From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 15. THEY SAY BELIEVE; I SAY EXPLORE
comes but he sits in the car outside and listens from there. He cannot gather courage to come in
and let it be seen by people that he has come to listen to somebody.”’
The ego is so subtle and so slippery. And the politician is sick because of his ego.
Now there are two ways: either he can cover the wound by becoming a president, a prime minister....
He can cover the wound, but the wound is there. You can deceive the whole world but how can you
deceive yourself? You know it. It is there, you have covered it.
I am reminded of a strange story. It happened in Prayag, the very holy place for Hindus, where three
rivers meet. You know in India the whole country is treated as a toilet; there is no demarcation where
the toilet is and where it is not. Wherever you can find a place – that is the toilet.
One brahmin, early in the morning, must have gone to take his bath, and before his bath he went to
defecate. Perhaps he was in a hurry, perhaps he had some stomach trouble or something, but he
just went on the ghat. ”Ghat” means the paved place where people put their clothes and go to take
their bath. It is not allowed; nobody prevents you, but it is not conventionally allowed, on that paved
place where people are going to put their clothes, that you defecate.
But the man must have been in trouble. I can understand, I don’t doubt his intention – I never doubt
anybody’s intention. He defecated there, and as he was finishing he saw people coming. So he
simply covered his shit with the flowers that he had brought to worship with. What else to do?
The people arrived and they asked, ”What is this?”
And he said, ”A shivalinga – I am worshipping.” And he started worshipping, and because a brahmin
was worshipping, others started pouring their flowers on it – a shivalinga had appeared! It is thought
to be a great miracle in India – whenever any statue just appears or whenever you want to create
a miracle, this is the simplest way. Other people started chanting mantras, and what to say of that
man... he was feeling so bad. Not only had he dirtied the place, he had lied. One lie begets another
lie, and then... now what was he doing? He was worshipping it, and others were worshipping it!
But how can you forget it? Is there any way for this man to forget what is under the flowers?
The same is the situation of the politician – just pus, wounds, inferiority, feeling worthless.
Yes, he has reached higher and higher, and on each step of the ladder, the hope was that on the
next step the wound would be healed.
Inferiority creates ambition, because ambition simply means an effort to prove yourself superior.
There is no other meaning to ambition but an effort to prove yourself superior.
But why make an effort to prove yourself superior unless you are suffering from inferiority?
I have never voted in my life. My uncles, my two uncles – I have two uncles who both were in the
freedom struggle – both have been to jail. Neither of them could complete his education because
From Ignorance to Innocence 204 Osho