The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 1. THE DARKNESS INSIDE
from home. Once the falsity of the dream is recognized, the matter is over – what is there to run
away from? And yet we come across a man escaping from his wife, children. His very fleeing shows
he must have just heard the dream is false – he himself has no realization of it. Until yesterday he
rushed toward his wife, now he is running away from her – in either case, the wife remains crucial.
A Jaina monk – Ganeshvarni – had for years renounced his wife. After twenty years of his becoming
a monk, he received the news of his wife’s death. The words he uttered hearing the news are worth
noting. He said, ”Good riddance!” His disciples interpreted these words to mean non-attachment.
But if you will give a little thought, it would be clear this is not non-attachment. Because the very
idea of getting rid of wife shows she was still being seen as a botheration even after twenty years.
The arithmetic is quite clear. The wife left behind twenty years ago must have been following like
a shadow. She must have been haunting him all the time – weighing upon him. Even after twenty
years he had not been able to free himself from her thought. His mind must have been debating all
along whether what he did was right or wrong. The words, ”Good riddance” at the instance of wife’s
death say nothing about the wife, they speak for the husband. Although this man did run away from
his wife, but could not leave her.
And Ganeshvarni was a holy man. So beware, holy men can also live in great delusion. He was
indeed a man of impeccable character – unerring, virtuous, upright. And yet something went wrong,
he took the very problem with him when he left for the Himalayas.
There is yet another thing in this regard that needs to be understood as well. The fact that at the
death of his wife the first thing which occurred to him was ”good riddance” shows that knowingly or
unknowingly, the desire for her death must have been lurking somewhere in the unconscious. This
requires to take a deeper look at it.
At some level he must have wished that she be dead, finished forever; but this shows violence. Every
word that we utter doesn’t just come from out of the blue, without a reason. Every word comes from
our innermost parts. And in such moments when the news of wife’s death has just arrived, you don’t
react through the everyday normal attentive state. After an hour or so you become aware of it and
then you begin to rationalize what you said, you patch it up. But that would all be a falsehood.
In that very moment Ganeshvarni was given the news, he missed. In an instant he forgot about
the whole facade of holiness he had created all around him for the past twenty years. If this could
happen to Ganeshvarni, it can easily happen to you too.
Running away won’t do any good. No one has ever been able to escape just by running away
from something. But the disciples can never recognize this. Thinking that the words uttered
by Ganeshvarni showed what a man of non-attachment he was, they consider them of great
significance in the whole story.
You can hardly ever know what ”non-attachment” means. Since you live in the world of attachments,
you only understand what renunciation is. You understand when someone does something contrary
to what you do. You know very well you can’t leave your wife, whole this man did – you obviously
find him greater than you. The man is certainly opposite to you, but not different from you. You are
standing on your feet while he is standing on his head – but there is not an iota’s difference between
The Great Path 11 Osho