From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 6. RENUNCIATION: MORTGAGE TODAY FOR A TOMORROW THAT NEVER COMES
He said, ”I will have to think it over.”
I said, ”You can think it over, but don’t waste too much time because right now you are almost fortyfive.
Once you are over sixty, then it will be difficult even for me to make an arrangement. So don’t
waste fifteen years. Think about it tonight and tomorrow morning when we meet, you tell me.”
He could not sleep the whole night. He thought about it again and again, and slowly the thing
became clear to him: ”Yes, deep down it is women, and I am constantly keeping myself occupied
with money in order to avoid women, because if there is no space, no time, then from where can the
woman enter? And why I am so infatuated now makes sense. It is a substitute woman.”
So this greed for money, this greed for power, this greed for fame... sex can take any form, it
will depend on the type of person. You will be aware of the fact that although poets continually
write poetry about women, most of the poets have remained away from women. Most of the great
novelists were not interested in women. Most of the great painters were afraid of women for the
simple reason that either you can paint or you can be married: you can’t have two wives – together
both will kill you.
There is an ancient parable in India: A man was caught as a thief in a house. He was presented in
court and the magistrate said, ”Do you accept your guilt?”
He said, ”I accept it absolutely but I want to say one thing. You can give me any punishment, but
don’t tell me to be married to two women.”
The magistrate said, ”I have never heard of any punishment like that. My whole life I have been
punishing people, but I have never punished anybody that way.”
He said, ”Then you are a really good man. You can sentence me to death, but not....”
The magistrate said, ”But I would like to know why this condition?”
He said, ”This is the reason why I was caught. I entered a house where a man lives with two wives.
One wife lives on the ground floor, the other wife lives on the floor above. And they were both pulling
at the man – one was pulling him to the upper floor, the other was pulling him to the ground floor. I
became so interested that I forgot why I had gone there. I became interested in knowing what was
going to be the result ultimately, who would win. Certainly the man had no chance of winning – he
was getting beaten from both sides.
”That’s why I got caught – otherwise in the whole of my life, have you ever seen me in court? I am a
born thief; my father was a thief, my father’s father was a thief – this is our inherited profession. And
this is the first time anybody from my family has been caught. I am ashamed. My father’s soul, my
grandfather’s soul – they will all be ashamed of me. And there was no problem, I could have stolen
things and escaped, but the story with those two women and that one man.... And a crowd gathered,
that is why I got caught. They said,’Who is this man? And what is he doing here? He does not seem
to be from this neighborhood.’ So you can sentence me to death or life imprisonment, whatsoever
you want, but please don’t order me to get married to two women.”
From Ignorance to Innocence 73 Osho