Tao: The Pathless Path

Why do you make so many mistakes when you quote other people or refer to biblical events or to scientific discoveries? I have answered this question many times myself in various ways. Now I would like to hear your answer.

So allow me to commit a few more mistakes.

First: my memory is marvellous.

If Mulla Nasruddin′s wife has a bad memory, I have a marvellous memory. I forget everything. And I enjoy this forgetfulness; I am not worried about it.

Secondly: I am an ignorant person. I am not a scholar. I enjoy reading books, but I read the Bible, the Gita, the Koran just as one reads novels; they are ancient, beautiful stories.
Krishnamurti says he never reads any scripture; he reads only detective stories. I read the scripture, but I read in the scripture just the detective story and nothing else. And I would suggest to Krishnamurti that it would be good if he should look into the Bible; you cannot find a more beautiful story full of suspense. Everything is there: love, life, murder; everything is there. It is very sensational.

Scriptures, to me, have nothing special. Scriptures are as sacred as the trees and the rocks and the stars - or as secular. I don′t make a distinction so I am not very serious about scriptures. The only thing I am serious about is jokes. So when I quote the scripture I quote from memory, when I quote a joke I have it written here in front of me. I never want to make any mistake about the joke - I am really serious. About everything else I am absolutely non-serious.

So it is very obvious. Listening to me you must have understood it, that my emphasis is not on what the scriptures say - that is not the point: my emphasis is on what I am saying. If you go to a Christian priest, he quotes the scripture, his emphasis is on the scripture. He is very literal. he has to be - he himself is secondary, the scripture is primary. He is a witness to the scripture. With me it is just the opposite: the scripture is just a witness to me. Whatsoever I have to say, only that I have to say. If I feel the scripture can be a witness to it, I use it.

And I go on playing with the scripture, sometimes in one way, sometimes in another. Remember always, I am not trying to prove the scripture - that the scripture is right - I am simply using it as illustration. It is secondary, you can forget about it: nothing will be lost. Whatsoever I am saying is direct. Just to help you, because you are not capable of listening to the direct truth, you need a few witnesses. So Jesus, Krishna and Buddha and Lao Tzu and Lieh Tzu - they are just witnesses to me. I am not to adjust with them. they have to adjust with me.

These are all just stories to me and. deep down, this is the approach: the whole of life is a fiction, it is Maya, it is a dream. Jesus and Buddha and Krishna and I and you are parts of a big dream - God is dreaming. don′t be too serious about it. Scholars become too serious. I am not a scholar and I have no respect for scholars. In fact my attitude is exactly the same as Mulla Nasruddin′s.

I am neither a scholar nor am I in any way respectful towards scholars or scholarship. That is all bullshit.
I was reading a beautiful poem by E.Y. Harburg. A few lines are of tremendous import.

Meditate over them:

I am tremendously ignorant, and I am happy as I am. and I have no idea to improve upon myself. So if sometimes you are in an awkward situation: somebody says that Osho has said this and this is not correct, it is your problem. Then your Master is found faulty... you feel a little disturbed, your ego is hurt. As far as I am concerned I am perfectly okay. And I will continue to create problems for you!
Now you find the answers. Invent something, be a little imaginative or inventive. When I can invent so much, why can′t you? You can find some esoteric, occult meaning in it. It is always easy: when you cannot find anything else, always try to find some esoteric, occult meaning in it – there must be.

So make everybody happy. Create a few fictions, a few counterfeit bills; make everybody happy. The world is really beautiful. don′t be bothered too much about facts there are none, all are fictions. Remember, all are fictions, even my being here and your being here is a tremendous fiction. Nothing ever happens. Truth is.
All that happens is fictitious; history is a fiction because whatsoever is, is... nothing ever happens there. God has no history and God has no biography. God only is, there is no "was" and there is no "will be". There is no past and no future.

All history is fictitious. That′s why in the East we have never been bothered by history, we have not written history at all – instead of history we have written myths. If you ask when Rama was born, Hindus cannot answer. Ask Hindus, and you will find as many answers as the persons you ask. Nobody knows, in fact nobody knows exactly whether he was born or not. The fiction is that the story writer who wrote the story of Rama, wrote it before Rama was born: Balmiki wrote it before Rama was born. Look at the Eastern approach. You cannot conceive of it, that the Christian apostles should write the story of Jesus before he was ever born. But Balmiki wrote the story of Rama before he was born and then Rama had to be born to prove that Balmiki was right, otherwise people would laugh at this old man. And he had written so, "So do it!" So he had to do the things that Balmiki had written already. He had prophesied it, it was a prediction, and then Rama followed. Look at the approach: history is thought of as fiction. Only novels are written first, then you can play, you can make a movie out of them.

In the secret traditions of the Essenes it is said that Christ never was, that in fact it was a drama, a Christ drama, that had been played for centuries before Christ was ever born. In fact he was never born, it was just a drama. By and by, people became so much attached to the drama, they started loving the drama so much, that it turned out becoming a reality; it started looking like a fact. That′s why there are so many versions. If you look into the four gospels, all are different, sometimes contradictory. Four persons writing the same story are bound to be different.

The Eastern way of looking at things is that whatsoever is cannot be seen by the eyes. And whatsoever can be seen by the eyes is just a fiction – enjoy while you are seeing it, love it – it is Leela, God′s play. So when I am saying things to you, these are not sermons – a sermon is a serious thing – these are just like the songs of the birds. So whatsoever surfaces in me, I tell you; and I am not worried whether it is proved by history or not because history itself is meaningless to me.