From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 15. THEY SAY BELIEVE; I SAY EXPLORE
He said that he had been thrown out and it was unfair, unjust; without being given any reason, any
cause, he had been just told to resign.
And he said, ”The strangest thing is that just eight days before there was no question of any change,
there was no conflict between me and her. And another strange thing is I had always thought that
the other people would support me against Indira. When I was thrown out, not a single cabinet
minister was against it. They rejoiced! They had a party, a celebration!” He said to me, ”I need help.”
I said, ”You have asked the wrong person. I would be the last person in the world to help you. If
you were drowning in a river, and I was going along the side, and you shouted’Help! Help! I am
drowning!’ I would say,’Do it quietly. Don’t disturb my morning walk.’ ”
He said, ”What! Are you joking?”
I said, ”I am not. With politicians I never joke; I am very serious.”
Later on he found out that it was my suggestion basically that got stuck in Indira’s mind; it was clear
mathematics that if she threw this man out then there was nothing to be worried about: all those
others were provincial people. Then she could do whatever she wanted to do and nobody could
oppose her, because nobody represented India as such. And India is such a big country – thirty
states – that if you represent one state, what does it matter? So it stuck in her mind. And Morarji
became even more inimical.
Just as he had asked my help, he was asking everybody’s help, whomsoever he thought had some
kind of power over people – he was asking everybody. He was a beggar. And he found one man
who was a national character, Jaiprakash Narayan, but he was never in politics. He had renounced
politics, and he was a sincere man, but as I go on explaining to you, even the sincerest man....
He was a great public servant, he did much service for India in many ways, but he proves my point.
His whole life he devoted to the freedom struggle, and after freedom Jawaharlal wanted him to be
his successor – he refused. Naturally, anybody would think that he was a humble man – what more
humility, what more meekness? He accepted to remain a nobody when Jawaharlal was offering
him, ”Just be in my cabinet and I will make you my successor. I am ready to declare it.” And he was
capable of being the right successor to Jawaharlal.
Morarji went to him too, and Jaiprakash Narayan agreed to help him for a strange reason – that’s
why I am telling the story so that you understand that even such a man, who could renounce the
premiership of India, was still a deep egoist. That renunciation was not out of humbleness, the
renunciation was out of ego – that ”I don’t care.” Perhaps the very idea that Jawaharlal was offering
him the successorship was not acceptable to his ego. He can become the prime minister on his
own. Who are you to announce, proclaim, declare that he is your successor?
He had his own authority, and he was very influential – perhaps next to Jawaharlal in India, he was
the most loved by the people. And the love became more and more as Jawaharlal became more
and more engulfed in politics, and became farther and farther away from the people. Jaiprakash
became more and more close to the people, and the people started loving him because, ”Here is
a man who can renounce.” And in India, renunciation is the last word – you cannot go beyond that.
From Ignorance to Innocence 202 Osho