Immediately after Osho’s enlightenment, 

and why he became a master

 

 

 

Most of the enlightened people in the world have died almost immediately after enlightenment -- the shock is too much. The body may not be able to take it, unless the body is specially prepared to take it.

Buddha and Mahavira were both trained warriors. They had very strong bodies -- the bodies of fighters. They both became enlightened nearabout the age of forty, and remained alive for almost the same time again -- forty and forty-two years.

I can see only one reason that they managed to absorb the shock: their bodies were so strong. But the shock always leaves the body in a very delicate condition, and most people have died just when they became enlightened. Enlightenment and death almost came together. They became so awake, so full of light, that all their connections with the mind and the body were broken -- and particularly if their enlightenment happened after the age of thirty-five, when one starts declining.

If you take seventy as the average age at death, then at thirty-five you are at the peak, and after that you start declining. If people have become enlightened before thirty-five, then they have survived longer than others, because the body was younger, stronger, and it was not on the decline; it still had a potential to grow. They absorbed the shock, but the shock had shaken everything.

I was never sick before I became enlightened; I was perfectly healthy. People were jealous of my health. But after enlightenment, suddenly I found that the body had become so delicate that doing anything became impossible. Even going for a walk—and I was running before that, four miles in the morning, four miles in the evening, running, jogging, swimming. I was doing all kinds of things….

But after enlightenment, suddenly and very strangely, the body became absolutely weak. And it is almost unbelievable—I could not believe it, my father's sister's family, who I was staying with, could not believe it. It was more of a surprise to them because they knew nothing about enlightenment. I suspected there was some connection but they had no idea what had happened: all the hairs on my chest became white, just in one night! And I was twenty-one!

I could not hide it—because it is a hot country, India, and I used to only have on a wrap-around lunghi the whole day, so my chest was always naked. So everybody in the house became aware of this and was wondering what had happened. I said, "I myself am wondering what has happened." I knew that the body had certainly lost its stamina. It had become fragile, and I lost my sleep completely.

I have been asked again and again why Ramakrishna died of cancer. I know why he died of cancer: he must have become absolutely vulnerable to any disease. And if it was only Ramakrishna we could think it was just an exception; but Maharshi Raman also died of cancer. That looks strange, that within one hundred years two enlightened people of the highest order died of cancer. Perhaps they lost all resistance to disease.

I can understand from my own situation, I lost all resistance to diseases. I had never suffered from what you call allergies. I loved perfume so much, and I had never suffered because of it. I had beautiful flowers in all my houses where I lived; and India has such flowers I think no other country has—with great fragrance….

There are plants, for example a certain flower, "queen of the night"—you can have just one plant, and the whole house will be full of fragrance; and not only your own house, the neighboring houses too will be full of fragrance. And there are many other flowers—champa, chameli, juhi—which are immensely full of fragrance. I always had those flowers around me, and I never suffered from any allergy.

But after enlightenment I became so allergic that just the body-smell of somebody was enough to give me a cold, the sneezes; and the sneezes triggered something in my chest. I started coughing, and coughing triggered another process; I started having asthma attacks which were absolutely unknown to me. I had never thought that these things would happen to me.

But I was aware of what was happening. My consciousness and my body had fallen apart; the connection became very loose. The body's resting became impossible, and when you have not rested for many days, then you become vulnerable to all kinds of infections. You are so tired, you cannot resist. And if for years you cannot have any rest, then naturally you lose all resistance….

My feeling is that because enlightenment is the last lesson of life, there is nothing more to learn, you are unnecessarily hanging around. You have learnt the lesson—that was the purpose of life—so life starts losing contact with the person. And most of these people have died immediately; the shock was so much. And death is not a calamity to them; it is a blessing, because they have attained whatsoever life was to give.

But to live after enlightenment is really a difficult affair. The most important thing is that one loses contact with his inactive mind, and it becomes impossible to have any contact. The moment you are silent, immediately the energy moves to your transcendental awareness.

You are aware, even when you are doing something, saying something. The flame is not that strong, because your energy is involved in some activity. But when you are not doing anything, then suddenly the whole energy immediately shifts to the highest point. It is tremendously blissful, it is great ecstasy, but only for consciousness, not for the body.

Nobody has ever explained exactly what the situation is. I think there may have been a fear that if you explain it to people—they are already not making any effort towards enlightenment—and if you say it is possible that enlightenment may become your death, they may simply freak out! "Then why bother about enlightenment? Then we are good as we are—at least we are alive! Miserable, but we are alive."

If your body becomes vulnerable, fragile, non-resistant to any kind of disease, that may also give them the argument: "This is not good; it is better not to bother about such things. It is better to be healthy and have no diseases, rather than having enlightenment and then suffer a fragile body and all its implications."

Perhaps that may have been the reason that it has never been talked about. But I want everything to be made clear. I don't want to leave anything about enlightenment, its process, as a secret.

It is good for people to know exactly what they are doing and what can be the result. If they do it consciously, knowingly, it will be far better. And those who are not going to make any effort, only they will find excuses; they were not going to make any effort anyway. For those of you who are going to make the effort—even if death comes, it will be a challenge, an adventure, because you have attained whatever life could deliver to you, and then life slipped away.

 

- Osho, "Light on the Path, #35"

 

 

 

 

The moment my grandfather died, my Nana was still laughing the last flicker of her laughter, then she controlled herself. She was certainly a woman who could control herself. But I was not impressed by her control, I was impressed by her laughter in the very face of death.

 

Again and again I asked her, "Nani, can you tell me why you laughed so loudly when death was so imminent? If even a child like me was aware of it, it is not possible that you were not aware."

 

She said, "I was aware, that is why I laughed. I laughed at the poor man trying to stop the wheel unnecessarily, because neither birth nor death mean anything in the ultimate sense."

 

I had to wait for the time when I could ask and argue with her. When I myself become enlightened, I thought, then I will ask her -- and that's what I did.

 

The first thing I did after my enlightenment, at the age of twenty-one, was to rush to the village where my grandmother was, my father's village. She never left that place where her husband had been burned. That very place became her home. She forgot all the luxuries that she had been accustomed to. She forgot all the gardens, the fields, and the lake that she had possessed. She simply never went back, even to settle things.

She said, "What is the point? All is settled. My husband is dead, and the child I love is not there; all is settled."

Immediately after my enlightenment I rushed to the village to meet two people: first, Magga Baba, the man I was talking about before. You will certainly wonder why….

Because I wanted somebody to say to me, "You are enlightened." I knew it, but I wanted to hear it from the outside too. Magga Baba was the only man I could ask at that time. I had heard that he had recently returned to the village.

I rushed to him. The village was two miles from the station. You cannot believe how I rushed to see him. I reached the neem tree….

I rushed to the neem tree where Magga Baba sat, and the moment he saw me do you know what he did? I could not believe it myself—he touched my feet and wept. I felt very embarrassed because a crowd had gathered and they all thought Magga Baba had now really gone mad. Up till then he had been a little mad, but now he was totally gone, gone forever…gate, gate—gone, and gone forever. But Magga Baba laughed, and for the first time, in front of the people, he said to me, "My boy, you have done it! But I knew that one day you would do it."

I touched his feet. For the first time he tried to prevent me from doing it, saying, "No, no, don't touch my feet anymore."

But I still touched them, even though he insisted. I didn't care and said, "Shut up! You look after your business and let me do mine. If I am enlightened as you say, please don't prevent an enlightened man from touching your feet."

He started laughing again and said, "You rascal! You are enlightened, but still a rascal."…

I then rushed to my home—that is, my Nani's home, not my father's—because she was the woman I wanted to tell what had happened. But strange are the ways of existence: she was standing at the door, looking at me, a little amazed. She said, "What has happened to you? You are no longer the same." She was not enlightened, but intelligent enough to see the difference in me.

I said, "Yes, I am no longer the same, and I have come to share the experience that has happened to me."

She said, "Please, as far as I am concerned, always remain my Raja, my little child."

So I didn't say anything to her. One day passed, then in the middle of the night she woke me up. With tears in her eyes she said, "Forgive me. You are no longer the same. You may pretend but I can see through your pretense. There is no need to pretend. You can tell me what has happened to you. The child I used to know is dead, but someone far better and luminous has taken his place. I cannot call you my own anymore, but that does not matter. Now you will be able to be called by millions as theirs, and everybody will be able to feel you as his or hers. I withdraw my claim—but teach me also the way."

This is the first time I have told anybody. My Nani was my first disciple. I taught her the way. My way is simple: to be silent, to experience in one's self that which is always the observer, and never the observed; to know the knower, and forget the known.

My way is simple, as simple as Lao Tzu's, Chuang Tzu's, Krishna's, Christ's, Moses', Zarathustra's…because only the names differ, the way is the same. Only pilgrims are different; the pilgrimage is the same. And the truth, the process, is very simple.

I was fortunate to have had my own grandmother as my first disciple, because I have never found anybody else to be so simple. I have found many very simple people, very close to her simplicity, but the profoundness of her simplicity was such that nobody has ever been able to transcend it, not even my father. He was simple, utterly simple, and very profound, but not in comparison to her. I am sorry to say, he was far away, and my mother is very very far away; she is not even close to my father's simplicity.

You will be surprised to know—and I am declaring it for the first time—my Nani was not only my first disciple, she was my first enlightened disciple too, and she became enlightened long before I started initiating people into sannyas. She was never a sannyasin.

 

She died in 1970, the year when I started initiating people into sannyas. She was on her deathbed when she heard about my movement. Although I did not hear it myself, one of my brothers reported to me that these were her last words.... "It was as if she were talking to you," my brother told me. "She said, `Raja, now you have started a movement of sannyas, but it is too late. I cannot be your sannyasin because by the time you reach here I will not be in this body, but let it be reported to you that I wanted to be your sannyasin.'"

 

She died before I reached her, exactly twelve hours before. It was a long journey from Bombay to that small village, but she had insisted that nobody should touch her body until I arrived, then whatever I decided should be done. If I wanted her body to be buried, then it would be okay. If I wanted her body to be burned, that too would be okay. If I wanted something else to happen, then that too would be okay.

 

When I reached home I could not believe my eyes: she was eighty years of age and yet looked so young. She had died twelve hours before, but still there was no sign of deterioration. I said to her, "Nani, I have come. I know you will not be able to answer me this time. I'm just telling you so that you can hear. There is no need to answer." Suddenly, almost a miracle! Not only was I present, but my father too, and the whole family, were there. In fact the whole neighborhood had gathered. They all saw one thing: a tear rolled down from her left eye -- after twelve hours!

 

Doctors -- please note it, Devaraj -- had declared her dead. Now, dead men don't weep; even real men rarely do, what to say about dead men? But there was a tear rolling from her eye. I took it as an answer, and what more could be expected? I gave fire to her funeral, as was her wish. I did not do that even to my father's body.

 

In India it is almost an absolute law that the eldest son should begin the fire for his father's funeral pyre. I did not do it. As far as my father's body was concerned, I did not even go to his funeral. The last funeral I attended was my Nani's.

 

That day I told my father, "Listen, Dadda, I will not be able to come to your funeral."

 

He said, "What nonsense are you saying? I am still alive."

 

I said, "I know you are still alive, but for how long? Just the other day Nani was alive; tomorrow you may not be. I don't want to take any chances. I want to say right now that I have decided I will not attend any other funeral after my Nani's, so please forgive me, I will not be coming to your funeral. Of course you will not be there so I am asking your forgiveness today."

 

He understood and was a little shocked of course, but he said, "Okay, if this is your decision, but who then is going to give fire at my funeral?"

 

This is a very significant question in India. In that context it would normally be the eldest son. I said to him, "You already know I am a hobo. I don't possess anything."

 

Magga Baba, although utterly poor, had two possessions: his blanket and his magga -- the cup. I don't have any possessions, although I live like a king. But I don't possess anything. Nothing is mine. If one day someone comes and says to me, "Leave this place at once," I will leave immediately. I will not even have to pack anything. Nothing is mine. That's how one day I left Bombay. Nobody could believe that I would leave so easily without looking back, even once.

 

I could not go to my father's funeral, but I had asked his permission beforehand, a long time before, at my Nani's funeral. My Nani was not a sannyasin, but she was a sannyasin in other ways, in every other way except that I had not given her a name. She died in orange. Although I had not asked her to wear orange, but on the day she became enlightened she stopped wearing her white dress.

 

In India a widow has to wear white. And why only a widow? -- so that she does not look beautiful, a natural logic. And she has to shave her head! Look... what to call these bastards! Just to make a woman ugly they cut off her hair and don't allow her to use any other color than white. They take all the colorfulness from her life. She cannot attend any celebration, not even the marriage of her own son or daughter! Celebration as such is prohibited for her. The day my Nani became enlightened, I remember -- I have noted it down, it will be somewhere -- it was the sixteenth of January, 1967.

 

I say without hesitation that she was my first sannyasin; and not only that, she was my first enlightened sannyasin.

 

You are both doctors, and you know Doctor Ajit Saraswati well. He has been with me for almost twenty years, and I don't know anybody else who has been so sincerely with me. You will be surprised to know he is waiting outside... and there is every possibility that he is almost ready to be enlightened. He has come to live here in the ashram. It must have been difficult for him, particularly as an Indian, leaving his wife, his children, and his profession. But he could not live without me. He is ready to renounce all. He is waiting outside. This will be his first interview, and I can feel that this is going to be his enlightenment too. He has earned it, and earned it with great difficulty. To be an Indian, and to be totally with me is not an easy job.

 

- Osho, "Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, #16"

 

 

 

 

And, I have to confess, after Magga Baba he was the second man who recognized that something immeasurable had happened to me. Of course he was not a mystic, but a poet has the capacity, once in a while, to be a mystic, and he was a great poet. He was also great because he never bothered to publish his work. He never bothered to read at any gathering of poets. It looked strange that he would read his poetry to a nine-year-old child, and he would ask me, "Is it of any worth? Or just worthless?"

 

Now his poetry is published, but he is no more. It was published in his memory. It does not contain his best work because the people who chose it, none of them were even poets, and it needs a mystic to choose from Shambhu Babu's poetry. I know everything he wrote. There was not much, a few articles, and very few poems, and a few stories, but in a strange way they all connect with a single theme.

 

The theme is life, not as a philosophical concept but as it is lived moment to moment. Life with a small "l" will do, because he would never forgive me if you wrote Life with a capital "L." He was against capital letters. He never wrote any word with capitals. Even the beginning of a sentence would always be written with small letters. He would even write his own name in small letters. I asked him, "What is wrong with capital letters? Why are you so against them, Shambhu Babu?"

 

He said, "I am not against them, but I am in love with the immediate, not the faraway. I am in love with small things: a cup of tea, a swim in the river, a sunbath.... I am in love with little things, and they cannot be written with capital letters."

 

I understand him, so when I say that although he was not an enlightened Master, not a master in any way, I still count him as number two, after Magga Baba, because he recognized me when it was impossible to do so, absolutely impossible. I may not have even recognized myself, but he recognized me.

 

When I entered his vice-president's office for the first time and we looked at each other, eye to eye, for a moment there was just silence. Then he stood up and said to me, "Please sit down."

 

I said, "There is no need for you to stand up."

 

He said, "It is not a question of need, and it makes me so happy to stand up for you. I have never felt that before -- and I have stood before the governor and all the so-called powerful people. I have seen the viceroy in New Delhi, but I was not mystified as I am by you, I confess. Please don't tell anybody."

 

And this is for the first time that I have ever told it. I have kept it a secret all these years, forty years. It feels like a relief.

 

This morning Gudia said, "You slept so late."

 

Yes, last night I slept, for the first time in many years, as I would like to sleep every night. During the whole night I was not disturbed even for a single moment. Usually I have to look at my watch once in a while just to see whether it is time to get up. But last night, after many years, I did not look at my watch at all.

 

I even had to miss Devaraj's concoction. That's what I call his special breakfast mixture. It is a concoction but it is really good. It is difficult to eat because it takes half an hour just to chew it, but it is really healthy and nourishing. We should make it available to everybody -- Devaraj's concoction for breakfast. Of course it is not fast, it is slow, very, very slow. Can we call it a "break-slow"? But then it would not sound right.

 

I had to miss breakfast today for two reasons: first, I had to keep Devageet's time, and still I was five minutes late, and I don't like to be late. Secondly, if I had started that concoction it would have taken so much time to eat that by the time I had finished, it would have been lunch time. There would have been no gap, which is needed. So I thought I would miss it. But I really enjoy it, and in missing it, I really miss it.

 

Last night was one of the rarest for the simple reason that yesterday I spoke to you about Shambhu Babu, and it relieved me of a weight. I also talked about my father and the continuous struggle and how it ended. I felt so unburdened.

 

Shambhu Babu was a man who could have become a realized one, but missed it. He missed because of too much intellectuality. He was an intellectual giant. He could not sit silently even for a single moment. I was present when he died. It is a strange destiny that I have to see everyone I love die.

 

I was not very far away when he was dying. He phoned just before to say, "Come quickly if you can because I don't think that I can last long. I mean," he said, "that I can't last even a few days."

 

I immediately rushed to the village. It was only eighty miles from Jabalpur, and I got there within two hours. He was so happy. He again looked at me with the same look as when we had first met, when I had been about nine years old. There was a very eloquent silence. Nothing was said, but everything was heard.

 

Holding his hands I told him, "Please close your eyes, don't strain."

 

He said, "No. The eyes are going to close very soon of their own accord, and then I won't be able to open them. So please don't ask me to close my eyes. I want to see you. Perhaps I may not be able to see you again. One thing is certain," he said, "that you are not coming back to life. Alas, had I listened to you! You always insisted on being silent but I continued to postpone. Now there is no time even to postpone."

 

Tears came to his eyes. I remained without saying anything, just with him. He closed his eyes and died.

 

He had such beautiful eyes, and such an intelligent face. I know many beautiful people but it is very rare to have the beauty of that man. It is not man-made, certainly not made in India. He was, and still is, one of my most loved ones. Although he has not yet entered into a body again, I am waiting for him.

 

This is a multi-purpose ashram. A few purposes are known to you, and a few are known only to me. This is one of the purposes unknown to the organizers of the ashram, that I am awaiting a few souls. I am even preparing couples to receive them. Shambhu Babu will be here before long.

 

There are so many memories concerning this man that I will have to refer to him again and again. But today, just his death.

 

Strange that I should talk about his death first and the other things later on. No, as far as I am concerned it is not strange, because to me the moment of death opens a man as nothing else does. Not even love can do that miracle. It tries to, but lovers prevent it, because in love two people are needed; in death only one is enough unto oneself. That's because there is no disturbance from the other. I saw Shambhu Babu dying with such a relaxed joyous attitude that I cannot forget his face.

 

You will be surprised to know that he had the face of -- guess who? -- almost the same face as the ex-president of America, Richard Nixon! But without the ugliness hidden in every cell and fiber of Nixon...! Otherwise Shambhu Babu would have been the president of India. He was far more intelligent than the so-called president of India, Sanjiva. But I mean photographically he looked very similar to Nixon in his younger days. Of course, when a different soul is there even the same face has a different aura, a different -- how to say it -- a different, altogether different significance. So please don't misunderstand me, because you all know Richard Nixon while only I knew Shambhu Babu, so misunderstanding is bound to happen.

 

Please forget that I said that they looked alike, just forget it. It is better that you don't know Shambhu Babu's face at all rather than you start thinking of him as Richard Nixon. But I must confess that I have a soft spot for Richard Nixon, just because he resembles Shambhu Babu. You have to forgive me that; I know he does not deserve it, but I cannot help it either. Whenever I see his picture all I see is Shambhu Babu, and not Nixon at all.

 

When Nixon became president of America, I said to myself, "Aha! So at least a man resembling Shambhu Babu has become president of America." I would have loved Shambhu Babu to be the president of America; of course that was not possible, but the resemblance consoles me. When Nixon did what he did, I felt ashamed, again, because he resembles Shambhu Babu. And when he had to resign the presidency I was sad, not because of him -- I had nothing to do with him -- but because now I would not see Shambhu Babu's face again in the newspapers.

 

Now, there is no problem because I don't read the newspapers any more. I have not read them for years. I used to finish reading four newspapers within one minute, but for more than two years I have not even looked at one. And I don't read any books. I simply don't read. I have become uneducated again, just as I always wanted to be. If my father had not dragged me into that school... but he did drag me. And what all those schools and colleges and university did to me took so much energy to undo, but I have succeeded in undoing it all.

 

I have undone everything that society did to me. I am again just an uneducated, wild boy from -- you don't use the word in English.... In Hindi, a man from a village is called a gamar. A village is called a gam, and the villager is called a gamar. But gamar also means "fool" and they have become intermixed, so much so that nobody now thinks that the word gamar means villager; everybody thinks it means fool.

 

I came from the village utterly blank, with nothing written on me. Even while I was away from that village I had remained a wild boy. I have never allowed anybody to write anything on me. People are always ready... not only ready but insistent that they write something on you. I had come from the village empty, and I can say now that all that has been written in between I have erased, and erased completely. In fact I have demolished the wall itself so you cannot write anything on it ever again.

 

Shambhu Babu could have done this too. I know he was capable of it, of becoming a Buddha, but it didn't happen. Perhaps his very profession -- he was a lawyer -- prevented it. I have heard of all kinds of people becoming buddhas, but I have never heard of any lawyer becoming a Buddha. I don't think anybody from that profession could become a Buddha unless he really renounced all that he had learned. Shambhu Babu could not gather that courage, and I feel sorry for him. I don't feel sorry for anybody else because I have never come across anybody else who was so capable and yet did not take the jump.

 

I used to ask him, "Shambhu Babu, what is the hitch?"

 

And he would always say the same thing: "How can I explain it? I don't know exactly what the hitch is, but there must be something preventing me."

 

I know what it was, but he also knew it although he never recognized that he knew it. And he knew that I knew that he knew it. He would always close his eyes whenever I would ask the question -- and I am a stubborn man; again and again I would ask him, "What is the hitch?"

 

He would close his eyes, just not to face me eye to eye, because that was the one situation where he could not lie. I mean he could not be a lawyer... liar. But now that he is dead I can say that even though he was not a Buddha, he was almost a Buddha, which I will never say about anybody else again. I will keep this special category, of almost-a-Buddha, for Shambhu Babu.

 

- Osho, "Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, #21"

 

 

 

 

After my enlightenment, for exactly one thousand, three hundred and fifteen days I tried to remain silent -- as much as it was possible in those conditions. For a few things I had to speak, but my speaking was telegraphic. My father was very angry with me. He loved me so much that he had every right to be angry. The day he had sent me to the university he had taken a promise from me that I would write one letter every week at least. When I became silent I wrote him the last letter and told him, "I am happy, immensely happy, ultimately happy, and I know from my very depth of being that I will remain so now forever, whether in the body or not in the body. This bliss is something of the eternal. So now every week, if you insist, I can write the same again and again. That will not look okay, but I have promised, so I will drop a card every week with the sign "ditto." Please forgive me, and when you receive my letter with the sign "ditto," you read this letter."

 

He thought I had gone completely mad. He immediately rushed from the village, came to the university and asked me, "What has happened to you? Seeing your letter and your idea of this 'ditto,' I thought you were mad. But looking at you, it seems I am mad; the whole world is mad. I take back the promise and the word that you have given to me. There is no need now to write every week. I will continue to read your last letter." And he kept it to the very last day he died; it was under his pillow.

 

The man who forced me to speak -- for one thousand, three hundred and fifteen days I had remained silent -- was also a very strange man. He himself had remained silent his whole life. Nobody heard about him; nobody knew about him. And he was the most precious man I have come across in this, or any of my lives in the past. His name was Magga Baba. It is not much of a name; magga simply means a jug. He used to carry a jug -- that was his only possession, a plastic jug. From the same jug he would drink, he would ask for food with it. People would drop anything in the jug: money, food, water. And that was all he had. Anybody who wanted to take from his jug was also allowed. So people would take out money, or food -- children particularly, beggars. He neither prevented anybody from dropping, nor did he prevent anybody from taking. And he was absolutely silent, so nobody had any idea even of his name, because he had never said what his name was. They simply started calling him Magga Baba because of the jug.

 

But deep in the night, once in a while when there was nobody, I used to visit him. It was very difficult to find a time when nobody was there, because he attracted strange types of people. He was not speaking, so of course intellectuals were not going to him -- just simple people. And what can you do with him? In India, to go to a man who has realized is called seva. Literally it means service, but it will not be justified because that word seva has a sacredness about it which service has not. When you go to a realized man what else can you do than serve him? So people would come and massage his feet and somebody would massage his head, and he would not say anything to anybody. He would neither say yes, nor would he say no. Sometimes they wouldn't allow him even to sleep, because four or five people were massaging him; they were doing seva. Many times I had to throw people out. He was just living on a porch of a bungalow, open from all sides. Once in a while, particularly on cold winter nights, I used to find him alone; then he would say something to me.

 

He forced me to speak. He said, "Look, I have remained silent my whole life, but they do not hear, they do not listen. They cannot understand it; it is beyond them. I have failed. I have not been able to convey what I have been carrying within me, and now there is not much time left for me. You are so young, you have a long life before you: please don't stop speaking. START!" It is a difficult, almost impossible job to convey things in words, because they are experienced in a wordless state of consciousness. How to convert that silence into sound? There seems to be no way. And there is none.

 

But I understood Magga Baba's point. He was very old, and he was saying to me, "You will be in the same position. If you don't start soon, the inner silence, the vacuum, the innermost zero, will go on pulling you inwards. And then there comes a time when you cannot come out. You are drowned in it. You are utterly blissful, but the whole world is full of misery. You could have shown the way. Perhaps somebody may have heard, perhaps somebody may have walked on the path. At least you would not feel that you have not done what was expected of you by existence itself. Yes, it is a responsibility."

 

I promised him, "I will do my best." And for thirty years continually I went on and on talking on every subject under the stars. But I came to a point which Magga Baba had not come to. He saved me from his disappointment; but I came to a new realization, a new point. I had thrown my net far and wide to catch as many people as have the potential to blossom. But then I felt that words are not enough.

 

Now I have found my people and I have to arrange a silent communion, which will help in two ways: those who cannot understand silence will drop out. That will be good. That will be a good weeding; otherwise they will go on clinging around me because of the words, because their intellect feels satisfied. And I am not here to satisfy their intellect. My purpose is far, far deeper, of a different dimension.

 

So these days of silence have helped those who were just intellectually curious, rationally interested in me, to turn their back. And secondly, it has helped me to find my real, authentic people who are not in need of words to be with me. They can be with me without words. That's the difference between communication and communion.

 

Communication is through words, and communion is through silence.

 

So these days of silence have been immensely fruitful. Now only those are left for whom my presence is enough, my being is enough, for whom just the gesture of my hand is enough, for whom my eyes are enough -- for whom language is no more a need.

 

But today I have suddenly decided to speak again -- again after one thousand, three hundred and fifteen days -- for the simple reason that the picture that I have been painting all my life needs a few touches here and there to complete it, because that one day when I became silent everything was left incomplete. Before I depart from you as far as my physical body is concerned, I would like to complete it.

 

- Osho, “From Unconciousness to Consciousness, #1”
(*Note: Between 1981 and 1984, Osho observed a period of silence lasting 1,315 days. Osho has indicated that while Magga Baba encouraged him to teach, he warned Osho not to declare his enlightenment as this would create antagonism. Osho did not publicly acknowledge his enlightenment until 1971.)

 

 

 

My experience is that once you are enlightened, you are so full, just like a rain cloud, you want to shower. Yes, even in Texas!

 

- Osho, "The Invitation, #6"

 

 

 

The moment I was fulfilled, the moment I was blessed by truth, of course I wanted it to be shared; and it was natural that I would share it with my father, with my mother, with my brothers, with my sisters, whom I had known longer than anybody else. And I shared it. 

 

- Osho, "From Unconciousness to Consciousness, #23"

 

 

 

 

Question 3

Osho,

The silences between your words are becoming more and more nourishing to me. often when a word comes after a gap of silence, i am surprised and i wonder how it is that, with your being in such silence, you are able to speak so articulately -- it seems like it would require such tremendous effort.

Would you please say something about the relationship between enlightenment and language?

 

 

Puja Melissa, I am just a storyteller. From my very childhood I have loved to tell stories, real, unreal. I was not at all aware that this telling of stories would give me an articulateness, and that it would be of tremendous help after enlightenment.

 

Many people become enlightened, but not all of them become masters -- for the simple reason that they are not articulate, they cannot convey what they feel, they cannot communicate what they have experienced. Now it was just accidental with me, and I think it must have been accidental with those few people who became masters, because there is no training course for it. And I can say it with certainty only about myself.

 

When enlightenment came, I could not speak for seven days; the silence was so profound that even the idea of saying anything about it did not arise. But after seven days, slowly, as I became accustomed to the silence, to the beautitude, to the bliss, the desire to share it -- a great longing to share it with those whom I loved was very natural.

 

I started talking with the people with whom I was in some way concerned, friends. I had been talking to these people for years, talking about all kinds of things. I had enjoyed only one exercise, and that was talking, so it was not very difficult to start talking about the enlightenment -- although it took years to refine and bring into words something of my silence, something of my joy.

 

You are asking what the relationship is between enlightenment and language. No relationship at all, because enlightenment happens in silence; there is no language, no chattering of the mind, not even a single word. And most of the enlightened people have remained silent their whole life.

 

Just here in this city a few years ago was a man, Meher Baba. He lived more than thirty years in silence. He was announcing every year that he would be speaking. The date would come, his disciples would gather, they would come from faraway lands -- and again he would not speak. He could not manage a connection between silence and language.

 

If you have not been a poet before you become enlightened, after enlightenment you cannot express yourself in poetry. But if you have been a poet before then you have a mind trained for poetry. Now this mind can be used as an instrument to express what has happened to you -- the mysterious. If you have been a painter before, you can paint your enlightenment. Your paintings will give a peace to the eyes and those who sit by the side of your paintings -- just watching them -- will fall into meditation. So it all depends on what kind of mind you had at the time of enlightenment.

 

If you were an architect, after enlightenment you can create a Taj Mahal, or the temples of Khajuraho, or the caves of Ajanta and Ellora. But your mind has to be ready for it before enlightenment. After enlightenment you cannot do anything with the untrained mind.

 

I have loved talking on all kinds of subjects. I was a trouble in school; mostly I was standing outside the room, because the teacher would throw me out. He would give me the alternative, "Either you remain silent or you go out." I thought it was better to go out. But from the window I continued questioning.

 

My teachers used to hit their heads with their hands. "What kind of person are you? You don't even understand that you are punished! Just go and run seven rounds of the whole campus." I would say, "If I do ten rounds, do you have any objections?" He said, "My God, I am not rewarding you." And I would say, "Because I have not done my everyday morning exercise -- it is a beautiful exercise...."

 

I was expelled from many colleges, expelled from universities, because no professor could cope with me. They would threaten the vice-chancellor, "We will resign if this boy continues to be in the university, because he is not allowing us to move a single inch. You say a single word and he raises so many questions -- when are we going to do the course?"

 

I was told by vice-chancellors, "We cannot lose our well-respected professor -- he has served many years, and he is known all over the country -- just because of an unknown student." I said, "I'm perfectly ready; you will just have to make arrangements for me in another university. I will do the same there, because I am not wrong. Your professor is saying things which are out of date -- things which have been proved wrong. He's not up to date in his information. And you are punishing me just because I am an unknown student. But remember, someday I can become a well-known person."

 

And when I told them the whole problem -- what the professor was saying and what my question was, they understood, saying, "You are right, but still we cannot, because that professor has not turned up for three days. He has sent his resignation. We will not expel you, but I will talk to some other college or university..."

 

And when I would go to some other university, their first condition was, "You are not supposed to ask any questions." I said, "What kind of university is this? If the professor is talking nonsense and I am not supposed to ask questions, this is not a seat of learning." They said, "We don't want to discuss it; your vice-chancellor phoned me saying, `Somehow accept him.' I can accept you only on one condition -- that you will not ask questions."

 

I said, "That is impossible. When I see someone is falling into a ditch, I cannot resist preventing him; I will forget the promise. The only solution is that you give me enough percentage for being present in the university, and I will not come at all."

 

And finally this was what they had to agree to -- that they would give me enough percentage for being present so that I could appear in the examination, but I need not come to the university again; just when the examinations came, I would come. So most of my time was spent in the libraries, not in the classes.

 

It was just accidental that I became acquainted with the subtle nuances of words, their beauty, their poetry; so when enlightenment overwhelmed me, slowly slowly I was able to at least give some indication of the beyond. But it was purely an accident.

 

A poor Jew is walking down the street, when he sees a rich funeral procession go by -- black Rolls Royces, lots of flowers, women in furs, a bronze-handled coffin. He shakes his head: "Now that's what I call living."

 

There is no relationship between enlightenment and language; just as there is no relationship between enlightenment and poetry, painting, singing, dancing, music and pottery. But if you become enlightened, and you were already a good potter, after enlightenment your pottery will have a new significance. It has happened in this country... Gorak, one of the great masters, was a potter. After his enlightenment, he continued -- that was the only art that he knew. But the art changed totally. His pottery became almost sculpture.

 

Another man was Kabir, who was a weaver. When he became enlightened he continued to weave, but his weaving of the clothes became a totally different thing than for any other weaver in the whole history of mankind. The love, the blissfulness, the silence -- as if it all became part of his weaving.

 

Raidas, another master, was a shoemaker. When he became enlightened he continued shoemaking, but now his shoes were such that people would love not to wear them on their feet, but to keep them on their heads! They were coming from a source; they showed the love, they showed the blessings of the man. It was no ordinary shoemaking -- it had a quality of its own.

 

A little old lady was at the doctor's to get the result of her last week's test. "Well, it will come as a shock," the doctor told her, "so brace yourself for the news."

 

"Don't worry, doctor," said the shriveled old crone. "Tell me the worst, I am ready to die."

 

"Those cramps in your stomach... well, the tests show that you are pregnant."

 

"But that is impossible, doctor. I'm seventy-eight years old. How am I going to tell my husband? He's eighty-eight years old. The shock will kill him."

 

"I'm afraid there is no doubt about the pregnancy," the doctor told her, "but if you would like to call your husband from here, please do." The little old lady dialed her home number.

 

"Hello," said her husband.

 

"Hello, dear," she answered. "I am at the doctor's and I have some news for you."

 

"Yes?" said her husband.

 

"Well," she continued, "I had been having these cramps in my stomach, and the doctor has just told me I'm pregnant."

 

There was a long pause... then, "Who did you say was calling?"

 

A lifelong practice... it does not make any difference whether the person is eighty-eight years old -- he must be having girlfriends. The wife is worried, but the old fellow asks, "Who did you say was calling?"

 

Enlightenment can come to anybody at any age, but you will have to use your mind to communicate it, and that mind will be the old mind. If it is articulate in something, then that will become your expression. Haridas, a great musician and a master, never spoke about his enlightenment but only sang songs -- songs of tremendous beauty played on his sitar; and just his music conveyed something of his inner music.

 

Enlightenment is unrelated with anything, and after enlightenment it is very difficult -- almost impossible -- to train your mind. Mind becomes such a faraway reality, and you are so beyond.... The mind is in the valleys and you are on the sunlit peaks of a mountain. The distance is so much that unless the mind is already trained in something, there is no way other than to remain simply silent.

 

Most of the mystics have not spoken -- not a single word -- although a few very sensitive souls became aware that something great has happened to them. People started sitting by their side, at their feet, just to be showered by their silence and by their presence. It has been found to be tremendously blissful, but only for a very few, because the language of silence and the language of presence is not understood by many.

 

- Osho, “The Rebel, #2”

 

 

 

The mystic's greatest problem, greater than attaining his experience, is to express it.

 

- Osho, "Zarathustra: The Laughing Prophet, #7"

 

 

 

 

I have been in different phases of work. First, I was working on myself, then I was working to find the right expression to allow people to know what I have known, so for 20 years I have been travelling all over India; third, when I have found my people then I remain in one place, in Poona. That was a special experiment.

 

- Osho, "Silent Period, #6"

 

 

 

 

Question :

While you were speaking, this idea came! you say people have to be helped to be awakened, and basically, i think, none of the psychiatric or medical techniques are awakening the self. so how is it possible to create meditation courses if somebody is not awakened to lead those meditation courses?

 

It is not much of a problem. Even a man who has no cancer himself can be an expert in cancer surgery. You don't ask the surgeon, "Do you have any personal experience? Have you gone through cancer surgery?" No, he has just expertise, no experience, but his expertise can be used to give you an experience.

 

So it is not a question. If somebody has gone into meditation it is tremendously helpful to help others, because they will bring many problems, and if you have no experience it will be difficult for you to solve their problems. But you can make it clean and clear to them, "I have not experienced anything but I know the whole method. I can teach you the method, you can try it."

 

The method can be taught even through a tape recorder, a cassette. Not even a man is needed, just a cassette can be played and people can meditate accordingly. Of course, the cassette will not be able to answer your questions, but in fact there is no need to answer any questions. If you continue to meditate, those questions disappear by themselves.

 

So it is not an absolute necessity that only a man who knows meditation existentially can be a teacher.

 

Teachers and Masters are different things. The teacher is one who technically is an expert, who knows the method but has no experience. The Master is one who has the experience, who can even create methods, who can change old methods, who can make new methods, who can answer your questions. To have a Master is a benediction, but that is difficult: many will have to be satisfied with teachers. But even through a teacher you can become a Master. This is the miracle. It has happened many times that the master was not enlightened but the disciple became enlightened. The master was simply an expert about every step in detail. He taught the method and the disciple followed it -- and reached to that experience which the teacher himself was missing.

 

The teacher only gives information: the Master can give transformation. But if transformation is not available, then something is better than nothing. So even a teacher is good, rather than having no idea of what meditation is. Perhaps the teacher, seeing the disciples flowering, becoming blissful, silent, may start himself moving beyond knowledge into the world of existential experiencing. There is no harm anyway.

 

Right now you cannot find so many Masters, but one Master can create thousands of teachers immediately. Masters cannot be created. It is something that is unpredictable. It may happen to someone..., and even then, if somebody becomes enlightened it is not necessary that he will be able to become a Master -- or even a teacher. He may know, but he may not be articulate enough to lead others to the same experience. That is a different art.

 

It was easy for me to speak because I started speaking before I became enlightened. Speaking became almost a natural thing to me before I became enlightened.

 

I have never learned any oratory, never been to any school where oratory is taught. I have never even read a book on the art of speaking. From my very childhood, because I was argumentative and everybody wanted me to keep silent.... In the family, in the school, in the college, in the university, everybody was saying to me, "Don't speak at all!"

 

I was expelled from many colleges for the simple reason that teachers were complaining that they could not complete the syllabus, the course for the year, because "this student leads us into such arguments that nothing can be completed."

 

But all that gave me great opportunity and made me more and more articulate. It became just a natural thing to me to argue with the neighbors, to argue with the teachers, to argue on the street -- anywhere. Just to find a man was enough and I will start some argument.

 

Question : It was needed?

 

I loved it -- there was no question of need -- just the way I love it now! So when I became enlightened it was not difficult for me. It was very easy.

 

So everybody is not necessarily going to be a Master or a teacher. That is a totally different art.

 

For example, enlightenment does not make you a poet. There have been a few enlightened people who have written immensely beautiful poetry, but they were poets. Even if they had not become enlightened they would have been great poets; poetry was something inborn in them. They became enlightened -- that was a different phenomenon. They used their poetic abilities to express their enlightenment.

 

There have been painters who became enlightened. Then certainly their painting has a quality which no other painter can compete with. It is luminous with something mysterious. They have poured into the canvas something which only they can. Some enlightened people become... became sculptors. Their sculpture is something to sit silently and meditate upon. They were not just creating art, they were using art to express the inexpressible. The way I am using words, they were using marble, stones, paints.

 

But thousands of enlightened people have lived on the earth and died silently because they did not have any talent to make their enlightenment available to other people in some way.

 

And there have been teachers who were not enlightened but many of their disciples became enlightened. These teachers had the articulateness of expressing something which they don't know, they have just heard about.

 

You will be surprised to know that every Buddhist scripture starts with the words, "I have heard." It is written by a teacher, not by a Master -- every scripture. Buddha has not written anything. He was a Master. Ananda, his disciple, who goes on writing, is very sincere. He simply goes on writing every scripture with the words, "I have heard Gautam the Buddha saying this." He does not say, "This is my experience" -- he cannot say it. But he was very articulate. He managed to collect tremendous treasure for centuries to come. Many have become enlightened through Ananda and his scriptures, but he himself became enlightened only after Buddha's death.

 

And then comes a second surprise. When he became enlightened, he never spoke. Asked why, he said, "That will be ungrateful towards the Master. I cannot say things the way he could. I cannot put the same fragrance in my words, the way he was capable of. It is better for me to remain silent now. All that is worth saying he has said, and I have collected it."

 

But when he collected it, he was not enlightened. And when he became enlightened he declined to write anything, to say anything, for the simple reason, "It will be sheer ungratefulness to the Master and it will be cheap compared to him. He has showered such a treasure and I am a poor man: whatever I say will not stand any comparison. I know now what he knew, but he was he and I am I. I am still just a disciple.“ Okay?

 

- Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 3, #19"

 

 

 

 

Question :

How did you first get your inspiration for your philosophy, your approach to religion and life? when was it that you first started thinking about it, and how?

 

Very difficult to answer, because from my very childhood, as long as I remember, I have been arguing, fighting. Of course, a child will fight and argue in a child's way, but from my very childhood I have never been ready to accept anything without being rationally convinced about it. And I found very soon, very early in life, that all these people with very big heads -- professors, heads of the departments, deans, vice-chancellors -- are just hollow. You just a scratch a little bit, you find nothing inside. They don't have any argument for what they have been thinking is their own philosophy. They have borrowed it, they have never discovered it on their own. So I have been continuously fighting, and in this fighting I have been sharpening my own argument. I don't have a philosophy of my own. my whole function is deprogramming, so whatever you say, I will destroy it. And I never say anything, so I never give any chance to anybody to destroy it. My purpose is to deprogram you, to clean you, to uncondition you and leave you fresh, young, innocent. And from there you can grow into a real, authentic individual -- otherwise you are just a personality, not an individuality. A personality is borrowed, it is a mask. And my whole effort is how to help a person to be authentic, to be himself, naked. My sannyasins are neither Hindus nor Mohammedans nor Christians nor communists; they are simply human beings. It really takes guts to drop all the rubbish of the ages. Okay? Good.

 

- Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol 3, #25"

 

 

 

 

Question 1

Osho,

You have described how the ability to communicate his experience is the essence of the master. yet in you something even more beautiful has happened.

 

Buddha conveyed his message to a select few thousand men in the local pali language -- in response to the failings of brahminism.

 

By comparison, you are talking to millions of men and women from every continent, from every race, from every religion, from every possible background. rather than being restricted to the shortcomings of brahminism, you draw from, and synthesize, every spiritual, psychological and scientific element ever conceived by man.

 

You were able to express existence in hindi so poetically that people said you were the finest hindi speaker alive. on top of that, you are able to do the same in a second, foreign language, to people from these widely differing cultures who are, for the most part, a generation away. you don't just express yourself in that second language, but manage to catch the fine nuances and colloquialisms of everyday speech that usually only natives have a grasp of.

 

Osho, is this supreme ability to communicate what makes you the master of masters?

 

 

The situation of the world has changed dramatically. Just three hundred years ago, the world was very big. Even if Gautam Buddha had wanted to approach all human beings, it would not have been possible; just the means of communication were not available. People were living in many worlds, almost isolated from each other. That has a simplicity.

 

Jesus had to face the Jews, not the whole world. It would not have been possible, sitting on his donkey, to go around the world. Even if he had managed to cover the small kingdom of Judea, that would have been too much. The education of people was very confined. They were not even aware of each other's existence.

 

Gautam Buddha, Lao Tzu in China, Socrates in Athens -- they were all contemporaries but they had no idea of each other.

 

That's why I say that before the scientific revolution in the means of communication and in the means of transportation, there were many worlds, sufficient unto themselves. They never thought of others, they had no idea even that others existed. As people became acquainted more and more with each other, the world became smaller. Now a Buddha will not be able to manage, nor Jesus nor Moses nor Confucius. They will all have very localized minds and very localized attitudes.

 

We are fortunate that the world is now so small that you cannot be local. In spite of yourself, you cannot be local; you have to be universal. You have to think of Confucius, you have to think of Krishna, you have to think of Socrates, you have to think of Bertrand Russell. Unless you think of the world as one single unit, and all the contributions of different geniuses, you will not be able to talk to the modern man. The gap will be so big -- twenty-five centuries, twenty centuries... almost impossible to bridge it.

 

The only way to bridge it is that the person who has come to know should not stop at his own knowing, should not be contented to only give expression to what he has come to know. He has to make a tremendous effort to know all the languages. The work is vast, but it is exciting -- the exploration into human genius from different dimensions.

 

And if you have within yourself the light of understanding, you can create, without any difficulty, a synthesis. And the synthesis is not only going to be of all the religious mystics -- that will be partial. The synthesis has to include all the artists -- their insights -- all the musicians, all the poets, all the dancers -- their insights. All the creative people who have contributed to life, who have made humanity richer, have to be taken into account. And most important of all is scientific growth.

 

To bring scientific growth into a synthetic vision with heart and religion was not possible in the past. In the first place there was no science -- and it has changed a thousand and one things. Life can never be the same again.

 

And nobody has thought ever of the artistic people, that their contribution is also religious.

 

In my vision it is a triangle -- science, religion, art.

 

And they are such different dimensions, they speak different languages, they contradict each other; they are not in agreement superficially -- unless you have a deep insight in which they all can melt and become one.

 

My effort has been to do almost the impossible.

 

In my university days as a student, my professors were at a loss. I was a student of philosophy, and I was attending science classes -- physics, chemistry and biology. Those professors were feeling very strange; "You are here in the university to study philosophy. Why are you wasting your time with chemistry?"

 

I said, "I have nothing to do with chemistry; I just want to have a clear insight into what chemistry has done, what physics has done. I don't want to go into details, I just want the essential contribution."

 

I was rarely in my classes, I was mostly in the library. My professors were continually saying, "What are you doing the whole day in the library? -- because so many complaints have come from the librarian that you are the first to enter the library, and you have to be almost physically taken out of the library. The whole day you are there. And not only in the philosophical department, you are roaming around the library in all the departments which have nothing to do with you."

 

I said to them, "It is difficult for me to explain to you, but my effort in the future is going to be to bring everything that has some truth in it into a synthetic whole and create a way of life which is inclusive of all, which is not based on arguments and contradictions, which is based on a deep insight into the essential core of all the contributions that have been made to human knowledge, to human wisdom."

 

They thought I would go mad -- the task I have chosen can lead anyone to madness, it is too vast. But they were not aware that madness is impossible for me, that I have left the mind far behind; I am just a watcher.

 

And the mind is such a delicate and complicated computer. Man has made great computers but none is yet comparable to the human mind. Just a single human mind has the capacity to contain all the libraries of the world. And just a single library -- the British Museum library -- has books, which if you go on making them like a wall, one by one, they will go three times round the earth. And that is only one big library. Moscow has the same kind of library -- perhaps bigger. Harvard has the same kind of library.

 

But a single human mind is capable of containing all that is written in all these books, of memorizing it. In a single brain there are more than a billion cells, and each single cell is capable of containing millions of pieces of information. Certainly one will go mad if one is not already standing out of the mind. If you have not reached the status of meditation, madness is sure. They were not wrong, but they were not aware of my efforts towards meditation.

 

So I was reading strange books, strange scriptures, from all over the world; yet I was only a watcher, because as far as I was concerned, I had come home. I had nothing to learn from all that reading; that reading was for a different purpose, and the purpose was to make my message universal, to make it free from local limitations.

 

And I am happy that I have succeeded in it completely. I don't have anything which is local. I don't have a land, a mother country. I don't have a house to live in. I don't have any place on this earth anywhere. This is a very strange situation.

 

I am a world citizen, but in the world I don't have even a space to stand, anywhere.

 

I can remain here only four or five days more; then I have to move. But perhaps that is good. What I have known through books, this way I am coming to know in reality.

 

I have become a universal gypsy.

 

Because you love me, you call me "master of masters." It is out of your love.

 

As far as I am concerned, I simply think of myself only an ordinary human being who was stubborn enough to remain independent, resisted all conditioning, never belonged to any religion, never belonged to any political party, never belonged to any organization, never belonged to any nation, any race.

 

I have tried in every possible way just to be myself, without any adjective; and that has given me so much integrity, individuality, authenticity, and the tremendous blissfulness of being fulfilled.

 

But it was the need of the time. After me, anybody trying to be a master will have to remember that he has to pass through all the things I have passed through; otherwise, he cannot be called a master. He will remain just localized -- a Hindu teacher, a Christian missionary, a Mohammedan priest -- but not a master of human beings as such.

 

After me it is going to be really difficult to be a master.

 

- Osho, "The Transmission of the Lamp, #37"