From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 21. PERSONALITY: THE CARBON COP-OUT
So Doctor Karpatri was there at the viva voce, and he was continually hitting my leg, reminding me
that that man was really.... So I asked Sir Saiyad, ”One thing: first you prevent my professor, who is
hitting my leg again and again, telling me not to be outrageous, not to be in any way mischievous. He
told me before, ’Whenever I hit your leg, that means you are going astray, and this will be difficult.’
So please stop this man first. This is a strange situation that somebody is being examined and
somebody else is hitting his leg. This is inconvenient. What do you think?”
He said, ”Certainly this is inconvenient,” but he laughed.
And I said, ”My vice-chancellor has told me the same: ’Be very careful.’ But I can’t be more careful
than I am. Just start!”
He asked me a simple question, my answer to which my professor thought mischievous. The vicechancellor
thought it mischievous, because I destroyed the whole thing.... He asked, ”What is Indian
philosophy?”
I told him, ”In the first place philosophy is only philosophy. It cannot be Indian, Chinese, German,
Japanese – philosophy is simply philosophy. What are you asking? Philosophy is philosophizing;
whether a man philosophizes in Greece or in India or in Jerusalem, what difference does it make?
Geography has no impact; nor have the boundaries of a nation any impact on philosophy. So first
drop that word ”Indian”, which is wrong. Ask me simply,’What is philosophy?’ You please drop it and
ask the question again.”
The man looked at my vice-chancellor and he said, ”You are right; the student is also hard! He has a
point, but now it will be difficult for me to ask any questions because I know he will make a mockery
of my questions.” So he said, ”I accept! What is philosophy? – because that question you have put
yourself.”
I said to him, ”It is strange that you have been a professor of philosophy for many years and you
don’t know what philosophy is. I really cannot believe it.” And the interview was finished.
He said to Doctor Karpatri, ”Don’t unnecessarily let me be harassed by this student. He will simply
harass me.” And to me he said, ”You are passed. You needn’t be worried about passing.”
I said, ”I am never worried about that; about that these two persons are worried. They somehow
are forcing me to pass; I am trying my best to undo what they are trying to do, but they are pushing
hard.”
If you take anything as mischief, you have a certain prejudice. Once you understand that whatsoever
I have done in my life... it may not be part of the formal behavior, it may not be the accepted etiquette,
but then you are taking your standpoint from a certain prejudice.
All things – and so many things have happened in such a small life that sometimes I wonder why so
many things happened.
They happened simply because I was always ready to jump into anything, never thinking twice what
the consequences would be.
From Ignorance to Innocence 299 Osho