From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 13. ECSTASY IS KNOWING THAT NOBODY IS HOLDING YOUR HAND
I was his only confidant because we conspired together. Of course many things he could not do – I
had to do them. For example, his son-in-law was sleeping in the room and my grandfather could not
go up onto the roof, but I could go. So we conspired together; he would help me, he would become a
ladder for me to go onto the roof and remove a tile. And with just a bamboo and a brush attached to
it, in the night, touching the face of the son-in-law.... He would scream, and the whole house would
run there.... ”What is the matter?” But by that time we had disappeared, and he would say, ”There
was some ghost or somebody just touching my face. I tried to catch him but I could not; it was dark.”
My grandfather remained utterly innocent, and I saw the great freedom that he had. In my whole
family he was the eldest. He should have been the most serious and most burdened with so many
problems and so many anxieties, but nothing affected him. Everybody was serious and worried
when there were problems; only he was not worried. But one thing I never liked – that’s why I
remembered him this moment – and that was sleeping with him. He had the habit of sleeping with
his face covered and I would have to sleep with my face also covered, and that was suffocating.
I told him clearly, ”About everything I agree, but this I cannot tolerate. You cannot sleep with your
face uncovered; I cannot sleep with my face covered – it suffocates me. You do it lovingly” – he would
keep me close to his heart and cover me completely – ”that’s perfectly good, but in the morning my
heart will not be beating. Your intention is good, but you will be alive in the morning and I will be
gone. So our friendship is out of the bed.”
He wanted me there because he loved me and he had said, ”Why don’t you come and sleep with
me?”
I said, ”You know perfectly well that I don’t want to be suffocated by anybody, even if his intention is
good. You love me and you would like to keep me close to your heart even in the night.” Also, we
used to go for a long walk in the mornings, and sometimes, when there was a moon, in the night. But
I never allowed him to hold my hand. And he would say, ”But why? You may fall, you may stumble
upon a stone or anything.”
I said, ”That’s better. Let me stumble, it is not going to kill me. It will teach me how not to stumble,
how to be alert, how to remember where the rocks are. But you holding my hand – how long can
you hold my hand? How long are you going to be with me? If you can guarantee that you will always
be with me, then of course I am willing.”
He was a very sincere man; he said, ”That I cannot guarantee; I cannot even say about tomorrow.
And one thing is certain, you will live long and I will be dead, so I will not be here forever to hold your
hand.”
”Then,” I said, ”It is better for me to learn from now, because one day you will leave me in the middle,
helpless. And if you have trained me to hold your hand, then there are only two ways: either I start
living in a fiction – God the father....”
Why do you call God ”the father”? Yes, there are two kinds of religions in the world. A few religions
call God ”the mother”, and a few religions call God ”the father”. The majority of religions call God
”the father” for the simple reason that the majority of societies are patriarchal, male chauvinist. And
a very few – small tribes around the world – are still matriarchal, where the woman is higher than
the man. Naturally God cannot be a man in those societies; in those societies God is the mother.
From Ignorance to Innocence 169 Osho