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Part IV : Fellow Students
It happened...I used to be a roommate in my university with
another student. We had lived together for six months, and he
had never stuttered. I had never even thought.... And then
one day his father came to visit, and he immediately started stuttering.
I was amazed. When his father had gone I asked, "What has
happened to you?"
He said, "This is my problem. From my very childhood he
has been such a hard disciplinarian, such a perfectionist, that
he created only fear, never love. And because we used to live
in a very small village where there was no school, he was my first
teacher too; and that is my undoing - my whole life he spoiled,
because of his fear. Under his fear I started learning language,
speaking language, and everything was wrong, because everything
was imperfect."
A small child is not to be expected to be perfect. He needs
all kinds of support. Instead of getting support, he was beaten.
The stuttering became a fixed phenomenon in him - not only
about the father, but about any father-figure. In the temple - because
God is called "Father" - he could not pray without
stuttering. He was a Christian, and he could not speak to the
bishop without stuttering, because first he had to address the
bishop as "Father." The moment the word "father"
came into his mind, all the associations of fear, of being beaten....
I said, "You do one thing. You start calling me `Father.'"
He said, "What?"
I said, "I am trying to help you. I am certainly not your
father, neither am I a bishop, nor am I God the father who created
the world - I am just your roommate. You start calling me
father, and let us see how long the old association continues."
He said, "It looks absurd to call you father - you are
younger than me."
I said, "It doesn't matter."
"But," he said, "the idea is appealing."
I said, "You try." And he started trying. In the beginning
he stuttered, but slowly, slowly - because he knew that I
am not his father, and it became just a game that he would call
me father - after three to four months his stuttering disappeared.
Now, I was not his father; it was just a device, very arbitrary,
it was not in any way true - but it helped.
When next time his father came he looked at me. I gave him the
indication, "You start."
His father was amazed, and he said, "What happened to you?
You are not stuttering."
He said, "I don't stutter even in the church, I don't stutter
even praying to God the Father. Why should I stutter before you?
But my real father is sitting here. The whole credit goes to him.
He has suffered my stuttering for four months continuously, but
he went on encouraging me, `Don't be worried. It is ninety-nine
percent now, it is ninety-eight percent now.' And slowly, slowly
it disappeared. And one day he said, `Now there is no need; you
can speak to anybody without stuttering. Your fear has disappeared - by
a false device." mess211
In the university I had to live for a few days with a roommate.
I had never lived with anybody but there was no space and the
vice-chancellor said to me, "For a few days you manage and
I will find some other place for you. I can understand that you
will not like anybody to be in the room, and it is good for the
other fellow also that he is not in your room, because you may
drive him crazy. I will arrange it."
But before he arranged it, it took four, five months. And that
man was a very good boy; he just had one problem - just one,
so you cannot say that it was a big trouble - he was a kleptomaniac.
Just for sheer joy he would steal my things. I had to search for
my things in his suitcases, and I would find them, but I never
said anything to him.
He was puzzled. He would use my clothes. When I was not in the
room he would just take anything. He would take my shawl and go
for a walk, so when I came back the shawl would be gone. I would
say, "It will come back, soon it will return." To save
money from being taken by him I used to deposit it with him and
say, "You keep this money, because if I keep it you will
take it anyway. And then it will be difficult to know how much
you have taken and how to ask you for it. It looks awkward. You
just take it. It is this much: you take it!"
He said, "You are clever. This way I have to return the whole
money whenever you need it."
But after four, five months...because whenever and wherever
he was, with whomsoever he lived - his family or friends,
or in the hostels - everybody was condemning him. But I never
said anything to him - instead of looking into my suitcases
I just looked into his. It was simple! It was not very different;
my suitcases were in this corner, his suitcases were in that corner.
He said, "You are strange. I have been stealing your things
and you never say anything."
I said, "It is a very small problem. It can't create distrust
in me for a human being. And what trouble is there? Rather than
going to my suitcase, I simply go to your suitcase, and in your
suitcase I find whatsoever I need."
He said, "That's why I was wondering...that I go on
stealing from you, you never say anything, and those things disappear
from my suitcases again! So I was thinking that perhaps you also
are a kleptomaniac."
I said, "That is perfectly okay. If you stop taking from
my suitcases, I will stop taking from your suitcases. And remember,
in this whole game you have been losing."
He said, "What do you mean?"
I said, "I take a few things that are not mine" - because
he was stealing from everywhere, other rooms, professors' houses;
anywhere he would find any window open, he would jump in. And
there was no intention of stealing, just the joy of it, just the
challenge; an opportunity and challenge that nobody could catch
hold of him.
I said, "I will never prevent you. You can go on moving my
things, you can move my whole suitcase under your bed; it doesn't
matter. In fact I am perfectly happy with you. I am worried now
that soon the vice-chancellor is going to give me a single room.
Where will I find a person like you? - because you provide
so many things which I need. And I trust you perfectly!"
ignor23
I am reminded of one of my friends. He was an average human being - l
mean just an idiot. All the students were continuously talking
of falling in love with girls, and this and that and they were
asking him - and he was very cowardly, nervous... You
cannot conceive of the conditions in India. Even in the university,
the girls and the boys are sitting separate. They cannot talk
openly, they cannot meet openly...But his heart was beating;
he was coming of age. One day he came to me because he thought
I was the only person who had never laughed at him, who had never
joked about his nervousness, that seeing a girl he starts trembling - actually
trembling, you could see his pajamas shaking - and perspiring.
Even if it was winter and cold, he would start perspiring.
He came to me, closed the door, and said, "Only you can
help me. What can I do? I would like to love a girl but I cannot
even say a single word to a girl. Suddenly, I lose my voice and
I start trembling and perspiring." So I had to train him.
I knew a girl who was in my class, and I told her, "You have
to be a little helpful to this poor man. So just be a little kind
and compassionate, and when he perspires, you don't mention it.
Rather you should say, 'People say that you start perspiring seeing
girls, but you are not perspiring, and I am a girl - have
you forgotten? - and you are not shaking...' And he will
be shaking, but you have to say, 'You are not shaking.'"
I had to write love letters for him, and he would send those letters.
And the girl was prepared by me, and just because I have told
her, she was answering him. She would answer the letters, and
he would come running to show me the letter and he was so happy
just with the letters. And again I said, "Now you start on
your own. How long am I to be writing letters for you? And do
you know, the other letter also I have written...because the
girl says, 'I don't love him, how can I write? So you please do
this one too!' And she shows your letter to me and you show her
letter to me, and I am the one who is writing both the letters!"
And this phony business, this love affair...but this is
what is happening in all the synagogues, temples, churches.
Your prayers are written by somebody else, perhaps thousands of
years before. They are not part of your being; they have not arisen
from you. They don't carry any love from you. They don't have
your heartbeat.
You don't know whom you are addressing, whether there exists anybody
on the other side or not. That too is written in the same book
from which you have taken the prayer: that He exists.
It is a very circular thing. The same book says God exists, the
same book gives you the prayer, the same book says that if you
do this prayer you will receive this answer. unconc03
When I was a student in the university in my final master's course,
one girl was very much interested in me. She was a beautiful girl,
but my interest was not in women at that time. I was crazy in
search of God!
After the examinations, when she was leaving the university....
She had waited - I knew it - she had waited and waited
for me to approach her. That is the usual way, that the man approaches
the woman; it is graceful for the woman not to approach the man.
Strange idea...I don't understand. Whoever approaches, it
is graceful. If fact, whoever initiates is courageous.
When we were leaving the university she said, "Now there
is no chance." She took me aside and said, "For two
years continuously I have been waiting. Can't we be together for
our whole lives? I love you."
I said, "If you love me, then please leave me alone. I
also love you, that's why I am leaving you alone - because
I know what has been happening in the name of love. People are
becoming imprisoned, chained; they lose all their joy, life becomes
a drag. So this is my parting advice to you," I said, "Never
try to cling to a person for your whole life."
If two persons are willingly together today, it is more than
enough. If tomorrow again they feel like being together, good.
If they don't, it is their personal affair; nobody has to interfere.
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