NOTES OF A MADMAN


Om Mani Padme Hum

I can repeat this mantra forever. Its beauty is such and you are so deaf that it has to be repeated again and again. Truth by its very necessity has to be repeated, because those who are hearing are not hearing. They have lost that sensitivity, that receptivity. So I will go on repeating this mantra. The day I see that it has penetrated to your unconscious, beyond you, within you, where right now you cannot reach... but I can.... The moment I see it has reached, the seed has found its soil, I will say it no more. That will be the end of the series.

Om Mani Padme Hum
Om Mani Padme Hum....

Just the vibe of it is thrilling, tremendously thrilling, just overwhelming; one is drowned in it.
This mantra was not composed by a poet. Poets can say beautiful things but those beautiful things are sweet nothings. This mantra was conceived, not composed, conceived just as a woman conceives a child, conceived by the mystics. The mystic is always feminine, that's why I call the male part of you the fool. But don't be offended; I love your heart, your feminine part. Only the feminine can be loved. The male, the masculine, is unlovable; it can be used, it is a good mechanic, technician, scientist, mathematician, but never a mystic.
The moment you become a mystic, from he you become she. Now, it will look the very climax of absurdity to call Jesus she, Buddha she, Lao Tzu she. Nobody has called them that, but I have. I am determined to open all doors to all that has remained hidden. I am ready to take every risk. Jesus is a she, it cannot be otherwise. Only the heart knows. The mind can be knowledgeable but never knows.
This mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum, was conceived like a child, in the hearts of the mystics on the peaks of the Himalayas. The Himalayas are covered with snow from eternity; it has never melted. It has remained the same.
This mantra comes from Tibet, the hiddenmost part of the Himalayas. And on these heights I hear it: it is a sound like the sound of bees buzzing. And the humming is so beautiful. One cannot be grateful enough to the mystics who tried to make this humming sound into a mantra. Om Mani Padme Hum... aahhh, the Jewel in the Lotus.
I can hear the giggle of the fool, because I am still saying chawal. I will always say it. I stick to my ground right or wrong. I care for sincerity, authenticity. I am authentically myself. I feel if it is spelled j-e-w-e-l it should be pronounced chawal not jew- el. That is the wrong pronunciation -- according to me of course. Sooner or later you will have to make something like Osho-English. If there can be Indian- English, American-English, then why not Osho-English, with all its absurdities? I am laying the foundations for it.

Om Mani Padme Hum
When one lays foundations one should lay them religiously.

Om Mani Padme Hum

To be good with me is difficult. I called you the fool, and still you are nice to me. The fool... respectfool... and I will go on calling you the fool because I want to kill the fool, to crush the fool completely! I want you to be without it.

I am reminded, by the way, of thousands of Indian people around the world named Fooljan. Fool in the Indian language means flower. Now, when these people learn English and start writing their names they don't spell it as it should be, f-o-o-l; no, they have found a way, they spell their name p-h-o-o-l, Phooljan. But everybody is doing that, somehow hiding one's fool. But the more you hide it, the more you protect it, the more it is there. Leave it open to the winds and to the stars and to the sun and to the moon, and it will disappear. I want to kill it. If I ever wanted to kill anything it is the fool. But to kill a fool, I mean his foolishness.... I was afraid you might think, "A saint, and trying to kill something?"

In India saints don't even kill mosquitoes, they don't kill bedbugs. Bedbugs are okay, mosquitoes are okay, but the fool has to be killed. I am not violent, but with the fool I am. I am utterly violent with the fool. I want to cut off its head! That's why sometimes I am so bitterly and naturally misunderstood by the fools. I don't think any man has been misunderstood so much. I am blessed as far as that is concerned. I am the most misunderstood man. But it is nobody's fault, it is my own device. I am hitting the fools just exactly where it hurts, on their very skulls. And remember, I always carry the joke to its very end, the punch line!

There is an ancient story, the famous Zen story, The Ten Bulls of Zen. It is a pictorial story with ten picture cards, each card containing a phase of man and his evolution. The original pack consisted of only nine cards; the tenth was added by a madman like me. Everybody opposed him, everybody denounced him. He had to leave his country. He added the tenth picture, and the tenth picture is the most beautiful, the very culmination, the culmination of culmination itself.

In the first picture the bull is lost and the owner is searching for it.
In the second, he is looking everywhere and he cannot find it.
In the third, far, far away he can infer: "Perhaps that is my bull."
In the fourth he has actually seen the bull -- not the whole bull but just its tail.
In the fifth he has seen the whole bull.
In the sixth he has caught hold of the bull by its tail.
In the seventh the man has learned a lesson; he is holding the bull by the horns.
In the eighth he is riding on the bull.
In the ninth they have arrived home. The ninth has no picture, neither the bull nor its owner. That was the old pack. A madman like me added the tenth to those nine cards.

In the tenth the man is seen in the marketplace -not only seen but with a bottle of wine. Now, no Buddhist can forgive it! Nobody thinking himself religious can forgive it!

That madman was thrown out of his country, but miraculously the tenth card has remained. Whatsoever is done by men like me... you may throw them out, you may kill them, you may crucify them, but what they do remains. You cannot destroy it. The man -- nobody even knows his name, they even erased his name from the books; nobody knows who he was, but he has done a tremendous service to humanity.

I have denied the invitation to visit America for years. My first Western disciples were American. Mukta has been asking me to go to America, and she could manage it because she belongs to one of the richest families in the Greek world. But I said, "No, Mukta."
One day while sitting in my room, Sheela just laughingly offered me a bottle of champagne, thinking that I would refuse, not knowing me at all. I accepted it with a "thank you." She looked puzzled. Vivek laughed, everybody laughed when I poured the champagne into my glass and drank it. Vivek took pictures. They have been hiding those pictures, but I will persuade them to give the pictures to you because they are the tenth picture. I want to add the tenth picture to a man himself, not to any story, not to any pack of cards.

In the East only the woman serves the wine. Ashu, don't be afraid. Except fear, nothing has been the enemy of women. They were subjugated because of their fear. They were so ready, so willing to be subjugated, to be slaves, and for centuries. Don't be afraid. At least with me be fearless, because I teach nothing but fearlessness.

I want to bring back the ordinary man, with all his extraordinariness. Naturally, first I have to be that ordinary man myself -- and I am an ordinary man, extraordinarily ordinary... with a champagne bottle in the marketplace, rejoicing. That's what champagne represents.

Life is nothing but wine, and at such heights I know that I am a drunkard. I know the ultimate heights of Being and nothing can be higher than that, that much I know.

Om Mani Padme Hum....

Even while I am dying I will say the last word. Nobody else can say it for me, on my behalf; nobody can be a pope. I am... and will not be represented by anyone else.

Om Mani Padme Hum...
The Jewel and the Lotus.

Series-2
Session-4

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