OSHO: The Buddha for the Future. Maneesha James

about it.

      By and by you will see within a month that judgment comes less and less and less, and one day suddenly it is not there. That day there is an opening. The clouds are no more there, and the sky is clear and you can see…and what you see has always been there….”

      *

      This is the alchemy I witness every evening: Osho takes whatever material we present in the form of our problems and, while pointing out their insubstantiality but acknowledging that they mean something to us, he shows us their construction, thread by thread; shows us how we fabricate, by our own doing, each knot, each flaw. And having exposed that fabrication for what it is, he then indicates what we really have and what our real potential is. As he puts it, once we realize that we had been clutching stones when in fact we can claim diamonds, the point is made, the work achieved.

      I love how he does this… and the playfulness that is always there, sometimes more to the fore than others. A case in point is that of Big Prem’s mother, who arrives in Pune to visit her daughter. Of even greater proportions than her daughter, Josephine is given a chair to sit on in darshan, rather than joining the rest of us on the floor. Osho is to say the following morning in discourse that he deliberately stimulated Josephine’s defenses. Tonight he certainly doesn’t pussyfoot around, immediately asking Josephine: “What about you? Now become a sannyasin!”

      Josephine (the formal smile quickly shocked into extinction): “What?”

      Osho: “I’ve been waiting and waiting!”

      Josephine: “I only came here to visit Prem.”

      Osho: “Mm?”

      Josephine: “I really did not come here to be a sannyasin—I only came here to visit my baby.”

      Osho: “You did come to visit your baby but you have…Mm?”

      Josephine: “Right. No, I’m not interested in being a sannyasin. I’m really not.”

      Osho (undaunted): “I will make one of you!”

      Josephine: “I’m sorry, I really don’t want to.”

      Osho: “What is the fear?”

      Josephine: “I’m not interested. I’m just not interested. You don’t mind my being truthful? You want me to say, ‘Yes, I want to be a sannyasin’ when I really don’t want to?”

      Osho: “No no, there is no need to become—if you don’t want. But why?”

      Josephine: “Because I’m a Roman Catholic and I believe in the Catholic Church and I believe in God, and I cannot give up that belief for anyone…”

      Osho invites Josephine to come back, saying she is already not the same person who arrived. But once she leaves she will see that.

      Josephine: “I don’t think so. I know Prem has been very happy and I’m grateful for that. She’s very happy. She says she never gets bored; she loves her work. She works typing, ten hours a day, seven days a week. (This elicits smiles from the group behind her.) That’s a lot be grateful for, isn’t it?”

      Osho: “Good. Back home you will see that you have changed. Because I can see—I have been watching you since you came.”

      Josephine (eyes opening wide, incredulous): “Have you really?”

      Osho: “Yes!”

      Josephine: “Really? I didn’t see you. Where were you?”

      Osho chuckles. Then the conversation moves to the Josephine’s belief, as a Catholic.

      Josephine: “Isn’t that something good to believe in though?”

      Osho: “Nothing compared to knowing…. Nothing compared to knowing. What I am saying is this: that you are not interested in God at all; otherwise you cannot miss what I am saying, and what I am trying to make clear.”

      Josephine: “That’s all I have.”

      Osho: “You don’t have anything! If it were anything I would not have taken it away. I have to help you become more and more trusting. How can I take away your faith?”

      Josephine: “But I’m just saying that’s all I have, and I don’t feel like I want to give it up.”

      Osho switches from cajolery to humor. “Don’t give it up! You don’t have anything to give up, but back home you will realize it—I will go on haunting you!”

      “Thank you!” replies Josephine and, assisted by Big Prem, removes herself from the hot seat.

      What I see and hear in that exchange and in myriad others over the years is not a “tolerance” of us but a constant, unremitting expression of love. Sometimes watching Osho in conversation is like being witness to an existential chess game, one in which neither he nor we can lose or win because it’s not about that at all. It is all just a play.

      Chapter 4: The Essential Education

      Except life itself, what other examination can there be of life? So those who think that by passing examinations they have become educated are mistaken. Actually, where the examinations are completed the real education begins, because from then on life begins. ~ Osho

      Literally by his side every evening, I observe Osho with many different people, of diverse cultures and varying age. His connection with children is especially touching.

      Prem Prabhu, a nine-year-old German boy, has come for darshan on several occasions, and always alone. I love the earnest and unself-conscious way in which he talks to Osho. At former darshans he has asked Osho what enlightenment is, what work Osho is doing, and so on, yet there is never any sense of his being precocious or affected.

      On one particular occasion Osho asks him if he has anything to say. Seating himself cross-legged in front of Osho and folding his hands in his lap, Prabhu nods and begins, “Some years ago we lived in Germany, and my mother left us. She said she was going…and never coming back!”

      The last words are muffled by his tears. With a somehow unchildlike and curiously dignified gesture, he slowly puts his head in his hands and sobs. My eyes rapidly fill with tears and a lump comes to my throat. But Osho chuckles very gently, as is his way whenever one of us is lost in any of the many dramas that unfold in darshan. “What exactly is the matter?” Osho asks the bent head. There is no response and, knowing Prabhu’s story a little, I volunteer, “A few years ago his mother left the family—the two boys and the father.”

      “Mm. And where is your mother now?”

      Prabhu (pausing between sobs): “She’s in Germany!”

      “Germany? And she never comes?”

      “Sometimes we see her.”

      “Mm. So what do you want? You want her back?”

      (Wailing): “Yes!”

      But she’s found another husband, Osho elicits, and Prabhu has not found a new mother. Does he want the old mother or a new one?

      “Old!”

      “Old you want? We will try! Nothing to be worried about. I am your mother! Come here. Mm? No need to worry.” Prabhu stands and walks over to Osho’s chair. Osho takes his outstretched hand, drawing Prabhu nearer to him. With his other hand he touches Prabhu’s head. “Whenever you need your mother, just remember me, and I will take care of you. And you are coming finally to stay with me here in India! You want to stay in Germany or come here?”

      (Prabhu’s face lights up): “Here!”

      “So why bother about the mother! Soon you will be coming here, mm? And next time your mother comes to see you, tell her about me and tell her to come here and meditate and become a sannyasin! Give her some books and give her one of my pictures—then I will start