Religion – Questions – Afraid?
— OSHO Online Library
[Link]/osho-online-library/osho-talks/religion-questions-afraid-1dbf1e0e-067
I was just sitting looking at the morning sun, and fishermen were
there. In India they put out bait for the fish. Everywhere fishermen
put out bait, but in India it has to be nonvegetarian, because the
people who are catching fish and the people who are going to buy
fish are both nonvegetarians. So the fishermen will cut small insects
into pieces, which are delicious to the fishes, and hook them to their
fishing lines. The fish will come and catch the insect and with the
insect there is a hook; the hook will catch the fish. The fish will come
to get the insect, but inside the insect the hook has been put, so
once she swallows the insect, the fish is caught by the hook and she
can be pulled out immediately.
Looking at this fisherman I thought, “I have to find a way that I can
catch my people. Right now they are in different camps, nobody is
mine.” I was alone: nobody was courageous enough even to
associate with me or to walk with me because people would think
that he was also gone, was lost. I found the bait: use their words.
In the beginning people were really shocked. Those who knew me
for years, who knew that I had always been against God, were really
puzzled, absolutely puzzled. One of my teachers, whom I had
tortured for three years continually in my high school because he
was a very pious type of man: praying morning and evening, and
continually keeping on his forehead the symbol of his religion… I
was continually harassing him about everything; he was incapable of
answering any question.
In fact nobody can answer questions relating to fictions. If reality is
there, some way can be found and any question can be answered.
But if there is no reality at all and you are just feeling high on
something fictitious, you will be afraid even to listen to a question
from somebody because that brings doubt to your mind.
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This teacher lived not very far from my house, so I used to go to
torture him there – because in class he would simply say, “Get out!”
before he took the attendance. I would say, “Please, first take my
attendance; otherwise, I come every day, but at the end of term you
will say that my attendance is not good enough and that I cannot
appear in the examinations. So please, first take the attendance.”
He said, “That I will do – you need not even come.” He gave me
exactly one hundred percent attendance, but he said, “Before I start
my work, you get out!”
I used to go to his house, and I would say, “Here you have to treat
me like a god because that is what scriptures say: atithi devo bhava
– the guest is equal to God. Here you cannot tell me to get out; and
English is not allowed at all because it is a religious conversation for
which I have come.”
He would keep both his fingers in his ears. His wife would ask, “Why
are you so afraid of this boy?”
He would say, “I don’t want to listen to what he wants to say. I cannot
throw him out of the house. He is right, he is saying, ‘Atithi devo
bhava: a guest is God, nothing less; treat him as if God has come.’
But no scripture says that you cannot put your fingers in your ears. I
won’t listen to a single word from him because he creates doubts in
me. His whole purpose in coming here is to create doubt.”
Once his wife asked, “Why do you unnecessarily take the trouble to
come when he does not listen?”
I said, “But do you see? Do you think your husband is a religious
man?”
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