Kahlil-Gibrans-Prophet

THE MESSIAH, VOL 1

Chapter-1

A dawn unto his own day

 

 

Energy Enhancement          Enlightened Texts         Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet          The Messiah

 

 

BELOVED OSHO,

ALMUSTAFA, THE CHOSEN AND THE BELOVED, WHO WAS A DAWN UNTO HIS OWN DAY, HAD WAITED TWELVE YEARS IN THE CITY OF ORPHALESE FOR HIS SHIP THAT WAS TO RETURN AND BEAR HIM BACK TO THE ISLE OF HIS BIRTH.

AND IN THE TWELFTH YEAR, ON THE SEVENTH DAY OF IELOOL, THE MONTH OF REAPING, HE CLIMBED THE HILL WITHOUT THE CITY WALLS AND LOOKED SEAWARD; AND HE BEHELD HIS SHIP COMING WITH THE MIST.

THEN THE GATES OF HIS HEART WERE FLUNG OPEN, AND HIS JOY FLEW FAR OVER THE SEA. AND HE CLOSED HIS EYES AND PRAYED IN THE SILENCES OF HIS SOUL.

BUT AS HE DESCENDED THE HILL, A SADNESS CAME UPON HIM AND HE THOUGHT IN HIS HEART:

HOW SHALL I GO IN PEACE AND WITHOUT SORROW? NAY, NOT WITHOUT A WOUND IN THE SPIRIT SHALL I LEAVE THIS CITY.

LONG WERE THE DAYS OF PAIN I HAVE SPENT WITHIN ITS WALLS, AND LONG WERE THE NIGHTS OF ALONENESS; AND WHO CAN DEPART FROM HIS PAIN AND HIS ALONENESS WITHOUT REGRET?

TOO MANY FRAGMENTS OF THE SPIRIT HAVE I SCATTERED IN THESE STREETS, AND TOO MANY ARE THE CHILDREN OF MY LONGING THAT WALK NAKED AMONG THESE HILLS, AND I CANNOT WITHDRAW FROM THEM WITHOUT A BURDEN AND AN ACHE.

IT IS NOT A GARMENT I CAST OFF THIS DAY, BUT A SKIN THAT I TEAR WITH MY OWN HANDS.

NOR IS IT A THOUGHT I LEAVE BEHIND ME, BUT A HEART MADE SWEET WITH HUNGER AND WITH THIRST.

Kahlil Gibran... the very name brings so much ecstasy and joy that it is impossible to think of another name comparable to him. Just hearing the name, bells start ringing in the heart which do not belong to this world. Kahlil Gibran is pure music, a mystery such that only poetry can sometimes grasp it, but only sometimes.

You have chosen a man who is the most beloved of this beautiful earth. Centuries have passed; there have been great men but Kahlil Gibran is a category in himself. I cannot conceive that even in the future, there is a possibility of another man of such deep insight into the human heart, into the unknown that surrounds us.

He has done something impossible. He has been able to bring at least a few fragments of the unknown into human language. He has raised human language and human consciousness as no other man has ever done. Through Kahlil Gibran, it seems all the mystics, all the poets, all creative souls have joined hands and poured themselves.

Although he has been immensely successful in reaching people, still he feels it is not the whole truth, but just a glimpse. But to see the glimpse of truth is a beginning of a pilgrimage that leads you to the ultimate, to the absolute, to the universal.

Another beautiful man, Claude Bragdon has said about Kahlil Gibran, a few beautiful words. He says, "His power came from some great reservoir of spiritual life, else it could not have been so universal and so potent. But the majesty and beauty of the language with which he clothed it were all his own."

I have always loved this statement of Bragdon, even though not agreeing with it.

One need not agree with a beautiful flower; one need not agree with the sky full of stars -- but one can still appreciate. I make a clear-cut distinction between agreement and appreciation -- and a man is civilized if he can make the distinction. If he cannot make the distinction, he's still living in a primitive, uncivilized state of consciousness.

I agree in a sense, because whatever Bragdon is saying is beautiful; hence, my appreciation. But I cannot agree because whatever he is saying is simply guesswork. It is not his own experience.

Have you noted? -- he says, "His power came from some great reservoir of spirituality, of spiritual life, else it could not have been so universal and so potent." It is rational, logical, but it has no roots in experience. He feels that something beyond the grasp of mind has come through Kahlil Gibran but he is not certain. And he cannot be certain, because it is not his experience. He is immensely impressed by the beautiful language; each word is a poetry unto itself. But he himself is unaware of that great reservoir of spirituality. He himself has not tasted it. He has loved Kahlil Gibran but he has not lived him.

With me, the situation is totally different. Hence, there are a few things I would like to say to you before I make my commentaries on the statements of Kahlil Gibran.

First, he is certainly a great poet, perhaps the greatest that has ever been born on the earth, but he is not a mystic; and there is a tremendous difference between a poet and a mystic. The poet, once in a while, suddenly finds himself in the same space as the mystic. In those rare moments, roses shower over him. On those rare occasions, he is almost a Gautam Buddha -- but remember, I'm saying almost.

These rare moments come and go. He's not the master of those rare moments. They come like the breeze and the fragrance and by the time you have become aware -- they are gone.

A poet's genius is that he catches those moments in words. Those moments come into your life too. They are free gifts of existence -- or in other words, glimpses to provoke in you a search, to come to a moment when this space will become your very life, your blood, your bones, your marrow. You will breathe it, your heart will beat it. You will never be able to lose it, even if you want to.

The poet is for moments a mystic, and the mystic is a poet forever.

But this has always created a very difficult question, and nobody been able to solve it.

I have a humble solution. The problem has been posed again and again, thousands of times all over the world: if the poet gets only glimpses, yet creates so much beauty, so much poetry -- words start becoming alive the moment he touches them -- why have the mystics not been able to produce the same kind of poetry? They are twenty-four hours a day, day and night in that creative state, but their words don't carry that beauty. Even the words of Gautam Buddha or Jesus Christ fall very much short of the words of people like Kahlil Gibran, Mikhail Naimy, Rabindranath Tagore. It certainly seems to be strange; because the people who have only moments create so much and the people who have the universal consciousness available to them, waking or sleeping... what happens? Why have they not been able to produce Kahlil Gibrans? And nobody has answered it.

My own experience is that if a beggar finds a gold mine, he will sing and he will dance and he will go mad with joy -- but not an emperor.

A poet once in a while becomes the emperor -- but only once in a while; that's why he cannot take it for granted. But the mystic is not just for a moment merged with the universal consciousness -- he is merged. There is no way of coming back.

Those small glimpses may be translated into words, because they are only dewdrops. But the mystic has become the ocean; hence, silence becomes his song. All words seem so impotent, nothing seems to be capable of bringing his experience into any kind of communication. And the ocean is so vast and he is continuously one with it; naturally, he himself forgets that he is separate.

To create, you have to be there to create.

To sing a song, you have to be there.

But the mystic has become the song.

His presence is his poetry. You cannot print it, you cannot paint it, you can only drink it.

To communicate with a poet is one thing but to be in communion with a mystic is totally different. But it is good to begin with poets, because if you are not able even to absorb dewdrops, the ocean is not for you. Or better to say, you are not for the ocean.

To you, even the dewdrop will appear like a vast ocean.

Speaking on Kahlil Gibran is a very rare, almost impossible thing because I am not a poet.

I am poetry.

I am not a painter; I am the painting. Where the painter has got lost into the painting, I don't know.

An ancient story is: One Japanese emperor told all the painters of his country and the neighboring countries that he wanted a painting which looked as if it were real: "If you have painted a door, it will not look like a painting. Everybody will be mistaken and will try to enter it. Unless a painting is so real, I do not consider it a painting. And one who can paint such a thing, whatever he wants... even if my whole empire is his desire, he will be rewarded."

Thousands of painters came to the palace. They tried... but how can you paint a painting which will give the exact impression of the real?

But one painter said he would paint only on one condition: While he is painting, he should not be disturbed. No limitation of time should be imposed on him. And he does not paint on canvasses -- he will paint on a big wall inside the palace. And unless the painting is complete, nobody is allowed to come in. The first man to see it complete will be the emperor.

The conditions were accepted. It took him almost six years. The emperor was getting old, but he had promised not to interfere. He kept his word. After six years, the painter came and told the emperor, "You can come."

The painter took the emperor into the room. The emperor could not believe it. It really looked real. There were tall trees and a small winding foot path in the painting. The emperor asked, "Where does this path go?"

The painter said, "You can walk on it...."

And believe it or not -- I don't believe it, but it is so lovable -- the painter entered with the emperor to show him the path and they have not returned.

If you try to think of it as a historical, factual thing you will miss the whole point. It is a parable. And it is absolutely true -- not factual.

The real painter dissolves himself into his painting, and the real poet disappears into his poetry. But that kind of creativity is of the mystic -- and because the mystic disappears in his creativity, he has no time even to sign his painting, or his poetry. The poets can do that, because for a moment the window opens, they see the beyond, and the window closes.

Kahlil Gibran has written almost thirty books. THE PROPHET, which we are going to discuss, is his first book; the remaining are rubbish. This is a strange phenomenon -- what happened to the man? When he wrote this, he was just young -- twenty-one years of age. One would have thought that now more and more would be coming. And he tried hard; for his whole life he was writing but nothing came even close to the beauty and the truth of THE PROPHET. Perhaps the window never opened again.

A poet is accidentally mystic. It is just by accident... a breeze comes, you cannot produce it. And because he became world famous -- this is one book which must have been translated in almost all the languages of the world -- he tried hard to do something better, and that's where he failed. It is unfortunate that he never came across a man who could have told him a simple truth: "You had not tried when you created THE PROPHET, it happened. And now you are trying to do it."

It has happened; it is not your doing. You may have been a vehicle. Something that was not yours... just like a child is born of a mother. The mother cannot create the child, she is simply a passage. THE PROPHET belongs to the category of a very small number of books which are not dependent on your action, your intelligence, on you; on the contrary, they are possible only when you are not, when you allow them to happen, when you don't stand in the way. You are so relaxed that you don't interfere.

This is one of those rarest of books. In it, you will not find Kahlil Gibran -- that's the beauty of the book. He allowed the universe to flow through him; he is simply a medium, a passage, just a hollow bamboo which does not hinder the flute player.

In my experience, books like THE PROPHET are holier than your so-called holy books. And because these books are authentically holy, they have not created a religion around themselves. They don't give you any ritual, they don't give you any discipline, they don't give you any commandments. They simply allow you to have a glimpse of the same experience which happened to them.

The whole experience cannot come into words, but something... perhaps not the whole rose, but a few petals. They are enough proof that a rose exists. Your window just has to be open, so a breeze sometimes can bring petals.

Those petals coming through a breeze into your being are really invitations of the unknown. God is calling you for a long pilgrimage. Unless that pilgrimage is made, you will remain meaningless, dragging somehow, but not really living. You will not have laughter in your heart.

Kahlil Gibran avoids his own name by creating a fictitious name, Almustafa. That's the beginning of THE PROPHET. Almustafa is the prophet.

ALMUSTAFA, THE CHOSEN AND THE BELOVED, WHO WAS A DAWN UNTO HIS OWN DAY, HAD WAITED TWELVE YEARS IN THE CITY OF ORPHALESE FOR HIS SHIP THAT WAS TO RETURN AND BEAR HIM BACK TO THE ISLE OF HIS BIRTH...

Great truths can only be said in parables.

Almustafa is just a fictitious name. Why is he called THE CHOSEN AND THE BELOVED ? Why is he said to be A DAWN UNTO HIS OWN DAY ? Because he waited for twelve years....

The whole secret of Almustafa is in the waiting.

He was not in a hurry, he was not demanding, he was not asking. He was simply waiting. To wait, one needs immense trust that whatsoever happens, it doesn't matter. If your waiting is total, your ship one day is going to come to take you back to your origins, to the sources of life, love, laughter.

Each seed has to learn only one thing: to wait for the right season for the spring to come. There is nothing that the seed can do. It cannot bring the spring; spring will come on its own accord.

And if the seed tries too much, in its very doing it may become non-receptive, closed. A seed has simply to be open, receptive, waiting... whenever the spring comes. One thing is certain in the heart of hearts of the seed: spring comes, because the seed has seen the flowers all around, the whole garden.

You have seen the flowering of a Gautam Buddha but the trust has not arisen. You have looked into my eyes, but the trust has not arisen -- still there are questions, still there are doubts, still there is mistrust.

And ordinarily, flowers don't speak to the seeds. But I'm trying... who knows? Somebody may hear, somebody may see, somebody may learn the art of awakening. That is the only religion I know of.

AND IN THE TWELFTH YEAR, ON THE SEVENTH DAY OF IELOOL, THE MONTH OF REAPING....

There are times when you have to sow the seeds and there are times when you have to reap the crop. And when Almustafa saw that the time of the year, of Ielool, had come, the time of reaping...

HE CLIMBED THE HILL WITHOUT THE CITY WALLS AND LOOKED SEAWARD; AND HE BEHELD HIS SHIP COMING WITH THE MIST.

It almost literally happens in this way. If you wait and wait, your trust goes on growing, and when the trust matures in you, then you can be certain that the time has come to return to your origins. The search for God is not the search for some goal ahead. It is the search for the origins, it is the search for the space from where you have come.

Waiting means you are not asking, you are not desiring, you are not longing, you are not saying that now it is enough. As your waiting deepens, you are coming closer and closer to the origin, and the origin is at the very center of your being.

By the way, in Sanskrit, for "man" the word is purus. Purus comes from a root which means "city" -- pur. That's why you will see Kanpur, Nagpur, Jabalpur -- that pur means the city.

And you are a walled city. Just in the center of your walled city is your very origin; it is from there that you have grown. One day you have to go back to your origins.

When you came out of your origins, you were unconscious. Religion is a return journey -- and you all have come with a return ticket. But this time, going back, you will be going fully aware, alert, conscious. And this was the purpose of the whole pilgrimage: to complete the circle from the unconscious to consciousness, from darkness to light, from death to eternity. This is the whole purpose of our being here.

AND HE BEHELD HIS SHIP COMING WITH THE MIST.... And naturally, coming from the unconscious, you will always have to pass through a period which is full of mist.

If you have had at any time the experience of chloroform, then you will understand it. Because I had no experience of chloroform, I asked one of my friends, a very famous doctor. He said, "What are you suggesting? Without any operation, what is the need?"

I said, "I just want to see the circle -- from consciousness to unconsciousness, from unconsciousness to consciousness. I have seen it in myself, but I want something as an example that I can give to people, to those who are not alert, aware and conscious."

He said, "This is against our medical practice. A strange kind of thing...."

I said, "Who is talking about medical practice? And nobody is going to know about it, don't be afraid." He was perspiring. I said, "Don't be afraid -- and if you don't do it, I am going to tell."

He said, "Strange, this is blackmail!"

And I said, "This is not blackmail, this is whitemail! Say yes or say no."

He said, "You wait, because if you start telling people, everybody will believe it. So it is better that you have it."

So he took me into his surgery, he gave me the chloroform and told me: "Count from one, two, three, and go on." I went on... when I reached fifty-one, he said, "Wait! I have never seen anybody who goes beyond seven, eight, nine at the most."

I said, "Your dose is not enough. You will have to give me at least a dose of three times more."

He said, "My God... but in the first place, chloroform is no longer used. And using it three times! But I can see... the way you were repeating, and when I said, `Wait!' you immediately opened your eyes."

So he gave me a good dose. I said, "I will consider it a good dose only if I stop at nine."

He said, "What do you mean? You will also know that you are stopping at nine?"

I said, "I will know it and I will tell you when I have stopped. So don't try to deceive me."

He gave me a good dose, and I remember that I started going slower, deeper; the numbers were as if they are coming from far away, and when nine came, I said, "Okay."

He said, "You are not supposed to speak while under chloroform!"

I said, "You should have said so before; I am a very obedient patient. Your dose is still not right."

I could feel that my numbers were getting slurred. But that is not a big thing -- after three, I get slurred anyway. Under chloroform, I was exactly, without any mistake going up to fifty-one. Without chloroform, I cannot go beyond three!

Five times the dose he had to give me, but it was a good experience. As you come back, you can see the whole circle if you are alert enough. If you are not alert enough, then too, you can feel this much: when you stopped, and when again you can remember that you had stopped at nine. And as consciousness comes back, you can see that you have passed through a dark tunnel.

But this is just a toy.

In the real experience also, it happens in the same way. When you are coming out of your unconscious there will be a period which can only be called a period of mist. Everything is unclear, surrounded by mist.

THEN THE GATES OF HIS HEART WERE FLUNG OPEN, AND HIS JOY FLEW FAR OVER THE SEA. AND HE CLOSED HIS EYES AND PRAYED IN THE SILENCES OF HIS SOUL.

The moment he saw that the ship had arrived, was coming closer, THE GATES OF HIS HEART WERE FLUNG OPEN. If you can wait silently, one day the guest is going to knock on your doors; the ship is going to come. It has always come, without any exception. And the proof and the evidence that you are not dreaming, that you are not hallucinating, is that suddenly for the first time you will see the gates of your heart flung open.

Up to now, what you used to say -- that "I am open" -- was only superficial. But now the joy of going back home is so much that the strength of the joy, the abundance of the joy, flings all the doors of the heart open.

Your heart is a seed.

When it opens it doors with joy, it becomes a flower.

You have come home.

There were many dark nights and there were many anguishes and many nightmares, but all that is over. Your joy is so much that it spreads all over the ocean. It is oceanic. This is the feeling that William James called "oceanic."

Only one psychologist of this century has touched just a little bit of your inner being -- and that man is not Sigmund Freud, that man is not Alfred Adler, that man is not Carl Gustav Jung. That man is William James, whom nobody bothers about. He defined religious experience as "oceanic." It cannot be just logical; you cannot reach to the word `oceanic' through logic, through reason, through psychoanalysis. Unless this man had felt something so big and vast that he could not find any word in the language....

"Oceanic" was never used before William James; he coined the word. "Ocean" is one thing; "oceanic" is a totally different thing.

AND HE CLOSED HIS EYES....

These small things are not small; they are of tremendous importance. When you are feeling inside such an oceanic joy, it is bound to be, absolutely, that you will close your eyes, because now there is nothing outside worth seeing. You have seen the seer. Now all that is beautiful and all that is around you and that you have always desired pales down. It loses all value. The eyes are bound to be closed.

So if you see the statues of Mahavira, Adinatha, Parashunyatha -- you will be surprised: why are they all with closed eyes? They have seen the outside -- now they are seeing the interiority of their being. It is qualitatively different. It is not that it is much more beautiful, no; it is a beauty of a totally different kind.

It is so real that the people who have experienced it have also said that the world is illusory, because they have seen something far more real than the stones and the objects and the mountains and the stars....

These small things show the authenticity of the person. Kahlil Gibran is not just philosophizing; otherwise, he would have forgotten about closing the eyes.

AND HE CLOSED HIS EYES...

And a very significant thing:

AND PRAYED IN THE SILENCES OF HIS SOUL.

Millions of people are praying every day, but not in the silences of their souls. Just words -- Christian words, Hindu words, Mohammedan words, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Arabic....

A prayer that consists of words is not a prayer at all.

A prayer consists only of silences.

And remember, he could have simply said, "And he prayed in the silence of his soul" and you would not have thought even for a single moment. In fact, that would have been more linguistically right: "He prayed in the silence of his soul." But it would have been existentially wrong, because it is not one silence within you; there are layers and layers and layers of silences.

Those who have entered, they know: there are seven layers of silences connecting to seven centers of your body. Each center becomes silent; hence, instead of using the singular "silence", he has used a plural: silences.

And you will be surprised that he is the only person who has used silences. There are other great poets, but they have always used "silence of the soul." Naturally, they are simply repeating what they have heard from generation to generation. It is not their own experience.

Kahlil Gibran's statement, silences of the soul shows that he has not only an intellectual approach, a philosophical approach, a theological approach -- his approach is existential. He has drowned himself in those silences. He has seen that it is not one silence -- there are layers and layers of silences. And each silence has its own fragrance, its own taste, so you can demarcate.

BUT AS HE DESCENDED THE HILL, A SADNESS CAME UPON HIM AND HE THOUGHT IN HIS HEART...

This is so profound that unless you have been on the path, it is impossible to make this statement. After experiencing the immense joy that spreads all over the ocean, and after entering depths of silences... a statement about sadness?

He is so authentic -- and he has not edited his experience at all. It will look illogical -- after such a beautiful spiritual experience, suddenly you become concerned about sadness? But what can he do?

And I agree with him absolutely.

After reaching peaks of joy, you will have to confront sadness.

BUT AS HE DESCENDED THE HILL, A SADNESS CAME UPON HIM... These are all symbolic, every word. It was certainly an uphill experience, but a poet cannot remain on the sunlit tops of the Himalayan peaks -- he has to come back. And naturally, seeing so much joy... and then the window starts closing; the flower again starts becoming a bud, the petals start closing as if after the dance, suddenly the evening has come and there is darkness all around. Coming from the hilltop into the dark valleys of life, A SADNESS CAME UPON HIM....

But his sadness -- and the sadness of all those who have realized something; it may not be the whole truth, it may be just a fragmentary experience. These words will relate to you not only Kahlil Gibran's experience but the experience of everyone who has ever been in such a space and come back down to the earth.

HOW SHALL I GO IN PEACE AND WITHOUT SORROW?

He has seen -- the ship is coming. Now you can see the human frailty, the dilemma: this world is known; that ship is still surrounded in mist. And one never knows where it is going to land you.

From the moment you became my fellow travelers, has not the question arisen in your mind, time and again: "Where is this pilgrimage going to end? HOW SHALL I GO IN PEACE AND WITHOUT SORROW?"

As he comes closer to the earth, as he comes closer to the outer world, as he comes closer to the flowers and the stars, a problem: HOW SHALL I GO IN PEACE... WITHOUT SORROW? -- in a ship one knows nothing about. You cannot even see the ship clearly, it is surrounded in mist; how can you see the other shore? It is absolutely invisible. And who knows whether there is any other shore? because nobody has ever returned from the other shore to give you an eyewitness account.

HOW SHALL I GO IN PEACE....? -- he's torn apart -- AND WITHOUT SORROW?... and for many reasons.

NAY, NOT WITHOUT A WOUND IN THE SPIRIT SHALL I LEAVE THIS CITY.

The world of our experiences, the world of our bodily pleasures, the world of our mind, its flights...."How shall I leave? So much beauty on one side -- which is tangible; I can touch it, I can feel it -- and I'm to leave all this for something unknown, intangible, invisible." You can understand; putting yourself in his place, the heart will be torn apart. It will be almost the anguish of "To be, or not to be?" because all that you are, your roots, are here in this earth.

LONG WERE THE DAYS OF PAIN I HAVE SPENT WITHIN ITS WALLS.

He's not unaware of the fact: "In this city, which is known to me... LONG WERE THE DAYS OF PAIN... anguish, anxiety. AND LONG WERE THE NIGHTS OF ALONENESS. But still -- and this has to be understood by every meditator -- because everybody has lived in this world, in this body, perhaps for many, many lives, we have even become accustomed to pain. We will miss it. We have become accustomed to misery. You cannot conceive of yourself without misery, without pain, without anxiety. Then what will you be? -- because all that you have been consists of all these things. So although they are not your longings, not your desires, the very experience of living in them for centuries and they have become your second nature.

Kahlil Gibran gives a greater psychological insight than any psychologist of our times:

AND WHO CAN DEPART FROM HIS PAIN AND HIS ALONENESS WITHOUT REGRET?

Strange seems to be the statement -- but it is not strange, it is the experience of all of you. The same pain, the same misery -- and you know that it is heavy on the heart and you are also aware that you can drop it, but you have been too long with it. A certain friendship, a certain love affair with the misery... otherwise, nobody is preventing you from dropping all your miseries.

The day I decided to drop, I dropped it. I had not even gone to ask anybody, "How to drop?" Anybody who asks how to drop misery does not want to drop it; that "how" will create more misery.

And there are, all around the world, people who are selling misery to you. Wherever there is a demand, there is a supply. You go to those people --  "I want to drop the misery how to drop it?"

They say, "Stand on your head!" Torture your body. This is yoga. But it takes lives to drop it -- go on standing on your head and distorting your body. It is good that people don't follow these misery-sellers, hawkers; otherwise, they would turn the whole world into a circus. If the whole world becomes impressed by yoga -- what do you think? -- everywhere you will see such great scenes.

I have heard that when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was prime minister of India, he was very much interested in yoga -- particularly, standing on his head every day early in the morning.

One donkey -- he was no ordinary donkey, remember; he was the leader of all the donkeys of India -- had gone to see him, because donkeys are not represented in the assemblies and the parliament and they also have some rights! So he was on a deputation, thinking that early in the morning would be good because a person is still not tired; the whole day's problems are not there, he is fresh. And Jawaharlal was doing his shirshasana, his headstand, in the garden of his residence. Of course, there were two policemen standing at the gate.

The donkey first thought: "Should I ask or just go in?" He said, "If I ask there may be trouble," and those two policemen did not care about a donkey; if he is goes inside, there is no harm, let him go.

He went directly to where Nehru was doing his headstand. He looked into Nehru's eyes. Nehru said, "My God! What has happened to you, why are you standing upside down?" Nehru asked the donkey!

It is good that... otherwise you would find donkeys doing headstands and anything is possible because in yoga....

The moment you ask how to drop misery you know perfectly well you don't want to drop it, because there is no reason. If you don't want to be miserable, it is so simple -- don't be miserable. I simply decided. And thirty-five years have passed; I have not been miserable -- although the whole world is trying to make me miserable. But they should remember: it is impossible. Once I have decided, I have decided.

As I was coming out of the American jails, the jailer said to me, "Strange... people enter jail and they look very good. When they come out they look very bad. But you are looking better!"

I said, "Twelve days of complete rest, no problem, no disciples... no need of any security" -- I was the most secure person inside. I told him, "Even President Ronald Reagan is not so secure. If you want him to be really secure, put him in jail! -- absolute security!"

He said, "I have never seen any man... I am going to retire soon. In my whole life's experience, you are the first man who has come out of the jail so happy."

I said, "I didn't think it would be so soon; I was planning to rest a little more."

But it was not only the jailer. My attorneys, as I came to them, said, "What happened? You are looking far better." As I reached my residence, Vivek said, "Why don't you look so good here?"

I said, "This is not a jail. I was practicing for twelve days because I know for certain if there is any hell -- I'm going too!"

God is not going to tolerate me. His priests are not tolerating me anywhere in the world. Even if I somehow reach heaven, God is not going to allow me in. Perhaps they have already passed a resolution -- "This man is dangerous. If he comes this side, be alert!" But they need not be worried, I'm not going to their side.

So I said, "These twelve days in American jails, one jail in England for one night's experience, some experience in Greece... soon I'll be ready for a world tour! Because before you go to hell, some practice is absolutely necessary. I never go anywhere without homework!"

TOO MANY FRAGMENTS OF THE SPIRIT HAVE I SCATTERED IN THESE STREETS. AND TOO MANY ARE THE CHILDREN OF MY LONGING THAT WALK NAKED AMONG THESE HILLS, AND I CANNOT WITHDRAW FROM THEM WITHOUT A BURDEN AND AN ACHE.

What he's saying is almost what I could have said. How can I leave my body without you all? My ship arrived a long time ago but I am not even looking at it.

He is right. Every master will feel the same way:

TOO MANY FRAGMENTS OF MY SPIRIT HAVE I SCATTERED IN THESE STREETS. AND TOO MANY ARE THE CHILDREN OF MY LONGING THAT WALK NAKED AMONG THESE HILLS, AND I CANNOT WITHDRAW FROM THEM WITHOUT A BURDEN AND AN ACHE.

IT IS NOT A GARMENT I CAST OFF THIS DAY, BUT A SKIN THAT I TEAR WITH MY OWN HANDS.

NOR IS IT A THOUGHT I LEAVE BEHIND ME, BUT A HEART MADE SWEET WITH HUNGER AND WITH THIRST.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

 

Next: Chapter 2, A boundless drop to a boundless ocean

 

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