From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 22. THE COMMUNE: THE DISTILLATION OF REBELLIOUS SPIRITS
Now, four or five people had seen Him and they were all shocked: ”This man is not mad, there is
something in it.” The whole town became agog with the rumor that five people had seen God. And
the thing became so hot that the church became immediately annoyed and irritated thinking that this
was a joke.... ”This man, and God!” The picture was printed in the newspapers and everybody was
laughing: ”If this is God, then everything is finished.”
The problem became so much that the church had to call a meeting of the elders and force this man
who was the messenger to appear before the council and prove that this was God. He tried, he
told them, ”Many times He has showed me miracles. Just this morning when I was shaving in my
bathroom, a doubt arose in me that perhaps something was wrong with me; it was possible that I
was simply fantasizing. And He immediately looked at me from the mirror. My picture disappeared
and his picture was there in the mirror, and He said,’Again I go on giving you proofs, and you are
again doubting.’”
And then at the church, the young man appeared before the church council. The high priest was
there, and they were determined to punish this man if... and they said, ”You say that this man is
God?”
He said, ”I have to say it. I have seen Him many times. He has shown me many miracles. This
morning He appeared in my mirror.” Everybody laughed, and this poor man said, ”He has chosen
me as His messenger.”
They said, ”This time He has really chosen a great messenger! Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, Jesus
– they were some people – but this man is just a clerk in a railway station. Now what qualities have
you got that He would choose you as the messenger?”
He said, ”I don’t know. I don’t have any qualities, and I have never dreamed in my life that God would
choose me. But He has chosen me and He has promised that if there is a need He will come to
support me.”
So the church council asked, ”Then let Him appear.”
And they all were amazed that the door behind the priest opened, and God appeared. There was
silence for a moment. Seeing God, the priest gathered courage and said, ”You think you are God?”
He said, ”I don’t think, I am. And this is my messenger. But,” He said, ”you can understand
the difficulties of an ordinary God. I am an ordinary God, that’s why I have chosen an ordinary
messenger, because to find an extraordinary messenger would be very difficult for me. You can see
I am an ordinary, poor God. So don’t be angry with this poor clerk; what he is saying is absolutely
right.”
How are you going to recognize God if He meets you in a cricketer’s hat? – and of course He will be
wearing some kind of hat – or without a hat. If He is like me, bald, then He will be using a hat, some
kind of hat.
This reminds me of the man I have been talking to you about: my geography teacher, Chotelal
Munde. He had cursed me because I made him famous as ”Munde”; so much so that once he
From Ignorance to Innocence 309 Osho