From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 2. THE OTHER CHEEK: THE MASOCHIST’S SLAP-UP FEAST
The whole country was impressed by these great teachers; they were all of tremendous importance,
and they were logically mostly on solid ground. They stopped all kinds of sacrifice. But what will
you do without blood? Some red-color substitute will do. A few very orthodox places continued in
their old ways. For example in Calcutta, in the temple of Kali, still animals are killed every year and
the blood is poured over Kali. In very orthodox places it remained; otherwise it disappeared and
substitutes came in.
When Jesus reached India, he must have reached at the time when the whole country was agog
with the philosophy of non-violence. He got the idea from India, and that is one of the reasons why
the Jews could not accept him. He had got many ideas from India, from Egypt, and then when he
came back he was thirty. From thirteen to thirty – seventeen years are completely missing from all
Christian accounts. Those seventeen years he spent in Egypt, in India, in Kashmir, in Ladakh, and
perhaps in Tibet too. And the vibe of Buddha and Mahavira was still very alive, so it was not his own
vision either.
But he became tremendously impressed by the idea of non-violence. And the idea was rational: to
harm somebody must be against God, because it is God’s creation – you should not be destructive.
But the question was, if others harm you, then...? That’s where turning the other cheek comes in;
that was his invention. It is mentioned nowhere in Indian scriptures that you turn the other cheek.
The question was not raised, it seems. Non-violence was preached so rationally that nobody asked,
”If somebody harms you, then what?”
Mahavira and Buddha would be perfectly ready: ”Let him harm you, he will be punished by his
karmas. Do not bother about it; you go on your way.”
Yes, once Buddha was asked, ”If somebody hits me,” a bhikku, a monk asked him, ”What am I
supposed to do?”
Buddha said, ”You are walking and a branch of a tree falls on you, hits you. What are you going to
do?”
The man said, ”What can I do? It was just an accident, a mere coincidence that I was under the tree
and the branch fell down.”
Buddha said, ”So do the same. Somebody was crazy, mad, angry; he hit you. It is just like a branch
falling on you. Don’t be disturbed by this, don’t be distracted by this. Just go on your way as if
nothing has happened.”
But when Jesus came back to Jerusalem and started saying this, people must have been asking him
again and again... because it was so new to the Jewish tradition. It was bringing in a very foreign
idea which did not fit with the Jewish structure at all.
Jesus said that if somebody hits you on one cheek, turn the other cheek. You are asking me what I
have to say about it. This will be the attitude of a man who believes in the idea of non-violence, the
philosopher of non-violence. But when you are hit by somebody and you give him the other cheek,
you are encouraging violence in the world. It is not non-violence. And you are assuming something
which is absolutely your imagination. If somebody hits me, according to Jesus I have to give him my
From Ignorance to Innocence 25 Osho