Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 16. ATHEISM, THEISM AND REALITY
seeker’s attachments to his family and possessions, they invariably come in the form of his first
experiences of meditation itself. The dangers that a seeker faces are more internal than external.
These experiences are so delightful, so blissful that one wants to cling to them forever. Not only
Arvind. but thousands of people have mistaken the stopover for the destination. If a caravanserai
gives a traveler such comforts and happiness that he has never known before, it is not surprising if
he quits his journey and makes a home of the caravanserai.
There is plenty of evidence that Arvind’s meditation never went an inch beyond what he had learned
from Lele. For the rest of his life he taught his disciples and others the same rudiments of meditation
that Lele had taught him in those first three days. Whoever went to him for guidance in meditation
received Lele’s wine in Arvind!s bottle. There was nothing of his own, except that he, being
an accomplished intellectual and a master of words, explained them in a sophisticated way and
elaborated them into thousands of pages. I have scanned all his writings to see if he has said
anything more than what he had borrowed from Lele, and I say he does not add anything worthwhile
to Lele’s teachings. Lele was a simple man and said what he had to say simply. Arvind, on the other
hand, is a complex man who can turn even a simple idea into a complicated treatise. But all he
taught was simple witnessing.
And I believe Arvind lost even that which he had learned from Lele, and got involved in useless
sophistry. You will be amazed to know what Lele later said to Arvind: ”You are a fallen man. You
have lost whatever meditation you had achieved and now you are engaged in a jugglery of words –
which is what doctrinaire discussion is – and it has nothing to do with real experiencing.”
This statement of Lele’s is very revealing, but Arvind’s followers do not mention it in their discussions
and deliberations about their master. It comes from the person who gave Arvind his first lessons in
meditation, and perhaps the last too. And therefore it says a lot about him.
When Lele met Arvind for the second time, he advised him not to get entangled in writing
philosophical treatises. He had yet to know truth, about which he had started writing volumes.
But Arvind paid no attention to Lele; he just brushed him aside. So it is natural that his followers
ignore Lele’s comments about their master.
I said a little while ago that because original ideas are discovered by individuals they are likely to go
haywire. This does not mean they invariably go wrong, but the chances of their going wrong cannot
be minimized. I also said that the contrary is the case with traditional ideas and beliefs. It is true that
with the passage of time such ideas and concepts become fossilized and dead, but there is every
possibility that even these stinking fossils hide in themselves some great truths. Otherwise it would
be impossible for a people to carry on with dead and stinking fossils of belief for centuries upon
centuries. Undoubtedly a diamond lies buried in them, but we fail to see it. For this reason people
cling to traditional beliefs with such tenacity that we are baffled.
I would like to explain another thing which is very relevant here. Arvind says that his concept of the
supramental has its source in the Vedas – which is simply a travesty of truth. Down the centuries a
very corrupt practice, an immoral act, has been perpetrated by persons who would least be expected
to take part in it. Whenever someone has discovered something new and original he has not had
the courage to claim it as his own. Why? First, because this country knows that new ideas carry
with them the possibility of being wrong. So it became a tradition to find corroboration and support
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 302 Osho