From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 20. SURRENDER: THE EGO UPSIDE DOWN
twelve teachers. Those twelve teachers were to tell all the other monks what they had heard in
Mahavira’s silence. Now a very complicated affair... and all those twelve didn’t agree, so from the
very beginning there have been twelve versions of Mahavira’s teachings.
To avoid organization Mahavira said, ”Now, there will be no successor to me.” But that did not make
any difference. Yes, there is no one successor to him, but there are thousands of heads of small
sects. They don’t claim to be successors of Mahavira, they don’t say they are tirthankaras; they are
teachers of Mahavira’s teaching. But all those teachers are continually in conflict about everything.
The same happened to Buddha. While he was alive he did not allow what he was saying to be
written down – you were simply to understand him, to experience him. And your experience and
your understanding you shared with people. Otherwise there was every possibility that people would
start worshipping those books – like Mohammedans worship the Koran, Christians worship the Bible.
”So it is better not to have my words,” Buddha said to his disciples, ”in a book form.” When he was
saying it, of course it was going to be so. But when he died the disciples were in difficulty because
there were so many people saying different things, something had to be decided – already there
was chaos.
Then three hundred disciples together compiled what Buddha had said. The compilation was done
in a closed place because there was so much conflict and they did not want people to know that the
chief disciples were in conflict and fighting: ”This was not said by Buddha....” So in a closed place
somehow they came to some agreement, through negotiations, following the middle path: ”If two
persons are saying two things then come to the middle and keep that.” But that was a hodgepodge.
Buddha would not be able to recognize that those were his words – those were three hundred
people’s agreement. Now, three hundred people in disagreement, coming to an agreement – you
can imagine what the outcome will be. Yes, to the world they could then show that they had a
scripture... but those who understand – how can they deceive them? Buddha avoided making any
head of his religion. That created thirty two sects immediately after his death.
There were other teachers in Buddha and Mahavira’s time too. One was Sanjay Vilethiputta. He
avoided even initiation, he said, ”You simply listen to me. If you feel like doing what I am saying, you
do it, but I will not initiate you. If I initiate you, soon you will create an organization. You will need an
organization to keep all the people who are my disciples together. There are so many reasons for
them to be together – for their security, for their safety, because they will be persecuted by the other
religions. And if they are left alone in the vast ocean of enemies, they will be destroyed.”
And in India they have a very simple method of destroying anybody. India is a country of small
villages, very small villages, millions of small villages. In a small village there are only twenty houses;
twenty families are living there. They can destroy anybody by a simple method, a very non-violent
method. They decide that a man is not to be accepted as part of them, so he cannot be invited to
any marriage, to any ceremony.
Nobody will talk with him. He’s not allowed to take water from the village well. If the river is five miles
away, he has to carry his water from there. When crops are to be cut, nobody is to support him.
Otherwise, in a village, that’s the way: when one person’s crops are ripe, the whole village helps him
From Ignorance to Innocence 283 Osho