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CHAPTER 12
On the flight alone
30 March 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium
Question 1 BELOVED OSHO,
I HAVE READ THAT KABIR SAYS, “I LEAVE BEHIND MY CLOAK INTACT. I WORE MY CLOAK WITH GREAT CARE AND THEN PUT IT ASIDE AS I FOUND IT, WITHOUT IMPAIRING IT IN ANY WAY. OH SWAN, TAKE OFF ON THE FLIGHT ALONE.”
OSHO, WHAT IS THIS?
Nivedano, Kabir was a poor man. As far as the outside world is concerned, he was nobody. But as far as the inner world is concerned, he belongs to the same category as Gautam Buddha, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra.
His statements of course cannot be in the language of the learned and the scholarly. And it is not unfortunate in any way; on the contrary, it is very fortunate that he speaks the language of the very ordinary man, but he brings such beauty to language that no scholarship can compete with it. He brings such glamor to the mundane words used in the marketplace... you could have never thought that this can become a symbol for the ultimate. But he knows no other language.
He has the experience of the ultimate, but his language is that of a weaver he was a weaver. His whole life he was weaving clothes, going to sell them every Sunday in the marketplace. Even though he became famous far and wide as an awakened, enlightened consciousness and thousands of
people started coming to him, even kings, the richest people but he never left his job. He continued weaving.
A thousand and one times he must have been asked by his disciples: “We can take care of all your needs. And your needs are not very many...” He had only one son, one wife and himself, and they lived in absolute poverty. But he always refused. He said, “God has made me a weaver and I cannot be otherwise. And you never think about those people who get the clothes which I weave. I weave with such love and such joy, such celebration, such consciousness, that nobody else can do it. What will happen to my customers? I am always weaving for my customers, because every customer of mine is a representation of the divine. I am in the service of the divine please don’t distract me.”
His language because he was a weaver reflects again and again his profession and the language that must have been used by his profession.
In this beautiful statement, which nobody else could have made Buddha cannot make it, he cannot even think of it...
“I have read,” you are asking, Nivedano, “that Kabir says: I LEAVE BEHIND MY CLOAK INTACT.”
This statement was made before his death, just a few moments before. He is saying, I am leaving my cloak intact. I WORE MY CLOAK WITH GREAT CARE, THEN PUT IT ASIDE AS I FOUND IT, WITHOUT IMPAIRING IT IN ANY WAY. OH SWAN, TAKE OFF ON THE FLIGHT ALONE.
The moment of departure the final departure of consciousness from the body... In the Eastern mystic language the swan symbolizes the soul, because the swan is so white and so pure and particularly the swan that comes from the Himalayas has the same purity as the eternal snow of the Himalayas.
Because of the whiteness, the purity... And it lives far away in the Himalayas where very few people have ever reached, the highest lake in the world, Mansarovar. Nine months out of twelve it is frozen; only for three months it melts. The swan for nine months comes down to the plains, but without fail it returns after nine months to Mansarovar.
And a strange mystery is that these months that he is not at Mansarovar are the months when the swan gives birth to children. Even when they leave, their eggs have not opened yet. When the time comes they leave their eggs behind and move away towards Mansarovar. The mystery is that the parents have never met the child, the child has never traveled the path; he knows nothing about Mansarovar, but still when the egg ripens and the child swan is born, it immediately starts flying in the direction of Mansarovar.
Because of this fact it became a tremendously important symbol: You don’t know where your home is; there is no guide, no map, you have to go alone. But every child swan reaches Mansarovar, without fail.
Metaphorically, we don’t belong to this mundane world. It is not our home. Sooner or later the moment comes: your consciousness opens its wings and flies towards its home.
Kabir is making this statement just before leaving the body. The body is symbolized as the cloak. In Hindi it is called chadariya.
I LEAVE BEHIND MY CLOAK INTACT. Just as you have given it to me: I have not spoiled it, not even a small scratch, not even a small dark spot. As white and as clean and pure as you had given it to me, I am putting it aside.
I WORE MY CLOAK WITH GREAT CARE. This is to be understood. He is not against the body. He is saying, I WORE MY CLOAK WITH GREAT CARE, I used my body with great care, with love, and then put it aside as I found it. Now the moment has come to put it aside, but I am putting it aside exactly as I had found it.
The words of Kabir are very beautiful. Almost untranslatable is their beauty. They have a certain music that is missing in any translation, but still you should hear those words:
JYON KI TYON DHARI DINHI CHADARIYA KHOOB JATAN KAR ODHI CHADARIYA.
With great effort I have used the cloak you had given to me and I am putting it back JYON KI TYON just the way you had given it to me, without spoiling it, without impairing it in any way. OH SWAN and this he addresses to himself OH SWAN, TAKE OFF ON THE FLIGHT ALONE.
Now even this cloak, this chadariya that you have been using for your whole life, cannot go with you. Neither your wife nor your son nor your friends nor your disciples nobody can go with you; you have to go alone. It is a flight of the alone to the alone.
OH SWAN, TAKE OFF ON THE FLIGHT ALONE.
And Kabir blessed his disciples. Before closing his eyes he said the chadariya is simply like a bed cloth, you can wrap it around your body he told his disciples, “Cover me with the chadariya, with the cloak.”
And one asked, “Why?”
He said, “You will find out later on.”
His body was covered with the same cloth that he had used his whole life.
It was undecided about Kabir, whether he was a Hindu or a Mohammedan. This created a great problem. He had Hindu disciples, he had Mohammedan disciples. And they were constantly quarreling about who he was. Whenever Kabir was asked, he simply laughed. He said, “I am myself! What have I to do with Hinduism or Mohammedanism? I am perfectly happy being myself.”
So he never answered; the question remained. And after his death it became tremendously important, because Mohammedans put the body in the grave, and Hindus put the body on the funeral pyre. Now, what has to be done? Both sides were standing face to face, to fight, to kill each other!
And the problem had arisen from the very beginning because his name, Kabir, is a Mohammedan name. It means God in Mohammedanism, God has one hundred names. Ninety-nine names can
be pronounced, the hundredth one remains unpronounced. Amongst the ninety-nine, one is Kabir, so as far as the name was concerned he was certainly a Mohammedan.
But it seems that his parents, for some reason of their own perhaps he was an illegitimate child, although no child can be illegitimate; only parents can be illegitimate had left the child on the steps of the Ganges. And a very great Hindu saint, Ramananda, came early in the morning... it was still dark, and the child must have been not more than two years of age.
As Ramananda was returning after his bath the child caught hold of Ramananda’s feet as Ramananda passed by him, he caught his feet. Ramananda thought, in the darkness, that some disciple is touching his feet so he said, “God bless you.”
Hearing no answer he looked closely: there was a small child sitting. But Ramananda has accepted him as a disciple, and being a man of his promise and word, he took him home.
His disciples were very angry. They said, “What have you done? Because in the first place the child is certainly illegitimate; otherwise who is going to leave such a beautiful child in this cold winter night on the steps near the Ganges?” And on his hand was written in Arabic his name, Kabir.
“So first he is illegitimate, and second he is Mohammedan!”
Ramananda said, “It does not matter. Whoever he is, he has received my blessings. I have initiated him, he has touched my feet. I cannot deny him. He is going to live with me. It doesn’t matter whether he is Hindu or Mohammedan. He is simply a child, he does not know anything of who he is.”
It became such an uproar that many disciples of Ramananda left him, saying, “This is absolutely against Hindu tradition. He is not following the tradition and he is allowing a Mohammedan in the house not only allowing, but he will bring him up!”
But Ramananda was a very courageous man. If he had been an ordinary Hindu saint, he would not have risked his respectability. So many disciples leaving him, so many condemning him, that “He is supporting illegitimate children. By his act he is not saying that illegitimate children are to be denounced so that nobody ever attempts it again.”
Ramananda listened to all the condemnation, and brought up Kabir. He never asked Kabir, “What is your religion?”
In fact, a man of religion cannot ask another man of religion, “What is your religion?” Because religion is not something like an educational degree...”Are you a matriculate, or are you a bachelor, or a post-graduate?”
Religion is a quality. And Ramananda could see in this child more religiousness than in any of his disciples. It was enough for him that Kabir was truthful, that he was sincere, that he was meditative, that he was continuously making every effort to know himself.
There are memoirs of people who have seen Kabir growing under the shadow of Ramananda, saying that even as a small child he looked like a buddha so silent, so peaceful, one could not believe that
he was a child. He never did anything childish. Soon people started even asking him questions, touching his feet. Even in the presence of Ramananda, Kabir became a famous saint and he was a young man.
He told Ramananda, “I feel very much in a difficulty because people who should go to you, come to me.”
Ramananda said, “Don’t be worried, you have all my blessings. In fact people who come to me, I send them to you! You are far more fresh. You are not conditioned by any religion, you are not conditioned by any parents, any tradition, any church. You are far more pure. I am proud of having a man like you as my disciple.”
Ramananda never listened to those who said that, “At least it should be decided to what religion he belongs. It is creating confusion.” Ramananda died; he never said anything about it. He simply said, “He is a religious person and I cannot say anything more about him.”
So when Kabir died, he knew it, that “After my death there is going to be a great riot amongst my disciples. They are just waiting for the moment ‘Let him die, then we will see who decides.’”
And certainly they had in their favor, on one side, the name written on his hand, “Kabir.” The other side had in their favor that he was a disciple of Ramananda who was a great Hindu saint: “Being a disciple of a Hindu saint, it does not matter what is written on his hand. You can take his hand, but his whole body belongs to us.”
And you will be surprised: to avoid the riot which might have culminated in a massacre of thousands of people, it was decided, “We should cut Kabir in two parts. Half goes to the Hindus, half goes to the Mohammedans.”
Sometimes I think if I have to be cut, you will have to cut in so many pieces... just two pieces won’t do!
Kabir, envisioning the situation beforehand, said, “Cover my body with the cloak,” and he died. And when they decided, and opened the cloak, there was no body but just a pile of beautiful roseflowers.
It is an immensely beautiful story. And a voice they could not find the source from where it came said, “Now you can divide the flowers.”
And in India, particularly since Kabir’s time, when a person dies and he is burnt, on the third day his bones are collected. Those bones are called “flowers” just in remembrance. People may have forgotten who was the source, why you call the bones “flowers,” but certainly a man like Kabir...
It cannot be factual, it cannot be historical, it can only be indicative that if you divide the body of a man like Kabir you will find only flowers and nothing else. That’s my understanding. I am not in agreement with scholars who deny the story; neither am I in favor of those scholars who say that it is factual.
I say it is very symbolic: it says that even if you divide the body of Kabir you will find nothing but roseflowers.
I have been to the place where Kabir died, just near Varanasi, on the other side of the Ganges. On one side is the great city of Varanasi according to Hindus the most ancient city of the world. And it looks like it. You cannot use cars in the main city, because the roads are so narrow that they were meant to be walked on, not to be used by any vehicles. They must have been made even before bullock carts were invented. Otherwise at least they should have been as broad as a bullock cart.
In the ancient part of Varanasi the roads are so cool the sun almost never reaches there because the buildings are high, and the road is so narrow that only two persons can go side by side. Only for a few seconds, when the sun comes exactly in the middle of the sky, those roads get a few rays and again shadow. They are very cool, almost air-conditioned and centuries of air-conditioning.…
Just on the other side of the Ganges is the small village of Maghar, where Kabir died. The samadhi, the memorial grave, is divided by a partition. One side belongs to the Mohammedans, the other side belongs to the Hindus. Such is the stupidity of humanity. You worship the same man, you love the same man. You have breathed his philosophy, the same words, but the conditioned mind of man.…
Mohammedans made a grave for the flowers that were their portion, and Hindus burned those flowers that were their portion on a funeral pyre. And they both made the memorial, but with a wall in the middle: half the memorial belongs to the Hindus, half the memorial to the Mohammedans. The Mohammedans will not go to the Hindu side, and the Hindus will not go to the Mohammedan side. And this is the memorial of a single man!
It is significant to remind you that Kabir lived his whole life in Varanasi. And for some strange reason... there are many places. In Punjab there is a place called Hoshiapur. It means the city of the wise. One man from Hoshiapur.…
(NOW SUDDENLY EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS WHY “SARDARJI,” AS HE IS AFFECTIONATELY KNOWN, HAD BURST OUT LAUGHING AT THE NAME. HE’S WELL KNOWN AROUND THE ASHRAM BOTH FOR HIS COLORFUL PUNJABI ATTIRE AND HIS HEARTY ROAR OF A LAUGH.)
And never ask anybody in Punjab, “Where do you live?” because if he lives in Hoshiapur he will immediately take out his sword “What do you mean? Why have you asked? How have you come to know that I live in Hoshiapur?” It has become well-known for centuries that Hoshiapur is the place of the idiots. So nobody can say, “I live in Hoshiapur,” and nobody can ask. If you ask, you are putting the person in a difficulty, because he cannot admit it and he cannot deny it.
And there are many places perhaps all over the world there are places. For example in Judea, where Jesus was crucified, it was said against Jesus... as if it were his fault! He was born in a small village, Bethlehem, and it was said, “Have you ever heard of anybody being born in Bethlehem who is a prophet? Just because you are born in Bethlehem you cannot be a prophet! Never heard nobody can even imagine that in that stupid place Bethlehem, God will send his only begotten son. He could not find a better place?”
In the same way, in India it is the Hindu conception that if you die in Varanasi then there is no question of whether you were a good man or a bad man, a saint or a sinner it does not matter; if you die in Varanasi you will go directly to heaven.
So in Varanasi you will be surprised the population is a very special population. As people become retired, they start moving towards Varanasi. Their time of death is coming, they have done every kind of sin, now the only chance to enter heaven is to die in Varanasi. You will find it strange... because I have been there, and I am a strange fellow, certainly. I look at things which nobody bothers about.
I used to stay with an old friend of J. Krishnamurti. And just because of J. Krishnamurti he had become acquainted with me. I was speaking to the Theosophical Society of Varanasi and he became interested in me and he said, “I live alone in a big house why do you stay in a hotel? Stay with me.”
So I asked him, “I look all around and there seem to be so many old people. In no other city do you see so many old people, they would have died by now. What are they doing here?”
He said, “This is a problem here. You will find old people who have come here to die, but death is not in your hands. When it will come it will come...” And you will find that a larger proportion of these old people are women, because the woman’s life span is five years longer than man’s. So thousands of widows, because in Hinduism you cannot marry again if you are a woman. All over the city, widows.…
And the third thing which is so dangerous thousands of bulls. It is thought, because Varanasi is the city of the god Shiva, that if you present a bull to Shiva you can ask anything and it will be fulfilled. So people bring bulls and bulls are very cheap, because they are not much use. One bull can serve a dozen cows, so the remaining eleven bulls, if they are born proportionately, are useless. Either they go to the butcher... but the Hindus cannot sell them to the butcher. They go to Varanasi.
And in Varanasi, if you are driving a car that is in the newer part of Varanasi; in the older part there is no question everywhere bulls are resting on the road. You can go on honking your horn, they don’t care at all. They are no ordinary bulls, they are SHIVA’S bulls! They enter into shops, they eat vegetables, fruits, and you cannot stop them because it is against Hinduism to stop Shiva’s bulls.
So you may have seen bulls, but to see the bulls of Varanasi is a totally different experience very strong people. And everything is available, nobody can prevent them. You will have to get out of the car and push them. They don’t listen to your horn, you have to push them aside. You cannot even beat them. If you beat them, you will be beaten immediately because you are beating Shiva’s bull. You can persuade, and lovingly push the bull...”For Shiva’s sake just stand by the side and let my car pass!”
Just as it is believed that anybody who dies in Varanasi goes to heaven, it was believed in Kabir’s days and it is even believed today that whoever dies in Maghar that is the other side of the Ganges becomes a donkey after death.
I have tried hard to find out the sources, how this belief... and why unnecessarily condemn the poor people who live in Maghar?
Kabir, before dying he lived all his life in Varanasi told his people, “Take me to Maghar. I want to die in Maghar.”
They said, “Have you become mad? You must have gone senile! Anybody who dies in Maghar goes... worse than hell, he becomes a donkey. Do you want to become a donkey?”
Kabir said, “Donkey or not, I want to be myself. I don’t want to go to heaven because of Varanasi. If I go to heaven, I have to go with my own authority. I want to go to heaven from Maghar. And besides, I want to protect the poor people of Maghar, because once I have died in Maghar nobody will be able to condemn those poor people by saying that, ‘Anybody who dies in Maghar becomes a donkey.’”
... Because nobody can conceive that a man like Kabir can become a donkey. Wherever he dies, and wherever he lives, and wherever he is, and wherever he will be, he is in heaven.
The disciples tried to persuade him; even the Maharaja of Varanasi tried to persuade him that “This is not good who knows? maybe there is some truth in that belief. And we don’t want you to become a donkey. It will hurt thousands of your followers seeing you in the shape of a donkey. I represent my whole kingdom, and I want you to remain here.”
Kabir said, “I will die in Maghar. And if there is any heaven, I will reach there from Maghar so that after me nobody can condemn the people of Maghar. If it is my fate to be born as a donkey, then it is perfectly good. I want to destroy the very idea that a place can matter in such things. It is your consciousness not where you are, in Maghar or in Varanasi.”
Being in Varanasi, you will be surprised: people who have died in nearby villages they have died already and they are being driven fast towards Varanasi, to deceive God that at least they died in Varanasi. I asked many people I used to sit on the steps near the Ganges where... Varanasi is the only place where people just throw the bodies half burnt into the Ganges, because they are in a hurry to go back home and this man is taking so much time in burning.
I asked, “What is the matter? Why are you so much in a hurry? If this man has died...” They will say, “No, he had not died, he was still breathing.”
I said, “He was still breathing? Then why have you burned him? I will take you to the police station!”
They said, “You are unnecessarily interfering in our matters. It is between us and God, it is not a matter for the police. In fact, when we started from our village he was breathing. When we reached Varanasi, he stopped breathing.”
People are just... I said to them, “You are trying to deceive God also? You are deceiving yourself, you are deceiving God, and you think you are religious people! And this fellow who died somewhere else, if Hinduism is right, cannot reach heaven. Then what happens to the people all over the world? If only people who die in Varanasi reach heaven then what about Poona?”
After Kabir’s death, Maghar at least is no longer condemned, because Kabir has to be respected and he is respected both by Hindus and Mohammedans. Now you can die even in Maghar without fear.
Mohammedans believe that if they cannot go at least once to Kaaba in their life, they cannot reach heaven. So the poorest Mohammedans will sell their houses, their farms, whatsoever small belongings they have, in order to at least have one trip to Kaaba. Just the idea that if you don’t go, and if you cannot show God that once you have been to Kaaba, you will not be allowed.
These religions have been spreading such nonsense and stupidity in people. I say unto you, neither Varanasi nor Jerusalem nor Mecca can make any difference. It is your consciousness. If you die consciously you will reach to the ultimate blissfulness it does not belong to, it is not a monopoly of any religion.
But you will have to go alone. It is not the crowd to which you belong that makes it sure that you will reach to the ultimate truth. The ultimate truth is always individual.
OH SWAN, TAKE OFF ON THE FLIGHT ALONE.
It is time for prayer, but before that, Maneesha has asked a beautiful question. She has asked: Question 2
BELOVED OSHO,
I AM FEELING ANCIENT LATELY, NOT ANCIENT AS IN WISE, BUT ANCIENT AS IN FEELING LIKE A WRINKLED UP OLD PRUNE.
Maneesha, there are many people who like wrinkled up old prunes. I don’t like, that’s true. Just a few days ago Shunyo has brought me wrinkled up old prunes. I said, “Shunyo, never again.”
But that does not mean that other people don’t like them. Somebody has sent them as a present to me. They were coming directly from the fatherland, Germany.
And to feel ancient is great! If you are not wise, be otherwise, but don’t feel sad.
It is a particularly difficult problem in the West, and more so for Western women, to think of themselves as ancient. Even ancient women, even the dead put on lipstick, do a good make-up and hairdo. And you will rarely suspect whether they are alive or dead, to what century they belong.
Particularly in the West I was surprised seeing a few women... My god! As far as I can see these women should be in their graves, and they are doing shopping! And particularly ancient women have nothing else to do, except shopping.
So don’t be worried about being ancient enjoy! If you can enjoy your childhood, your youth, your old age... then suddenly you realize that you were never a child, never young, never old. You are just pure consciousness, which does not categorize into any age group.
It is the body-oriented mind, too much identified with the body, that creates difficulty. The Western woman is very much body-oriented, and there is reason to be, because youth does not last long enough. It is a fleeting phenomenon. And the West is more interested in youth than in anything else. Once you have passed the age of youth, you are ready for the waste-paper basket; nobody cares about you, nobody even looks at you.
In the East the situation is not the same. In the East the older the person is the more he is respected, because he is more experienced, he has lived life, he has known much more, and you will also have
to pass through the same experiences. It is good to be respectful towards him, because soon you will be old and if this idea becomes fashionable that to be old is not something wrong, but rather experienced and respectable, then your children will respect you when you are old. But you have to create that idea by respecting those who are old.
The West has destroyed completely the respectability of the old person, has taken away the dignity of the old person. And because of that, old men and old women and women more so, because old men die sooner; they are more fortunate people, they die five years earlier. And after they are dead, the wife has to live at least five to ten years more alone, old, discarded. Nobody says to her, “Sweetheart.” She waits and waits, and remembers the old days, beautiful days, romantic days when she was also called, “Darling.”
Now nobody takes note of her and she makes a fool of herself, because she wants attention: uses all kinds of make-up, dyes her hair, most probably has become bald by now, then wears some other dead woman’s hair...
It is so strange that people use wigs. A wig means you are using dead people’s hair! And you are not ashamed at all.
Tries to behave as if she is young, smokes cigars... And there are old fools also. Every day there is news in the papers that somebody has got married, the man is ninety-seven, the woman is ninety- four, both are dressed up by their friends. And then strange things happen: they even go for a honeymoon with suitcases labeled “Just married.”
It is so hilarious to see such people.
Once a just-married couple reached a hotel on a sea beach. The woman immediately went into the bathroom and she told the man, “Put the light out.”
The man said, “Why? First you come out, then I will go in the bathroom and then we can go to bed and put the light out.”
She said, “No, you put the light out. First I will get in bed, and then you can go to the bathroom.”
The man said, “This is strange the first night of our honeymoon has not even started and the fight has begun.”
The woman said, “Why do you want to keep the light on?”
The man said, “Naturally I want to see you, who you are. All the make-up, whether you are bald, or something else is missing. Naturally I am your husband, I want to know the whole territory. I will keep the light on.”
The woman said, “If you insist, then it’s okay. And when you go into the bathroom I will also keep the light on.”
He said, “That you cannot do, I am your husband.”
She said, “It is not possible, this is the age of equality between man and woman. And I am not a small child ninety-four years old. And I know that certainly you are also missing many things. At ninety-seven years you cannot be intact!”
The man said, “This is very strange. Okay, I admit that one of my legs is wooden.” The woman said, “Anything else?”
The man said, “This is not right to inquire about such things, when we are not even well acquainted! One of my eyes is not real.”
The woman laughed. She said, “Now you can keep the light on, because both my breasts are finished. You were continuously watching my breasts both are just rubber. And you are right” and she threw off her hair “take this wig. Just for your sake I have been wearing some dead woman’s hair. And my teeth I will leave in the bathroom!”
Now what... why are you getting married? To torture each other? So many people I have seen when I was moving around the world. I could not believe: why are they not silently asleep in their graves? There seems to be no reason but to go on unnecessarily harassing other people.
And Maneesha, you are not ancient, yet. Whenever this feeling of ancientness comes to you, just say, “Yaa-Hoo!” And you will feel much younger, healthier. Take a deep breath, and with each “Yaa- Hoo” you will start getting younger and younger and younger. Don’t do too much; otherwise you will be late for school. It is a magic formula.
I will tell you... if by some accident somebody does it and gets into his childhood again and then feels lost what to do... for him, another formula to bring him back up to his authentic age. That is, “Boo-Hoo!” That you will have to repeat unnecessarily. And “Yaa-Hoo” is perfectly religious, “Boo- Hoo” belongs to witchcraft. These two belong to different sections you must have heard about white magic and black magic. “Yaa-Hoo” is white magic and “Boo-Hoo” is black magic.
I am simply making you aware so that if by chance you make some mistake you can correct it. And Maneesha, you say:
I WOULD LIKE TO DO WITH THE APPROACH OF OLD AGE, AS SOCRATES DID WITH THE POISONING OF HIS BODY, TO JUST WATCH EVERY BODILY CHANGE AS IT COMES AND KNOW IT IS NOT ME.
Now this idea must have come to you because of that great fellow Vimal. He was going to commit suicide, but because of so many people doing “Yaa- Hoo!” he cannot die. I saw him and he himself was doing “Yaa-Hoo!” For two weeks he was still waiting for my answer, and he wanted to commit suicide.
Now the same stupid idea... you are under the influence of that Vimal who is going to Goa, not going to die or anything. After two or three days he will be back.
It happens to many people here. When they become too old they go to Goa and after two or three days they are back home.
And there is no need to do it the way Socrates did it. Somehow you want me to be a criminal! Should I provide poison to you? Vimal wanted to know how he should commit suicide there is no need to commit suicide and there is no need to die like Socrates. Just die like human beings die, on their beds, silently, making no fuss about it.
And she is saying, MEANWHILE...
She is not going to die soon!
MEANWHILE, I LOVE DRESSING UP FOR YOU IN DISCOURSE AND WANT TO LOOK BEAUTIFUL FOR YOU.
You are making unnecessary efforts. I know already, you are beautiful. Even Niskriya is laughing, just sitting behind Maneesha.
There is no need to dress up. I love you, even if you are a wrinkled up old prune. I will not eat, that much I can say. I can love you, but I will love you from a distance.
And she is asking me:
FROM WHERE YOU ARE, YOU CAN’T SEE MY WRINKLES. OSHO WHAT DO YOU SEE?
Now this is such a universal question everybody is worried whether I am seeing him or not! Just to avoid this question, Hindus have given God one thousand eyes, so he can look. But even one thousand eyes will not do. There are five billion people on the earth. And with so many eyes he will get confused.
I look perfectly and don’t be worried about your make-up, dressing, don’t be worried about your wrinkles... because so many people send me eye creams. From now onwards I will start sending them to Maneesha. Because they are all fake: just they are called eye creams and cheat women, nothing changes. They create instead great trouble.
Last night Shunyo put some eye cream in my eye. And the whole day I suffered, because the eye cream should not go inside the eye... and my optician, Premda, is sitting here. He has put in some eye drops, and the eyes are so deeply connected with the throat that since he has put in those eye drops it is feeling so bitter in the mouth!
You don’t know how much I am tortured, the whole day. And I have many torturers. Now they are making a gymnasium for me! It is certain that they will torture me they go on looking into catalogues and finding what will be right for me. I want to live silently, not to be bothered!
So don’t be worried about your wrinkles. I cannot see from here particularly today, because my eye has been in pain the whole day and then finally Doctor Premda with his great German expertise...
He must have never thought that the eye drops would reach to the throat, but they are all connected. That’s why those departments and experts are called E.N.T “eyes-nose-throat!”
He has cured my eye, he has destroyed my throat. Now another expert... and I have all the experts. So I will send you all those... and many come, because from Japan, from Germany, from England, from America, people who love me bring something. And I don’t know why they bring eye creams, my eyes are perfectly okay.
Hamish MacTavish and his wife Maggie have never been flying, so at the local Air Show they decide to take a ride in a small open aircraft.
They are just climbing into the back of the plane when the pilot asks for the fare, which is twenty pounds.
“Twenty pounds?” screams MacTavish, “That is ridiculous, it is far too much!”
“Okay,” says the pilot, “I will make a deal with you. If you can complete this ride without opening your mouth I won’t charge you a penny. But if you make a sound you pay me double!”
Hamish agrees, and they take off.
As soon as they are in the air, the pilot starts to loop the plane, flies upside down, sideways, and gives a whole display of aerobatics.
When they land again, the pilot says over his shoulder, “Well sir, you win. I never thought you would be able to go through all that without opening your mouth!”
“It was not easy,” admits MacTavish, “especially when my wife fell out!”
Old Man Finkelstein, aged eighty-five, and Grandpa Rabinowitz, aged eighty-two, are sitting on a bench overlooking the beach in Florida.
Grandpa Rabinowitz is telling Old Man Finkelstein about the local girl he took out on a date the night before.
“What did you do?” asks the Fink.
“We checked into a motel,” replies Rabinowitz, “got into bed, and then I sang: ‘Those Were the Days’.”
“That sounds like quite an evening!” says old Fink. “Would you mind if I took her out tonight?” “Sure!” says Grandpa Rabinowitz, “go ahead!”
The next day they meet again on the bench. “How did it go last night?” asks Rabinowitz. “Just great,” replies the Fink.
“And what did you do?” asks Grandpa Rabinowitz.
“Well,” replies Old Man Finkelstein, “we got to a motel room and got into bed. Then I could not remember the song, so we screwed instead!”
An Englishman and a Frenchman both want to marry the daughter of Sheik Bab-el-Err, one of the richest men in the world. So the sheik decides to hold a competition.
He calls the two men to his palace and says, “Whoever of you two can bring me the most ping-pong balls in one week can have my daughter’s hand in marriage.”
The two men rush off, and within two days the Frenchman’s ping-pong balls begin to arrive. By boat, by plane and by truck, the ping-pong balls keep pouring in, the palace is completely full of them. On the fifth day the Frenchman himself comes back, and the sheik welcomes him.
“Well done, my son!” he says. “I am sure that English guy cannot win, we have not heard a thing from him yet. But I said a week, so we must wait.”
Sure enough on the last day, just before sunset, the door bursts open and the Englishman staggers in. He is covered in blood and his clothes are torn and dirty. In his hand he is holding a brown paper bag which he proudly gives to the sheik.
“What is this filthy mess?” screams the sheik. “Where are the ping-pong balls?”
“Ping-pong balls?” cries the Englishman, in dismay. “My God! I thought you said King Kong balls!” Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.
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