Listening to the birds, I remember.... Just outside my classroom in the high school there were beautiful mango trees. And mango trees are where cuckoos make their nests. This is the cuckoo that is calling, and there is nothing sweeter than the sound of a cuckoo.
So I used to sit by the window, looking out at the birds, at the trees, and my teachers were very much annoyed. They said, "You have to look at the blackboard."
I said, "It is my life, and I have every right to choose where to look. Outside is so beautiful - the birds singing, and the flowers, and the trees, and the sun coming through the trees - that I don't think your blackboard can be a competitor."
He was so angry that he told me, "Then you can go out and stand there outside the window unless you are ready to look at the blackboard - because I am teaching you mathematics, and you are looking at the trees and the birds."
I said, "This is a great reward you are giving me, not a punishment." And I said goodbye to him.
He said, "What do you mean?"
I said, "I will never come in, I will be standing every day outside the window."
He said, "You must be crazy. I will report to your father, to your family: 'You are wasting money on him, and he's standing outside.'"
I said, "You can do anything you want to do. I know how to manage things with my father. And he knows perfectly well that if I have decided then I will remain outside the window - nothing can change it."
The principal used to see me standing outside the window every day when he came for a round. He was puzzled at what I was doing there every day. On the third or fourth day he came to me, and he said, "What are you doing? Why do you go on standing here?"
I said, "I have been rewarded."
He said, "Rewarded? For what?"
I said, "You just stand by my side and listen to the songs of the birds. And the beauty of the trees....
Do you think looking at the blackboard and that stupid teacher... because only stupid people become teachers; they cannot find any other employment. Mostly they are third class graduates. So neither do I want to look at that teacher, nor do I want to look at the blackboard. As far as mathematics is concerned, you need not be worried - I will manage it. But I cannot miss this beauty."
He stood by my side, and he said, "Certainly it is beautiful. I have been a principal for twenty years in this school, and I never came here. And I agree with you that this is a reward. As far as mathematics is concerned, I am an M.Sc. in mathematics. You can come to my house anytime, and I will teach you mathematics - but you continue to stand outside."
So I got a better teacher, the principal of the school, who was a better mathematician. And my mathematics teacher was very much puzzled. He thought that I would get tired after a few days, but the whole month passed. Then he came out, and he said, "I am sorry, because it hurts me continuously the whole time I am in the class that I have forced you to stand out here. And you have not done any harm. You can sit inside and look wherever you want."
I said, "Now it is too late."
He said, "What do you mean?"
I said, "I mean that now I enjoy being outside. Sitting behind the window only a very small portion of the trees and the birds is available; here all the thousands of mango trees are available. And as far as mathematics is concerned, the principal is teaching me himself; every evening I go to him."
He said, "What?"
I said, "Yes, because he agreed with me that this is a reward."
He went directly to the principal and said, "This is not good. I had punished him and you are encouraging him." The principal said, "Forget punishment and encouragement - you should also stand outside sometime. Now I cannot wait; otherwise I used to go for the round as a routine, but now I cannot wait. The first thing I have to do is to go for the round and stay with that boy and look at the trees.
"For the first time, I have learned that there are better things than mathematics - the sounds of the birds, the flowers, the green trees, the sun rays coming through the trees, the wind blowing, singing its song through the trees. Once in a while you should also go and accompany him."
He came back very sorry and said, "The principal told me what has happened, so what should I do?" He asked me, "Should I take the whole class out?"
I said, "That would be great. We can sit under these trees, and you can teach your mathematics.
But I am not going to come in the class, even if you make me fail - which you cannot do, because I now know more mathematics than any student in the class. And I have a better teacher. You are a third class B.Sc., and he is a first class gold medalist M.Sc."
For a few days he thought about it, and one morning when I went there I saw that the whole class was sitting under the trees. I said, "Your heart is still alive; mathematics has not killed it."
But every child has to follow so many things, so many people, that by the time he has grown up, become adult, it is too late - the personality has taken over, and the individuality is forgotten.
-Osho, "The Razor’s Edge, #8, Q3"