From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 11. TRUTH: NOT A DOGMA BUT A DANCE
But in India no revolution has ever been thought about; there is no question of its happening –
and India has lived in poverty such as no other country has lived. India has lived longer in slavery
than any other country of the world. But slavery, poverty, suffering – everything has to be accepted
because it is your doing. You cannot revolt against it. Against whom are you going to revolt? The only
way is to do something to balance your bad actions with good actions. The very idea of revolution
has never happened to the Indian mind. If slavery comes, you have to accept it.
The Hindus know all the answers. They say, ”Without God’s will nothing happens. So if you are
a slave....” And for two thousand years India has been in slavery. It is a miracle that such a big
country has remained in slavery for two thousand years. And the people who invaded India were
small barbarian tribes; they were nothing compared to India. They could have been simply crushed
by the crowd, there was no need even to take sword in hand.
But anybody – Hunas, Moguls, Turks, Mohammedans, Britishers – anybody who was ambitious and
wanted to invade India was always welcome. It was ready – obliged that you came from so far
away, and you took so much trouble! The simple reason was that the Hindus know the answer: it is
God’s will; nothing happens without God’s will, so this slavery is God’s will. And a man like Mahatma
Gandhi – one would think that a man like Gandhi would show a little more intelligence, but no. If you
are a Hindu you cannot show more intelligence than you are supposed to.
In Bihar, one of the provinces of India – the poorest province – there was a great earthquake. It was
already poor; every year it suffers from floods. And then this earthquake... thousands died. And
what did Gandhi say? Gandhi said, ”Bihar is suffering because of its bad actions.” In the twentieth
century? – an earthquake? – and the whole population of Bihar?
It was understandable that you had been explaining to single individuals that they were suffering
because of their bad karmas, but the whole state suffering because of its bad karmas...! As if all
these people in their past life were also in this same state, and they all committed such bad karmas
that the earthquake happened. And the whole of the rest of India did not suffer from the earthquake
because they had done good karmas in their past life. Strange!
It is even more strange because Bihar is the birthplace of Mahavira, of Gautam Buddha, of Makhkhali
Gosal, of Ajit Keshkambal – great teachers and great prophets – and Bihar is suffering because it has
committed bad karmas! In India no other state has given birth to so many prophets, philosophers,
thinkers. And what wrong could Bihar have done? But Hinduism knows everything.
I want you to remember that the basic mistake that all the religions have committed is that they have
not been courageous enough to accept that there are limits to their knowing
They have not been able to say on any point, ”We don’t know.”
They have been so arrogant that they go on saying they know, and they go on creating new fictions
of knowledge.
That’s where the true religion will be different, fundamentally different.
Yes, once in a while there have been single individuals who had the quality of true religion; for
example, Bodhidharma. One of the most loveable human beings, he went to China fourteen hundred
From Ignorance to Innocence 144 Osho