From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 27. BAPTISM: WADING FOR GODOT
numbers! – one thousand million people. India will have passed beyond that by the end of this
century.
But there will be more orphans, more poor people to be converted to Catholicism, to be made
Christians, and more Mother Teresas.
No, a man asleep cannot do right.
You ask me: what is right, what is wrong?
I say to you to be awake is right.
To be asleep is wrong.
I don’t determine acts wrong and right as such.
My focus is your being.
My effort is that you are there, in your being.
Then whatever you do is right.
A Zen monk used to steal – and he was a great Master – but I say it was right because he was fully
awake. Now, stealing in itself does not matter; whether it is right or wrong. It is a question of who is
doing it. And why was this Master stealing? He had never said why in his whole life.
All his disciples suffered for it because everybody was telling them, ”What kind of Master have you
got? He talks about great things and then suddenly one day you find him stealing some small thing.
And he always gets caught. Even ordinary thieves don’t always get caught. And you say he is
fully aware, careful, alert. And we understand, because even his disciples have a different quality
surrounding them. And we know your Master, we see him. We are surprised – why should he steal?”
And the disciples used to ask him and he would simply laugh. At last, when he was dying, a disciple
said, ”Now at least tell us why you were doing this stupid thing. And you have not been stealing big
treasures or anything, just somebody’s cup and saucer, somebody’s coat, somebody’s shoes, even
one shoe! – which is meaningless. What were you going to do with one shoe? – and then too you
would be caught. And the judges are tired of you, the jailers are tired of you.”
At the last moment he said, ”I was stealing because nobody takes care of those thieves and
prisoners inside the jail. That’s a great place to teach awareness; and those people are very
innocent. And I love them because I have found them getting the idea more quickly than the socalled
ordinary people. So I have been stealing and going inside the jail because that was the only
way to get in. But those idiot judges would not send me for a long time, for two months, three months,
because I am a great Zen Master.
”I used to tell them, ’Give me as long a term as you can manage,’ and they would say, ’What kind of
man are you? We respect you. What do you want for just stealing one shoe – that we should send
you for your whole life? Fifteen days will do.’”
From Ignorance to Innocence 407 Osho