From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 30. SURRENDER: THE EGO UPSIDE DOWN
lose except your chains? You don’t have anything else except your chains, so there is no need to
be afraid of fighting. The other party has to lose. If you win, you gain. If you are defeated, you lose
nothing, because you don’t have anything in the first place.
He was giving a great incentive. He thought that the revolution would happen first in America. He
had never even dreamed that it would happen first in Russia. He must have been puzzled in his
grave, almost shocked.
He had never thought that the revolution would happen in Russia, in China, in Poland, in Yugoslavia,
in Czechoslovakia – these names had never occurred to him, could not have occurred to him. He
thought the revolution would happen where capitalism had come to its peak, where the class division
was perfect, where you could see the rich and the poor.
Marx forgot just one thing, and that changed the whole course of communism. He forgot that the
American poor have something to lose. He forgot his own declaration. When he predicted that
the revolution would happen first in America, he forgot completely that the American poor have
something to lose. The Russian poor have nothing to lose, the Chinese poor have nothing to lose.
The wonder of wonders is India! It has the poorest people in the world; you cannot conceive what
they can lose, but no revolution has happened there.
In India it could not happen because the religious tradition is so deep that it has convinced the poor
people that, ”You are the blessed people. Your poverty is just a test of your faith. All these small
troubles are nothing before the blessings of paradise. This life is just a life consisting only of four
days.”
That’s a proverb in India, that life is nothing but four days. Two days pass in desiring, the remaining
two days pass in waiting. It is so small that half of it – while you are young, you have ambitions and
desires to be someone, to be somewhere, to get your name carved for the coming generations –
those two days pass in desiring. And the other half, when you start getting older, those two days
pass in waiting for some miracle to happen and your desires to be fulfilled. This is all your life is: a
soap bubble.
For this small life are you going to lose the eternal blessings of heaven? Be patient. Have faith.
Your poverty is a God-given opportunity. If you can pass this fire test – which is not a long journey,
just four steps – the doors of paradise open, and you will be received with bands and singing and
dancing.
In India revolution seems to be impossible. It should have happened first in India, because what
Karl Marx says has a truth in it. When you don’t have anything to lose, what is the fear of fighting, of
rebelling, of risking?
I have told this ancient story many times, but each time that I have told it I have loved it more. A
Master is going from one place to another with his chief disciple. They have to cross a jungle. The
disciple is puzzled because the Master says, ”Move a little quicker, we have to pass the jungle fast.
The sun is coming down and soon it will be night.”
The disciple has been with the Master for many years and the Master has never been afraid of the
night. He has never been in such a hurry. Moreover, he is keeping a bag hanging from his shoulder.
From Ignorance to Innocence 445 Osho