From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 11. TRUTH: NOT A DOGMA BUT A DANCE
are infallible – are wrong. Just a single man, Galileo, destroys the whole pretension. The whole
hypocrisy he exposes. His mouth has to be shut. He was old, dying, on his deathbed, but he was
forced, almost dragged, to the court of the pope to ask for an apology.
And the pope demanded: ”You change it in your book, because the holy book cannot be wrong. You
are a mere human being; you can be wrong; but jesus Christ cannot be wrong, God Himself cannot
be wrong, hundreds of infallible popes cannot be wrong.... You are standing against God, His son,
and His representatives. You simply change it!”
Galileo must have been a man with an immense sense of humor – which I count to be one of the
great qualities of a religious man. Only idiots are serious; they are bound to be serious. To be able
to laugh you need a little intelligence.
It is said that an Englishman laughs twice when he hears a joke: once, just to be nice to the fellow
who is telling the joke, out of etiquette, a mannerism; and second, in the middle of the night when he
gets the meaning of the joke. The German laughs only once, just to show that he has understood it.
The Jew never laughs; he simply says, ”In the first place you are telling it all wrong....”
You need a little intelligence, and Galileo must have been intelligent. He was one of the greatest
scientists of the world, but he must be counted as one of the most religious persons also. He said,
”Of course God cannot be wrong, Jesus cannot be wrong, all the infallible popes cannot be wrong,
but poor Galileo can always be wrong. There is no problem about it – i will change it in my book.
But one thing you should remember: the earth will still go around the sun. About that I cannot do
anything; it does not follow my orders. As far as my book is concerned I will change it, but in the
note I will have to write this:’The earth does not follow my orders, it still goes around the sun.’”
Each step of science, religion was against. The earth is flat, according to the Bible, not round. When
Columbus started thinking of going on a trip with the idea that the earth is round, his arithmetic was
simple: ”If I continue journeying directly, one day I am bound to come back to the same point from
where I started... the whole circle.” But everybody was against it.
The pope called Columbus and told him, ”Don’t be foolish! The Bible says it clearly: it is flat. Soon
you will reach the edge of this flat earth and you will fall from there. And do you know where you will
fall? Heaven is above, and you cannot fall upwards – or can you? You will fall downwards into hell.
So don’t go on this journey and don’t persuade other people to go on this journey.”
Columbus insisted that he was going; he went on the journey and opened the doors of the new world.
We owe so much to Columbus that we are not aware of The world that we know was brought to light
by Columbus. If he had listened to the pope, the infallible pope, who was talking just nonsense – but
his nonsense was very holy, religious....
All the religions of the world are bound to pretend that whatsoever there is, they know it. And they
know it exactly as it is; it cannot be otherwise.
Jainas say their tirthankara, their prophet, their messiah is omniscient. He knows everything – past,
present and future, so whatsoever he says is the absolute truth. Buddha has joked about Mahavira,
the Jaina messiah. They were contemporaries twenty-five centuries ago. Mahavira was getting old,
From Ignorance to Innocence 142 Osho