From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 24. IMITATION IS YOUR CREMATION
insight. His reason for not saying bad words, ugly words, is very scientific, not religious. He is saying
it because those words will remain always; they will be your footprints in time. Don’t leave anything
ugly behind you.
When you declare, ”Buddham sharanam gachchhami – I go to the feet of the awakened one,” you
are not saying a prayer. You are simply declaring to existence, to yourself, your intention: ”I want to
drop my ego.”
Hence, gachchhami – ”gachchhami” simply means ”going”. The English word ”go” comes from the
Sanskrit word gachchh. You will be surprised that the Sanskrit word for cow is gau, because the cow
was very much loved by the Hindus, worshipped as a mother, thought to be holy. The movement of
the cow – cow is pronounced gau – his movement is called gachchh. And from gachchh comes the
English word, ”Going to the feet” needs one absolutely necessary condition: that you drop the ego.
With the ego you cannot go to the feet of the Buddha, the awakened one. And by ”The awakened
one”, we are not saying any particular person. We are simply saying that because the quality of
awareness is the same, all the awakened ones become the same when they are awakened: there is
no difference at all. Awakening is simply awakening. So we go to the feet of whosoever is awakened,
wherever he is awakened – in the past, in the present or in the future.
It is a decision to drop the ego. It is a declaration that: ”Existence, remain my witness, I am going to
the feet of the awakened one. Let me be reminded if I forget.” That’s why it has to be separated. The
more you repeat it, the better, because the more it becomes a determination, the more it becomes
a clear perception of what it means.
But to go to the feet of the awakened one is not very difficult. It is very easy. The very presence
of the awakened one will create in you the desire to go to his feet. It is not something literal, that
you have to go to his feet. It simply means that you start feeling a kind of surrender. The surrender
is not asked; if it is asked, disobey. If the surrender happens to you, obey; it is your own feeling,
your own authentic experience. But it is easy, hence the second gachchhami: ”Sangham sharanam
gachchhami.”
It is easy to go to the feet of the awakened one, it is a little difficult to go to the feet of the commune
of the awakened one, because in the commune all will not be awakened. Many will be fast asleep
and snoring; many will be even deeper in sleep than you. Now, the ego will feel it more difficult to go
to the feet of these people. That means you will have to drop the ego now even more determinedly.
Perhaps in the first gachchhami you had only dropped a few leaves of your ego. In the second you
will have to drop the whole tree.
The third is even more difficult, but for a different reason. ”Dhammam sharanam gachchhami – I
go to the feet of the ultimate truth of the awakened one.” What it is that the awakened people have
experienced, they have not said; it is inexpressible. They have all remained silent about it.
Where are you going to find the feet of the ultimate truth? And in your state of unawareness, in your
state of unconsciousness, in what direction are you going to search? And not knowing where to
surrender, to whom to surrender, what to surrender, it becomes even more difficult for the ego. You
will even have to bring the roots of the tree out from the ground; they are hiding underground. Even
if the tree has fallen, the tree can again grow from the roots. These are simple declarations – and
they have to be your declarations, they can’t be my declarations.
From Ignorance to Innocence 352 Osho