Zen

THE FIRST PRINCIPLE

Chapter 8: The Profound and the Trivial

Question 6

 

 

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Question 6

OSHO, THERE ARE A FEW WORDS YOU ALWAYS PRONOUNCE WRONGLY. WHY?

So that you can say to people that at least in one thing Osho is consistent.

My English is not that of the Englishman; my English is not that of the American; it is not even of the Indian. My English is just MINE. So you have to tolerate it. And I am very reluctant to improve about anything.

And my English has been of a great help to me. I used to live in Jabalpur, for many years. The first day I was driving to the university, a woman, who lived next to me, an American woman, she wanted a lift. Now, this was going to be dangerous. This was the first day -- and every day then I will have to carry her and tolerate her chattering for almost half an hour, going to the university and coming.

I had heard the American expression "Can I drop you off somewhere?" but I managed it into my English and I asked her, "Can I throw you down someplace?" And finished! She never asked again.

Once, another, an Englishwoman, got interested in me. I don't know what she saw in me, but she was almost in a fantasy. She was a lecturer in the same university, in the English department. She was after me. I was simply surprised as to what she saw in me because I don't see anything in myself; it is just emptiness there. But my English helped.

You know the expression...? I had read somewhere, in a novel, that a young man gazes into the eyes of his woman and says to her that "Your face, your beauty, your joy, your presence make time stand still." So I did the same to this woman.

I told her, "You have such a face that it would stop a clock." And finished! My English helped me.

Sometimes you will find it difficult too, because my structure of the sentences is mine, and sometimes the meaning I put into words is mine, the pronunciations are mine; sometimes you can't even get what I am saying. That helps you to keep awake. You have to listen attentively; you can miss. You cannot take me for granted.

One man was discussing with me about a politician, and I told the man, "That politician is a spherical S.O.B."

The man was puzzled; he said, "I have come across many S.O.B.'s in my life. But what do you mean by'spherical'?"

"I mean," I said to him, "he is an S.O.B. any way you look at him."

"Spherical," that is my own word.

And my English has a certain reputation, and I am not going to destroy it.

A little lady from Fresno, visiting San Franscisco, got quite a thrill out of attending a daring party in the Bohemia known as Telegraph Hill.

A friend who was showing her the sights pointed out a familiar-looking young couple and whispered, "Don't look now, but those two artists there are living in sin."

"Sin, my foot!" exclaimed the Fresno lady. "I know them. It is just Lois and Maurice, and they were married in the Fresno Baptist Church five years ago."

The young couple overheard and quickly drew the Fresno lady aside. "For God's sake don't tell anybody we are married," said the young man in a tense undertone. "It would ruin our artistic reputation."

I have a certain reputation of my English, hmm? And I am not going to change it in any way.

 

Next: Chapter 8: The Profound and the Trivial, Question 7

 

Energy Enhancement                Enlightened Texts                Zen                 The First Principle

 

 

Chapter 8

 

 

 

 
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