The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Talks given from 06/09/87 am to 03/10/87 pm

English Discourse series

28 Chapters

Year published: 1988

The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here

Chapter #1

Chapter title: The great pilgrimage: from here to here

6 September 1987 am in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

Archive code: 8709060

ShortTitle: PILGR01

Audio: Yes

Video: Yes

Length: 134 mins

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO

WHY AM I SUCH A BEGGAR FOR ATTENTION? WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT IT?

Prem Kabir, it is one of the human weaknesses, one of the deep-rooted frailties, to seek attention.

The reason one seeks attention is because one does not know oneself. It is only in other people's eyes one can see his face, in their opinions he can find his personality. What they say matters immensely. If they neglect him, ignore him, he feels lost. If you pass by and nobody takes any attention, you will start losing what you have put together -- your personality. It is something that you have put together. You have not discovered it, it is not natural. It is very artificial and very arbitrary.

It is not only you who is a beggar for attention; almost everybody is. And the situation cannot change until you discover your authentic self -- which does not depend on anybody's opinion, attention, criticism, indifference, which does not have anything to do with anybody else. Because very few people have been able to discover their reality, the whole world is full of beggars.

Deep down you are all trying to find attention; it is nourishment for your personality. Even if people condemn you, criticize you, are against you, that is acceptable, at least they are paying attention to you; if they are friendly, respectful, of course that is far better, but you cannot survive as a personality without some kind of attention. It can be negative, it can be positive, it doesn't matter. People must say something about you; respectful or disrespectful, both fulfill the same purpose.

I would like you to think about the word `respect'. It does not mean honor, as it is said in all the dictionaries without exception. Respect simply means looking again, re-spect. When you are passing by on the road, somebody looks back again, you have caught his eye -- you are somebody. Because respect gives you the idea of being somebody special, you can do anything stupid just to get attention.

In all the ages people have tried in a thousand and one ways to get attention. Those ways are not necessarily rational -- for example, the punks in the West. What are they really wanting by cutting their hair in strange and weird ways, and then painting it with different psychedelic colors? What are they wanting? They are beggars. You should not be angry with them because that is what they want. You should not condemn them because that is what they want. Their parents should not criticize them because that is what they want. They cannot survive without people paying attention to them.

People have done all kinds of things you may not believe in the past. People have remained naked.... What was the need for Mahavira or Diogenes to be naked? It is no longer natural for man to be naked in all the seasons; he lost that capacity long ago. All animals are naked, but they have a natural immunity. When it is winter their hair grows, when it is hot summer their hair falls. Nature has given them a protection.

The same protection was available to man too, but man is intelligent and can improve on nature. He found ways to cover his body according to the seasons. Naturally his body lost the natural growth of hairs. Now, to be naked... suddenly your body cannot create the mechanism to protect you.

I know Mahavira or Diogenes are unique individuals, but I think they were a little uncertain of their uniqueness. They fulfilled that suspicion, that missing gap, by being naked, because you cannot avoid giving attention to a naked person in a world where everybody is wearing clothes. The naked person stands aloof. You cannot avoid... it is almost irresistible to look at him, to ask, "What is the matter?"

But their nakedness became something spiritual; people started being respectful just because they were naked. Now, nakedness is not a quality or any qualification or any creativity; all the animals, all the birds, all the trees are naked.

There are still Jaina monks in India, not more than twenty. They used to be in thousands, but now to find that many stupid people is a little difficult. One Jaina monk dies and is not replaced, so their number goes on falling. Only twenty people all over India are still naked -- and I have seen many of them; they don't show any sign of intelligence, they don't show any quality of silence, they don't show any joy. Their faces are sad, dull, sleepy. They are suffering, they are torturing themselves, just for the simple reason that it brings the attention of the people.

Anything, howsoever stupid, is possible for man if it can bring attention to him. In Russia before the revolution there was a Christian sect which used to cut their genitals publicly on a particular day each year -- and they had thousands of followers. Their only qualification for being spiritual was that they had cut their genitals. When the day arrived, they would gather in a church courtyard and they would cut their genitals and pile them up. And thousands of people would come to see this stupidity.

The women were not left behind... of course they were in a difficulty because they don't have hanging genitals to cut; their genitals are inwards. They started cutting their breasts -- they were not ready to be left behind. It was such a messy and bloody affair, but people were touching their feet, worshiping them, and all that they have done is just an ugly act against nature and against themselves.

What is significant if a man goes on a fast? Mahatma Gandhi used the strategy his whole life: It was nothing but catching the attention of the whole nation. And if he was going to fast unto death, the whole world's attention was immediately caught. Otherwise there is no spirituality in fasting: millions die starving. Millions are going to die in the coming ten, twelve years from starvation. Nobody will give any honor or respect to them. Why? Because their starvation is inevitable. They are not starving wilfully but because they don't have food; they are simply poor and starving people.

But Mahatma Gandhi had everything available to him, although he lived like a poor man. One of his intimate followers, a very intelligent woman, Sarojini Naidu -- has a statement on record that to keep Mahatma Gandhi poor they had to spend treasures on him. It was not a simple poverty, it was a managed show.

He would not drink the milk from a buffalo because it is rich, rich with vitamin A and other vitamins. He would not drink the milk of a cow because that too is rich, and poor people cannot afford it. He would drink only the milk of a goat, because that is the cheapest animal and poor people can afford it. But you will be surprised: his goat was being washed twice a day with Lux toilet soap! His goat's food consisted of the richest nourishment that any rich man may feel jealous of. It is such an insane world! The goat was given the milk of a cow to drink. Cashew nuts, apples and other nourishing fruits were her only food; she was not living on grass. Her daily food in those old days cost ten rupees per day; that ten rupees per day in those days was enough for a man to live for a whole month.

And Gandhi was traveling third class. Naturally, he was attracting attention -- a great man is traveling third class! But nobody saw that the third class compartment, which could have carried sixty people at least, was carrying only a single man; it is far more costly than the air-conditioned compartment. But it attracted attention.

He started using clothes just like the farmers of India -- they are eighty percent of the people in the country. Because he was using farmer's clothes -- the upper body is naked, only the lower body has a small piece of cloth to wrap around -- the poor people of this country became immensely respectful and started calling him Mahatma, the great soul.

But I have been looking into his life as deeply as possible. I don't find any great soul; I have not found even a little soul -- just pure politics in the name of religion. Knowing perfectly well that India can be impressed only by religion, he was doing devotional songs every day in the morning and in the evening, but it was all to attract attention.

Attention gives you tremendous nourishment for the ego. And there are instances... his secretary -- private secretary, Mahadeo Desai -- has written a whole diary of the many years that he spent with Mahatma Gandhi as his secretary. Many times there are mentions about J. Krishnamurti, with such sarcastic remarks that one cannot believe that Mahatma Gandhi had any insight into meditation or awareness: otherwise he cannot be sarcastic.

You can criticize, but criticism needs understanding. You can say Krishnamurti is not right, but then you have to give evidence -- on what grounds? But just to laugh and giggle when Krishnamurti's name was mentioned... Krishnamurti was saying, "I am the awakened one; you also have the capacity to be an awakened one," and that was making Mahatma Gandhi laugh sarcastically.

Meher Baba, another man of the same caliber as J. Krishnamurti, gave a telegram to Mahatma Gandhi saying, "You have been in search of God, you have written your autobiography and titled it EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH, but you don't know anything of meditation, of silence. If you are really interested I can come to you and I can make you aware of the dimension of meditation." And the whole gang that was around Mahatma Gandhi laughed -- "This fellow thinks that he is God himself." And Mahatma Gandhi replied, "I will do my own search; you need not trouble to come here."

A third time it happened. One man of the name Kedarnath was of the same caliber as J. Krishnamurti, but was not world known. He was not a man of words but a man of silence, peace. He stayed in Mahatma Gandhi's ashram, and soon the pendulum started moving towards him. The disciples of Mahatma Gandhi by and by started deserting him. In his morning devotional songs, the number of people was declining: they were going to sit in silence with Kedernath.

Finally it became such a situation: the ashram was Mahatma Gandhi's, Kedarnath was just a guest, but he captured almost all Gandhi's disciples. Gandhi was left alone, but his ego would not allow him to go and sit where all his disciples were sitting -- in silence with Kedarnath. It was with great humanity and compassion that Kedarnath left the ashram in the middle of the night just to avoid a clash, because now it was becoming clear that Mahatma Gandhi had lost control of his own disciples. Kedarnath did not want to create any conflict.

Sri Aurobindo had a certain clarity. He was not an enlightened man of the category of J. Krishnamurti or Meher Baba, but he was very close. Perhaps one life more and he will be enlightened; he was just on the border line. He declared, "India will become free, will attain freedom on my birthday" -- and it actually happened. The fifteenth of August is Sri Aurobindo's birthday, and he had declared it thirty years before. People had completely forgotten about his declaration, but India became free on the fifteenth of August.

Sri Aurobindo sent a message to Mahatma Gandhi, "Now that the country is free, you need a complete program for its progress, because it is one thing to fight for freedom and it is another thing after attaining the freedom to create a nation; tremendous responsibility falls on your shoulders."

And the reply that Mahatma Gandhi gave was again simply sarcastic: "You have left the world; you live in your ashram. You don't have to worry about what happens to freedom and what we are going to do; that is our business. You have left it, you don't have to interfere."

Now a man like Sri Aurobindo could have given insight, but that insight was not accepted -- and it shows. In those forty years that have passed since freedom, India has become worse every day. It has no program; its population has doubled, more than doubled. Its poverty has doubled -- the poverty grows according to the population. By the end of this century, India will be for the first time in the whole history of mankind, of millions of years, the most densely populated country. Up to now, China has been the first. So only one achievement seems to have come out of forty years of freedom: people have produced more and more children.

By the end of this century, just thirteen years away, India will have one billion people in the country. When it became free it had only four hundred million people. It seems that each year there is an increase of one million people -- but no technology is growing, no science is growing, no new methods are being used. And this population growth goes on making the country poorer and poorer. India is living on loans from the rich countries like America, and that is a new kind of slavery, economic slavery.

The days of political slavery are past, because it was unnecessary.... It is a similar case: the days of slaves are past, and the days of servants have come in because the slave was a great responsibility to the slaveowner. He had to take care of the slave's health, he had to take care of his body, food, clothes, his medicine, because he was an investment. He has purchased the man, and if he dies his whole investment is gone.

Slavery disappeared not because slaves revolted against it; there is no instance of slaves revolting. Slavery died because the people who were enslaving other people found better ways -- servants. You are not purchased; hence it is not an investment. If you die, you die; it is not a loss to the owner. He pays you, but he has no concern for your body, for your health, for your family. This was far better.

The same has happened in the world of freedom. The British Empire disappeared, all other empires have disappeared, because political slavery became costly, very costly. It was the responsibility of the rulers to feed people, at least.

The moment Britain saw that India is growing so fast in population that it will be impossible to feed the people, and the whole responsibility will be on the head of Britain, Atlee sent to Mountbatten an urgent message: "You finish the whole thing before 1948, and if you can do it earlier I will praise you. Whatever way has to be found, be quick, and let them be free. Because then the whole responsibility will be on their own heads. They cannot complain, `Britain is exploiting us; that's why we are poor.'"

Now nobody is exploiting you, and your poverty has grown much greater than it has ever been under slavery.

Politicians can pretend to be religious if religion is attractive. Because they need attention their whole personality is false. It depends on how many people are following them; it depends on the number of people who are attentive to them. It is a politics of numbers.

The Catholic pope is against birth control, against abortion, not because he is compassionate, saying, "This is absolute cruelty and violence," not because he is life-affirmative -- the whole Catholic attitude is life-negative, it is against life. Then why this insistence that there should be no birth control and no abortion? Because this is the only way to increase the number of Catholics, and this is the only way to make other people so poor that they have to come under the fold of the Catholic empire.

Now that there are so many orphans in India, Catholics have a good opportunity. And one wonders... a woman like Mother Teresa is awarded a Nobel prize, is awarded many doctorates in India by Indian universities, is awarded prizes by the Indian government, all because she is taking care of orphans. But nobody thinks that that care simply means converting those orphans into Catholics. Naturally Mother Teresa cannot be in favor of birth control -- from where will she get the orphans?

Christianity cannot be in favor of a world which is rich. The scientists are declaring continually that we have come to such a point of technological progress that now there is no need for anybody to be hungry, to be starving or dying because of shortage of food. It has never before been possible, but now scientists are saying that we can feed five billion people very easily, we can feed even more -- but those voices are silenced. No politician pays any attention, because politicians are also interested in having a big following.