From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 25. JESUS – THE ONLY SAVIOR WHO NEARLY SAVED HIMSELF
For example, in a small Indian village you will find two wells. One well is for the higher castes,
the three higher castes: the brahmins, the priest class; the chhatriyas, the warrior class; and the
wanikas, the business class. And the sudras, the untouchables, have a second well. Untouchables
are not allowed to take water from the same well as the three higher classes.
And sometimes it happens that those poor people cannot manage to have a deep enough well –
and they are the poorest of the poor. In summer their wells dry up, so they have to go miles to a river
or to a lake to bring water, but they cannot go to the well in the city. If they are found.... Sometimes
it happens in the night, when somebody is thirsty. The river is so far away, everybody is asleep, and
nobody will come to know.... He goes silently and tries to take a bucket of water – and he is caught.
That is enough. That well has become impure, and that will create a riot.
These poor untouchables, the sudras, live outside the town. They don’t live inside the town, hence
their other name is antyaja. Antyaja means ”those who live outside the town”. And they have the
poorest huts made of grass and bamboo. You can go with just one burning torch in your hand
and set fire to the whole of their village. Just a single man within five minutes can set the whole
untouchables’ village on fire.
Their children will be burned, their animals will be burned, their old men who cannot escape in time
will be burned. And if a whole village is trying to burn the sudras, then with torches, burning torches,
they will not allow anybody to escape; they will force them back into their burning huts. This happens
even today on any small excuse.
A rumor that a high-caste girl is being seduced by an untouchable young man – just a rumor is
enough! It may not be true; most probably it is not true, because in an Indian village it is very difficult
to have any love affair, it is such a close-knit society.
And the women are not free to move outside the house. They don’t go to the school, they don’t go
to the college, they don’t go to the university; there is almost nowhere they can go. The only places
they go are the water well... the second place they go is the temple. In both places, the sudra is not
allowed. So where will a high-caste girl meet an untouchable? To fall in love you have at least to be
introduced.
And the sudras are so impure, so dirty in the minds of the higher classes that even their shadow
is dirty. Great imagination! Now, a shadow has no existence. A shadow is simply there because
you are standing in the way of the sun rays so the sun rays cannot pass you; hence you create a
shadow. There is nothing like a shadow. You cannot catch hold of it, you cannot put it in a bag and
take it home; you cannot escape from it, it will follow you. It does not exist; it is just an absence of
rays because you are blocking them.
But Hindus have condemned those poor people so much that even if their shadow passes over you
– you are sitting and a sudra passes by, not touching you but his shadow touches you – it is enough
to create a riot! A few people may be murdered, because...”Why was he so arrogant? He should be
more careful.”
In the old days, and in very remote corners even today, as the sudra walks along, he first has to
declare, ”I am a sudra and I am coming; so please, if anybody is on the road, move away.” In the
From Ignorance to Innocence 362 Osho