From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 21. PERSONALITY: THE CARBON COP-OUT
asked me, ”Why do you choose strange things? Now, there are thousands of students, hundreds of
professors – and I have been to many universities as a professor – but I have never come across a
single student using wooden sandals and disturbing the whole university.”
I said, ”That’s not right. If you are disturbed that means you don’t have any control of your own mind.
My wooden sandals, what can they do to you? Otherwise there are so many noises around, you
will be continually disturbed: the car is passing by, the bus is passing by, somebody’s horn – and in
India you have continually....
Here I have not used the horn at all, but in India you have to use it every minute. There is no other
way, otherwise you cannot move: a cow is standing there, a buffalo is standing there, a few people
are standing and gossiping in the middle of the road.... Particularly in places like Varanasi, where
people go on leaving bulls as a religious thing – it is thought to be a great virtue.
The bull is Shiva’s devotee, his symbol. So in a Shiva temple you will find a bull outside the temple.
Shiva is inside, and the bull is sitting outside. He is Shiva’s bodyguard, servant, devotee – everything.
And whenever Shiva wants to move around, he rides on the bull.
So it has become a convention for hundreds of years that people bring bulls and leave them in
Varanasi, because Varanasi is thought to be Shiva’s city. And according to Hindu mythology it is
the ancientmost city in the world. Perhaps it is true; it seems to be. The whole structure of the city,
particularly the old city, seems to be really ancient.
So in Varanasi there are thousands of bulls, and to feed those bulls is a religious thing. A man may
be dying, starving, but you will not bother about him: the bull has to be fed. If a bull comes to a
vegetable shop and starts eating your vegetables, you cannot prevent him. No, he has the license
from Shiva, he has simply to be allowed. When he goes, he goes. You cannot disturb him. He can
eat sweets in a sweet shop, he can eat vegetables, fruits, whatsoever he wants; and he is completely
free.
The only free being in India is the bull, particularly in Varanasi.
And nobody can beat the bull, nobody can do any harm to him. In Varanasi it was such a trouble.
You go on honking the horn, but the bull does not care – and the bull is sitting just in front of your car.
Unless you get out, push him, persuade him to move... and they are well fed because they are free,
nobody can interfere with them. lust to travel a small distance, you have to start one hour earlier
because on the way everything is possible.
I used to speak in the Theosophical Society in Varanasi, and the place where I stayed was just five
minutes walk away. But it took one hour to drive, so I told my host, ”It is better if we can walk and
reach there without this trouble and without troubling so many of Shiva’s devotees – because they
are everywhere and they are resting and sitting. They have no other work – eating, walking, sitting,
fighting.”
I told Awasthi, ”All these disturbances are going on around you.”
He said, ”I know all those disturbances are going on, but still your sandal stands separate. It is
impossible to forget that you are around, even in all this noise. Why have you chosen this sandal?
Just to annoy people, or...?”
From Ignorance to Innocence 301 Osho