---
section: Library
booktitle: "Om Shantih Shantih Shantih"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "SHANTI"
dategiven: "06 March 1988 am"
place: " in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #12"
chaptertitle: "Camels don't like to go to the mountains"
acode: "8803060"
shorttitle: "SHANTI12"
audio: "Yes"
video: "Yes"
esttime: "124mins"
displaytitle: "Om Shantih Shantih Shantih: Chapter #12"
---

```style
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  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
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<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
WHY IS IT THAT THROUGH THE AGES, FILTHY CORRUPTERS, RAPISTS OF THIS BEAUTIFUL PLANET, PEOPLE WHO BETRAY THEIR OWN MOTHER FOR POWER AND WEALTH, ARE GIVEN THE RIGHT TO REGALE THEMSELVES IN SUCH AN OSTENTATIOUS MANNER SO AS TO LIVE FREELY, SO TO SAY, IN THEIR PRESIDENTIAL PALACES OR PRINCELY RETREATS -- NOT ONE BUT MANY -- AND A MAN OF YOUR LIGHT, HEIGHT AND FAR DEEPER UNDERSTANDING IN EVERY WAY IS PERMITTED ONLY TO BREATHE THIS STINKING, POLLUTED AIR WHICH DOES NOT AT ALL CONTRIBUTE TO YOUR PHYSICAL HEALTH?
BELOVED MASTER, FORGIVE ME IF I AM BEING JEALOUS, BUT IT IS DISGUSTING AND APPALLING TO SEE THE ABNORMALITY OF IT. IN THE PAST DAYS I HAVE SEEN THEIR FACES AND HEARD THEIR VOICES AND IT IS SICKENING. IS THIS OUR FAULT? IS THIS A SITUATION DELIBERATELY CREATED BY THIS SILENT INTELLIGENCE TO SEPARATE THE CREAM FROM THE CURD?
IF IT BE MY DECISION, YOU ARE THE ONE TO BE IN EVERY POSSIBLE NETWORK MEDIA AROUND THE GLOBE TALKING ABOUT MENDEL OR HOROWITZ, SHOWING TO THE WORLD THE GLORY OF EXISTENCE THAT LIVES IN YOUR PRESENCE, BECAUSE TO YOU THE BLESSINGS AND LOVE WERE GIVEN IN THEIR HIGHEST FORM AND ABUNDANCE AND NOT RAPED AND FORCED TO ABIDE WITH THEIR MANIPULATORS, LIKE THE SON-OF-A-BITCH REAGAN AND HIS KIND HAVE BEEN DOING FOR SO LONG.
FORGIVE ME, BELOVED MASTER, IF I AM MISTAKEN OR SERIOUS ABOUT IT, BUT IN THE PAST TWO WEEKS WHAT I HAVE SEEN IN THE WORLD HAS MADE ME SAD AND NOW I KNOW LESS THAN I EVER DID.</p>


Nivedano, your question is so long that by the time I hear the end I have forgotten the beginning! Somehow because I have tried to remember the beginning, the middle is missing. You are certainly a great writer, but have compassion on me.


Question exactly, telegraphically; otherwise it becomes difficult to answer your question in its totality... but I will give a try.


The first part seems to be why the corrupted people are in power and in the palaces. I have quoted Lord Acton many times who said, "Power corrupts." But he does not have the deeper understanding that corruption leads to power also. You have to be corrupted enough to be in power. Our minds are continuously forced to reach somewhere, to eminence, to become a president or to become a prime minister; only then have you fulfilled the meaning of your life.


This continuous teaching from parents, from teachers, from everybody pushes you towards all that gives power: money, position, prestige. And it is true that when you have power, by that time you are so corrupted... That has been your ladder to reach, and now you have immense power in your hands and nobody to prevent you.... What are you going to do with the power -- more corruption or perhaps bigger goals ahead?


The past has been dominated because by will to power we have not been taught love, we have not been taught noncompetitiveness, we have not been taught humbleness, simplicity, just to be oneself. We have been dragged by great forces on every side to faraway powerful positions.
Corruption leads to power.


And in return power gives you more capacity to corrupt.


The past as a whole is ugly and criminal. Just because there has been a Gautam Buddha, or a Lao Tzu, or a Kabir does not matter. The past is so vast that these people can be counted out. The mainstream of humanity has been moving on wrong paths, and you are always in a crowd and the crowd loves to worship powerful people, to praise powerful people. The crowd is very willing to be enslaved by power, because power takes away its responsibility without it understanding that this also takes its freedom -- but one wonders what you are going to do with your freedom.


For example, all the constitutions of the world talk about freedom of expression -- but do you have something to express? So what is the point? For ninety-nine percent of people it is meaningless; they don't have anything to express. And who cares about the one percent? He will be crushed. In fact the person who should have been praised and loved will be crushed.


The psychological background has to be remembered: mankind has never praised anybody who was contemporary, expressive, creative, had something to say. The crowd has been against these people because in a certain sense their presence becomes an insult. Their very presence humiliates you.


There is an Arabic proverb that camels don't like to go to the mountains. They love the desert. In the desert they are mountains. Being close to a mountain it is very humiliating to realize that you are nothing -- not even a particle of dust by the side of the Everest. It is better to avoid. They have chosen the desert where they are great people.


It has to be remembered that even your so-called powerful people don't want to come in contact with a man of authentic power, a power that arises within and is not borrowed from others, begged from others. There are a few people certainly, whose sources of power are intrinsic. Even presidents and kings and queens look like nothing but beggars in front of them, because their power depends on others. A power that depends on others is not much of a power, but it is easier to attain.


Nivedano, people choose easier ways and people choose to imitate, and people want -- are taught and conditioned to want -- to become somebody special. And that specialness can come: either you are a president or you are the richest man in the world.


This whole system of teaching people has been basically wrong. Nobody should be condemned for it; they are all victims. But the time is ripe and there is intelligence enough to see the point, and to change the whole programming.


A child should be respected, not for his obedience, but for his intelligence. And if his intelligence makes him a rebel, that is perfectly in tune with existence. A child should not be given concepts, beliefs, baptisms, because you don't have any right to force your own burden, your own unconscious conditionings on a pure consciousness. A child should not be Christian, Hindu or Mohammedan...


If you really love your child, you will protect him from being contaminated by any belief system. You will protect him from all that corrupts and from all that takes him away from himself, from all that destroys his individuality and makes him a hypocrite -- but who loves so much?


People think it is love, that if you are born a Christian, your children should be Christians. It is not love. It may be anything else, but certainly not love. Love will leave the child to grow according to his own intrinsic capacities.
Give him the sky; give him the opportunity.
Give him the freedom.
Give him the nourishment.
Give him the courage to be himself.


That is still a dream and a hope. Perhaps one day it will happen, because doubts about humanity's past have started arising from many sources. We have lived unnecessarily under a very dark night, when the whole sun and the flowers and the trees were our birthright.


So the first thing: you should not be angry because anger is not understanding. You should be very understanding -- whatever has happened, has happened. You should be a scientific, impartial, objective observer, so that you can know why it happened, and find ways that it is not repeated again.


And the second part of your question continues, "and a man of your light, height and far deeper understanding in every way is permitted only to breathe this stinking, polluted air, which does not at all contribute to your physical health." This too is part of the whole programming of the mind of the past.


For almost two years the Indian government has been denying that they are preventing sannyasins to reach to me. But just the other day in San Francisco, the Indian consul in a press interview said clearly: "Shree Rajneesh is a criminal and not only a personal criminal, but a corporate criminal, and he should not be allowed anywhere. In India we have to accept him, but we are making every effort that people from all over the world who are interested in him and love him, should not reach to him."


This is the first time that they have at least accepted that they have been preventing sannyasins from coming to India. They have sent many sannyasins back from Indian airports to their homes. Sannyasins had to learn to tell lies that they are not sannyasins, "Who is Shree Rajneesh? Have we to go to him? We have come to see the Himalayas, the Taj Mahal... We have never heard...!"


And I knew this was going to happen. That's why I told you to drop the outer symbols of sannyas completely. Still, they interrogate for hours, even when a person is saying, "I have not come for Shree Rajneesh. I don't know him and why should I go to Poona? What is there?" But politicians are suspicious people. They were interrogating in such a way that somehow they could get the idea that the man was going to Poona.


Being unsuccessful in this they started asking, "Have you come to India to learn meditation?" Now meditation has become synonymous with me. Innocent sannyasins were not aware that "meditation" -- and they are finished! They have to go back from the airport -- they cannot enter the country.


We have reported this to the government, and the government denied it saying, "We are not doing anything. Why should we prevent people?"


And this man from San Francisco... I remember him, because he came to see me. After twelve days, when the trial was over and I was released from the jail he asked me, "Rajiv is very much concerned about your health and well-being. In what way can we be of help to you?"


I said, "You have come a little late -- and perhaps consideredly. I am out of jail, now what can you do? You can force me into jail again -- that is the only help that is left."
He said, "We have been watching."


I said, "Watching won't help. For what were you watching? A man is arrested without any warrant. He is not given a reason why he is being arrested; no evidence is given..." Just a list of names was shown to us, and of the six people who were arrested not a single name of those six people was on the list. And he was made aware that we are not the people... "You should arrest these people; you have the list. You are arresting the wrong people. You don't have arrest warrants" -- and the Indian ambassador was watching...!


One of my secretaries was sitting in Washington continuously for twelve days, insisting to the Indian ambassador, "This is absolutely ugly that you are silent -- it is a conspiracy. If an individual citizen of your country is arrested without any reason, who has not committed any crime... What is your purpose here? You should interfere."


And he went on promising, "I will. I am in constant contact with Rajiv Gandhi. I am in contact with the American government and you need not worry." And they did not do a thing!


And this same man now says, "We are trying to keep Shree Rajneesh in such a situation that he cannot move out of India" -- obviously. Twenty-one countries have passed laws that I cannot enter those countries; four other countries are going to pass... I have not even asked to enter their country. In India the strategy is that I cannot go anywhere even in India, because then the Indian government has its own ugly ways of doing things.


I first wanted to be in the Himalayas rather than in this polluted place. I remained there for one month. They immediately deported all the foreigners who were with me and informed me that I could not purchase land because I don't live in that state. Unless I am a resident of a particular state, I cannot purchase land. And they provoked their followers to protest that I should not be allowed to live there, because if I live there people will start coming and everybody's morality will be in danger, religion will be in danger... their golden past will be in danger.


Just one day ago, a friend from Delhi informed me that I should leave India, because the Indian government is thinking of arresting me. Their reason for arresting me is that I have paid four hundred thousand dollars as a fine and from where did I get that money? I myself don't know! I sincerely have no idea who the sannyasins were, from all over the world, who gave that money.


I left India and went to Nepal, because the king of Nepal was very much interested in me, in my books; the prime minister of Nepal was interested. The prime minister came to see me but he said, "It will be very difficult. Although it will be against our wishes, we cannot allow you to remain in Nepal because we are a small country and we are in constant danger from India to be taken over. They have done this in Sikkim; they can do it in Nepal, and we don't have armies or anything. We cannot even give a good fight. So the king wants to inform you: We love you, we love your teachings, but we are unable to risk the whole country."


I decided that it was time that I should go on a world tour to see which country has the courage to accept a man who has nothing but ideas which can create a better humanity and a better world.


In a few countries which you would think are powerful countries, like England, I was not even allowed to stay in the airport lounge overnight. And I asked the airport officer, "My pilot has done his twelve hours and he cannot do more, otherwise it will be against the laws. We have to stop and we need to refuel."


The officer said, "I can understand, but orders from the ministry of home affairs are that you should not be allowed to stay at all, even in the lounge" -- from where you cannot enter England; it is an international airport.


I said, "Then do you want me to sit here the whole night?"


He said, "The only alternative that has been offered from the top is that if you want to sleep, you can sleep in the jail, and in the morning you can leave."


Going around the world was a tremendously great experience, seeing that all these corrupted and powerful people will not allow anybody who can be a danger to their power, who can expose their ugliness.


The Attorney General of America in a press interview made the statement: "Shree Rajneesh should be only in Poona. And we will try in every way to make sure that nobody reaches there. First, nobody will be given a visa if he is going to Poona. Secondly, Indian immigration will make sure at the Indian airports that nobody enters." He exactly said, "This is our way of silencing him."


I said, "This is good. This is my teaching: to silence people." But I don't go to so much trouble for silent opportunities. I also create a world where people can be silent, but my meaning of silence and his meaning of silence are different.


Immediately the reporter asked, "Do you mean you are going to assassinate him?"


He said, "No. Our purpose is served: the commune is destroyed. We could have jailed him for his whole life, but that would have made him a martyr and the people who love him would have loved him more. And the things that he is saying will create a greater movement. So we don't want to do that. That's why we allowed him to go. Now we will try to create all the barriers... Our ways of silencing him are very sophisticated."


But they don't know: my ways are far more sophisticated!


As far as pollution is concerned, the whole world is becoming polluted. And unless those industries, railway trains, airplanes, rockets... are run through different methods so that they don't pollute the air, there is no way...


In fact, this small campus you are sitting in is the most unpolluted situation. You will not find this silence in New Delhi or in Washington.


But their fear of me continues.... It has been two years since they destroyed the commune. First they had not allowed us to sell it, so that it became of less and less value. And people must have started stealing things from the commune -- because how long can we keep protecting a commune of one hundred and twenty-six square miles? First we had sixteen people. Then we reduced it to eight -- it was unnecessarily expensive. Then we reduced to four; now we have reduced to one.


One person is guarding a commune spread over one hundred and twenty-six square miles. And there is proof that burglars are taking things away. Just in front of the Mandir in the commune we had our symbol of birds. Somebody -- this you can see is utterly stupid -- somebody has made holes by shooting bullets into the birds. Those birds are just painted, but such is... These people would have liked to kill all of you... they would not dare! Now they are shooting painted birds which were our symbols.


Just the other day one man has been caught as a murderer and he confessed in the court that he was offered the opportunity, at whatever cost, to bomb the house where I lived in the commune. He went there, but seeing that it was too well guarded he did not dare. But his statement shows that people were trying to kill me, and now they are trying in a psychological way. They are preventing any news media from reaching here: the Indian government does not give them permission.


We received letters from many television stations saying, "We want to come and see what has started again, what is going on in the ashram, but the Indian government says, 'You can come, cover the whole of India, but you cannot go to Poona. Only with that contract can you come to India.'"


Camels are very much afraid of the mountains. It hurts... it hurts their egos....


But you should not be angry. You should try to understand, because this has been the whole history of mankind. If we want to bring a new world, a deep understanding of the old will be helpful. Don't repeat the same things.


Ambition should not be taught. Things are very subtle. You may not find them if you simply look at the ultimate consequences.


My father was right: whenever I came home after taking an examination and coming first, he would say, "That simply proves your class consists of idiots, otherwise how could you come first?"


I said, "You are a strange person: people teach their children to try hard and come first. I don't try at all and come first -- and this is the reception you are giving to me?"


If you want to change the face of humanity then very small things, in detail, should be changed. Children should not be taught to be competitive. There should be no examinations; nobody should pass and nobody should fail. The change should be radical.


If somebody fails, in the records of that person it should never be shown. The salary of the teacher should be cut. What has he been doing for two years? "You wasted two years on a course that can be taught in two months -- and still a few people have failed. The responsibility is yours." He should be demoted, his salary cut, and those six children who have "failed" should never know. They will pass to another class without any distinction as to who is first and who is second. The teacher in the following class should just be made aware to pay more attention to these six people, so that they can also be brought up to an equivalent level.


It looks like a strange idea, but without this you cannot destroy competitiveness. All children should come out of schools and universities feeling equal. No inferiority complex, and politics will disappear, the desire for power will disappear.


The whole educational system should make it absolutely compulsory that everybody meditates. It is a long time -- twenty years of education. In twenty years if you cannot teach people vipassana, being silent and looking inwards, then there is no hope. And people who come out of universities humble, silent, peaceful, will create the same kind of society. It will have a flavor of its own, a fragrance of its own.


And certainly this kind of society will choose people out of their silence and clarity, out of their peace, intelligence -- not corrupted ones; their world will be gone. It will choose people who are wiser and who can make society a garden rather than a graveyard. The past has been continuously making society a graveyard. Everybody can blossom given the right opportunity.


You will mostly have to look deeper into the educational system, because that is where competition starts.


When I refused my gold medal for being first in the whole university, the vice-chancellor said, "Why are you doing it? People hanker after it!"


I said, "You can give it to anybody who is hankering for it but I am perfectly okay as I am, I don't want it. I am not in any way feeling inferior, that I have to prove by a gold medal that I am a superior man who has topped the whole university."


When I encountered the education minister of those days, I told him, "There is a place vacant in the university and I am ready to fill it."
He said, "Strange. You should first apply."


I said, "What is the need when I am present? You respect papers more than persons?"


He said, "No, it is just a formality. You can just write down... This is the paper; write out the application."


I wrote out the application, but then he said, "What about your character certificate?"


I said, "I have not come across a man for whom I could give a character certificate. Do you want me to ask people who don't have any character for a character certificate? Could you write a character certificate?"


He became so puzzled that he said, "Forget it. Just take this letter and join the university. Remember, this kind of behavior is not right. You are suspecting my character."


I said, "You were suspecting my character. You started the whole thing. I have not asked about your character certificate: everybody knows!" He was the most corrupt man -- and he knew it, and everybody knew, so he said that it was better to get rid of me.


He was in such a hurry, he forgot that the appointment letter should reach through a proper channel. He simply gave it to me, just to get rid of me as quickly as possible. And when I reached to the college where I was appointed, the principal looked at me. He said, "You have been appointed just today, this morning -- and by the evening you are here and I have not received any information about it...? This is very strange. It has never happened."


I said, "Phone the education minister. If he had told me that it had to go through the proper channels and it would take three days to reach and not to go before that, I would not have come. If you don't phone, I am going to phone him."


He said, "No, don't. I will phone him. You go in the other room."


I said, "No. When there is a problem concerning me, I have to be here."


He phoned the minister and the minister said, "I forgot completely. The man is so strange. Beware of him!" And I was there.
And I said, "Listen... have you heard...?"
He said, "I have heard."


I said, "I am a dangerous man and the education minister thinks you have to be careful about me."


He was so shocked by the whole thing; I had disrupted the routine. He gave me more periods than are supposed to be given to a teacher in the university.


I said, "These are too many, and if you give me too many I will conduct them according to my own routine and you will have to face the consequences."


He said, "Let us cut them down. How many do you want?"


I said, "I don't want any! I love teaching. I will teach. And I will give you the list of which periods, which classes, I am going to teach."
He said, "Okay, but don't tell anybody."


This whole structure is in a deep need to be completely overturned. But look at small details: one is the educational system; another is the religious system that every family is trying to enforce.


Let your children blossom according to their own intrinsic potentiality. It doesn't matter whether they become presidents or they become just flute players. The question is that whatever they become, they should be blissful.


I have heard about a great surgeon who was retiring....


A party was arranged to say goodbye to him. He had served the institution and he was most loved. It was going to be difficult to find a substitute, he was such a perfect surgeon. The party was going on, people were drinking and dancing and eating. Suddenly a friend of the surgeon looked around -- the surgeon was not there.


So he went out to see; he was sitting under a tree. The friend was a famous advocate. The friend said, "What are you doing? They are all celebrating and you are sitting here in such sadness."


The surgeon said, "It is because of you. Remember, twenty-five years ago I came to you to inquire -- because you had been my friend and the topmost legal expert -- what the consequences would be if I killed my wife. And you said twenty-five years in jail."


The advocate said, "What has that to do with today?"


He said, "Today, twenty-five years are complete. Today I would have been free. But you prevented me from attaining freedom. You did not act like a friend but like an enemy. Today I would have come out of the jail. You forced me to live my whole life with a woman who was nothing but a torture."


The advocate said, "You should think about your art, your surgery, your skill, your fame. If you were in jail you would not have been a famous surgeon."


He said, "I don't care about being famous. What has fame given to me? Just those few idiots who are drinking and talking all kinds of nonsense and thinking they are celebrating my retirement? What has fame given to me? I wanted freedom!"


If you think about yourself you will also see if whatever you have become is your inner voice that has been leading you, or outer forces which have been distracting you. They may make you successful but they will not make you blissful, and success is meaningless.


Nivedano, what has happened in the past has happened. We are in a good position because we can analyze all the causes that led humanity into misery, into poverty, into wars, and we can change.
Revolution can be our religion.
In fact there is no other religion.


But everybody has to be very aware and alert about himself, because he is the society, he is making the society, creating the society. You cannot save yourself from the responsibilities.


Nivedano, an old Indian from Calcutta is waiting at the bus stop with his family of twelve children ahead of him and a blind man behind him. It is late at night and they are waiting for the last bus. Eventually the bus comes and when all the children are aboard, the conductor says it is full, and the old Indian and the blind man have to walk home.


After walking for some time with the blind man tapping the ground loudly with his stick, the Indian says, "You know, if you had a little bit of rubber on the end of your stick, all that noise could have been avoided."


"I know," snaps the blind man, "and if you had a little bit of rubber on the end of your prick, we could have got on the bus!"

Just wait, because Niskriya is coming in....


As a forward to his question: he found the witch and he spent the whole night with her, drinking and all -- and now he is finished. Just one night! He cannot be finished in one night, however great the witch may be.


Now he has moved to metaphysical questions! He is asking
 BELOVED MASTER, THE OTHER DAY YOU SUGGESTED VERY CHARMINGLY TO ME, TO BE ONLY WITH WITCHES. DOES THAT MEAN I AM A DEVIL?


Niskriya, it shows great intelligence. At last you understand who you are. That is the function of the witch. She has helped you to self-realization!


But the question can be taken from some other angle.... Perhaps you don't know that the word 'witch' is not condemnatory. It is Christianity which made it condemnatory; otherwise it was equivalent to wise man.


All over Europe there were witches. They were consulted, their advice followed. With the spread of Christianity, people became very arrogant about witches because they were giving an alternative wisdom to people and Christianity wants to monopolize wisdom. And particularly women cannot be wise; only men can be wise. The trend even goes back to Jesus Christ: all his apostles were men, although the old scriptures mention three women.


His mother obviously loved him, and one very beautiful prostitute, Mary Magdalene -- her whole life was transformed just by listening to Jesus. A third woman, Martha who was the sister of Magdalene, had just come out of curiosity to know who had changed her sister and her lifestyle -- she has almost become a saint. But none of these three was chosen to be part of the apostles.


They loved more, they were more courageous, more cultured... And those twelve apostles were uneducated, uncultured, farmers, fishermen, woodcutters -- people like that. And the final test came when Jesus was crucified: all twelve men disappeared out of fear that if somebody recognized that they are followers of Jesus -- because they have been hanging around him all the time -- then the same will happen to them as has happened to Jesus. And they have seen that there seems to be no sign of resurrection, no miracle.


They were hoping that angels will come, sitting on white clouds, playing on their harps, "Hallelujaih!" -- and the whole scene will change. But not even a white cloud came -- no harp was heard. They looked all around: the whole sky was as silent as ever. But these three women did not leave Jesus. They were sitting underneath the cross. They were the first to take Jesus off the cross. Still, no respect for them.


All religions of the world are male-oriented and are somehow afraid of women. The greatest fear is that the women can distract their attention from God. And in fact, there is no God, just their idea that any beautiful woman will be able to distract... They are right!


Gautam Buddha said to his disciples, "Never look at a woman. Avoid! Never touch a woman. Never speak to women." And for twenty years continuously he resisted the idea of initiating women into sannyas. And when finally he had to, he was very disrespectful. He said, "My religion was going to last for five thousand years; now it will last only five hundred years. These women will destroy everything." Soon there will be boyfriends and girlfriends... and who cares about Gautam Buddha?


The fear of the attraction of women, the natural attraction, has made all the religions antagonistic.


Christianity did the worst. It burned thousands of living women who were known as wise women. Witch is the old name for wise woman. It has no condemnation in it, but because witches were killed and burned and ugly kinds of confessions were made -- because they were forced to make them....


Just before I went to America, my back was troubling me -- it is still troubling me, but now a kind of companionship has arisen. When I came in contact with Christianity, I could not believe that thousands of women confessed. I was always suspicious that it is not possible that those women would confess to be in a love affair with the Devil. But when I was reading I came across a note... which I have experienced here, because of my back. There is a similar device, a traction machine, so that they can pull your legs and your hands to bring your back into line....


I had never realized that the traction machine was used first by Christian churches in Europe for confessions. Women were continually being put on traction machines, and I know by my own experience that on traction you can force anybody to confess anything! Just a little more of a pull and you become afraid that the hand is going to go out or the leg will be gone...! It is better to tell -- who cares in that moment about anything? And they are asking you to confess that you are a witch.


And on the traction machine -- that is the only invention Christianity has given to the world -- those poor women accepted that they were witches. The implications were that they were in a love affair with the Devil, that they really did make love. And to make love to the Devil, certainly, they cannot be tolerated by the Christians; otherwise there is no problem. The Devil is not making love to your popes. And I am certain, on a traction machine, even the pope will say, "Yes. I am a homosexual and the Devil makes love to me!"


I have suffered that traction machine. Because of that suffering I finally said, "I am getting better; now take the machine away." The traction machine cures people. They stop complaining, because when you complain you go to Dr. Hardikar's traction machine. It is better to suffer a bad back than Dr. Hardikar and his colleagues who do a perfect job of pulling you apart!


But the word 'witch', Niskriya, is not bad; it is not condemnatory. It is just the feminine of wise man, but people have forgotten it completely.


And 'devil' also is a misunderstood word. It comes from a Sanskrit root. Hebrew has no root for it, nor has the Greek language nor any other language. Only Sanskrit has the root of 'devil' and that is 'divine'. Divine, deva, devil -- they all come from the same root, div, and div means light. Hence another name for the sun in Sanskrit is divakar. Another name for 'day' in Sanskrit is divas, and 'day' also comes from divas. Neither is 'witch' condemnatory, nor 'devil'; 'devil' means divine.


So don't be worried, Niskriya. You did well. Everybody enjoyed so much that you could not recognize who the witch was. You were looking again and again out of the corner of your eye to see who the witch really was. It was only late in the night, when you woke up from all that had gone by, that you looked at the witch and said, "My God! This is not a witch; this is a sannyasin!" But you got finished with your fear that nobody flirts with you, and whether we should stop flirting completely.


Flirting has nothing to do with religion. It is natural, human. It is not a conditioning of the past; it is just intelligence that one wants to taste all kinds of things. You are not a devil, and now you know the witch was not a witch either. But the night you will remember forever -- not only you, everyone who has seen it!


I have heard from the witch herself that Niskriya was looking again and again at the film, asking why I was waving my hand. "What is the significance, the meaning?" And finally he decided it means flirt! This is a great conclusion, very philosophical!


And whenever you want, just tell me. My function here is just to make you as blissful as possible. And I have a list of those who are ready to become witches, whenever Niskriya wants a queue. And the witch also liked Niskriya and said that he is a very meditative man....

Just something serious now...


Hymie Goldberg has a tough day at the office and phones Becky to tell her he will be coming home late. Then he goes out to a Chinese restaurant and orders a Big Deal big meal. As plate after plate comes, Hymie notices that the Chinese waiter is always smiling and looking happy. "What is there to be so happy about?" moans Hymie.


"Ah," says the waiter, "I am just thinking about my sex life."


"And what is so special about your sex life?" asks Hymie.


"Well," says the waiter, "I take my time with sex. I put it in, I say 'Excuse me,' I take it out and go to the kitchen for a glass of rice wine..."
"And that is it?" asks Hymie, amazed.


"No, no," replies the Chinaman. "I just take my time. I put it in. I say, 'Excuse me.' I take it out and go for some refreshment. I go back. I put it in. I have a wonderful time."


Later when Hymie gets home he decides to give the waiter's idea a try. He starts making love to Becky. He puts it in, "Excuse me," says Hymie, taking it out, "I am going to get a glass of seltzer." Two minutes later he trots back, puts it in and takes it out again. "Excuse me, honey," says Hymie. "I am going to get some blintzes." Just then Becky sits up in bed.


"You know, Hymie," she says, "you fuck just like a Chinaman."

Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Beloved Master.
			

> [!info]
> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
>