Friday, April 09, 2004

Osho's Quotes

It is related of Mahavir that he decided to leave his home. But his mother was alive, so she said, "Do not go, do not renounce, unless I die. Do not ask again about renouncing the world. You talk of love and you talk of non-violence, but if you renounce the world it will be killing me, murdering me. So do not talk about it!" But even the mother was surprised, because then Mahavir never talked about it. The whole family was surprised. What type of renunciation, what type of sannyas, was this? Only once Mahavir talked of it; then the mother became angry, and he stopped.

For two years he would not talk about it. Then his mother died. He was returning home one day, so he asked his older brother, "Now my mother is dead, so allow me to renounce the world."

The brother became angry. He said, "What nonsense are you talking? We are suffering a great loss. Mother has died and you are talking about renouncing now? Do not talk about it at all!" So Mahavir remained silent again for two years.

The whole family was again shocked. What type of renunciation was this? But then they began to feel that he was in the house, but he was not. He was absolutely absent. No one felt him as being present. He became just a shadow. Months would pass, and then suddenly someone would say, "Where is Mahavir?" He was in the house. He became so absent that the whole family gathered one day and they said, "If you are doing this, then it now becomes our duty to allow you to renounce. You can go, because, really, you have already gone."

Mahavir left the house that very day. Someone asked him, "Why didn't you escape? Why didn't you run away?"

He said, "There was no need. I took the inner jump. The day I decided, I became a sannyasin. Only my shadow was there because my mother would have become disturbed. There was no need to leave. The shadow was there; 'I' was not there. The very day I decided, the thing had happened. These four years were just nothing for me. I was a shadow. I could have remained in that house forever."

The day one really decides to take the jump, the jump has already taken place, because the decision is the jump. Even to become aware that "I am in a deep imprisonment", to be aware of this, is to have moved out of it. Now, sooner or later, this imprisonment cannot be a prison for you.

The Ultimate Alchemy Vol-2