Question 2:

Beloved Osho,

I’m afraid that the world is going to end before I get enlightened. What can I Do?

 

 

You seem to be very much in a hurry. If you understand me, there is no problem — right now you can become enlightened. At least right now the world has not ended. There are thousands of people in the world trying for enlightenment, but their very trying is the barrier. It postpones enlightenment.

 

For ninety years J. Krishnamurti has been working, first upon himself, then upon others. And now he is getting immensely frustrated. Nobody is to be blamed, he himself has made it a difficult job. He is obsessed with reading detective novels; he has made the search for enlightenment a very sensational, puzzling, difficult detective story. My Krishnamurti Lake is doing far better: just the other day somebody became enlightened there.

 

You are asking me, “The world is going to end, what am I supposed to do?” Have I to answer you? Can’t you understand? Krishnamurti Lake is not far away.

 

Krishnamurti himself will not help you. He has been just on the border of enlightenment. One step more… but that one step is missing. And the reason is that he was forced to become enlightened. For twenty-five years in his early life…. The theosophical idiots found him. He was nine years old, the son of a poor, very poor father; the mother had died, he had one brother. The father was in much difficulty. He was just a small clerk in some office; to look after these two children, and do the work — it was becoming maddening.

 

So when the Theosophists told him they would like to adopt his two children — one was Nityananda and the other was Krishnamurti — he happily handed over the children to Annie Besant, knowing that at least they would be taken care of, given a good education. The theosophical movement in those days was the top movement of the world. Very important, significant, powerful people had become involved in it.

 

The Theosophists started making these two poor boys enlightened — it had never been done before… so much hammering that Nityananda died. My feeling is that the Theosophists were responsible for his death. They tortured these two boys as much as possible: wake up in the morning at three o’clock; go to the river, take a cold bath, then chant mantras… spiritual teaching that went on deep into the night.

 

Both escaped them finally, because it was absolutely inhuman — Nityananda in one way, Krishnamurti in another. Nityananda died — he must have been of a weaker constitution. Krishnamurti survived.

 

The Theosophists were going to declare Krishnamurti the world teacher. When he was twenty-five they gathered in Holland to declare him the world teacher, with great hope: “The man who can deliver the whole world from misery has arrived. He is the Christ, he is the Buddha; he contains all the hopes of the past humanity.”

 

Krishnamurti stood up to declare himself to be the world teacher, but on the contrary, he simply said, “I am nobody’s teacher. I am fed up with teachers! And just forgive me, I am not jagadguru, the world teacher. And I dissolve this whole organization that you have created around me.” A special organization called The Star of the East, a branch of the Theosophical Society, was created for Krishnamurti. He dissolved the organization. The people were simply shocked; they had worked so hard to make him enlightened, and this man freaked out at the crucial moment.

 

Since then he has been going around the earth alone. But those twenty-five years are still heavy on him; that’s why he cannot take that one step. He is not freed from those dead Theosophists. They are long dead, the movement has almost disappeared, but what happened in those twenty-five years in the beginning is holding him back.

 

Remember always: love is an attachment; hate is a bigger attachment, far more solid. Compassion is very delicate, but cruelty is very hard. He is still fighting with the ghosts of the Theosophists. All his life he has been fighting and fighting with those ghosts — who are dead, there is no need to fight with them. One should be simply free of them, but being free means you don’t hate them. Hate imprisons you.

 

He has become so afraid of the master and disciple phenomenon…. It is his experience — I can forgive him, I can understand him. What happened to him through his masters was so ugly that he has been teaching everybody that you don’t need any master.

 

This is a contradiction. If they don’t need any master, why are you bothering them? Who are you? You have assumed, unknowingly, the role of a master, of a teacher. What have you been doing for ninety years? — teaching people: Beware of teachers! If the people had really understood you, they would have left you, because, “What is the need? Why should we listen to you? This is what a teacher and a student, a master and a disciple do.”

 

The master knows, the disciple does not know. The master imparts his knowledge to the disciples. Krishnamurti has been doing that, and I am amazed how blind people are. They don’t say to him, “Shut up! If we don’t need any master, then who are you to bother us? For ninety years you have been bothering people, and not a single person has become enlightened out of this whole effort.”

 

He has created a different kind of effort: “Don’t make effort, don’t accept any master, don’t be open to any teaching.” All kinds of egoists have surrounded him for all these years, because the egoist feels great that he need not be open, he need not listen, he need not be concerned about masters and teachers; he is enough unto himself.

 

It is true, you are enough unto yourself, but you don’t know it! Somebody has to hammer it on your head. But things can backfire. That’s what has happened in Krishnamurti’s case: a man of tremendous intelligence, fighting with ghosts, and continuing teaching, telling people there is no master, telling people, “You are enough unto yourself” — this can be misunderstood.

 

You are enough unto yourself if you relax and settle in your being; otherwise you are the greatest enemy of yourself. If you go on making an effort to become enlightened…. And man is so strange: if you tell him that no effort is needed, he starts making “no effort”!

 

Krishnamurti has never criticized any individual by name. Although he has criticized principles, doctrines, he has not criticized Gautam Buddha, Jesus Christ, Moses, Mohammed. Just the other day I received the information that he has criticized me. This is great! He has always pretended that it is not worth his while to criticize Jesus, Mohammed, Mahavira; it is something below him. That attitude is ugly.

 

But he could not restrain himself about me, for the simple reason that I have told my sannyasins, “Wherever he is, just go and sit in the front line.” And you ask me why I have chosen red clothes for you?

 

The color red has something mysterious about it — just show a red flag to a bull and you will know. You can show a blue flag, nothing will happen; a green flag, nothing will happen. But show a red flag to a bull and he will rush towards you to kill you. Krishnamurti must have been a bull in his past life. The moment he sees my red people he forgets all his philosophy, he starts immediately criticizing me. But this is the first time he has used my name.

 

And what criticism has he given? — very childish. He has said against me that I am convincing people that enlightenment is their sheer inheritance, it is a gift of existence — just as life is a gift. I have always respected Krishnamurti, his intelligence, his courage to dissolve a great organization. But I cannot help it, I have to say the truth to you: he is just on the borderline, he is not yet enlightened. He can be any moment.

 

You should not be afraid of the third world war. For you there is enough time. But he is ninety; for him there is not much time. He should come to Krishnamurti Lake and get enlightened!

 

- Osho, “From the False to the Truth,, #9, Q2”