Osho Talks. silence shared in words
Osho International Foundation presents
Osho: Something Which never Dies
It has been asked to me again and again,
'Neither Mahavira, nor Buddha, nor Krishna,
served the poor,
opened the hospitals, schools.
Christian saints served the poor,
the sick ,
the orphans, the old.
Who is religious?'
The ordinary mind will think certainly
the person who is serving
the poor, the old, the sick,
is religious.
It is not so easy to decide:
Jesus cured the sick;
Mahavira never cured anybody.
There is a story about Gautam Buddha:
a woman's only son died -
- her husband had died before,
she was a widow.
And in India,
to be a widow is to be really in hell.
In the West the widow again becomes Miss.
In India it is not possible;
once you have missed,
you have missed,
you cannot become Miss again.
So that child was her only hope,
she was living for him;
and the child died.
She went mad:
she was carrying the dead child
all over the town asking,
'Help me!
Somehow bring my child back to life!'
A man on the way suggested
'We are ordinary people, we cannot do such miracles.
But Buddha is in the town, why don't you go there?'
The suggestion was perfectly right.
The woman rushed.
She placed the dead child at Buddha's feet,
and she said, 'I am a widow
and this child was my only hope.
You are a great saint.
Your blessing will be enough
to bring him to life'.
Buddha said,
'I will do it , but only on one condition.'
Jesus never asked such a thing -
- condition ?...
'I will do it, but only on one condition.'
The woman said,
'I am ready to accept any condition.
You do it.'
He said,
'first fulfill the condition.
It is not a very big condition.
Go around the town
and bring from some house
a few mustard seeds.'
The woman said,
'That is not a problem at all.
I have mustard seeds in my house,
I can bring them right now.'
Buddha said, 'you have not heard the whole thing.
You have to bring them from a house
where nobody has ever died.
Only then
am I going to bring your child back to life.'
The woman in despair
rushed from one home to another
asking for a few mustard seeds.
They said, 'a few mustard seeds? -
- we can bring bullock-carts full,
but they won't be of any use
because the condition
is impossible to fulfill.
So many people have died in our family...
and you are not going to find a house
where nobody has ever died.
This is just impossible.
Wherever life is, death has happened -
- they go together.'
By the evening the woman came back.
She was no longer in despair,
the tears had disappeared
from her eyes.
She was no longer concerned about the child.
She fell at Buddha's feet
and asked him
to initiate her on his path.
Buddha said, 'What about the child?'
She said, 'Everybody dies sooner or later,
it doesn't matter.
Now I want to know
something of that
which never dies.'
Now this is a totally different way
of working than that of Jesus.
Jesus cures;
the stories are
that he raises the dead back to life.
Perhaps that's his way,
that's his uniqueness.
In that way he wants
people to understand
that life is not just
eat, drink and be merry.
'There is something more to it,
more mysteries.
Don't waste it in just mundane things.
I can show you the way of eternal life.'
That is his way.
But who can decide
that Buddha's way is wrong?
Perhaps it is more sophisticated,
perhaps it is for more cultured people.
From Darkness to Light #18
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