From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 21. PERSONALITY: THE CARBON COP-OUT
directly to the police station which is not far away from the high school, and that soon he would be
behind bars because beating is illegal. Now who has misbehaved?”
My father said, ”Forget about it.”
I said, ”I cannot forget about it. You have to come with me. It has to be decided – because the man
has some nerve to tell you that I was mischievous, that I was misbehaving, that I insulted him before
the whole school, all the teachers and all the students. You have to come with me.”
Now, my father said, ”Forgive me – perhaps you are right....”
I said, ”No perhaps – if you don’t come with me, I will drag that principal here.”
So I had to take my father, and he had to follow, persuading me all the way: ”Leave it. It is not such
a big thing; he simply mentioned by the way that you misbehaved.”
I said, ”That is not the question. He has to say it in front of me. This is backbiting. HE IS
MISCHIEVOUS.”
And when the principal saw that I was coming with my father, he again became afraid that there
was, it seemed, some more trouble. And I said to him, ”Now you tell my father what I have done,
and what you have done: saying behind my back to my father that I have been misbehaving, doing
mischief, insulting you before the whole school. Repeat it! – because I don’t agree with any of it.
”You have insulted me by not answering my argument. Not only that, you wanted to beat me. Not
only that, you are a coward: you could not even beat me. Now, this is very slimy, that you go around
and tell my father. You prove it – that it was mischief.
”In fact, all the nations that have been proclaiming themselves the best nation in the world are
mischievous. Their mischief has accounted for millions of lives; the whole of history is full of it, and
still we go on doing the same thing.
”Small children are being told to repeat every day something which is absolute nonsense, and
unrealistic too. There is no fact supporting it. A country which has been a slave for two thousand
years cannot say,’In the whole world we are the best’ – the best slaves, or what? A country which is
ninety percent poor, where one meal is difficult....
”There are days when millions of people in India sleep only by drinking water, just to keep the feeling
that the stomach is full. This is the best country in the world! – whom are you trying to befool? These
children will become conditioned to the idea. This is a strategy of the politicians: that tomorrow these
children will become soldiers, and they will die for the ’best country of the world’, not even knowing
that this is not true.
”And even if it is factual, then too it is egoistic, and it should not be a prayer. Accepting, just for the
sake of argument, that it is true – that one country is the best in the world, the richest, the most
well-educated, well-cultured, has everything that is needed so all the facts support it-still I say such
a prayer is wrong, because a prayer should not be ego-fulfilling, a prayer should be ego-destroying.”
From Ignorance to Innocence 292 Osho