Osho on Jagatguru Kripaludasji Maharaj

 

 

The moment you become yourself you will not be me, you will not be Christ, you will not be Krishna; you will be yourself. But the ecstasy that surrounds me will surround you. I cannot say for certain about Jesus, I can only be absolutely certain about myself. I don't know whether he was really fulfilled or just a madman. There is no way for me to decide. I cannot say that about Buddha -- he may be awakened, or he may be just a great philosopher philosophizing about awakening, a great dreamer dreaming about awakening.

 

Have you not dreamed sometimes that you are awake? I think everyone has sometimes dreamed that he is awake, and only when he wakes up does he find, "My God, that was a dream! I thought I was awake." You can dream within a dream, within a dream....

 

For example, you can dream that you are going to your bedroom fully awake. You are going to your bedroom -- in a dream -- lying down on the bed, pulling your blanket up, falling asleep and dreaming that you have gone to see a movie. And you see the movie. In the movie you can see a man who is asleep and is dreaming -- it can go on ad infinitum. You can go on stretching the idea: a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream -- there is no problem in it.

 

You can dream that you are awake -- and there are many people who think they are enlightened... they think! I have come across such people. One man came to see me when I was in Raipur. This man was a very famous Hindu sage, Jagatguru Kripaludasji Maharaj. Jagatguru means a world teacher; Kripaludas, servant of compassion; and Maharaj, the king! He had many, many followers. Particularly in Raipur, he was the most famous teacher, and people believed that he was enlightened.

 

Somebody told me, "Kripaludas is visiting the town. Wouldn't you like to come?"

 

I said, "Certainly, because I never miss any opportunity."

 

I went up to the stage, went close to Kripaludas and gave him the indication that I wanted to say something in his ear. So he gave his ear to me, and I said, "I think you are enlightened."

 

He said, "Really?"

 

I said, "Really."

 

That was all. He enquired about me and the next day he came to visit me, and he said, "How did you find out? -- because I also think the same, that I am enlightened."

 

I said, "There is no problem in it -- you look enlightened."

 

He said, "Absolutely right. Many people have said to me, 'You look enlightened.'"

 

Then I said to him, "Please, enlightenment has no certain way of looking. And you are not enlightened, otherwise you would not have come to me. For what? Just because I said to you,'I think you are enlightened,' I gave support to your dream. You are dreaming, because you yourself say that you also think you are enlightened. Nobody who is enlightened thinks that he is enlightened: he simply is enlightened. What business has thinking to do with enlightenment? Thinking can only create imagination. Thinking is part of the imaginative process.

 

"Thinking is dreaming in words, and dreaming is thinking in pictures. That's the only difference between the two."

 

Dreaming is a primitive kind of thinking. Because the primitive man has no words, he thinks in pictures.

 

The same is the case with the child, because the child is a primitive man. Look at any children's book: big pictures, strong attractive colors, and few words. "A big mango" -- that the child understands immediately. And through that mango -- because he knows the mango, he knows the taste of the mango, he knows the smell of the mango -- seeing a mango in the picture he is reminded of the taste, the smell; and through that association, the word underneath, mango, slowly gets into his mind.

 

Then as books become of higher grades, the mango goes on becoming smaller and the words become more, with more descriptions of the mango: what kind of fruit the mango is, what kind of taste, where it is found. And the mango goes on disappearing, becoming smaller and smaller. And one day there are no pictures in the book.

 

Now, you have learned a new way of dreaming: that is through words. But the shift from the mango to the word mango is a great jump.

 

But when you are unconscious, fast asleep, again you fall back to your primitive language. Then you forget about the language that you have learned.

 

-Osho, “From Personality to Individuality, #3”