Glimpses of a Golden Childhood
1984 in Lao Tzu House, Rajneeshpuram, USA

Chapter # 13
Chapter # 14
Chapter # 15
Chapter # 16

Chapter #13

Okay, remove the towel. Ashu, forgive me, because now I have to begin my business, and you can understand that two shirts together on one chest is very difficult for the poor chest, particularly for the poor heart hidden behind the chest. The heart cannot behave in a political or diplomatic way. It is not a diplomat; it is simple and childlike.
I cannot forget Jesus. I remember him more than any Christians in the world. Jesus says, "Blessed are those who are like little children, for theirs is the kingdom of God." The most important thing to remember here is the word "for." In all Jesus' sayings which start with, "Blessed are those..." and end with "... the kingdom of God" this is the only statement which is unique, because all the other statements say, "Blessed are the humble because they will inherit the kingdom of God." They are logical and they are promises for the future -- the future which does not exist. This is the only statement which says "... FOR theirs is the kingdom of God": no future, no rationality, no reason, no promise for profit; just a pure statement of fact, or rather, a simple statement of fact.
I am always impressed by this statement, always amazed. I cannot believe that one can be amazed by the same statement again and again for thirty years.... Yes, for thirty years this statement has been with me, and it always brings a tremble of joy in my heart: "For theirs is the kingdom of God"... so illogical yet so true.
Ashu, I had to tell you to remove the towel because two businesses cannot go together, particularly on one heart. And you have been so good to me every day since I have known you, and when I try to remember when it began it seems as if I have known you forever -- I'm not joking. Actually when I think of Ashu I cannot remember when she entered into my world of intimates. It seems she has always been there, sitting by my side, whether as a dental nurse or not. Now she has become an associate editor to Devaraj -- that is a great promotion. Now you can have two doctors under you. Is it not great? -- you can make them wrestle with each other, and enjoy it!
Now I come to my story.... Before the story it is always good to have a little introductory note, as irrational as possible, because that is exactly the right introduction to the man I am. Sometimes I laugh at myself, not for any reason... because when there is reason, laughter stops.
One can laugh only without reason. Laughter has no relationship with rationality, so once in a while I put away my rationality, and irrationality too -- remember they are two sides of the same thing and then I have a really hearty laugh.
Of course nobody can hear it. It is not of the physical, otherwise Devaraj and Devageet would have detected it with their instruments. They cannot detect it. It is transcendental to all instrumentality. Look what a beautiful word I have created: instrumentality. Write it exactly that way, instru-mental-ity. Then you can understand what I am saying -- at least the words, and perhaps one day the wordless too. That's my hope, my dream for you all.
You will be worried, because today I am really taking too long to begin. You know me, I know you.
I will go as slowly as possible. That will help to empty you. That's my whole business, emptying: you can call it "Emptying Unlimited."
The other day I was telling you that my grandfather's death was my first encounter with death. Yes, an encounter and something more, not just an encounter; otherwise I would have missed the real meaning of it. I saw the death, and something more that was not dying, that was floating above it, escaping from the body... the elements. That encounter determined my whole course of life. It gave me a direction, or rather a dimension, that was not known to me before.
I had heard of other people's deaths, but only heard. I had not seen, and even if I had seen, they did not mean anything to me. Unless you love someone and he then dies, you cannot really encounter death. Let that be underlined:
DEATH CAN ONLY BE
ENCOUNTERED IN THE DEATH OF THE LOVED ONE.
When love plus death surrounds you, there is a transformation, an immense mutation... as if a new being is born. You are never the same again. But people do not love, and because they do not love, they can't experience death the way I experienced it. Without love, death does not give you the keys to existence. With love, it hands over to you the keys to all that is.
My first experience of death was not a simple encounter. It was complex in many ways. The man I had loved was dying. I had known him as my father. He had raised me with absolute freedom, no inhibitions, no suppressions, and no commandments. He never said to me, "Don't do this," or "Do that." Only now can I realize the beauty of the man. It is very difficult for an old man not to say to a child "Don't do that, do this," or "Just sit there, don't do anything," or "Do something; why are you just sitting there doing nothing?" But he never did. I don't remember a single instance where he even tried to interfere with my being. He simply withdrew. If he thought what I was doing was wrong, he withdrew and closed his eyes.
I once asked him, "Nana, why do you close your eyes sometimes when I am just sitting by your side?"
He said, "You will not understand today, but perhaps someday. I close my eyes so that I don't prevent you from doing whatsoever you are doing, whether it is right or wrong. It is not my business to prevent you. I have taken you away from your mother and father. If I cannot even give you freedom, then what was the point in taking you away from your parents? I only took you so that they would not interfere with you. How can I interfere?
"But you know," he went on, "it is a great temptation sometimes. You are such a temptation. I never knew, otherwise I would not have taken the risk. Somehow you have a genius for finding the wrong things to do. I wonder," he said, "how you go on finding so many things to do wrong? Either I am completely insane... or you are."
I said, "Nana, you need not get worried: if anyone is insane, then it is me." And from that day I have been telling people, "Don't be bothered by me, I am a madman."
I had said that to console him, and I am still saying it to console people who really are mad. But when you are in a madhouse, and you are the only one who is not mad, what can you do except say to everybody, "Relax, I am a madman, don't take me seriously." That's what I have been doing my whole life.
He used to close his eyes, but sometimes it was too much of a temptation.... For example, one day I was riding on Bhoora, our servant. I had ordered him to behave like a horse. First he looked bewildered, but my grandmother said, "What is wrong in that? Can't you act a little? Bhoora, behave like a horse." So he started doing everything a horse is supposed to do, and I was riding him.
That was too much in front of my grandfather. He closed his eyes and started chanting his mantra: "NAMO ARIHANTANAM NAMO... NAMO SIDDHANAM NAMO."
Of course I stopped, because when he started chanting his mantra that meant it was too much for him. It was time to stop. I shook him and said, "Nana, come back, there is no need to chant your mantra. I have stopped the game. Can't you see that it was only a game?"
He looked into my eyes, I looked into his eyes... for a moment there was just silence. He waited for me to speak. He had to yield; he said, "Okay, I should speak first."
I said, "That's right, because if you had remained silent, I was going to remain silent my whole life. It is good that you spoke, so now I can answer you. What do you want to ask?"
He said, "I have always wanted to ask you, why are you so mischievous?"
I said, "That is a question you should reserve for God. When you meet Him, ask Him, `Why did you create this child so mischievous?' You cannot ask me that. It is almost like asking `Why are you you?' Now, how can that be answered? As far as I am concerned, I am not concerned at all; I am just being myself. Is that allowed or not, in this house?" We were sitting outside in the garden.
He looked at me again, and asked, "What do you mean?"
I said, "You understand perfectly what I mean. If I am not allowed to be myself then I won't enter this house again. So please be clear with me: either I enter this house with the license to be myself, or I forget about this house and just be a wanderer, a vagabond. Tell me clearly and don't hesitate, come on!"
He laughed and said, "You can enter the house. It is your home. If I cannot resist interfering with you then I will leave the house. You need not."
That's exactly what he did. Just two months after this dialogue he was no longer in this world. He not only left the house, he left every house, even the body, which was his real house.
I loved the man because he loved my freedom. I can love only if my freedom is respected. If I have to bargain, and get love by paying with my freedom, then that love is not for me. Then it is for lesser mortals, it is not for those who know.
In this world almost everybody thinks that he loves, but if you look around at the lovers, they are prisoners to each other. What a strange kind of love is this love which creates bondage. Can love ever become a bondage? But in ninety-nine point nine percent of cases it does, because from the very beginning love was not there.
It is a fact that ordinarily people only think they love, they don't love, because when love comes, where is "I" and "thou"? When love comes, it immediately brings a tremendous sense of freedom, nonpossessiveness. But that love happens, unfortunately, very rarely.
Love with freedom -- if you have it, you are a king or a queen. That is the real kingdom of God; love with freedom. Love gives you the roots into the earth, and freedom gives you the wings.
My grandfather gave me both. He gave his love to me, more than he ever had given to either my mother or even my grandmother; and he gave me freedom, which is the greatest gift. As he was dying he gave me his ring and with a tear in his eye told me, "I don't have anything else to give you."
I said, "Nana, you have already given me the most precious gift."
He opened his eyes and said, "What is that?"
I laughed and said, "Have you forgotten? You have given me your love and you have given me freedom. I think no child ever had such freedom as you gave to me. What more do I need? What more can you give? I am thankful. You can die peacefully." Since then I have seen many people die, but to die peacefully is really difficult. I have only seen five people die peacefully: the first was my grandfather; the second was my servant Bhoora; the third was my Nani; the fourth, my father, and the fifth was Vimalkirti.
Bhoora died just because he could not conceive of living in a world without his master. He simply died. He relaxed into death. He had come with us to my father's village because he had been driving the bullock cart. When for a few moments he heard nothing, no word from the inside of the covered cart, he asked me, "Beta" -- it means son -- "is everything okay?"
Again and again Bhoora asked, "Why this silence? Why is nobody speaking?" But he was the kind of man who would not look inside the curtain which divided him from us. How could he look inside when my grandmother was there? That was the trouble, he could not look. But again and again he asked, "What is the matter -- why is everybody silent?"
I said, "There is nothing wrong. We are enjoying the silence. Nana wants us to be silent." That was a lie because Nana was dead, but in a way it was true. He was silent, that was a message for us to be silent.
I finally said, "Bhoora, everything is okay; only Nana is gone." He could not believe it. He said, "Then how can everything be okay? Without him I cannot live." And within twenty-four hours he died. Just as if a flower had closed... refusing to remain open in the sun and the moon, of his own accord. We tried everything to save him, because now we were in a bigger town, my father's town.
My father's town was, for India of course, just a small town; the population was only twenty thousand. It had a hospital and a school. We tried everything possible to save Bhoora. The doctor in the hospital was amazed because he could not believe that this man was Indian; he looked so European. He must have been a freak of biology, I don't know. Something must have gone right. As they say "Something must have gone wrong," I have coined the phrase "Something must have gone right" -- why always wrong?
Bhoora was in a shock because of his master's death. We had to lie to him until we got to the town. Only when we reached the town and the corpse was taken out of the bullock cart did Bhoora see what had happened. He then closed his eyes and never opened them again. He said, "I cannot see my master dead." And that was only a master-servant relationship. But there had arisen between them a certain intimacy, a certain closeness which is indefinable. He never opened his eyes again. That much I can vouch for. He lived only a few hours longer, and he went into a coma before dying.
Before my grandfather died, he had told my grandmother, "Take care of Bhoora. I know you will take care of Raja -- I do not have to tell you that-but take care of Bhoora. He has served me as nobody else could."
I told the doctor, "Do you, can you, understand the kind of devotion that must have existed between these two men?"
The doctor asked me, "Is he a European?"
I said, "He looks like one."
The doctor said, "Don't be tricky. You are a child, only seven or eight years old, but very tricky. When I asked whether your grandfather was dead, you said no, and that was not true."
I said, "No, it was true: he is not dead. A man of such love cannot be dead. If love can be dead then there is no hope for the world. I cannot believe that a man who respected my freedom, a small child's freedom so much, is dead just because he cannot breathe. I cannot equate the two, not breathing and death."
The European doctor looked at me suspiciously and told my uncle, "This boy will either be a philosopher or else he will go mad." He was wrong: I am both, together. There is no question of either/or. I am not Soren Kierkegaard; there is no question of either/or. But I wondered why he could not believe me... such a simple thing.
But simple things are the most difficult to believe; difficult things, the easiest to believe. Why should you believe? Your mind says, "It is so simple, there is no complexity at all. There is no reason to believe." Unless you are a Tertullian, whose statement is one of my most beloved.... If I had to choose only one statement from the whole of literature in any language of the world, I am sorry, I would not choose from Jesus Christ; and I am sorry, I would not choose from Gautam the Buddha either; I am sorry, I would not choose from either Moses or Mohammed, or even Lao Tzu or Chuang Tzu.
I would choose this strange fellow about whom nothing much is known -- Tertullian. I don't know exactly how his name is pronounced, so it is better that I spell it out: T-e-r-t-u-l-l-i-a-n. The quote that I would have chosen over all others is, "credo qua absurdum"... just three words: "I believe because it is absurd."
It seems someone must have asked him what he believes in and why, and Tertullian answered, "credo qua absurdum -- it is absurd, that's why I believe." The reason for believing given by Tertullian is absurdum -- "because it is absurd."
For a moment forget Tertullian. Drop the curtain on him. Look at the roses. Why do you love them? Is it not absurd? -- there is no reason to love them. If someone persists in asking further why you love roses, you are finally going to shrug your shoulders; that is credo qua absurdum, that shrug. That is the whole meaning of Tertullian's philosophy.
I could not understand why the doctor could not believe that my grandfather was not dead. I knew and he knew that as far as the body was concerned, it was finished; there was no quarrel about that. But there is something more than the body -- in the body and yet not part of the body. Let me repeat it to emphasize it -- in the body and yet not of the body. Love reveals it; freedom gives it wings to soar in the sky.
Is there more time?
"Yes, Osho."
How much? We are going very low, just like a poor man's celebration. Go to the extreme. Not this way, not slowly -- that's not my way. Either burn or don't burn at all. Either burn both ends together or let darkness have its own beauty.

Chapter #14

Look what an English gentleman I am! Although I wanted to interfere, I didn't. I had already opened my mouth to speak but I stopped myself. This is called self-control. Even I can laugh. When you whisper it feels so good. Although I know that you are not whispering nonsense, it still sounds nice -- although it is technical and what you are saying is perfectly scientific. But between the two of you, you know, the rascal is lying in the chair.
I have not yet said okay. First go to the point where I can say okay. When the "okay" is far from me it means something. An okay from me is just far out... I'm a faaar gone guy! I don't know anybody who is so spaced out. Now, to the work....
"Tubhyamev vastu govind. Tubhyamev samarpayet: My Lord, this life you have given to me, I surrender it back to you with my thanks." Those were the dying words of my grandfather, although he never believed in God and was not a Hindu. This sentence, this sutra, is a Hindu sutra; but in India things are mixed up, particularly good things. Before he died, among other things, he said one thing again and again, "Stop the wheel."
I could not understand it at the time. If we stopped the wheel of the cart, and that was the only wheel there was, then how could we reach the hospital? When he repeated again and again, "Stop the wheel, the CHAKRA," I asked my grandmother, "Has he gone mad?"
She laughed. That was the thing I liked in that woman. Even though she knew, as I did, that death was so close... if even I knew, how could it be possible that she did not know? It was so apparent that just at any moment he would stop breathing, yet he was insisting on stopping the wheel. Still she laughed. I can see her laughing now.
She was not more than fifty at the most, but I have always observed a strange thing about women: the phony ones, who pretend to be beautiful, are the ugliest at the age of forty-five. You can go around the world and see what I am saying. With all their lipstick and makeup, and false eyebrows and whatnot... my God!
Even God did not think of these things when He created the world. At least it is not mentioned in the Bible that on the fifth day He created lipstick, and on the sixth day He created false eyebrows et cetera. At the age of forty-five, if the woman is really beautiful, she comes to her peak. My observation is: man comes to his peak at the age of thirty-five, and woman at the age of forty-five. She is capable of living ten years longer than a man -- and it is not unjust. Giving birth to children she suffers so much that a little bit of extra life, just to compensate, is perfectly okay.
My Nani was fifty, still at the peak of her beauty and youth. I have never forgotten that moment -- it was such a moment! My grandfather was dying and asking us to stop the wheel... what nonsense! How could I stop the wheel? We had to reach the hospital, and without the wheel we would be lost in the forest. And my grandmother was laughing so loudly that even Bhoora, the servant, our driver, asked, of course from the outside, "What is going on? Why are you laughing?" Because I used to call her Nani, Bhoora also used to call her Nani, just out of respect for me. He then said, "Nani, my master is sick and you are laughing so loudly; what's the matter? And why is Raja so silent?"
Death, and my grandmother's laughter, both, made me utterly silent because I wanted to understand what was happening. Something was happening that I had never known before and I was not going to lose a single moment through any distraction.
My grandfather said, "Stop the wheel. Raja, can't you hear me? If I can hear your grandmother's laughter you must be able to hear me. I know she is a strange woman; I have never been able to understand her."
I said to him, "Nana, as far as I know she is the simplest woman I have seen, although I have not seen much yet."
But now to you I can say, I don't think there is any man on the earth, alive or dead, who has seen so much of the woman as I have. But just to console my dying grandfather I said to him, "Don't be worried about her laughter. I know her, she is not laughing at what you are saying, it is something else between us, a joke that I told her."
He said, "Okay. If it is a joke that you told her then it is perfectly okay for her to laugh. But what about the chakra, the wheel?"
Now I know, but at that time I was absolutely unacquainted with such terminology. The wheel represents the whole Indian obsession with the wheel of life and death. For thousands of years, millions of people have been doing only one thing: trying to stop the wheel. He was not talking about the wheel of the bullock cart -- that was very easy to stop, in fact it was difficult to keep it moving.
There was no road; not only at that time, even now! Last year one of my distant cousins visited the ashram, and he said, "I wanted to bring my whole life to your feet, but the real difficulty is the road."
I said, "Still?"
Almost fifty years have passed, but India is such a country that there, time stands still. Who knows when the clock stopped? But it stopped exactly at twelve, with both hands together. That's beautiful: the clock decided the right time. Whenever it happened -- and it must have happened thousands of years ago, but whenever it happened -- the clock, either by chance or by some computerized intelligence, stopped at twelve, with both hands together. You cannot see them as two, you can only see them as one. Perhaps it was twelve o'clock at night... because the country is so dark, and the darkness is so dense.
"My God," the man said to me, "I could not bring the whole family to see you because of the roads."
Perhaps they will never see me, just because of the roads. No roads existed then, and even today no railway line passes by that village. It is a really poor village, and when I was a child it was even poorer.
I could not understand at that moment why my Nana was so insistent. Perhaps the bullock cart -- because there was no road -- was making so much noise. Everything was rattling, and he was in agony, so naturally he wanted to stop the wheel. But my grandmother laughed. Now I know why she laughed. He was talking about the Indian obsession with life and death, symbolically called the wheel of life and death -- and in short, the wheel -- which goes on and on.
In the western world only Friedrich Nietzsche had the guts and the madness enough to propose the idea of eternal recurrence. He borrowed it from the eastern obsession. He was very impressed by two books. One was Manu's SMRATI. It is called THE COLLECTION OF MANU'S VERSES; it is the most important Hindu scripture... I hate it! You can understand its importance. I cannot hate anything ordinary. It is extra-ordinarily ugly. Manu is one of the men that if I see him I will forget all about non-violence. I will just shoot him! He deserves it.
MANU SAMHITA, MANU SMRATI... why do I call it the ugliest book in the world? Because it divides men and women; not only men and women, but it divides humanity into four classes, and nobody can cross from one class to another. It creates a hierarchy.
You will be surprised to know that Adolf Hitler always had a copy of Manu's SAMHITA on his desk, just by the side of his bed. He respected that book more than the Bible. Now you can understand why I hate it. I don't even have a copy of Manu's SAMHITA in my library, although I have been presented with at least a dozen copies, but I always burned them. That was the only way to behave with it. Respectfully, of course, I burned it.
Nietzsche loved two books and borrowed from them immensely. The first was Manu's SAMHITA and the other was the MAHABHARATA. This book is perhaps the greatest as far as volume is concerned; it is huge! I don't think that the BIBLE, the KORAN, DHAMMAPADA, TAO TE CHING can even compare with it as far as volume is concerned. You can only understand me if you put it by the side of ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA. Compared to the MAHABHARATA the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA is just a small book. It is certainly a great work, but ugly.
Scientists know perfectly well that there have been many very huge animals on the earth in the past, almost mountainous, but very ugly. MAHABHARATA belongs among those animals. Not that you cannot find anything beautiful in it; it is so big that if you dig deep you can certainly find a mouse here and there in the mountain.
Those two books influenced Nietzsche immensely. Perhaps nothing was more responsible for Friedrich Nietzsche than those two books. One was by Manu, and MAHABHARATA was written by Vyasa. I must concede that both books have done a tremendous amount of work, dirty work! It would have been better if these two books had not been written at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche remembers both books with such respect that you would be amazed. Amazed, because this was the man who called himself "anti-Christ." But don't be amazed, those two books are anti-Christ, in fact they are anti-anything that is beautiful: anti-truth, anti-love. It is no coincidence that Nietzsche fell in love with them. Although he never liked Lao Tzu or Buddha, he liked Manu and Krishna. Why?
The question is very significant. He liked Manu because he loved the idea of hierarchy. He was against democracy, freedom, equality; in short he was against all true values. He also loved Vyasa's book MAHABHARATA because it contains the concept that only war is beautiful. He once wrote in a letter to his sister, "This very moment I am surrounded by immense beauty. I have never seen such beauty." One would think that he had entered the garden of Eden, but no, he was watching a military parade. The sun was shining on their naked swords, and the sound which he calls "the most beautiful sound I have ever heard..." was not Beethoven or Mozart, not even Wagner, but the sound of the boots of the marching German soldiers.
Wagner was Nietzsche's friend, and not only that, but something more: Nietzsche had fallen in love with his friend's wife. At least he should have thought of the poor man... but no, he thought that neither Beethoven, nor Mozart, nor Wagner, nobody could compare with the beautiful music from the boots of the German soldiers. For him swords in the sun and the sound of the parading army were the very ultimate in beauty.
Great aesthetics! And remember, I am not a man who is against Friedrich Nietzsche as such; I appreciate him whenever he comes close to truth, but truth is my value and my criterion. "Swords in the sun..." and "the sound of the marching boots"-when he goes away from truth, then whatsoever he is, I am going to hit his head with a naked sword. And how beautiful it looks: the naked sword, and the sound of the head of Friedrich Nietzsche being cut off, and the beautiful blood all around.... This is what his disciple, Adolf Hitler, did.
Hitler got Manu's ideas from Nietzsche. Hitler was not a man who could have found Manu on his own, he was a pygmy. Nietzsche was certainly a genius, but a genius gone astray. He was a man who could have become a Buddha, but alas, he died only as a madman.

I was telling you about the Indian obsession, and in that reference remembered Nietzsche. He was the first in the West to recognize the idea of "eternal recurrence"; but he was not honest. He did not say that the idea was borrowed, he pretended to be original. It is so easy to pretend to be original, very easy; it does not need much intelligence. And yet he was a man of genius. He never used his genius to discover anything. He used it to borrow from sources which were not ordinarily known to the world at large. Who knows Manu's SAMHITA? -- and who cares? Manu wrote it five thousand years ago. And who bothers about MAHABHARATA? It is such a big book that unless one wants to really go insane one would not read it.
But there are people who read even the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA. I know such a person; he was my personal friend. This is the moment when I should at least remember his name. He may still be alive -- that's my only fear -- but then too, there is no reason to be afraid, simply because he only reads ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA. He will never read what I am saying -- never, never; he has no time. He not only reads the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, he memorizes it; and that is his madness. Otherwise he looks very normal. When you mention anything that is part of his encyclopaedia he immediately becomes abnormal, and starts quoting pages and pages and pages. He does not bother at all whether you want to listen or not.
Only such people read MAHABHARATA. It is the Hindu encyclopaedia; let's call it the "Encyclopaedia Indiana." Naturally it is bound to be bigger than ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA. Britain is just Britain -- no bigger than a small state in India. India has at least three dozen states of that size, and that is not the whole of India, because half of India is now Pakistan. If you really want the full picture of India then you will have to make a few more additions.
Burma was once part of India. It was only early in this century that it was disconnected from India. Afghanistan was once part of India; it is almost a continent. So MAHABHARATA, the "Encyclopaedia Indiana," is bound to be a thousandfold bigger than the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, which is only thirty-two volumes. That is nothing. If you collect all that I have said, it would be more than that.
Somebody else has counted. I don't know for sure because I never do such rubbishy things, but they estimated that I had written three hundred and thirty-three books, up till now. Great! -- not the books, but the man who counted them. He should wait, because many are still in manuscript, and many others are not yet translated from the Hindi originals. When all that is collected it will really be the "Encyclopaedia Rajneeshica." But MAHABHARATA is bigger, and will always remain the largest book in the world -- I mean in volume, in weight.
I mention it because I was talking about the Indian obsession. The whole of the MAHABHARATA is nothing but the Indian obsession written at length, voluminously, saying that man is born again and again and again eternally.
That's why my grandfather was saying, "Stop the wheel." If I could have stopped the wheel I would have stopped it, not only for him but for everybody else in the world. Not only would I have stopped it, I would have destroyed it forever so that nobody could ever turn it again. But it is not in my hands.
But why this obsession? I became aware of many things at that moment of his death. I will talk about everything that I became aware of in that moment, because that has determined my whole life.

Chapter #15

I have always loved the story told of Henry Ford. He had made his most beautiful car, and he was showing it to a prosperous, very prosperous and promising customer. It was his latest model, and he took the customer for a ride. After thirty miles the car suddenly stopped.
The customer said, "What! A new car and it stops after just thirty miles?"
Ford said, "Excuse me sir. I forgot to put petrol in it."
In those days, even in America, it was called petrol, not gas.
The customer was amazed. He said, "What do you mean? Are you saying that this car was running without petrol for thirty miles?"
Ford said, "Yes, sir. For thirty or forty miles just my name is enough: no petrol is needed."
Once I am off, just I am enough -- nothing else is needed. I could not sleep the whole night. It was not a trouble to me -- it was a beautiful night in a way. The moon was so bright... perhaps the beauty and the brightness of the moon did not allow me to sleep. But no, that cannot be the cause. I think the cause was that I was a little too hard on Devageet. Yes, I can be very hard. I am not hard, but I can be very hard. Particularly at certain moments when I see a possibility of some opening in you, then I really hit! Not with a small hammer, but with a sledgehammer. When one has to hit, why choose a small hammer? Be finished in a single hit! Sometimes I am very hard, that's why sometimes I have to be very soft -- just to compensate, to bring balance.

When I left the room, although you were smiling it was a little sad. I could not forget it. It is very easy for me to forget anything; but if I have been hard, then it is not easy. I can forgive anyone in the world except myself. Perhaps that was the reason that I could not sleep. My sleep anyway is just a thin layer. Underneath I am always awake. The thin layer can be very easily disturbed, but only by me, not anybody else.
The moment I left the room and saw you looking a little sad... maybe for many reasons, not only that I had hit you. But whatsoever the reasons for your sadness, I had in some way deepened the darkness in you. And I am here to enlighten you, not to endarken you -- if that word is allowed. In fact we should make it a word, "endarken," because so many people go on endarkening each other. It is strange that the word does not exist although the reality is there. Enlightenment rarely happens and yet we have a word for that. We still don't have a word for that which goes beyond enlightenment, but perhaps there is a limit to everything. Something is always going to be beyond, far away, not within words but transcendental.
But "endarken" should become a commonly used word. Everybody is endarkening everybody else. The husband is endarkening the wife; otherwise what is he doing in the dark? Just endarkening his wife. And what is the wife doing? He is a fool if he thinks only he is endarkening her. In the dark she is endarkening him more than he could ever manage. Anyway he needs glasses -- she does not need them yet. He is only a poor head clerk, so of course he needs glasses. What is she? She is only a mother, a wife. She does not need glasses.
In darkness, be aware of the woman you love -- particularly in darkness. Perhaps that's why man uses light. Men love the light while they are loving; they keep their eyes open when they make love. Women keep their eyes closed. They cannot look without giggling at the ugliness of the whole thing that is going on -- the baboon sitting over them, and all that et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
I became a little sorry. I say a little, because for me just to be a little sorry is too much. Only one of my tears is enough. I need not cry for hours, and tear my hair out... which is no longer there. No one has ever heard of tearing out one's beard... I don't think in any language, not even Hebrew, such an expression exists: "tearing out one's beard"? And you know the Hebrews and their biblical prophets, they all had beards. It is a natural law that if you have a beard you will become bald, because nature always keeps in balance.
Now, I remember my grandmother again....
Although I was small, she used to say to me, "Listen, Raja, never grow a beard."
I would say, "Why do you mention it? I am only ten, my beard has not yet even started. Why mention it?"
She said, "One has to dig a well before the house is on fire."
My God! She was really digging a well before the house was on fire. She was really a beautiful woman. I never understood her answer and said, "Okay, go on, say what you want to say."
She said, "Never, never grow a beard... although I know you will."
I said, "This is strange. If you know already, then why are you trying to prevent it?"
She said, "I am trying my best, but I know you will grow a beard -- people like you always grow beards. I have known you for eleven years; there must be some reason for it..." and she started to ponder over it.
There is nothing much in it; it is just one does not want to waste one's time every day looking in the mirror like a fool, shaving one's beard. Just think of a woman with a beard, looking in the mirror -- how would she look? A man without a beard looks exactly like that. It is simple, it saves time, and it saves you from looking like a fool, at least in your own mirror.
But one thing is certain: the moment you start growing a beard you start getting bald. Nature always remembers to keep in balance. It can only give you so many hairs. If you start growing a beard, then of course the budget has to be cut from somewhere. It is simple economics, ask any bookkeeper.
I was just a little bit concerned about Devageet, feeling as if I had hurt him. Perhaps I had done it... perhaps it was needed. So don't worry about my sleep. If something is needed, I am always ready to lose my life at any moment. Not for any national cause, not for any state, nor any race, but for any individual, for anyone whose heart still beats, who still feels, and is capable of all childish things. Remember, I am saying "childish things"... I mean one who is still a child. I am ready to give my life if he can grow, mature, and become integrated. Whenever I use the word "integration," I always mean intelligence plus love; that is equal to integration.
Now, this has been a long footnote -- if George Bernard Shaw can be forgiven, and not only forgiven but given a Nobel prize, then you can forgive me too. And I don't ask for a Nobel prize. Even if they gave me the prize, I would refuse it. It is not for me. It is too full of blood.
The money given with the Nobel prize is soaked in blood, because the man, Nobel, was a manufacturer of bombs. He earned his immeasurable money in the first world war selling arms to both camps. I would not even like to touch his money. In fact I have not touched money for many years, because I don't have to. Somebody always takes care of money for me -- and money is always dirty, not only Nobel prize money.
The man who founded the Nobel prize was really feeling guilty, and just to get rid of his guilt he founded the Nobel prize. It was a good gesture, but only like killing a man and then saying to him, "Sorry, sir, please excuse me." I would not accept that blood money.
George Bernard Shaw was not only respected but given a Nobel prize, and his small books have such long introductions that you wonder whether the book was written for the introduction, or the introduction for the book. As far as I can see the book was written for the introduction, and that's what I appreciate.
So this has been a long introductory note. Don't be worried about my sleep, but remember not to get disturbed if I am hard. Although you know, and everybody knows, that nothing can make any change in me, many things can certainly change in my body and even my mind. Of course I am neither my body nor my mind, but I have to function through them.
Right now I can see that my lips are dry; now, that much can be done by anything from the outside. I am speaking, but the dry lips are creating trouble. I will manage, but they are a hindrance. Devageet, you can help -- do your trick. That will be a good break from this introductory note and then I can start. Thank you.... Now the story.
Death is not the end but only the culmination of one's whole life, a climax. It is not that you are finished but you are transported to another body. That is what the easterners call "the wheel." It goes on turning and turning. Yes, it can be stopped, but the way to stop it is not when you are dying.
That is one of the lessons, the greatest lesson I learned from my grandfather's death. He was crying, with tears in his eyes, and asking us to stop the wheel. We were at a loss what to do: how to stop the wheel?
His wheel was his wheel; it was not even visible to us. It was his own consciousness, and only he could do it. Since he was asking us to stop it, it was obvious that he could not do it himself, hence the tears and his constant insistence in asking us again and again, as if we were deaf. We told him, "We have heard you, Nana, and we understand. Please be silent."
In that moment something great happened. I have never revealed it to anybody; perhaps before this moment was not the time. I was saying to him, "Please be silent" -- the bullock cart was rattling on the rough, ugly road. It was not even a road, just a track, and he was insisting, "Stop the wheel, Raja, do you hear? Stop the wheel."
Again and again I told him, "Yes, I do hear you. I understand what you mean. You know that nobody except you can stop the wheel, so please be silent. I will try to help you."
My grandmother was amazed. She looked at me with such big, amazing eyes: what was I saying? How could I help?
I said, "Yes. Don't look so amazed. I have suddenly remembered one of my past lives. Seeing his death I have remembered one of my own deaths." That life and death happened in Tibet. That is the only country which knows, very scientifically, how to stop the wheel. Then I started chanting something.
Neither my grandmother could understand, nor my dying grandfather, nor my servant Bhoora, who was listening intently from the outside. And what is more, neither could I understand a single word of what I was chanting. It was only after twelve or thirteen years that I came to understand what it was. It took that much time to discover it. It was bardo thodal, a Tibetan ritual.
When a man dies in Tibet, they repeat a certain mantra. That mantra is called bardo. The mantra says to him, "Relax, be silent. Go to your center, just be there; don't leave it whatsoever happens to the body. Just be a witness. Let it happen, don't interfere. Remember, remember, remember that you are only a witness; that is your true nature. If you can die remembering, the wheel is stopped."
I repeated the bardo thodal for my dying grandfather without even knowing what I was doing. It was strange -- not only that I repeated it, but also that he became utterly silent listening to it. Perhaps Tibetan was such a strange thing to hear. He may never have heard a single word in Tibetan before; he may not even have known that there was a country called Tibet. Even in his death he became utterly attentive and silent. The bardo worked although he could not understand it. Sometimes things you don't understand work; they work just because you don't understand.
No great surgeon can operate on his own child. Why? No great surgeon can operate on his own beloved. I don't mean his wife -- anyone can operate on his wife -- I mean his beloved, who certainly is not his wife, and can never be. To reduce your beloved into your wife is a crime. It is of course unpunished by law, but nature itself punishes, so there is no need for any law.
No lover can be reduced into a husband. It is so ugly to have a husband. The very word is ugly. It comes from the same root as "husbandry"; the husband is one who uses the woman as a field, a farm, to sow his seed. The word "husband" has to be completely erased from every language in the world; it is inhuman. A lover is understandable but not a husband!
I was repeating the bardo though I did not understand its meaning, nor did I know where it was coming from, because I had not read it yet. But when I repeated it just the shock of those strange words made my grandfather silent. He died in that silence.
To live in silence is beautiful, but to die in silence is far more beautiful, because death is like an Everest, the highest peak in the Himalayas. Although nobody taught me, I learned much in that moment of his silence. I saw myself repeating something absolutely strange. It shocked me to a new plane of being and pushed me into a new dimension. I started on a new search, a pilgrimage.
On this pilgrimage I have met many more remarkable men than Gurdjieff recounts in his book MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MEN. By and by, as and when it happens, I will talk about them. Today I can talk about one of those remarkable men.
His real name is not known, nor his real age but he was called "Magga Baba." Magga simply means "big cup." He always used to keep his magga, his cup, in his hand. He used it for everything -- for his tea, his milk, his food, for the money people gave him, or whatsoever the moment demanded. All he possessed was his magga and that is why he was known as Magga Baba. Baba is a respectful word. It simply means "grandfather," your father's father. In Hindi your mother's father is Nana, your father's father is Baba.
Magga Baba was certainly one of the most remarkable men that may ever have lived on this planet. He was really one of the chosen ones. You can count him with Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu. I know nothing about his childhood or his parents. Nobody knows from where he came -- one day suddenly he appeared in the town.
He did not speak. People persisted in asking questions of all kinds. He either remained silent, or if they nagged too much he started shouting gibberish, rubbish, just meaningless sounds. Those poor people thought he was speaking in a language that perhaps they didn't understand. He was not using language at all. He was just making sounds. For example, "Higgalal hoo hoo hoo guloo higga hee hee." Then he would wait and again ask, "Hee hee hee?" It seemed as if he was asking, "Have you understood?"
And the poor people would say, "Yes, Baba, yes."
Then he would show his magga and make the sign. This sign in India means money. It comes from the old days when there were real gold and silver coins. People used to check whether it was real gold or not, by throwing the coin to the ground and listening to its sound. Real gold has its own sound, and nobody can fake it. So Magga Baba would show his magga with one hand and with the other give the sign for money, meaning, "If you have understood then give something to me." And people would give.
I would laugh myself to tears because he had not said anything. But he was not greedy for money. He would take from one person and give it to another. His magga was always empty. Once in a while there would be something in it, but rarely. It was a passage: money would come into it and go; food would come into it and go; and it always remained empty. He was always cleaning it. I have seen him morning, evening and afternoon, always cleaning it.
I want to confess to you -- "you" means the world -- that I was the only person to whom he used to speak, but only in privacy, when nobody else was present. I would go to him deep in the night, perhaps two o'clock in the morning, because that was the most likely time to find him alone. He would be hugged up in his old blanket, on a winter's night, by the side of a fire. I would sit at his side for a while. I never disturbed him; that was the one reason why he loved me. Once in a while it would happen that he would turn on his side, open his eyes and see me sitting there and start talking of his own accord.
He was not a Hindi-speaking person so people thought it was difficult to communicate with him, but that is not true. He was certainly not a Hindi-oriented person, but he knew not only Hindi but many other languages too. Of course he knew the language of silence the most; he remained silent almost all his life. In the day he would not speak to anybody, but in the night he would speak to me, only when I was alone. It was such a blessing to hear his few words.
Magga Baba never said anything about his own life, but he said many things about life. He was the first man who told me, "Life is more than what it appears to be. Don't judge by its appearances but go deep down into the valleys where the roots of life are." He would suddenly speak, and suddenly he would be silent. That was his way. There was no way to persuade him to speak: either he spoke or not. He would not answer any questions, and the conversations between us two were an absolute secret. Nobody knew about it. This is for the first time that I am saying it.
I have heard many great speakers, and he was just a poor man, but his words were pure honey, so sweet and nourishing, and so pregnant with meaning. "But," he told me, "you are not to tell anybody that I have been speaking to you, until I die, because many people think I am deaf. It is good for me that they think so. Many think that I am mad -- that is even better as far as I am concerned. Many who are very intellectual try to figure out what I say, and it is just gibberish.
"I wonder, when I hear the meaning that they have derived from it. I say to myself, `My God! If these people are the intellectuals, the professors, the pundits, the scholars, then what about the poor crowd? I had not said anything, yet they have made up so many things out of nothing, just like soap bubbles.'" For some reason, or maybe for no reason at all, he loved me.
I have had the fortune to be loved by many strange people. Magga Baba is the first on my list.
The whole day he was surrounded by people. He was really a free man, yet not even free to move a single inch because people were holding on to him. They would put him into a rickshaw and take him away wherever they wanted. Of course he would not say no, because he was pretending to be either deaf or dumb or mad. And he never uttered any word that could be found in any dictionary. Obviously he could not say yes or no; he would simply go.
Once or twice he was stolen. He disappeared for months because people from another town had stolen him. When the police found him and asked him whether he wanted to return, of course he did his thing again. He said some nonsense, "YUDDLE FUDDLE SHUDDLE...."
The police said, "This man is mad. What are we going to write in our reports: `YUDDLE FUDDLE SHUDDLE'? What does it mean? Can anyone make any sense out of it?" So he remained there until he was stolen back again by a crowd from the original town. That was my town where I was living soon after the death of my grandfather.
I visited him almost every night without fail, under his neem tree, where he used to sleep and live. Even when I was sick and my grandmother would not allow me to go out, even then, during the night when she was asleep, I would escape. But I had to go; Magga Baba had to be visited at least once each day. He was a kind of spiritual nourishment.
He helped me tremendously although he never gave any directions except by his very being. Just by his very presence he triggered unknown forces in me, unknown to me. I am most grateful to this man Magga Baba, and the greatest blessing of all was that I, a small child, was the only one to whom he used to speak. Those moments of privacy, knowing that he spoke to no one else in the whole world, were tremendously strengthening, vitalizing.
If sometimes I would go to him and somebody else was present, he would do something so terrible that the other person would escape. For example he would throw things, or jump, or dance like a madman, in the middle of the night. Anybody was bound to become afraid -- after all, you have a wife, children, and a job, and this man seems to be just mad; he could do anything. Then, when the person had gone we would both laugh together.
I have never laughed like that with anybody else, and I don't think it is going to happen again in this lifetime... and I don't have any other life. The wheel has stopped. Yes, it is running a little bit, but that is only past momentum; no new energy is being fed into it.
Magga Baba was so beautiful that I have not seen any other man who can be put by his side. He was just like a Roman sculpture, just perfect. Even more perfect than any sculpture can be, because he was alive -- so full of life, I mean. I don't know whether it is possible to meet a man like Magga Baba again, and I don't want to either because one Magga Baba is enough, more than enough.
He was so satisfying and who cares for repetition? And I know perfectly, one cannot be higher than that. I myself have come to the point where you cannot go any higher. Howsoever high you go, you are still on the same height. In other words, there comes a moment in spiritual growth which is untranscendable. That moment is called, paradoxically, the transcendental.
The day he left for the Himalayas was the first time he called me. During the night somebody came to my house and knocked on the door. My father opened it and the man said that Magga Baba wanted me.
My father said, "Magga Baba? What has he to do with my son? Moreover he never speaks, so how could he call for him?"
The man said, "I am not concerned about anything else. This was all I had to convey. Please tell the person concerned. If it happens to be your son, that is not my business." And the man disappeared.
My father woke me in the middle of the night and said, "Listen, this is something: Magga Baba wants you. In the first place he does not speak...."
I laughed because I knew he spoke to me, but I did not tell my father.
He went on, "He wants you right now, in the middle of the night. What do you want to do? Do you want to go to this madman?"
I said, "I have to go."
He said, "Sometimes I think that you are a little mad too. Okay, go, and lock the door from the outside so that you don't disturb me again when you come in."
I rushed, I ran. This was the first time he had called me. When I got to him I said, "What's the matter?"
He said, "This is my last night here. I am leaving perhaps for ever. You are the only one I have spoken to. Forgive me, I had to speak to that man I sent to you, but he knows nothing. He does not know me as a spiritual man. He was a stranger and I bribed him simply by giving him one rupee, and told him to deliver the message to your house."
In those days, one gold rupee was too much. Forty years ago in India one gold rupee was almost enough to live on, in perfect comfort, for one month. Do you know the English word "rupee" comes from the Hindi word rupaiya which means "the golden." In fact the paper note should not be called a rupee; it is not golden. At least the fools could have painted it in golden colors, but they didn't even do that. One rupee, of those days, is almost seven hundred rupees of today. So much has changed in just forty years. Things have become seven hundred times costlier.
He said, "I just gave him one rupee and told him to deliver the message. He was so bewildered by the rupee that he did not even look at me. He was a stranger -- I have never seen him before."
I said, "I can also say the same. I have never seen the man either in this town; perhaps he is a passer-by. But there is no need to be worried about it. Why did you have to call me?"
Magga Baba said, "I am leaving and there is nobody whom I could call to say goodbye to. You are the only one." He hugged me, kissed my forehead, said goodbye and went away, just like that.
Magga Baba had disappeared many times in his life -- people had taken him and brought him back again -- so when he disappeared last, nobody bothered much. Only after a few months did people become aware that he had really disappeared, that he had not come back for many months. They started looking around the places he had been before but nobody knew about him.
That night, before he disappeared he told me, "I may not be able to see you blossom to a flower but my blessings will be with you. It may not be possible for me to return. I am going to the Himalayas. Don't say anything to anybody about my whereabouts." He was so happy when he was saying this to me, so blissful that he was going to the Himalayas. The Himalayas have always been the home of all those who have searched and found.
I didn't know where he had gone because the Himalayas is the biggest range of mountains in the world, but once while traveling in the Himalayas I came to a place which seemed to be his grave. Strange to say it was by the side of Moses and Jesus. Those two persons are also buried deep in the Himalayas. I had gone there to see the grave of Jesus; it was just a coincidence that I found Moses and Magga Baba too. It was a surprise of course.
I could never have imagined that Magga Baba had anything to do with Moses or Jesus, but seeing his grave there I understood immediately why his face was so beautiful; why he looked more like Moses than any other Hindu. Perhaps he belonged to the lost tribe. Moses had lost a tribe while he was on the way to Israel. That tribe settled in Kashmir in the Himalayas. And I say it authoritatively, that that tribe was more correct in finding Israel than Moses himself. What Moses found in Israel was just a desert, utterly useless. What they had found in Kashmir was really the garden of God.
Moses went there in search for his lost tribe. Jesus also went there after his so-called crucifixion. I'm calling it so-called because it did not really happen, he remained alive. After six hours on the cross Jesus was not dead.
The way Jews used to crucify people was such a crude method that it took almost thirty-six hours for a person to die. It was arranged by a very rich disciple of Jesus that the crucifixion should happen on a Friday. It was an arrangement, because on Saturday Jews don't allow any work to be continued; it is their holy day. Jesus had to be put down off the cross into a cave temporarily, until the coming Monday. Meanwhile he was stolen from the cave.
That's the story Christians tell. The real fact is that on the night he was in the cave, after having been taken down from the cross, he was taken away from Israel. He was alive although he had lost much blood. It took a few days to heal him, but he was healed and he lived up to the age of one hundred and twelve in a small village called Pahalgam in the Kashmiri Himalayas.
He chose the place, Pahalgam, because he found the grave of Moses there. Moses had gone before him to search for his lost tribe. He found it but also found that Israel is nothing compared to Kashmir. There is no other place to be compared to Kashmir. He lived and died there -- I mean Moses. And when Jesus went to Kashmir with Thomas, his beloved disciple, he sent Thomas to show India his way. He himself lived in Kashmir, near the grave of Moses, for his remaining life.
Magga Baba is buried in the same small village of Pahalgam. When I was in Pahalgam I discovered a strange relationship running from Moses to Jesus to Magga Baba and to me.
Before Magga Baba left my village he gave me his blanket saying, "This is my only possession and you are the only one I would like to give it to."
I said, "That's okay, but my father will not allow me to bring this blanket inside the house."
He laughed, I laughed... we both enjoyed. He knew perfectly well that my father would not allow such a dirty blanket in his house. But I was sad and sorry not to have preserved that blanket. It was nothing much -- a dirty old rag -- but it belonged to a man of the category of Buddha and Jesus. I could not take it to my house because my father was a clothes merchant and very careful about clothes. I knew perfectly well that he would not allow it. I could not take it to my grandmother's house either. She would not allow it because she was very fussy about cleanliness.
I have got my fussiness about cleanliness from her. It is her fault, not my responsibility at all. I cannot tolerate anything used or dirty -- impossible.
I used to say to her, laughingly of course, "You are spoiling me." But it is a truth. She has spoiled me forever, but I am grateful to her. She spoiled me in favor of purity, cleanliness and beauty.
To me Magga Baba was important, but if I had to choose between my Nani and him I would still choose my Nani. Although she was not enlightened then and Magga Baba was, sometimes an unenlightened person is so beautiful that one would choose them, even though the enlightened one is available as an alternative.
Of course if I could choose both I would. Or, if I had a choice of two among the whole world of millions of people, then I would have them both. Magga Baba on the outside... he won't enter my grandmother's house; he would remain outside under his neem tree. And of course my Nani could not sit at the side of Magga Baba. "That fellow!" she used to call him. "That fellow! Forget about him and never go close to him; even when you just pass by him, always take a shower." She was always afraid he had lice, because nobody had ever seen him take a bath.
Perhaps she was right: he had never taken a bath as long as I had known him. They could not coexist together, that too is true. Coexistence could not be possible in this case, but we could always make arrangements. Magga Baba could always be under the neem tree outside in the courtyard, and Nani could be the queen in the house. And I could have the love of them both, without having to choose this or that. I hate "either/or."
What is the time?
"Sixteen minutes past ten, Bhagwan."
Five minutes for me. Be kind to a poor man, and after five minutes you can stop.

Chapter #16

There are six great religions in the world. They can be divided into two categories: one consists of Judaism, Christianity and Islam; they believe in only one life. You are just between birth and death. There is nothing beyond birth and death -- life is all. Although they believe in heaven and hell and God, they are the earnings from one life, a single life. The other category consists of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. They believe in the theory of reincarnation. One is born again and again, eternally; unless one becomes enlightened, and then the wheel stops.
That was what my grandfather was asking while he was dying, but I was not aware of the whole significance of it... although I repeated the bardo just like a machine, without even understanding what I was saying or doing. Now I can understand the poor man's concern. You can call it "the ultimate concern." If it becomes diseased, as it has in the East, then it is an obsession, then I condemn it. Then it is more of a disease; it is not something to be praised but really condemned.
Obsession is a psychological way of condemning something, hence I have used the word. As far as the masses in the East are concerned, it has been a disease for thousands of years. It has stopped them from being rich, prosperous and affluent, because their whole concern was how to stop the wheel. Who then is going to grease it and who is going to run it smoothly?
Of course I need my sannyasins to keep the wheels of the Rolls rolling. Just a little noise and they are in trouble... even a sweet noise. For two days the Rolls was making a little noise -- it happens once in a while -- very sweet, like a small bird singing in the trees. But it should not be so, a Rolls is not supposed to be a bird. And where is the noise coming from? From the steering wheel. I cannot tolerate it. As you know, I am not an intolerant man, but a new Rolls Royce starting to sing? -- and that too in the steering wheel.
In fact, I don't know anything about what is under the bonnet. I have never looked and I don't ever want to. That is not my business. But I must say the noise is sweet, just like a very tiny bird whistling; but it has to be stopped. A Rolls Royce is not meant to whistle, sweetly or not. And what are the guys doing? Their whole function is -- and their meditation too -- just to keep the Rolls in perfect working order. Even if the other two guys, Rolls and Royce, were to be born again, they would be jealous because we have been trying to improve on what they have done. Of course the Rolls is the best car in the world, but it is not unimprovable. It can be, and should be, improved... and I don't want its wheels to be stopped.
Indians are obsessed. It has become a disease of the soul to stop the wheel of life and death. Of course to them, the wheel always reminds them of the bullock cart. If they want to stop it I am in perfect agreement. But there are better wheels; one need not stop all of them. In fact the very idea not to be born again simply shows that you have not lived. It may seem contradictory to you, but let me say it: only one who has totally lived stops the wheel of life and death. Yet those who want to stop it are those who have lived not at all. They will die a dog's death.
I am not against dogs -- please note it -- I am just using a metaphor. And it must be significant, because in Hindi there is also the same metaphor. It is the only metaphor which is similar in both Hindi and English. In fact, not similar but the same: Kutte ki mout -- "a dog's death." It is exactly the same. There must be something in it. To discover what it is I will have to tell you a story.
It is said that when God made the world -- remember it is only a story.... When God made the world -- men and women, animals and trees and everything, He gave everybody the same age limit, twenty years. I wonder why twenty? Perhaps God also counted on His fingers, and not only on His hands but His feet too: that makes it twenty.
I do my own research. Once in a while in your bath tub, while cleaning your fingers and toes, you must have counted them. Perhaps one day He counted His, and an idea may have struck Him: to give everybody twenty years of life. He seems to be a poet. He also seems to be a communist. Now the Americans will be very offended. Let them be -- I don't care. If I have not cared about anybody else in the world why should I care about Yankees? And in this phase of my life I want to remain as outrageous, or even more than I was before.
I certainly know that if Jesus was allowed to teach a little longer, he would not have been so outrageous, he would have come to his senses. After all, he was a Jew. He would have understood, and then he would not have talked such nonsense -- "the kingdom of God" -- and those twelve fools that he or they themselves thought were apostles! He must have given them some hint, otherwise being such fools, they could not have thought of it themselves.
Jesus was so outrageous that even the greatest revolutionary of the day, John the Baptist, who was also the master of Jesus and who was imprisoned in jail -- even he from his cell sent a message to Jesus. He said, "Listening to your statements I wonder are you really the messiah we have been waiting for? -- because your statements are so outrageous."
Now I call this a certification. John the Baptist was one of the greatest revolutionaries in the world; Jesus was only one of his disciples. It is an accident of history that John the Baptist is forgotten and Jesus is remembered.
John the Baptist was real fire. His head was cut off. The queen had ordered his head to be presented to her on a plate, only then would she feel that the country would remain at ease. And that's what was done. John the Baptist's head was cut off, put on a beautiful golden plate and presented to the queen. This man, John the Baptist, had also become a little worried when he heard the outrageous remarks of Jesus. And I say that once in a while they need to be edited -- yes, even I say so -- not because they were outrageous, but because they start becoming foolish. Outrageous is okay, but foolish? No.
Just think of Jesus cursing the fig tree because he and his disciples were hungry and the tree had no fruit. It was not the season. It was not the fault of the tree, yet he became so angry that he cursed the fig tree that it would remain ugly forever.
Now, this I call foolishness. I don't care whether it was said by Jesus or anybody else. Outrageousness is part of religiousness, but foolishness is not. Perhaps if Jesus had taught a little longer -- he was only thirty-three when he was crucified -- I think, being a real Jew, he would have become pacified by the time he was seventy. There would have been no need to crucify him at all. The Jews were in a hurry.
I think it was not only the Jews who were in a hurry -- because Jews know better -- perhaps the crucifixion of Jesus came from the Romans, who have always been childish and stupid. I don't know of anyone like a Jesus, or a Buddha, or a Lao Tzu, who has ever happened to their race and to their history.
Only one man comes to me, he was the Emperor Aurelius. He wrote the famous book, MEDITATIONS. Of course it is not what I call meditation, but meditations. My meditation is always singular; there can be no plural to it. His meditations are really contemplations; there can be no singular to it. Marcus Aurelius is the only name I can remember in the whole Roman history worth mentioning -- but that not too much. Any poor Basho could defeat Marcus Aurelius. Any Kabir could hit the emperor and bring him beyond his senses.
I don't know whether this is permitted in your language or not, to "bring someone beyond their senses." Bringing him to his senses is certainly permitted, but that is not my work, anybody could do that. Even a good hit could do it, a stone in the road could do it. A Buddha is not needed for that, a Buddha is needed to bring you beyond your senses. Basho, Kabir, or even a woman like Lalla or Rabiya could really have brought this poor emperor to that beyond.
But this is all that has come from the Romans -- nothing much, but still something. One should not reject anybody totally. Just by way of courtesy I accept Marcus Aurelius, not as an enlightened one but as a good man. He could have been enlightened if, by chance, he had come across a man like Bodhidharma. Just a look from Bodhidharma into the eyes of Marcus Aurelius would have been enough. Then he would have known, for the first time, what meditation is.
He would have gone home and burned what he had written so far. Perhaps then he would have left a collection of sketches -- a bird on the wing, a rose withering away, or just a cloud floating in the sky -- a few sentences here and there; not saying much, but enough to provoke, enough to trigger a process in the person who comes across it. That would have been a real notebook on meditation, but not on meditations.... There is no plural possible.
The East, and particularly India, can be called by the psychologists not only obsessive about death, but really possessed by the idea of suicide. In a way the psychologist would not be wrong. One should live while one is alive; there is no need to think of death. And when death comes one should die, and die totally; then there is no need to look backwards. And every moment being total in living, in loving, in dying -- that's how one comes to know. To know what? There is no what. One simply comes to know -- not what, but that, the knower. "What" is the object, "that" is one's subjectivity.
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....
The word neem cannot be translated because I don't think anything like the neem tree exists in the West at all. The neem tree is something strange: if you taste the leaves they are very bitter. You cannot believe that poison could taste more poisonous. In fact it is just the opposite, it is not poisonous. If you eat a few leaves from the neem tree every day... which is a difficult thing. I have done it for years; fifty leaves in the morning and fifty again in the evening. Now, to eat fifty leaves of the neem tree really needs someone who is determined to kill himself!
It is so bitter, but it purifies the blood and keeps you absolutely free from any infection, even in India, which is a miracle! Even the wind passing through the leaves of a neem tree is thought to be purer than any other. People plant neem trees around their houses just to keep the air pure and unpolluted. It is a scientifically proven fact that the neem tree keeps away all kinds of infection by creating a wall of protection.
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 before 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 any more."
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 any more, 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 also teach me 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.
What is the time?
"Quarter to nine, Osho."
Five minutes for me. It is so immensely beautiful.... No, this is just great. No, one should not be greedy. No, I am a consistent man, consistently... no... and remember that I am not saying "no" as a negative. To me "no" is the most beautiful word in your language. I love it. I don't know if anybody else does or not, but I love it.
You are both patient... and I am the doctor. It is time. Everything has to come to a full stop.