenting it, the people were getting impressed. He became
so angry that he stood up and tried to snatch away the microphone - this
old man. While he was trying to snatch it away, I said, "Just
one minute, and I will be finished." So just for one minute
he stopped - and in one minute I managed!
I asked the people - there must have been at least one hundred
thousand people - I asked them, "What do you want? He
is the president, he can stop me if he wants, and certainly I
will stop. But you are the people who have come here to listen.
If you want to listen to me, then you all raise your hands; and
to make it clear raise both your hands."
Two hundred thousand hands.... I looked at the old fellow
and said, "Now you sit down. You are no longer president:
two hundred thousand hands have canceled you completely. Whom
do you represent? You were president - these people had made
you president, now these people have canceled you. Now I will
speak as long as I want to speak" - it would have been
impossible otherwise. And I found hundreds of people from that
gathering: Bihar became one of the most potential sources of my
sannyasins.
The same way I was moving around the country going into religious
conferences and catching hold of people. And once I had my own
group in that city then I never bothered about their conferences;
then my group was holding its own conferences, its own meetings.
But it takes time. person14
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