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Part IV : Osho’s Library grows
My father used to send me money, and that money helped me to purchase
as many books as possible.
Now, the library you see - it has one hundred and fifty thousand
books. Most of them were purchased with his money. All the money
he gave me went into purchasing books, and soon I was receiving
scholarships - and all that money went into books. christ08
I must have seen thousands of books, and perhaps no other man
in the whole world can claim to know more about books than I know.
But in this whole experience of thousands of books I have never
come across another book which can be compared in any way with
P.D.Ouspensky's Tertium Organum.
Tertium Organum means the third canon of thought. He gave this
name to this great and incomparably unique book because there
have been two other books in the past: the first was written by
Aristotle, and he called it the first Organum, the first principle
of thought; and the second was written by Bacon, and he called
it Novum Organum, a new canon of thought.
Then Ouspensky wrote Tertium Organum, the third canon of thought,
and he declared just in the beginning of the book that "although
I am calling it the third canon of thought, it existed before
the first canon of thought ever existed."
This book contains so many mysteries that each page, almost each
paragraph, each sentence seems to be so pregnant with meaning...This
is the only book...
I used to love underlining my books, that's why I have never
been interested in reading books from any library. I cannot underline
a book that has been borrowed from a library, I cannot put my
stamp on it. And I hate to read a book which has been underlined
by somebody else, because those lines which have been underlined
stand out and they unnecessarily interfere in my own conception,
my own flow.
This is the only book which I started underlining and I recognized
after a few pages that every line has to be underlined. But I
could not be unjust to the book. All my books in the library are
underlined. Knowing perfectly well after a few pages that this
book can be left not underlined, but that will be unjustified...so
I had to underline the whole book. satyam09
In Jabalpur there was one beautiful place where I was an everyday
visitor; I would go for at least one or two hours. It was called
the Thieves' Market. Stolen things were sold there, and I was
after stolen books because so many people were stealing books
and selling them and I was getting such beautiful books. I got
Gurdjieff's first book from that Thieves' Market, and Ouspensky's
In Search of the Miraculous from that Thieves' Market.
The book was fifty rupees; from there I got it for half a rupee,
because in the Thieves' Market, books are sold by weight. Those
people, they don't bother about whether it is Ouspensky, Plato,
or Russell. Everything is all rubbish; whether you purchase old
newspapers or you purchase Socrates, it is the same price. I had
collected in my library thousands of books from the Thieves' Market.
Everybody used to ask me, "Are you mad or something? Why
do you go continually to the Thieves' Market? - because people
don't go there. To be associated with the Thieves' Market is not
good."
I would say, "I don't care. Even if they think that I am
a thief, it is okay."
To me the Thieves' Market has been the best source - even
books which were not in the university library I have found in
the Thieves' Market. And all those shopkeepers were selling stolen
books, and every kind of stolen thing. In India, in every big
city there is a Thieves' Market. In Bombay there is a Thieves'
Market where you can find everything at just throw-away prices.
But it is risky because it is stolen property.
I once got into trouble because I purchased three hundred books
from one shop, simultaneously, in one day, because a whole library
of somebody's had been stolen. Just for one hundred and fifty
rupees, three hundred books! I could not leave a single one. I
had to borrow money and immediately rush there, and I told that
man, "No book should go from here."
Those books had seals with a certain man's name and address,
and finally the police came. I said, "Yes, these are the
books, and I have purchased them from the Thieves' Market. In
the first place this man is almost ninety years old - he will
be dying soon."
The police inspector said to me, "What are you arguing about?"
I said, "I am simply making things clear to you. This man
is going to die sooner or later; these books will be rotten. I
can give you these books, but you have to give one hundred and
fifty rupees to somebody, because I have borrowed the money. And
in fact you cannot catch me because that shopkeeper is there;
he will be a witness for me that the books were sold to him. Now,
he cannot go on remembering who is selling him old newspapers,
and old books; he does not know who has brought them.
So first you have to go to that man and find the thief If you
find the thief get one hundred and fifty rupees from him or from
anywhere you want. These books are here, and they cannot be in
a better situation anywhere else. And that ninety-year-old man
won't be able to read them again, so what is the fuss?"
The inspector said, "You sound sane, logical, but these
are stolen books...and I cannot go against the law."
I said, "You go according to the law. Go to the place from
where I have purchased them - and I have purchased them, I
have not stolen them. That shopkeeper has also purchased them,
he has not stolen them. So find the thief."
He said, "But on the book there is a seal and the name."
I said, "Don't be worried - next time you come there
will be no seal and no name. First you find the thief, then I
am always here, at your service."
And as he went away I tore one page from each, the first empty
page which means nothing, and I just signed the books. From that
day I started signing my books, because it might have come in
handy someday if my books were stolen - at least they had
my signature and the date. And because I had taken out the first
page, I would sign on two or three pages inside also, in case
my books were stolen, but they never were.
My professors used to ask me, "You are reading day and night,
but why are you so averse to the textbooks?"
I said, "For the simple reason that I don't want the examiner
to see that I am a parrot." And fortunately that helped me.
person04
Soon I had friends all over India, and I was purchasing books
everywhere - in Poona, in Bombay, in New Delhi, in Amritsar,
in Ludhiana, in Calcutta, in Allahabad, in Varanasi, in Madras.
All over the country I was purchasing as many books as possible - as
many as the friend with whom I was staying could manage. christ08
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