From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 4. DANGER: TRUTH AT WORK
They said, ”Yes, that’s right, we remember the bottle. You sit on the pedestal as long as you please.”
My father said, ”What bottle?”
I said, ”You ask these people. I have a double contract: one with you and one with them, and nobody
can prevent me. You all four agree that I can sit here, or I will start telling the name of the bottle.”
They said, ”We are perfectly satisfied. You can sit here, there is no harm – but please keep silent
about the bottle.”
Now, many people were there, and they all became interested... what bottle? When I came out of
the temple everybody gathered; they all said, ”What is this bottle?”
I said, ”This is a secret. And this is my power over these fools whose feet you go on touching. If I
want, I can manage to tell them to touch my feet, otherwise – the bottle....” These fools!
My father, on the way home, asked me, ”You can just tell me. I will not tell anybody: what is this
bottle? Do they drink wine?”
I said, ”No. Things have not gone that far, but if they remain here a few days more, I will manage
that too. I can force them to drink wine... otherwise I will name the bottle.”
The whole town was discussing the bottle, what the bottle was, and why they had become afraid:
”We have always thought that they were such spiritual sages, and this boy made them afraid. And
they all agreed that he could sit there, which is against the scriptures.” Everybody was after me.
They were ready to bribe me: ”Ask whatsoever – you just tell us what is the secret of the bottle.”
I said, ”It is a very great secret, and I am not going to tell you anything about it. Why don’t you go
and ask your monks what the bottle is? I can be there, so they cannot lie – and then you will know
what kind of people you are worshipping. And these are the people who are conditioning your mind!”
In the university there used to be a professor who wanted to resign because of me. He was a very
old, senior professor, and very much honored. Perhaps he is still alive. His name was Doctor S.N.L.
Shrivastava; he was a Ph.D., D.Litt. In philosophy he was a well known name – and he threatened
to resign because of me. His condition to the university was that if I was not expelled from the
university, then this was his resignation: only one could live in the university, either I or he. And I
was just a student, only a first-year student. I had just matriculated from my village and had come to
the bigger town. And within three months he became such a mess that when he saw me he would
get out of the class!
I would run after him and tell him, ”What is the matter? Why are you going away? I pay the fee. You
are supposed to teach, I am supposed to learn, and all that I do is learning. If I ask a question, it is
just to learn.”
”But,” he said, ”you ask questions which are always putting me in a dilemma. If I say yes, then I am
caught; if I say no, then I am caught. Each of your questions is just to provoke other questions, and
there is no end to it. Three months have passed; you don’t allow me to go any further than the first
From Ignorance to Innocence 50 Osho