From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 17. JESUS, THE ONLY FORGOTTEN SON OF GOD
But whether you call Him God or Gott or Godot, it doesn’t matter because the word means nothing
– so you can call Him anything. It is simply a word without any meaning at all, so you can play with
it. And in fact that’s what Samuel Beckett was doing. He means God. He doesn’t say so, but it is a
clear-cut indication – waiting for God; but then it would have lost some beauty. When he makes it
waiting for Godot, you know who Godot is yet you cannot say that you are speaking against God.
Nobody has seen Him.
Nobody has met Him.
Nobody has heard Him.
Still everybody is waiting for Him... that now He must be coming, that it is time, He should be here.
What are the Jews doing? Waiting, waiting. And they were angry when Jesus said, ”I have come.”
He was disturbing their waiting. Just think if you had gone to those two hobos and you had said,
”Okay, I have come.... They would have both killed you – ”You think you are Godot? Do you know
who Godot is? Are you trying to deceive us?”
They would have loved.... Even if Godot himself had come, they would not have believed that he
was Godot – because how he can prove that he is Godot? They don’t have any photograph. They
don’t have any address, a phone number. How can they recognize him? They have not seen him
before.
That’s one thing which should be clearly understood. When Moses sees God, nobody asks him,
”How did you recognize Him? – because you have not seen Him before.” Recognition needs you
to have seen Him before; otherwise some charlatan or somebody may be deceiving you. ”How, on
what grounds...?”
When Jesus hears voices of God, or Mohammed hears them, how do they recognize that those
voices are God’s? Have they heard Him before? Their recognition is not valid. They may have
heard some voices, many mad people hear them. They may have seen somebody, many mad
people see somebody. You can go into any madhouse and you will see a madman alone talking to
another who is not there, and not only talking, but answering also from his side.
There is a game of cards that one man can play. In trains, once in a while, I came across a person...
because I would not speak in the trains. That was my only time to be silent, otherwise in the cities
with five meetings a day.... So only between two cities, on the train, was the time when I would be
silent and rest. But I saw people playing cards, alone. I was puzzled: this was a great religious
game! They had a partner, and for that partner’s side they also played; they knew both sides and
they knew both hands of cards.
Those two hobos were not doing anything new. All these religions for centuries have been doing just
that, waiting for Godot, because waiting at least keeps you hoping that tomorrow... if not today, then
tomorrow – but it is going to happen. And when so many people are waiting, somebody must know,
somebody must have heard, somebody must have seen – he must have spoken to somebody! And
then there are people who say, ”He has spoken to me.”
From Ignorance to Innocence 244 Osho