From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 12. FAITH: THE SUICIDE OF INTELLIGENCE
nothing to do with you because you have never touched his feet. You need not be so angry that you
want to cut off his head. You neither touched his feet, nor do you have to cut off his head. That man
is absolutely a stranger to you, but this dress and his begging bowl, these are here. You can do
whatsoever you want: if you want to touch the feet, you can. If you want to cut off the head, you cut
off the head.”
I told them, ”Can’t you see a simple thing: that twenty years of following the discipline....” And you
cannot deceive Jainas because five monks have to live together. No monk is allowed to live singly
because you can’t trust just one monk; he may find some way to do something which is not according
to the rules. Four are spying on a fifth – in fact they are all spying on each other.
They are not supposed to stay in anybody’s house, they can only stay in a temple, because in a
house anything is possible. Women will be there, food will be there – and these people are hungry
for food, for women, for everything. They are completely hungry.
They have to eat only one time a day and they cannot touch a woman. What to say about touch,
they are not allowed to see a woman. To avoid seeing them, the instruction is that they should walk
looking at the ground four feet ahead, exactly four feet ahead; their eyes slowly become fixed to four
feet ahead. That’s the way they have to walk, so even if they happen to see a woman they will see
only the feet, nothing else.
They are not allowed to stay in a house with a family, because – who knows? – in the night they may
open the fridge. Hungry people are hungry people. In the temple there is no fridge, no food and no
water. They are not allowed to drink water in the night.
I said, ”This man was worshipped by you, like a god, for twenty years. Just because today he has
thrown off his dress and changed his clothes, you are ready to murder him. You are non-violent
people, but you are talking of cutting off his head!”
And to the monk I said, ”You see these people – all these people have been touching your feet. This
was a mutual understanding: they gave you respect, you remained their slave. Become more and
more their slave, and more and more they will give you respect. Lose your individuality completely,
become phony and they will carry you on their heads. But a single moment of reality and they are
your enemies.”
No, nobody can give a discipline to you.
You will have to find it through your own awareness.
When sannyasins ask me how they should live, what they should do, what they should not do, I
simply tell them, ”You don’t understand me. My single message is be more and more yourself.
The first thing is to be oneself.
And the second thing is to know who one is.
So remain yourself.
From Ignorance to Innocence 165 Osho