---
section: Library
booktitle: "Glimpses of a Golden Childhood"
booktype: "Miscellaneous"
bookcode: "GLIMPS"
place: "1984in Lao Tzu House, Rajneeshpuram, USA"
chapternum: "Chapter #32"
chaptertitle: "None"
acode: "0"
shorttitle: "GLIMPS32"
audio: "No"
video: "No"
esttime: ""
displaytitle: "Glimpses of a Golden Childhood: Chapter #32"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
<!--This file is automatically generated. Do not edit!-->


I have always wondered that something went right with me from the very beginning. Of course, there is no such phrase in any language. There is a phrase like "something going wrong," but not "something going right," but what can I do? It really has gone right from my very first breath  --  up to now at least, and I hope it won't change. It must have become accustomed to the routine.


I have been loved by so many people for no reason at all. People are respected for their talents  --  I have been loved for just being myself. It is not only now; that's why I say from the very beginning something must have gone right in the very scheme of things. Otherwise how can something go right?


From the very beginning  --  and every moment I have lived  --  it went on going more and more right, righter and righter. One can only wonder.


Perhaps I can give a new meaning to the word "god": when something goes right for no reason at all  --  you have not done it, you don't even deserve it, and it goes on and on; when everything goes right in spite of you.


Of course, I am not a right person, yet things went on being right with me. Even today, I cannot believe so many people around the globe love me for no reason at all. I have no achievement to claim any respect, neither outside nor in. I am a nonentity, just a zero.


The day I left university service, the first thing I did was to burn all my certificates and diplomas, and the whole nonsense that I had carried all along, neatly piled. I enjoyed the burning of it so much that my whole family gathered around, thinking that finally I had gone completely mad. They always had thought that I was partly mad. Seeing their faces, I started laughing even more loudly.
They said, "It has happened."
I said, "Yes, at last it has happened."
They said, "What do you mean by, 'It has happened'?"


I said, "My whole life I have been trying to burn these certificates, but I could not because they were always needed. Now, there is no need: I can again be uneducated as when I was born."


They said, "You are foolish, utterly mad. You have burned the most precious certificates. You threw the gold medal down the well. Now you have burned even the last remnant showing that once you were the first in the whole university."
I said, "Now nobody can talk about that nonsense to me."


Even today I don't have any talent. I am not a musician like Hari Prasad. I am not a man like so many Nobel prize winners; I am just a nobody, yet thousands of people have given their love without any desire for any return.


Just the other day Gudia told me that when I was in this chair, Asheesh was fixing my other chair. She had never seen him crying. He was just tears, and she asked, "What's the matter?"


He said, "Nothing is the matter. It is just that for five days Osho had not told anybody that his chair was smelling, and I am responsible because I made it. I should have checked. I should have smelled every part of it. Now who will forgive me?"


Asheesh is no ordinary carpenter. He has a Ph.D. in engineering; he is as qualified as anyone can be. And there is nothing wrong with the chair; if something is wrong, it is wrong with me. When I heard of his tears, I remembered the many, many people who have loved and wept for me, for no reason at all... and I am not a very good man either.


If you divide the good guys from the bad guys, I am certainly going to stand with the bad guys. I will be the last to stand with Mahatma Gandhi, Mao Tse-tung, Karl Marx, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, and the list is endless. As far as bad guys are concerned, I am alone.


At least I cannot count anybody as bad: Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Joseph Stalin. Certainly they did what they believed to be good. Maybe it was not, but that is not their fault. They were retarded, but not bad. I cannot count anybody as bad.


If I had to count anybody, then I only would remember people like Socrates, Jesus, Mansoor, Sarmad  --  people who were crucified, punished. But no, I cannot even count them either. They were different in their own ways.


People have tried to punish me, but have never succeeded. On the contrary, from Kantar Master to Morarji Desai, they have all gone down the drain, where they actually belonged in the first place.


But it is strange, I can simply say that from the very beginning I have really walked on a path of roses. They say, "Don't believe it"... but what can I do? I have walked, and I have known. I have seen and experienced bliss every moment of my life.


The first man to call me "the Blessed One" was the last person I mentioned yesterday. That's why I want to continue to talk about him this evening. Masta Baba... I will call him only Masto, because that's the way he wanted me to call him. I always called him Masto, although reluctantly, and I told him to remember it. Also, Pagal Baba had said to me, "If he wants to be called Masto by you, just as I call him, then don't create misery for him in any way. From the moment I die you will take my place for him."


And that day Pagal Baba died, and I had to call him Masto. I was not more than twelve years old, and Masto was at least thirty-five, or maybe more. It is difficult for a twelve-year-old boy to judge exactly, and thirty-five is a most deceptive age... the person could be thirty, or forty, it all depends on his genetics.


Now, that is a complicated affair. I have seen men who still have all their hair, still black, even at the age of sixty. It is not something to brag about; every woman has it. Those men are really meant to be women, that's all. By mistake something went right. It is only a question of chemistry.


Women don't get white hair as early as men, they have a different chemistry  --  bio-chemistry to be exact. And woman rarely go bald. It would be really beautiful to find a bald woman. I have come across only one woman in my whole life who could have been bald, and she was only on the way. Perhaps by now she is bald, because it is ten years since I have seen her.


Why are women bald? Nothing special  --  it is just because the body has to throw out dead cells in the form of hair. The woman cannot grow a beard or mustache; she has a limited area where hair can grow. Of course no man can grow hair as long as a woman because his capacity is divided. Moreover, a woman is, by nature, meant to live ten years longer than a man, on average.


One thing more: by the time a man is thirty-five years old, he has reached his sexual climax. In fact, I am just saying that not to hurt the feelings of poor men. In fact, he has reached his sexual climax by the age of eighteen; after that he starts declining. Thirty-five may be said to be the beginning of the end. It is then that a man realizes he is finished. That is the time a man becomes spiritual, between thirty-five and forty. At this age all kinds of nonsensical things impress him. The real reason is that he is losing his potency. Because he is losing potency, he becomes concerned about the omni-potency of God.


What a word they have found, omnipotence! It must have been the most impotent man in the world who first coined the word omnipotence. They start becoming members of the Theosophical Society, Witnesses of Jehovah, and whatnot. You can name anything and you will find a follower, but he will always be between the age of thirty-five and forty, because that is the time when he wants some support to stand by, to give him a sense that he still exists.


That is the time when people start doing all kinds of things like playing the guitar, sitar, flute, and if they are rich, golf. If they are not rich, just poor fellows, then they start drinking beer and playing cards. Thousands of people around the world play cards every moment.


What kind of a world are we living in? And they believe in their cards! The king, the queen, and the joker too. In fact, they are the only kings and queens in the world  --  except of course the queen of England, who is neither a real queen nor a real playing card queen; she is worse.
What was I saying?
"You were talking about Masto, always calling him Masto."
Masto, good.


He was a king. Not a playing card king, not even a king of England, but a real king. You could see. Nothing else was needed to prove it. It is strange that he was the first person to call me "the Blessed One," Bhagwan.


When he said it, I said to him, "Masto, have you also gone as mad as Pagal Baba, or even more?"


He said, "From this moment, remember, I will not call you other than what I have just called you. Please," he said, "let me be the first, because thousands will call you 'the Blessed One.' Poor Masto should at least be allowed to be the first. At least let me have that prestige."


We hugged each other, and cried together. That was our last meeting; just the day before I had had the experience. It was 22nd March, 1953, that we hugged each other without knowing that this was going to be our last meeting. Perhaps he knew, but I was not aware of it. He told me this with tears in his beautiful eyes.
The other day I asked Chetana, "Chetana, how is my face looking?"
She said, "What?"


I said, "I am asking because I have not eaten anything but fruit for months, except for a few days of Devaraj's concoction. I don't know what it consists of; all that I know is it needs immense will-power to eat it. You have to chew it for half an hour, but it is very good. By the time I am finished I am so tired, utterly tired, almost asleep. That's why I am asking."
She said, "Osho, you are asking me, can I tell you the truth?"
I said, "Only the truth."


She said, "When I look at you I can't see anything except your eyes, so please don't ask me. I don't know how you looked before, or how you look now. All I know is your eyes."


Alas, I cannot show you Masto. His whole body was beautiful. One could not believe that he had not come from the world of the gods. In India there are many beautiful stories. One of them from the RIG VEDA, is that of Pururva and Uruvasi.


Uruvasi is a goddess who becomes fed up with all the pleasures of paradise. I love the story because it is so true. If you have all the pleasures, how long can you endure them? One is bound to become bored. The story must have been written by someone who knew.


Uruvasi becomes bored with all the pleasures, and the gods and their love affairs. Finally, when she is in the hands of the head god, Indra, she uses the moment, as every woman uses such moments, to ask for a necklace or a watch or a diamond ring or anything you can imagine.


Ashu, what are you imagining? Do you know? Yes, you laugh because I know. Just tell me, otherwise I will tell it. Shall I tell it? No, it is not gentlemanly. And you are laughing so happily  --  I would not like to destroy it.


Uruvasi asks Indra, "Please, if you are so happy with me, will you grant me just a little gift? Not much, a very small gift."
Indra says, "Whatsoever it is, ask it, and it will be fulfilled."
She said, "I want to go to earth and to love an ordinary man."


Indra was completely drunk. You must realize that Indian gods are not like the Christian god, not even like Christian priests, what to say of the Christian god? Christianity is a dictatorial religion. The Hindu religion is more democratic, and more human too.


Indra is utterly drunk, and says, "Okay, but this will be the condition: the moment you tell a man you are a goddess, you will have to return to paradise immediately."


Uruvasi comes down to earth and falls in love with Pururva, who is an archer, and also a poet, And she is so beautiful that naturally Pururva wants to marry her.


She said, "Please don't talk of marriage. Never mention it. Unless you promise me not to ever mention it again I will not be able to live with you."


And Pururva, as a poet, of course understands the beauty of a woman like Uruvasi. He has never known anything comparable to her. Naturally, she is a goddess on earth. Under the influence of this intoxicating beauty, he promises. Then Uruvasi said, "One more thing. You must never ask me who I am, otherwise we should forget all about it right now. It is better not to even begin."


Pururva said, "I love you. I don't want to know who you are  --  I am not an investigator."


These two promises given, Uruvasi lies with Pururva. After a few days.... The VEDAS in that way are really human; no other scripture is so human. All other scriptures are very bombastic. In other words, just bullshit. But the RIG VEDA is simply human, with all human limitations, frailties, weaknesses and imperfections. As every honeymoon comes to an end, perhaps a little quicker in the West than in India... so it took the lovers six months.


In America, a weekend is enough for the beginning and the end of the honeymoon  --  and when the honeymoon ends, then the marriage begins. Jesus!


And you say that after death there is a hell for those who sin... it is after the honeymoon! In fact it is marriage! In India it takes six months, a bullock cart's way of ending things.


One night, Uruvasi was awakened by Pururva who was looking at her  --  this was not husbandly, looking at your own wife! What was he doing looking at her when she was asleep? If she had been someone else's wife, that would have been okay, but your own wife? But Uruvasi must have been, was bound to have been, a divine beauty, something from the beyond. Pururva could not contain himself.
He asked her, "Please tell me who you are."


Uruvasi said, "Pururva, you have broken your promise. I will tell you the truth, but now I will not be with you anymore." The moment she told him that she was a goddess, bored with paradise, who came to earth to have a little experience of real people because the gods were so phony; at that very moment, she evaporated just like a beautiful dream. Pururva looked again and again at the empty bed; there was no one there.
It is one of the beautiful stories that I have always loved.


Masto must have been a god born in this world. That's the only way to say how beautiful he was. And it was not only the beauty of the body, which certainly was beautiful. I am not against the body, I am all for it. I loved his body. I used to touch his face, and he would say, "Why do you touch my face with closed eyes?"


I said, "You are so beautiful, and I don't want to see anything else that may perhaps disturb me, so I keep my eyes closed... so I can dream you as beautiful as you are."


Do you note my words?  --  "so I can dream you as beautiful as you are. I want you to be my dream." But it was not only his body which was beautiful, nor his hair  --  I have never seen such beautiful hair, particularly on a man's head. I used to touch and play with his hair, and he would laugh.


Once he said, "This is something. Baba was mad, and now he has given me a Master who is even madder. He told me that you would take his place, so I cannot prevent you from doing anything. Even if you cut off my head, I will be ready and willing for it."


I said, "Don't be afraid. I will not cut even a hair. As far as your head is concerned, Baba has done the job already. Only the hair is left." Then we both laughed. This happened many times, in many ways.


But he was beautiful, bodily, and psychologically too. Whenever I was in need, without asking, so as not to offend me, he would leave money in my pockets during the night. You know that I don't have any pockets. Do you know the story of how I lost my pockets? It was Masto. He used to put money, gold, anything that he could manage, into my pockets. Finally I dropped the very idea of having pockets; it tempts people. Either they cut your pocket open and become pickpocketers, or very rarely, with a man like me, they become a person like Masto.


He would wait until I went to sleep. Once in a while I would pretend, as if I was asleep. I would even have to snore to convince him  --  then I would catch him redhanded, his hand in my pocket. I said, "Masto! Is this the way of a sage?" And we both laughed.


Finally I dropped the idea of having pockets, because I am the only person in the world who needs no pockets at all. In a way it is good, because nobody can cut open my pockets. It is also good that I don't have to carry any weight. Somebody else can always do it. I don't need to. I have not needed pockets for years; somebody has always managed for me.


Just this morning Gudia was giving me tea and I allowed the saucer to slip out of my hand. I cannot say I dropped it; that would be too much because the saucer was really costly. It was inlaid with gold. And she would not forgive me if I said that I had dropped it, that I allowed it to slip out of my hand. And naturally it fell. It was not possible for it to fly; it had to fall.


In that moment I understood many things that I had always understood, but at that moment they all culminated in me. The fall... man could not fly  -- neither Adam nor Eve; naturally they had to fall. It was not the serpent's politics, it was just natural for man to fall. It was natural, very natural for Adam and Eve to fall because there was no way for them to fly  --  no Lufthansa, no Pan-Am, not even Air India. And poor Adam was really poor. But in a way it was good that he fell. Otherwise he would be in the same situation as Uruvasi.


He would have enjoyed all the fruits of paradise, without any joy of course. He would have lived with Eve without love. In paradise nobody loves that much. I can say it without any fear of being expelled because I don't want to enter paradise, so who cares! Paradise is the last place I would like to enter; even hell is preferable. Why? Just because of good company. Paradise is just horrible. The company of the saints... my God! These gods must be imbeciles, or perhaps without minds at all, just robots. Otherwise how do they continuously keep going on the merry-go-round? I don't want to be part of it.


But Masto looked like a god who had come to earth. I loved him, without any reason of course, because love cannot have any reason. I still love him. I don't know whether he is alive or not, because on 22nd March, 1953 he disappeared. He just told me he was going to the Himalayas.


He said, "My responsibility is fulfilled, as far as I had promised Pagal Baba. Now you are what you potentially were. Now I am no longer needed."
I said, "No, Masto, I will need you still, for other reasons."


He said, "No. You will find ways for everything that you require. But I cannot wait."


Since then, once in a while I used to hear  -- perhaps from someone coming from the Himalayas, a sannyasin, a bhikku  --  that Masto was in Kalimpong, or that he was in Nainital, or here or there, but he never came back from the Himalayas. I asked everybody who was going to the Himalayas, "If you come across this man...." But it was difficult, because he was very reluctant to be photographed.


Once I had convinced him to be photographed, but the photographer in my village was a genius! His name was Munnu Mian, a poor man, but he had a camera. It must have been the oldest model in the world. His camera should have been preserved, it would be worth millions of dollars now. Out of the whole film, perhaps one photograph would turn out. That too was not certain. And when you looked at the photo you could not believe how he had managed it because it did not look like you. He was avant garde! Really avant garde. He did with photography what only Picasso would have liked... or I don't know, even he may not have liked it if Munnu Mian had done it of Picasso himself.


Somehow I convinced Masto to go to Munnu Mian. Munnu Mian was very happy. Masto reluctantly sat there in the villager's studio. I cannot really call it a studio, it was only a rusted chair without arms.


People rarely came to be photographed, so there was no studio really. You cannot know how it was done in Indian villages. You cannot even imagine it. It is still the same. As a background, there was a painting, a large curtain painted with a street scene of Bombay; huge buildings, motors, buses. And of course it was thought that the picture had been taken in Bombay. What more can you expect for one rupee for three pictures? But Masto managed... or, to be more correct, the idiocy of Munnu Mian undid everything that I had arranged he forgot to put the plate in the camera!


I can still see the whole scene. I had prepared Munnu Mian by saying, "Be very exact, correct. It is with great difficulty that I managed to bring this man, and if you have his picture it will be great publicity for your studio." He was convinced, and said, "I will try. Just teach me two words in English. I have heard that in the bigger cities, before they click the shutter they say, 'Please be ready.'" Of course he said it to me in Hindi, but he wanted to say it in English to impress this very respected man.


Then he wanted to know how to say "Thank you," for when it was finished. So he arranged everything, then he said, "Please be ready," of course in English. Even Masto could not believe that Munnu Mian knew any English. Then he clicked his camera  --  a loud click of course. I can still see his camera. I can certainly say it would get a million dollars at least just because of its antiquity. It was huge.
He then said, "Thank you, sir." And we departed.


He came running behind us and said, with tears in his eyes, "Forgive me, please come back. I forgot to put the plate in the camera!"


That was too much. Masto said, "You idiot! Just run away from here otherwise I will lose my temper, and I am very temperamental."


I knew that he was not at all temperamental, and I said to Munnu Mian, "Don't be worried. I will arrange it again." But he escaped, actually ran. I said, "Listen, don't run away..." but he would not listen.


I persuaded Masto to return, but when we reached the studio it was locked. Munnu Mian was so afraid that on seeing us coming he locked the studio and ran away.


So we don't have any picture of Masto. There are just three pictures I always wanted to have, just to show you. One was of Masto, a rare beauty. Another was a man I will talk about later on, and a woman who I will also talk about later on. But I don't have a picture of any of these people.


It's a strange thing, they were all reluctant to have their picture taken, utterly reluctant  -- perhaps because a picture invariably distorts the beauty, because beauty is a living phenomenon, and a picture is static. When we take a picture of a flower, do you think it is the same flower that is still there? No, meanwhile it has grown. It is no longer the same, yet the picture will always remain the same, the picture never grows. It is dead from the very beginning. What do you call it?  --  stillborn? Is that right?
"Yes, Osho."


Okay, a picture is stillborn, dead, already dead before it has taken its first breath; it breathes not.


The only person whom I loved and knew as one of the most beautiful people, and who allowed me to take pictures, was my Nani. She allowed me, but with the condition that the album would be in her custody.
I said, "There is no problem in that, but why? Can't you trust me?"


She said, "I can trust you, but I can't trust these photographs. It is not that you can do any harm to me, but I want the photographs to be in my care. When I am dead they will be yours."


She allowed me to take as many photographs of her as I liked. But after she had died, when I opened her closet where she used to keep all those photographs, there was an empty album. She could not write, so she had told my father to write on it, "Please excuse me." She had signed it with her right thumb print.


The people I wanted you to be acquainted with, at least in their form, never allowed me to take their photographs. Only one allowed me to, but it seems my Nani only allowed me in order not to hurt me... and she always destroyed the pictures.


The album was empty. I looked minutely, and it had never been used. I searched the whole house. There was not a single picture to be found. I would have loved to show you her eyes, just her eyes. Her whole body was beautiful, but her eyes... it needs a poet to say something about them, or a painter; and I am neither. I can only say that they reflected something of the beyond.
			

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