Thursday, April 22, 2010

Tale 19 ~ 100 Tales for 10,000 Buddhas


In Ahmedabad, arrangements are being made for Osho to stay in an empty apartment, which is kept ready for guests only. It is on the first floor, opposite Champakbhai’s apartment. It has two bed rooms--one bedroom is air conditioned with quite a comfortable bed in it. In the other room there are mattresses on the floor. I like the place. There is quite a big open balcony attached to the rooms. Osho feels more comfortable in the air conditioned room and goes to bed early. Kranti, who is taking care of Him, arranges her bed in His room. Tomorrow morning at eight o’clock He is going to start His series of discourses on the Bhagwadgeeta.

There are four more friends from Bombay who have come with us from Udaipur. They have expressed their wish to stay there overnight and leave tomorrow morning. Osho has agreed to it and I also don’t see any problem in it. After a little gossip I arrange my bed in one of the corners of the room and these four friends, all male, arrange their mattresses in a row and go to sleep.

Hearing a knock on the door, I get up and open it. The host enters and has come to check how we are sleeping. Seeing me alone with four men in the same room he asks, “Where is the other woman?”

I tell him, “She is Osho’s sister, and is sleeping in his room.”

I can see how angry and upset he is. He tells me with his voice raised, “This wont do in my room. Either you go and sleep in Osho’s room, or bring Kranti out to sleep in your room.”

I am simply surprised and confused, not knowing how to deal with this man. I tell him, “I don’t want to disturb Osho--He is already sleeping.”

He leaves, and maybe after consulting with his wife, he comes back again. He looks very disturbed and tells me I can’t sleep in the same room with the four men but instead I can sleep in his children’s room. To avoid unnecessary discussion I agree to it, and sleep on the floor in the room where his two children were already sleeping in their beds. I lie down and start thinking, “What a rotten society we are living in. These sexually suppressed people project their minds on us and think they are moral, civilized and cultured people and that we are misbehaving.”

When I tell Osho about this episode, He says to Jayantibhai that arrangements for His staying should not be made in the house of people who have never heard Him and don’t know Him: “They unnecessarily suffer and create trouble for others too.”