From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 21. PERSONALITY: THE CARBON COP-OUT
The principal said to me, ”Forgive me, and please forget it, and I hope that we will never come into
any conflict again.”
I said, ”That depends on you. If you behave, and you promise to behave, perhaps the situation
may not arise. Was it not possible for you to accept my argument humbly? – because it was true.
Do you think that would have been an insult to you? It would have raised your status before the
whole school, that you are a man of some dignity, that you do not hesitate even to respect the right
argument from a child, that you respect intelligence.
”You missed that opportunity; you brought your cane. And then again you created trouble for
yourself; you gave me another chance to prove you are a coward. You are unintelligent, you have
no respect for intelligence or for a child – and you are a coward: you should have beaten me! What
would it matter if you were behind bars? – it was a question of your principles. If you were right,
then it would have been good to be behind bars. But be right, and fight for it!”
For three years he avoided me like anything. But I will not say it was mischief although it will appear
so. I don’t see a single point supporting the idea that it was mischief.
For three years, while I was in the high school, we continued the silence. The ten minutes’ silence
continued instead of prayer, because they could not come up with something better. Whatsoever
they brought up I was capable of finding faults with. And without my approval, I was not going to
allow it. So finally they decided, ”Let this boy be gone from here, then....” And the day I left the school
and went to the university....
I came back in some holidays and I went there to see what was happening: and the children were
repeating the same song again. I went to the principal and I said, ”I have just come to check. It has
not reached your mind at all – again you started the same thing.”
But he said, ”Now please leave us alone. I was afraid that if you failed, then you would be here for
one year more. I was praying for you to pass. I had told all the teachers to support you, to help you
so that you pass. Any way you should not fail, otherwise one year more.... But now, you leave us
alone.”
I said, ”I will not be coming again and again. I have just come to check and to see whether you have
any mind or not, and you seem to be absolutely unintelligent. You are a postgraduate in science,
and that too in mathematics – which is just an extension of logic – but you can’t understand a simple
thing. I will not be coming here because now I am occupied in the university. There are so many
problems there, I cannot take care of your school.”
One of my high school teachers was a certain Mr. Nigam; he used to teach chemistry. I knew him,
the whole city knew about him, but he was such an angry, violent and idiotic man that nobody raised
a voice against him. He killed his wife, but I was the only witness.
I was a witness because I was sitting in a mango tree. The mangoes were getting ripe, and it was
nobody’s tree so I was not stealing. In India, mango trees are planted along the roads. They give
shade and they give the most delicious fruit also; so, many people out of charity plant mango trees.
Municipal committees, corporations, plant mango trees. So it was a public tree and nobody could
say to me, ”You are stealing” – or anything.
From Ignorance to Innocence 293 Osho