I will have to go in circles, circles within circles within circles, for that's how life is. And more so in my case. In nearly fifty years, I must have lived at least fifty lives. In fact, I have not done anything else other than living. Other people have many occupations, but from my very childhood I have remained a vagabond, not doing anything, just living. When you don't do anything except live, then of course life takes on a totally different dimension. It is no longer horizontal, it has depth.
Devageet, it is good that you were never my student, otherwise you would never have been a dentist. I would have been the last person to allow you any certificate. But here you can laugh and giggle thinking I am so relaxed, there is no problem. But remember, even if I am dead, I can come out of my grave to shout at you. That has been my whole business, my whole life.
I have not done anything in the sense of earning, of having a great bank balance, of becoming a powerful person politically. I have lived in my own way, and in that living, teaching has been an essential part. So, even here, forgive me, I cannot forget it: I am always the Master. You know, I know, everybody else in this room knows, that you are under me, and I am in the dental chair -- you are not. If I giggle, that can be forgiven: "Aha! The old man is enjoying himself!" Even Ashu is enjoying the idea, otherwise she is a serious woman, very serious. Women, once they are teachers, typists, nurses, something goes wrong in their scheme. They suddenly become so serious.
Yet it was Eve who was not serious, Adam was. The serpent could never have persuaded him. In fact, he tried many times; that's what the Egyptian story tells, and that is far more authentic than the biblical version. It is more ancient too. It says that the serpent tried with Adam, but could not get him hooked. Then finally, as a last resort, he tried Eve. It is better to call her Eva, just as the Egyptians do, it sounds more feminine -- Eva. The serpent succeeded at the very first attempt. Since then, all salesmen and advertisers have been aiming at Eva. They don't take any notice of the poor man who has to pay for everything Eva purchases. That is his problem, so why should they bother about it?
Eve, or Eva as I would like to call her -- I always like the beautiful, wherever it is. Eve does not sound very musical, and seems to be cut short, pruned, looks more like an English garden, not like a Zen garden. "Eva" has unlimited potential, just the sound of it, so let's call her Eva. Why did the devil succeed with her at his first attempt? For the simple reason that she was not business-minded.
She was not serious, must have laughed at the devil's jokes, must have talked joyously; gossiped I mean, and when you gossip with the devil, he is going to get the upper hand. If you laugh at his jokes, then he knows he has a way, he can approach your very being. That is how he persuaded poor Eva.
Since then, I think women have lost their very quality of being joyous. Even if they laugh, it is a muffled laugh. Even when they laugh they put their hands up to their face, as if somebody may see the great work their dentist has done on them. But here, in this room, there is no need to be serious. And it is good that today, for the first time, Ashu is laughing so clearly that I can hear. And why is she laughing? She is laughing because poor Devageet is being beaten. Naturally she laughs, and says to me -- I can hear what she is thinking -- "Give him a good slap, one more!" No, this is enough, otherwise I will go astray.
That's what I was saying: that life is a circle within a circle, within a circle -- and more so in my life. I have not lived in the way one is expected to live. I have not done anything else. Yes, I have just lived and done nothing else, but then it is too much: a single moment is almost an eternity! Just think of it....
So I will have to go on in the same way that I have lived. You will have to cope with me, there is no other way. I never coped with anybody, so I don't know how to, and even if I tried to learn now, it is too late. But you have been coping with every kind of person throughout your life.
I did not cope with my father, my mother, my uncles, who all were loving and helpful to me; nor my teachers, who were not my enemies; nor my professors, who always wanted, in spite of me, to help. But I could not cope with anybody, they all had to cope with me. Now it is too late. Things cannot be changed now. It was, and still is, a one-way affair.
You can cope with me, I am available. But I cannot cope with you, for two reasons: one, you are not available, not present. Even if I knock at your door, there's nobody inside -- and the neighbors inform me that the fellow has never been seen; the door is locked. Who locked it? -- nobody knows. Where is the key? -- perhaps lost. And even if I could find the key or break the lock -- which is far easier -- what would be the point? The fellow is not inside the house. I would not find you there; you are always somewhere else. Now, how to find you and cope with you? It is impossible.
Secondly, even if it were possible, just for argument's sake, I cannot do it. I have never done it. I don't know its mechanism. I am still simply a wild boy from the village.
Just the other night my secretary was crying and saying to me, "Why do you trust me, Osho? I am not worthy. I am not even worthy to show you my face."
I said, "Who is bothered about worthiness and unworthiness? And who is to decide? I, at least, am not going to decide. Why are you crying?"
She said, "Just the idea that you have chosen me to do your work. It is such a big task."
I said, "Forget all about the bigness of it, and just listen to what I say."
I have never done anything myself, so naturally I never bother about whether she will be able to do it or not. I simply say to her "Listen," and of course, when I say something she has to listen. Now, how she manages to do it is not my problem, nor is it her problem: she manages because I have said so. I have said it because I don't know anything about management. Do you see how perfectly I have chosen her? She fits. I am a misfit.
My grandmother was always worried. Again and again she would say "Raja, you will be a misfit. I tell you, you will always be a misfit."
I used to laugh and tell her, "The very word `misfit' is so beautiful that I have fallen in love with it. Now if I fit, remember, I will hit your head -- and when I say that, you know I mean it. I will really hit your head, if you are alive. If you are not alive then I will come to your grave, but I will certainly do something nasty. You can trust me."
She laughed even more, and said, "I take the challenge. I again say you will remain a misfit for ever, whether I am alive or dead. And you will never be able to hit my head because you will never be able to fit."
And she was certainly right. I was the misfit, everywhere. At the university where I was teaching I never joined in the annual staff photograph. The vice-chancellor once asked me, "I have noticed that you are the only staff member who never comes for our annual photograph. Everybody else comes because the photo is published, and who doesn't want his photo to be published?"
I said, "I certainly don't want to have my photograph published -- not along with so many donkeys. And that photograph would remain forever a blemish on my name, knowing that once I was associated with this company."
He was shocked, and said, "You call all these people donkeys? Including me?"
I said, "Of course including you. That's what I think," I told him, "and if you want to hear something nice, you have called the wrong man. Call one of the donkeys."
Not a single photograph exists in which I even participated while I was in service. I was such a misfit, I thought it was better not to be associated with those people with whom I had nothing in common. At university, I associated only with a tree, a gulmarg tree.
I don't know whether this kind of tree exists in the West or not, but it is one of the most beautiful trees in the East. Its shade is really cool. It does not grow high; it spreads its branches all around. Sometimes the branches of a single old gulmarg tree can cover enough land that five hundred people can easily sit beneath it. And when it flowers in the summer, thousands of flowers blossom simultaneously. It is not a miserly tree, producing one flower then another. No, suddenly, one night, all the buds open, and in the morning you cannot believe your eyes -- thousands of blossoms! And they are the color of sannyasins. I had only that tree as my friend.
I used to park my car beneath it for so many years that slowly everybody became aware not to park there: it was my place. I did not have to tell them, but by and by, slowly, it became accepted. Nobody would disturb that tree. If I was not coming, that tree waited for me. For years I parked under that tree. When I left university, I said good-bye to the vice-chancellor, and then I said, "I must go now, it is getting dark and my tree may go to sleep before the sun sets. I have to say goodbye to the gulmarg."

The vice-chancellor looked at me as if I was mad, but anybody would have looked just the same. That's the way to look at a misfit. But he still could not believe that I would do it. So he watched from his window while I said goodbye to the gulmarg.
I hugged the tree, and we remained together for a moment. The vice-chancellor rushed out, and came running to me saying, "Forgive me, just forgive me. I have never seen anybody hugging a tree, but now I know how much everybody is missing. I have never seen anybody say goodbye or good morning to a tree, but you have not only taught me a lesson, it has really sunk in."
After two months he phoned me, just to inform me saying, "It is sad, and very strange, but the day you left, something happened to your tree" -- it had now become my tree.
I said, "What has happened?"
He said, "It started dying. If you come now you will just see a dead tree, with no flowers or leaves. What has happened? That's why I phoned you."
I said, "You should have phoned the tree. How can I answer for the tree?"
For a moment there was silence, then he said, "It is as I always thought: you are mad!"
I said, "You are still not convinced, otherwise who phones a madman? You should have called the tree. And the tree is just outside your window -- no phone is needed."
He simply hung up. I laughed, but the next day in the early morning, before any of the idiots at the university were there, I went to see the tree. Yes, all its flowers were gone, and yet it was in season. All had gone -- not only the flowers but the leaves too. There were just naked branches standing against the sky. I again hugged the tree and knew it was dead. At the first hug there was a response; at the second hug there was nobody to respond. The tree had left; only its body was standing there, and may stand for years. Perhaps it is still standing, but it is just dead wood.
I could never manage to fit anywhere. As a student I was a nuisance. Every professor who taught me looked on me as a punishment that God had sent for him. I enjoyed being a messenger of God. I enjoyed it to the fullest. Who would not have enjoyed it? And if they thought I was a punishment, I proved to be exactly -- or more than -- what they expected.
Only a few have met me lately. Their first question was, "We cannot yet believe that you could have become enlightened. You were such a trouble-maker. We have forgotten all the students that studied with you, but even now we see you once in a while, in our nightmares."
I can understand it. I could not fit in with anything. Whatsoever they taught me was so mediocre that I had to fight against it. I had to tell them, "This is very mediocre...." Now, you can imagine saying this to a professor who had been hoping that you would appreciate his lecture-which he has been preparing for days -- and at the end of it a student stands up.... And I was a strange student, to say the least.
The first thing to be remembered is that I had long hair; and that long hair had an even longer history. I will come to it some day in some circle. That is the beauty of going in circles. You can come to the same point again and again, on a different level -- like going round and round towards the peak of a mountain: you come to the same view many times, on different levels. Each time is a little different because you are not standing in the same spot, but still the view is the same, perhaps more beautiful, perhaps far more beautiful, because you can see more....
I will come to this point sometime, but not today....
What is the time?
"One minute past eight, Osho."
Good. Just moisten my lips.
Today particularly I wanted to say that attention is a double-edged sword -- double-edged because it cuts both the listener and the speaker. It also joins them together. It is a very significant process. Gurdjieff had the right word for it, "crystallization."
If a man is really attentive, it does not matter what to -- to XYZ, to anything -- in that very process of being attentive he will become integrated, crystallized. By focusing himself on one thing he will become focused within his being.
But that is only half the story; the person who is listening attentively certainly attains crystallization. It is a well-known fact in all the eastern schools of meditation. Just being attentive to anything, even nonsense, will do; just a bottle of Coca-Cola will help immensely, particularly the Americans. Just looking at the bottle of Coca-Cola attentively, and you have the secret of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's transcendental meditation. But it is only half the truth, and a half truth can be more dangerous than a complete lie.
The other half is possible only if you are not just reading a book, or chanting a mantra, or looking at a statue; the other half is possible only if you are in deep synchronicity with a living person. I am not calling it love, because that can misguide you; not even friendship, because you will think you know it already. I will call it "synchronicity," just so you have to think about it and give it a little of your being.
When you feel really attentive, synchronicity happens. It may be just a sunset you are watching, or just a flower, or children playing on a lawn and you are enjoying their joyousness... but a certain harmony is needed. If it happens, there is attention. If it happens between a Master and a disciple, then certainly you have the most precious diamond possible in your hands.
I have told you that I have been fortunate, although I don't know why. There are things which one can only state; they are, and there is no reason why they are. The stars are; the roses are; the universe is -- or perhaps far better -- the universes are. It is better to call existence a multiverse rather than a universe. The idea of multiple dimensions has to be introduced.
Man has been dominated by the idea of "one" for too long. And I am a pagan. I don't believe in God, I believe in gods. To me a tree is a god, a mountain is a god, a man is a god, but not always; he has the potential. A woman is a god, but not always; more often she is a bitch, but that is her choice. She need not have chosen it; nobody has forced her.
Ordinarily, man is just a husband, which is an ugly word in every language. The word "husband" comes from "husbandry." That's what our sannyasins are doing -- gardening, agriculture.... From the word "agro" meaning "industry"... that is husbandry. And when you introduce someone as your husband, do you know what you are saying? Does that poor fellow know that he is being reduced to a farmer? But that's the whole idea; that man is the farmer, and woman is the field! Great ideas!
Man ordinarily remains very much tethered to the mundane, and woman even more so. She defeats man in every possible way. Of course she is the back seat driver, but she is the driver.
A man was stopped for speeding, and the cop was very angry because he was not only speeding, but he had no license, and what he showed as his license was just a ticket for a picture show they were going to. This was too much!
The cop said, "Now I am going to give you a real ticket!"
The wife shouted at the husband, "I have been telling you from the very beginning, but you never listen to me!" And she shouted so loudly that even the cop stopped writing the ticket and listened to what was happening. She said, "Where are your specs in the first place? You cannot see, and you are driving! Moreover you're so drunk that I have been continuously kicking you, yet I don't see any effect at all! It seems you have lost all sensitivity!" Then she turned to the cop and said, "Officer, send him to jail! He deserves at least six months' hard labor; less than that won't teach him anything!"
Even the cop could not understand that much punishment for just a little speeding. He said to the man, "Sir, you can go. God has already punished you enough by giving you this woman as a wife. That is enough. Even I feel sorry for you. I know why you lost your eyesight. Who would like to see this woman? And I know you are speeding because she is continuously kicking you. I'm really sorry for you." He said, "You go on speeding, but she will always be there. Speed so fast that she is left behind, really behind."
Man and woman both live such a mundane and ugly, really ugly life. I once pointed out to my grandmother the wife of one of my professors as she was passing through my village. I had told her, "My grandmother and my whole family live there and they would be happy to meet you."
I introduced her to my grandmother, and when she had left we both laughed. Neither of us said anything for a few moments. I laughed because my grandmother had had to tolerate the woman. She laughed, saying, "That's nothing -- you have to tolerate her husband. If she is terrible, he must be even more so."
I said, "I can only say this much: he certainly looks uglier than any passport photograph."
I have been teaching my whole life. I was rarely present in my school days either. They had to give me a seventy-five percent attendance record just to get rid of me. Even that was an absolute lie. I was absent ninety-nine percent of the time. That was the case throughout my school days, in high school and college.
In college, I even had an agreement with the principal, B.S. Audholia. He was a beautiful man. He was the principal of a college in Jabalpur, in the very center of India. Jabalpur has many colleges, and his was one of the most prominent. I had been expelled from one college because a professor was not prepared to remain in service if I was not expelled. That was his condition, and he was a respected professor... I may come to the details of that story later.
I had been expelled, naturally. Who cares about a poor student? And the professor was a Ph.D., D.Litt. et cetera, et cetera, and he had served in that college for almost his whole life. Now, to throw him out because of me -- whether I was right or wrong was not the question. That's what the principal said to me before he expelled me. He had to give me an explanation, so he called me. He must have thought I was just like any other student, trembling because I was about to be expelled. He had not expected that I would enter his office like an earthquake.
I shouted at him before he had a chance to say anything. I said, "You have proved yourself to be just a holy cow-dung." I used the Hindi word gobarganesh, which actually means "a statue made from cow-dung," and I hit on his table with my fist so hard that he stood up. I said, "Is there a spring in your table? I hit it, and you stood up! Sit down!" I said it so loudly that he sat down silently. He was afraid that others may hear, and perhaps rush in, particularly the man who was guarding the door.
He said, "Okay, I will sit down. What do you have to say?"
I said, "You call me here and you are asking me what do I have to say? I say that you should expel this other fellow, Doctor S.N.L. Shrivastava. He is just stupid, even with his Ph.D. and D.Litt. -- which makes it worse. I did not harm him, I simply asked questions which were completely legitimate. He teaches us logic, and if I am not allowed to use logic in his class, where am I to be logical? You tell me."
He said, "That sounds right. Obviously if he teaches you logic, you have to be logical."
I said, "Then call him, and just see who is logical."
The moment Doctor Shrivastava heard that I was in the principal's office and that he was being called, he escaped to his house. He didn't turn up for three days. I sat there for three days continuously, from the time the office opened till it closed. He finally wrote a letter to the principal, saying, "This cannot go on any longer, and," he wrote, "I don't want to face that boy. Either you expel him or you must relieve me of my duty."
The principal showed me the letter. I said, "Now it is okay. He is not capable of even encountering me in your presence, just once, so that you see who is logical. A taste of logic at least would not have been bad for you. But if he is not able to face me -- and this letter is enough proof that he is a coward -- I don't want him thrown out. I cannot be so heartless, because I know his wife and children and his responsibilities. Please expel me right now, and give it to me in writing that I am expelled."
He looked at me and said, "If I expel you it may be difficult for you to get admission in any other college."
I said, "That is my problem. I am a misfit -- I have to face these things."
It was after this had happened that I knocked on all the doors of all the principals in the city -- it is a city of colleges -- and all of them said, "If you were expelled then we cannot take the risk. We have heard the rumors that you have been arguing continuously for eight months with Doctor Shrivastava, and that you did not allow him to teach at all."
When I told the whole story to B.S. Audholia, he said, "I will take the risk, but with a condition." He was a good man, generous, but limited. I don't expect anybody to have unlimited generosity, but unless you have unlimited generosity you have missed the most beautiful experience of life. Yes, it was generous of him to even admit me, but the condition canceled much of it. The condition was good for me, but not for him. For him, it was a crime; for me it was an opportunity to be free.
He made me sign an agreement that I would not attend the philosophy class. I said, "This is perfectly good; in fact, what more could I ask? This is what I would love to do, not attend these idiots' lectures. I am willing to sign it, but remember, you also have to sign an agreement saying that you will give me seventy-five percent attendance."
He said, "That is a promise. I cannot give it in writing because it would create complications, but it's a promise."
I said, "I take your word, and I trust you."
And he kept his word. He gave me ninety percent attendance although I never attended the philosophy class in his college, even once.
I really did not attend primary school much because the river was so attractive, and its call was irresistible. So I was always at the river -- not alone of course, but with many other students. Then there was the forest beyond the river, and there was so much real geography to explore. Who bothered about the dirty map that they had in the school? I was not concerned where Constantinople was, I was exploring on my own: the jungle, the river -- there were so many other things to do.
For example, as my grandmother had slowly taught me to read, I started reading books. I don't think anybody before or after me had ever been so involved in the library of that town. Now they show everybody the place where I used to sit, and the place where I used to read and write notes. But in fact they should show people that this was the place from where they wanted to throw me out. They threatened me again and again.
But once I started reading, a new dimension opened. I swallowed the whole library, and I started reading the books that I love most to my grandmother at night. You will not believe it, but the first book I read to her was THE BOOK OF MIRDAD. That began a long series.
Of course once in a while, she used to ask, in the middle of a book, the meaning of a certain sentence, or passage, or a whole chapter; just the gist of it. I would say to her, "Nani, I have been reading it to you, and you have not heard it?"
She said, "You know, when you read I become so interested in your voice that I completely forget what you are reading. To me, you are my Mirdad. Unless you explain it to me, Mirdad will remain absolutely unknown as far as I am concerned."
So I had to explain to her, but that was a great discipline to me. To explain, to help the other person who is willing to go a little deeper than he could go on his own, to hold him by the hand, slowly, slowly, that became my whole life. I have not chosen it, not in the way it was chosen for J. Krishnamurti. It was imposed upon him by others. In the beginning even his speeches were written either by Annie Besant or Leadbeater; he simply repeated them. He was not on his own. It was all pre-planned, and done methodically.
I am an unplanned man, that is why I stay still wild. Sometimes I wonder what I am doing here, teaching people to be enlightened; and once they become enlightened, I immediately start teaching them how to become unenlightened again -- what am I doing?
I know now the time is coming closer when many of my sannyasins will just pop up into enlightenment. And I have started preparing, and working on the ground and the science of how to unenlighten so many enlightened souls again. This is what I have been doing. A strange kind of work, but I have enjoyed it to the fullest, and still I am enjoying it. I am going to enjoy to the very last breath, or even after it. I'm a little crazy you know, so I can do that, although no crazy man has done that yet. But somebody has to do it someday. Somebody has to break the ice. 

Chapter #27

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Okay. Do you see the synchronicity? Simultaneously, I and Devageet said, "Okay." Of course he said it for one thing, I for something else; but the lines cross.
The moment before I came in I was listening to one of the greatest flutists, Hari Prasad. It stirred many memories in me.
There are many types of flute in the world. The most important is the Arabic; the most beautiful, the Japanese; and there are many others. But there is nothing comparable to the small Indian bamboo flute for its sweetness. And Hari Prasad is certainly a master as far as the flute is concerned. He played before me, not just once but many times. Whenever he felt he had to play really to his utmost, he would rush to me wherever I was, sometimes even thousands of miles, just to play his flute for one hour alone with me.
I asked him, "Hari Prasad, you could have played anywhere -- why make such a long journey?"
And in India, one thousand miles is almost like twenty thousand miles in the West. The Indian trains -- they still walk, not run. In Japan the trains run at four hundred miles per hour; and in India forty miles an hour is a great speed; and the buses, and the rickshaws. Just to play the flute for one hour alone in my bedroom... I asked him, "Why?"
He said, "Because I have thousands of admirers but nobody understands particularly the soundless sound. Unless one understands the soundless sound he cannot really appreciate.... So I come to you; and just that one hour is enough to enable me to play my flute for months before all kinds of idiots -- governors, chief ministers, and the so-called ` great ones.' When I feel utterly tired and exhausted and fed up with the idiots, I run to you. Please don't deny me just this one hour."
I said, "It is a joy to hear you, your flute, your song. In themselves they are great, but particularly so because they remind me of the man who introduced us. Do you remember that man?"
He had completely forgotten who had introduced him to me, and I can understand... it must have been forty years before. I was a small child, he was a young man. He tried hard to remember but could not, and said, "Excuse me but it seems my memory is not functioning well. I cannot even remember the man who introduced me to you. Even if I forget everything else, at least I should remember him."
I reminded him of the man, and he became just tears. That is the man I would like to talk to you about today.
Pagal Baba was one of those remarkable men whom I am going to talk about. He was of the same category as Magga Baba. He was known just as Pagal Baba. Pagal means "the mad." He came like a wind, always suddenly, and then disappeared as suddenly as he had come....
I did not discover him, he discovered me. By that I mean I was just swimming in the river when he passed by: he looked at me, I looked at him, and he jumped in the river and we swam together. I don't know how long we swam but I was not the one to say "enough." He was already an established saint. I had seen him before, but not so closely, at a gathering, doing bhajan, and singing songs of God. I had seen him, and had a certain feeling towards him, but I had kept it to myself. I had not even uttered a single word about it. There are things which are better kept in the heart; there they grow faster, that's the right soil.
At this time he was an old man; I was not more than twelve. Obviously he was the one to say, "Let us stop. I am feeling tired."
I said, "You could have told me any time and I would have stopped, but as far as I am concerned I am a fish in the river."
Yes, that's how I was known in my town. Who else swims six hours every morning from four till ten? When everybody was asleep, fast asleep, I would be already in the river. And when everybody had gone to work I would still be in the river. Of course at ten o'clock every day my grandmother would come, and then I would have to come out of the water because it was school time, I had to go to school. But immediately after school I was back in the river.
When I first came across SIDDHARTHA, Herman Hesse's novel, I could not believe that what he had written about the river I had known so many times. And I knew perfectly well that Hesse was only imagining... a good imagination, because he died without being a Buddha. He was able to create SIDDHARTHA, but could not become a Siddhartha. But when I came across his description of the river, and the moods, and the changes, and the feelings of the river, I was overwhelmed. I was more impressed by his description of the river than anything else. I cannot recall how long I had loved the river -- it seemed as if I had been born in its waters.
In my Nani's village I was continuously either in the lake or in the river. The river was a little too far away, perhaps two miles, so I had to choose the lake more often. But once in a while I used to go to the river, because the quality of a river and a lake are totally different. A lake, in a certain way, is dead, closed, not flowing, not going anywhere at all, static. That's the meaning of death. It is not dynamic.
The river is always on the go, rushing to some unknown goal, perhaps not knowing at all what that goal is; but it reaches, knowing or unknowing, it reaches the goal. The lake never moves. It remains where it is, dormant, simply dying, everyday dying; there is no resurrection. But the river howsoever small, is as big as the ocean, because sooner or later it is going to become the ocean.
I have always loved the feel of the flow; just going, that flux, that continuous movement... aliveness. So, even though the river was two miles away, I used once in a while to go, just to have the taste.
But in my father's town the river was very close. It was just two minutes walk from my Nani's house. Standing on the top floor you could see it; it was there with all its grandeur and invitation... irresistible.
I used to rush back from school to the river. Yes, just for a moment I would stop to throw my books in at my Nani's house. She would persuade me to at least have a cup of tea, saying, "Don't be in such a hurry. The river is not going to leave, it's not a train." That's exactly what she used to say again and again: "Remember, it is not a train. You cannot miss it. So please drink your cup of tea, then go. And don't throw your books down like that."
I didn't say anything because that would have meant further delay. She was always amazed, saying, "At any other time you are ready to argue; but when you are going to the river, even if I say anything -- whether it is nonsense, illogical, absurd -- you simply listen as if you were such an obedient child. What happens to you when you are going to the river?"
I said, "Nani, you know me. You know perfectly well that I don't want to waste time. The river is calling. I can even hear the sound of its waves while I am drinking my tea."
I have burned my lips many times just by drinking tea which was too hot. But I was in a hurry, and the cup had to be emptied. My Nani was there; she wouldn't allow me to go before I drank my tea.
She was not like Gudia. Gudia is special in that way; she always tells me, "Wait. The tea is too hot." Perhaps it is my old habit. I again start taking the cup and so she says, "Wait! It's too hot." I know she is right, so I wait until she does not object, then I drink the tea. Perhaps the old habit of just drinking tea and rushing to the river is still there.
Although my grandmother knew that I wanted to reach the waters as soon as possible, she would try to persuade me to have a little something to eat -- this or that. I would say to her, "Just give everything to me. I will keep it in my pockets and eat it on the way." I have always liked cashew nuts, particularly salted ones, and for years I used to fill all my pockets with them. All my pockets meant two in my pants, meaning shorts, because I never liked long trousers -- perhaps because all my teachers wore them, and I hated teachers, and a certain association must have arisen. So I only wore shorts.
In India shorts are far better, climatically, than long trousers. Both my pants pockets were full of cashew nuts; and you will be surprised: just because of those cashew nuts I had to tell the tailor to make two pockets in my shirts. I always had two pockets in my shirts. I never understood the reason why just one pocket was put on shirts. Why not only one pocket in trousers too? Or just one pocket in shorts? Why only one in shirts? The reason is not obvious, but I know why. The single shirt pocket is always on the left side so that the right hand can take things out and put things in, and naturally no pocket is needed for the poor left hand. What would a poor man do with a pocket?
The left hand is one of the repressed parts of the human body; and if you try, you will understand what I am saying. You can do everything with the left hand that you can do with the right, even writing, and perhaps better.
After thirty or forty years of habit, in the beginning you would certainly find it difficult to use your left hand, because the left hand has been ignored and kept ignorant. The left hand is really the most important part of your body because it represents the right side of your brain. Your left hand is connected to your right brain, and your right hand with the left brain, just like a cross. The right is really left, and the left is really right. To ignore the left hand is to ignore the right side of your brain -- and the right side of your brain contains all that is valuable, all the diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, and rubies... all that is valuable -- all the rainbows and the flowers, and the stars.
The right side of the brain contains the intuition, the instincts; in short it contains the feminine. The right hand is a male chauvinist.
You will be surprised to know that when I started writing, being such a nuisance, I started writing with my left hand. Of course everybody was against me; again, of course, except my Nani. She was the only one who said, "If he wants to write with his left hand what is wrong with it?" She went on, "The question is to write. Why are you all so concerned which hand he uses? He can hold the pen in his left hand, and you can hold the pen in your right hand. What is the problem?"
But nobody would allow me to use my left hand, and she could not be everywhere with me. In school, every teacher and every student was against me using my left hand. Right is right, and left is wrong; even now I cannot understand why. Why should the left side of the body be denied and kept imprisoned? And do you know that ten percent of people would love to write with their left hand; in fact they had started writing like that but were stopped.
It is one of the most ancient calamities that has happened to man, that half of his being is not even available to him. A strange kind of man we have created! It is like a bullock cart with only one wheel: the other wheel is there but kept invisible; used, but only in an underground way. It is ugly. I resisted from the very beginning.
I asked the teacher and the headmaster, "Show me the reason why I should write with my right hand."
They just shrugged their shoulders. I then said, "Your shrugging will not help, you have to answer me. You would not accept me if I shrugged my shoulders; then why should I accept you? I don't take any notice of it. Please explain properly."
I was sent to the school board because the teachers would not understand me, or explain to me. In fact they understood me perfectly. What I was saying was plain: "What was wrong in writing with the left hand? And if I write the right answer with my left hand, can that answer be wrong -- just because it has been written with the left hand?"
They said, "You are crazy and you will drive everybody else crazy. It is better that you go to see the school board."
The board was the municipal committee which directed all the schools. In the town there were four primary schools and two high schools, one for girls and one for boys. What a town -- where boys and girls are kept so absolutely apart. It was this board that made decisions about almost everything, so naturally I was sent there.
The board members listened to me very seriously, as if I were a murderer and they were sitting like judges, to hang me. I said to them, "Don't be so serious, relax. Just tell me what is wrong if I write with my left hand?"
They looked at each other. I then said, "That won't help. You have to answer me, and I am not easy to deal with. You will have to give it in writing because I don't trust you. The way you are looking at each other appears so cunning and political that it is better to have your answer in writing. Write what is wrong in writing a right answer with the left hand."
They sat there almost like statues. Nobody even tried to say anything to me. Nobody was ready to write either, they simply said, "We will have to consider it."
I said, "Consider. I am standing here. Who is preventing you from considering in front of me? Is it something private like a love affair? And you are all respected citizens: at least six people should not be in a love affair -- that would be like group sex."
They shouted at me, "Shut up! Don't use such words!"
I said, "I have to use such words just to provoke you, otherwise you would just sit there like statues. At least now you have moved and said something. Now, consider, and I will help you, and not hinder you at all."
They said, "Please go out. We cannot consider it in front of you; you are bound to interfere. We know about you, and so does everybody else in the town. If you don't leave then we will leave."
I said, "You can leave first, that is gentlemanly."
They had to leave their own committee room before me. The decision came the next day. The decision was simply that "The teachers were right, and everybody should write with their right hand."
This phoniness is dominant everywhere. I cannot even comprehend what kind of stupidity it is. And these are the people who are in power! The rightists! They are powerful, the male chauvinists are powerful. The poets are not powerful, nor the musicians....

Now look at this man Hari Prasad Chaurasia -- such a beautiful bamboo flute player, but he lived his whole life in utter poverty. He could not remember Pagal Baba, who had introduced him to me-or is it better to say, ` me to him' -- because I was only a child, and Hari Prasad was a world-recognized authority as far as the bamboo flute is concerned.
There were other flutists also introduced to me by Pagal Baba, particularly Pannalal Ghosh. But I had heard his playing and he was nothing compared to Hari Prasad. Why did Pagal Baba introduce me to these people? He himself was the greatest flutist, but he would not play before the crowd. Yes, he played before me, a child, or before Hari Prasad, or before Pannalal Ghosh, but he made it a point that we should not mention it to anyone. He kept his flute hidden in his bag.
The last time I saw him he gave me his flute and said, "We will not meet again. Not that I don't want to meet you, but because this body is not capable of carrying itself any longer." He must have been about ninety. "But as a memento I give you this flute, and I say to you, if you practice you can become one of the greatest flutists."
I said, "But I don't want to become even the greatest flutist. To be a flutist is not what can fulfill me. It is one-dimensional."
He understood and said, "Then it is up to you."
I asked him many times why he tried to contact me whenever he came to the village, because that was the first thing he would do.
He said, "Why? You should ask it the other way around -- why do I come to the village? Just to contact you... I don't come to this village for any other reason."
For a moment I could not say a word, not even "thank you." In fact in Hindi there is no word which is really equivalent to "thank you." Yes, there is a word which is used, but it has a totally different flavor, dhanyavad: it means "God bless you." Now, a child cannot say "God bless you" to a ninety-year-old man. I said, "Baba, don't give me trouble. I cannot even thank you." To say that I had to use an Urdu word, shukriya, which comes closer to the English, but it is still not exactly the same. Shukriya means "gratitude," but it comes very close.
I said to him, "You have given me this flute. I will keep it in your memory, and I will try to practice too. Who knows? You, you know better than me; perhaps that is my future, but I don't see any future in it."
He laughed and said, "It is difficult to talk to you. Keep the flute with you and try to play with it. If something happens, good; if nothing happens then just keep it in my memory."
I started playing on it, and I loved it. I played it for years and became really proficient. I used to play the flute, and one of my friends -- not really a friend, but an acquaintance -- used to play on the tabla. We both came to know each other because we both loved swimming.
One year when the river was in flood, and we were both trying to swim across -- that was my joy, to cross the river in the rainy season when it used to become really enlarged; flowing with such force that it used to carry us at least two or three miles downstream. Just crossing meant we had to be ready to travel three miles back, and to cross back meant traveling three miles further, so it was a six-mile journey! And in the rainy season...! But that was one of my joys.
This boy, Hari was his name too. Hari is a very common name in India; it means "God," but it is a very strange name. I don't think any language has a name for God like Hari because it really means "the thief" -- God the thief! Why should God be called a thief? Because sooner or later He steals your heart... and the sooner the better. The boy's name was Hari.
We were both trying to cross the river in full flood. It must have been almost a mile wide. He did not survive; he drowned somewhere on the way across. I searched and looked, but it was impossible: the river was flooding too fast. If he had drowned, it would have been impossible to find him; perhaps someone further down the river would find his body.
I called as loudly as I could, but the river was roaring. I went to the river every day, and tried the best that a child could do. The police tried, the fishermen's association tried, but not even a trace was found. He must have been taken by the river long before they heard about it. In his memory I threw the bamboo flute that Pagal Baba had given me into the river.
I said, "I would have liked to throw myself but I have other work to do. This is the most precious thing that I have, next to myself, so I throw it. I will never play this flute again without Hari playing on the tabla. I cannot conceive of myself ever playing again. Take it, please!"
It was a beautiful flute, perhaps carved by a very skillful flutemaker. Perhaps it had been made specially for Pagal Baba by one of his devotees. I will talk more about Pagal Baba because so many things have to be said about him....
What is the time?
"Ten twenty-three, Osho."
Good. The time today will not suffice, so we will have to leave Pagal Baba for some other time. But one thing perhaps I may forget later on, that is about the boy Hari, who died.... Nobody knows whether he died or escaped from his home, because his dead body was never found. But I think for certain that he died, because I was swimming with him, and suddenly at a certain point in the middle of the river I saw him disappearing. I shouted, "Hari! What's the problem?" but there was nobody to answer.
To me, India itself is dead. I don't think of India as a living part of humanity. It is a dead land, dead for so many centuries that even the dead have forgotten that they are dead. They have been dead so long, somebody has to remind them. That's what I am trying to do, but it is a very thankless task, reminding somebody, saying, "Sir, you are dead. Don't believe that you are alive."
That's what I have been doing continuously for these twenty-five years, day in, day out. It hurts that a country that has given birth to Buddha, Mahavira and Nagarjuna is dead.
Poor Devageet -- just to hide his giggle, he had to cough. Sometimes I wonder who is taking the notes. Coughing is okay, giggling is also forgiven, but what about the notes? I used to deceive my teachers by just scribbling, pretending that I was taking notes, and fast. And I used to laugh when they were deceived. But it is impossible to deceive me, and it is good that you cannot. I am watching you, even though you think my eyes are closed. Yes, they are closed, but open enough to see what you are writing.
This is beautiful. I hit you so hard and yet you...
... Stop it now.

Chapter #28

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Okay. This noise that you are making is enough to make anybody say okay. Thank you. Now I can really say okay.
I was just listening again, not to Hari Prasad Chaurasia, but another flutist. In India the flute has two dimensions: one, the southern; the other, the northern. Hari Prasad Chaurasia was a northern flutist; I was listening to the polar opposite, the southern.
This man too was introduced to me by the same man, Pagal Baba. When he introduced me he said to the musician, "You may not understand why I'm introducing you to this boy; at least right now you will not understand, but perhaps one day, God willing, you may."
This man plays the same flute but in a totally different way. The southern flute is far more penetrating, piercing to be exact. It enters and stirs something in your very marrow. The northern flute is tremendously beautiful but a little flat -- just as northern India is flat.
The man looked at me, puzzled. He thought for a moment, then said, "Baba, if you are introducing me to him then there must be something I cannot understand. That is my mediocrity, and I am immensely grateful that you are so loving to me that you not only introduce me to the present, but even to the future."
I have only heard him a few times because we never became directly connected -- it remained via Pagal Baba. The flutist used to visit him. If by chance I was there, then of course he said hello to me. Baba always laughed and said, "Touch his feet, you fool! ` Hello' is not the way to greet this boy."
He did it reluctantly, and I could see his reluctance, that's why I am not mentioning his name. He is still alive and may feel offended, because it was not out of love for me that he touched my feet, but because Pagal Baba ordered him. He had to touch my feet.
I laughed and said, "Baba, can I hit this man?"
He said, "Of course."
And can you imagine it -- as he was touching my feet, I slapped his face!
This reminds me of the letter Devageet wrote to me. I knew that he would cry and weep. I knew. How did I know even before he had written to me? Even if he hadn't written to me I would have known. I know my people. I know those who love me, whether they say it or not. And what really touched me were his words -- "You can hit me as much as you want, that does not hurt; what hurts is that when I am not giggling you say, ` Devageet, don't try to deceive me....' This hurts. It is the apparent injustice of it that hurts." This is the word he used. Gudia, I think these are the words -- "apparent injustice." Am I right, Gudia?
"Yes, Osho."
Okay, because Gudia had to read the letter to me.
I have not read anything for years because the doctors said that if I read I will have to wear glasses, and I hate glasses. I cannot think of myself wearing glasses. I would rather close my eyes. I don't want to create any barrier, even that of transparent glass, between me and that which surrounds me. So I have to depend on someone to read for me.
The words "apparent injustice" exactly show his heart. He knows it is only apparent, but it certainly looks unjust when you are not giggling and suddenly I say, "Devageet, don't giggle!" Naturally he is taken aback; and poor Devageet is just taking his notes.
Again I am reminded of Pagal Baba, because I was talking about him this morning and I am going to continue. He used to say apparently meaningless sentences to people. Not only that, sometimes actually hitting them! Not like me, but literally, actually. I don't actually hit, not because I don't want to, just because I am absolutely lazy. Once or twice I have tried, then my hand hurt. I don't know whether the person learned anything or not, but my hand said, "Please don't try this trick again."
But Pagal Baba used to hit for no reason at all. Somebody may have been just sitting silently by his side, and he would give the person a good slap. The person had not done anything, he had not even said anything. Sometimes people would object that it was unjust, and say to Pagal Baba, "Baba, why did you hit him?"
He would laugh and say, "You know I am pagal, a madman." That was enough of an explanation as far as he was concerned. That explanation won't do for me... so mad that even the most intelligent cannot decipher what kind of madness this is. Pagal Baba was a simple madman; I am a multidimensional madman.
So, if sometimes you feel that it is apparently unjust, then remember the word "apparent." I cannot do anything unjust, particularly to those who love me. How can love be unjust? But "apparently," perhaps it has to be many times. One never knows the ways of people like me. I may be hitting Ashu and really aiming at Devaraj. It is a very complicated phenomenon. It cannot be computerized.
It is so complicated that I don't think any computer will become a Master. He will become everything else -- an engineer, a doctor, a dentist, everything possible -- and be more efficient than any human being can be. But there are only two things that a computer can't do: one is, he cannot be alive. He can hum with mechanical noise but he cannot be alive. He cannot know what life is.
The second is a corollary of the first: he cannot become a Master. To know life is to be a Master. Just to be alive is one thing, everybody is. But to turn upon oneself, to one's own being, to see the see-er, or to know the knower -- this is what I mean by turning upon oneself -- then one becomes a Master. A computer cannot turn upon itself, that is not possible.
Devageet, your letter was beautiful, and you cried. I feel happy about it. Anything authentic is helpful on the way, and nothing can be as authentic as tears. Yes, there are professional weepers, but then they have to use tricks.
In India it happens when somebody dies -- perhaps an old person nobody wanted and really everybody is happy, but nobody can show their happiness. Then the professional weepers are called in. particularly in big cities like Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, and New Delhi. They even have their own association. You just give them a call, tell them how many weepers you want, and they come -- and they really weep. They can defeat any real weeper because they are technically trained people, and very efficient; and they know all the tricks. They use certain medicines, putting them just below the eyes, and that is enough for the tears to start flowing. And it is a very strange phenomenon: when tears start flowing the person suddenly feels sad.
In psychology there has been a long argument, yet undecided: "Which comes first... does a man run away because of fear, or does he feel fear because he runs away?" And there are contenders for both positions. "Fear creates running," is one position. "Running creates fear," the other position. But in fact it is the same point; they are both together.
If you are sad, tears come. If tears come, for any reason, even chemical tears, let us call them artificial tears -- then too, just because of an instinctive heritage, you will feel sad. I have seen these professional weepers really crying their hearts out, and you could not say that they are being deceitful; they may themselves be deceived.
Tears out of love are the most precious experience. You cried, I am happy... because you could have been angry, but you were not. You could have been annoyed, irritated, but you were not. You cried, that is as it should be. But remember, I will go on doing the same again and again; I have to do my work.
As a dentist you perfectly know how much it hurts, but still you have to do it. Not that you want to hurt, but you have anesthesia; you have certain gases; you can make a local part almost insensitive or you can make the whole person unconscious.
But I don't have anything. I have to do all my surgery without any anesthetics. Just opening somebody's stomach or brain, and without making the person unconscious, what would happen? The pain would be too much; it would kill the person, or at least drive him mad. He would jump off the table, perhaps leaving his skull behind, and run home as fast as possible; or he may even kill the doctor. But this is how my work is. There is no possibility ever to do my work in any other way.
It has to be "apparently unjust." But you mentioned the word "apparent"; that's enough to satisfy me that although it hurts, you understand my love. Let me repeat again and again so that you do not forget: I will do it again and again!
You must have been really afraid, because you write a P.S. and a P.P.S. too, saying that, "I have never even dreamed that I would be so close to you, or that this work would be given to me. I love taking notes." And P.P.S., "Please don't stop this work, ever."
He must have become afraid that I may stop, thinking that it hurts him. It hurts Ashu too, although she has not written a letter -- yet. But one day she will write, I predict, maybe tomorrow.
I simply go on hitting, this side and that. Because you both happen to be on either side, naturally you get most of the hits. That has always been my way; those who are nearest to me have been hit the most, but they have also grown. They have become more integrated with each hit they absorbed. Either they ran away or they had to grow. Do or die. If you do -- that's what I mean by integration, or crystallization -- only then do you live. Or else -- remember the dog's death -- one dies; one is dying every moment.
The letter was beautiful in many senses. Gudia, later on give the letter back to him so that it can become a footnote in his notes, or a part of many appendices that are going to follow.
Pagal Baba again... this is what I call moving about in circles. He introduced me to not only these flutists but also to many other musicians. He was a musician of the musicians. Ordinarily the masses had no idea; only the great musicians knew that he could play music with anything.
I have seen him play with anything possible -- just a stone, and he would start by striking it on his kamandalu. A kamandalu is a pot that Hindu sannyasins carry for water and food et cetera. He would hit on the kamandalu with just anything, but he had such a sense of music that even his kamandalu would become a sitar.
Just in the marketplace he would purchase a flute, meant only as a toy for children -- you could have bought a dozen for just one rupee -- and he would start playing. From that crude flute such notes would come out that even a musician would look at the whole thing with wide open eyes, shocked, thinking, "Is it possible?"
I have to tell you the name of that southern flutist I mentioned at the beginning... otherwise it will remain on my chest, and I want to unburden myself totally before I leave, so that I can leave just as I had come -- with nothing, not even a memory. That's the whole purpose of these memoirs. The flutist's name was Sachdeva, one of the most well-known southern Indian flutists. I mentioned three flutists, all of them introduced to me by Pagal Baba. One man, Hari Prasad Chaurasia, from north India where they play a different kind of flute music; another from Bengal, Pannalal Ghosh -- he again plays a different kind of flute, very male, very loud and overpowering. Sachdeva's flute is almost silent, feminine, just the opposite of Pannalal Ghosh. I feel good that I have mentioned his name -- now it is up to him what he makes out of it.
Devageet says in his letter, "Osho, I trust you...." I know -- there is no question about it -- otherwise why should I hit you so much? And remember, once I trust somebody I never mistrust them. It does not matter what that person does to me. My trust remains whatsoever that person does.
Trust is always unconditional. I know your love, and I trust you all, otherwise this work would not have been given to you. But remember, that does not mean that I will change in any way. Letter or no letter, P.S. or no P.P.S.; I am going to remain the same. Sometimes I will suddenly say, "Devageet, why are you giggling?" Right now you are giggling and I am not hitting you. Sometimes I will make you cry. That's my work.
You know your work; I know my work -- and it's far more difficult. It is not only drilling, it is drilling without anesthesia, not even a painkiller. It is not only drilling in the teeth, it is drilling into your very being. It hurts, really hurts. Forgive me, but never ask me to change my strategies... and in your letter you have not asked either. I am just saying it for the benefit of the others present.
Ashu, tomorrow I will wait for your letter. Let's see what happens. Then Devageet will really giggle!

BELOVED OSHO,
I AM SITTING HERE IN THE NOAH'S ARK WEEPING AND WONDERING WHAT TO DO.
WHEN YOU ARE HERE, AND I AM EMPTY OF EVERYTHING EXCEPT YOUR WORDS AND PRESENCE POURING THROUGH ME; IT IS THE GREATEST FULFILLMENT I HAVE KNOWN.
THEN YOU HIT -- FROM NOWHERE! YOU TELL ME I AM GIGGLING... WHEN, FOR EXAMPLE, THIS MORNING I SUPPRESSED A SNEEZE. OTHER DAYS SIGHS ESCAPE MY LIPS.... WHAT TO DO? I SIGH WHEN YOU ARE CLOSE... AGAIN YOU TELL ME I AM GIGGLING. WHEN YOU ACCUSE ME OF DECEIVING YOU BY PRETENDING NOT TO WRITE YOUR NOTES, IT IS TOO MUCH.
I LOVE WRITING THESE NOTES BEYOND ANY OTHER THING IN MY LIFE. THE WRITING OF THEM IS A PLEASURE, A GIFT BEYOND ANY POSSIBILITY MY MIND MAY HAVE CONCEIVED.
YOU HAVE CALLED ME A FOOL -- AND THAT IS OBVIOUSLY SO -- PERHAPS NEVER MORE THAN NOW, BUT I AM YOUR FOOL THROUGH AND THROUGH. I HAVE NEVER CHEATED YOU, BETRAYED YOU, NEVER GIGGLED OR WHISPERED TO DECEIVE YOU, AND ALWAYS GIVE YOU THE MAXIMUM.... AND THE PAIN FROM THE HIT IS NOT FROM THE BLOW BUT AT THE APPARENT INJUSTICE OF IT.
BELOVED OSHO, I AM YOUR FOOL AND NEVER MORE THAN AT THIS MOMENT.
I LOVE YOU,
DEVAGEET
BELOVED OSHO, P.S. THANK YOU FOR DESTROYING ME, IT SEEMS TO ALLOW ME TO LOVE YOU EVEN MORE DEEPLY.
DEVAGEET
P.P.S. PLEASE, PLEASE KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK... FOREVER.