From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 15. THEY SAY BELIEVE; I SAY EXPLORE
not easy places to be in. They did all kinds of things, particularly beating, because they thought it
was possible to beat the madness out. Because madness was thought of as something like an evil
spirit possessing you. A good beating every day, and they thought the madness would go.
They used – just three hundred years ago – to take the blood out of the madman, so he became
weakened. They thought that his energies were being possessed by the evil spirit; if you took his
energies out, the evil spirit would leave the place because there was nothing to feed on – it was
feeding on his blood. Good logic – and they were doing just that.
Nobody would have thought that these were paintings. Only this century could believe that Picasso
is a great painter, because this century suffers, is a little alert of suffering, of inner misery – and this
man has put it in color.
What you cannot put even in words, Picasso has been able to put in color. You don’t understand
what it is, but somehow you feel a deep at-one-ment. It has an appeal, something clicks in you. It
is not intellectual because you cannot figure out what it is, but you remain stuck watching, looking,
as if it were a mirror and something of your inside, of your intestines, is there. Picasso’s paintings
became the greatest in this age because they served almost like an X-ray. They brought your misery
out. That’s why I said ”perhaps”. And about anybody else I can only say perhaps.
Only about myself can I be certain.
I know that if you go on exploring your inner world without condemnation, without appreciation,
without thinking at all, just watching the facts – they start disappearing.
A day comes, you are left alone, the whole crowd is gone away; and in that moment, for the first time
you feel what psychic healing is.
And from psychic healing the door opens to spiritual healing.
You need not open it, it opens on its own. You just reach to the psychic center and the door opens.
It has been waiting for you, perhaps for many lives. When you come, the door immediately opens,
and from that door, you not only see yourself, you see the whole existence, all the stars, the whole
cosmos.
Hence I can say absolutely: no politician can become religious unless he drops politics. Then he is
not a politician, and what I am saying does not refer to him.
You have also asked, can a religious man become a politician? That is even more impossible than
the first because there is no reason at all for him to become one. If inferiority is the cause that drives
you into ambition, then how can a religious man become a politician? – there is no driving force. But
once in a while it has happened in the past, and it may happen in the future, so let me say it to you.
In the past it was possible because the world was dominated by the monarchy. Once in a while,
the king’s son might turn out to be a poet. It is very difficult for a poet to become the president of
America; who is going to listen to him? People think he is crazy, and he will look like a hippy. He
cannot shape up himself, and he is trying to shape up the whole world?
From Ignorance to Innocence 208 Osho