From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 11. TRUTH: NOT A DOGMA BUT A DANCE
but Buddha was young and was still capable of joking and laughing. He was still young and alive –
he was not yet established.
Once you become an established religion, then you have your vested interests. Mahavira had an
established religion thousands of years old, perhaps the oldest religion of the world – because
Hindus say, and say rightly, that they have the oldest book in the world, the Rig Veda. Certainly it
is now scientifically proved that the Rig Veda is the oldest scripture that has survived. But in the
Rig Veda, the first Jaina messiah is mentioned; that is proof enough that the Jaina messiah has
preceded the Rig Veda. And he is mentioned: his name is Rishabhadeva.
He is mentioned with a respect that it is impossible to have towards a contemporary. It is just human
weakness, but it is very difficult to be respectful towards somebody who is contemporary and alive,
just like you. It is easy to be respectful to somebody who has died long ago. The way the Rig Veda
remembers Rishabhadeva is so respectful that it seems that he must have been dead for at least a
thousand years, not less that that, so Jainism is a long-established religion.
Buddhism was just starting with Buddha. He could afford to joke and laugh, so he jokes against
Mahavira and his omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. He says, ”I have seen Mahavira
standing before a house begging” – because Mahavira lived naked and used to beg just with his
hands. Buddha says, ”I have seen him standing before a house which was empty. There was
nobody in the house – and yet this man, Jainas say, is a knower, not only of the present, but of the
past and the future.”
Buddha says, ”i saw Mahavira walking just ahead of me, and he stepped on a dog’s tail. It was early
morning and it was not yet light. Only when the dog jumped, barking, did Mahavira come to know
that he had stepped on his tail. This man is omniscient, and he does not know that a dog is sleeping
right in his way, and he is going to step on his tail.”
But the same happened with Buddha when he became established. After three hundred years,
when his sayings and statements were collected for the first time, the disciples made it absolutely
clear that ”everything written here is absolutely true, and it is going to remain true forever.”
Now, in those statements there are so many idiotic things which may have been meaningful twentyfive
centuries ago but today they are not meaningful because so much has happened in twenty-five
centuries. Buddha had no idea of Karl Marx, he had no idea of Sigmund Freud... so what he has
written or stated is bound to be based only on the knowledge which was available at that time.
”A man is poor, because in his past life he has committed bad actions.” Now, after Marx, you cannot
say that. ”A man is rich because he has committed good actions in his past life.” Now, after Marx,
you cannot say that. And I don’t think Buddha had any idea that there was going to be a Karl Marx,
although his disciples say that whatsoever he said is going to remain true forever – another way of
saying that he is omniscient.
This was a good consolation for the poor, that if they did good works, in their future lives they also
would be rich. It was a joy for the rich too: ”We are rich because we have done good works in our
past life.” And they know perfectly well what good works they are doing right now... and their riches
are increasing every day; their past life is finished with long ago and yet their riches go on increasing.
The poor people go on becoming poorer and the rich go on becoming richer.
From Ignorance to Innocence 143 Osho