Source – Osho Book “From Misery to Enlightenment” I went to the history class in my college for only one day. When I had gone to fill in the form, the principal asked, “What subjects do you want to study? Four subjects you can choose.” I said, “I will fill in the form, I will sign it and I deposit the fee, but I would like a little taste of all the professors who are teaching — because to me, the teacher is more important than what he is teaching. And moreover I have to be acquainted a little bit with what kind of subjects these people are teaching.” He said, “This is a very unprecedented thing. This is something that you have to fill in first, only then can you enter the college.” I said, “You will have to make an exception, otherwise I am ready to appear before the committee who I runs the college, to let me convince them. How can I choose subjects which I don’t know? and I don’t want much — just a little sample here and there of all subjects. I want just two weeks’ time: I will move around the whole college, and in all the subjects — I will have a little taste of the subjects, of the students, of the teacher, and then I will fill in the forms.” He said, “Okay, but you had better keep quiet. Don’t say anything to anybody, because I think you would convince the committee.” I said, “Obviously, because even if a person goes into the market to purchase an ordinary earthen pot, he goes to a few shops, knocks and feels.” In India at that time it was only one or two paisa for a beautiful earthen pot, but still you checked whether it had a hole or not. If it has a hole it makes a certain sound; if there is any crack, it has a different sound. and if it is really perfect then it gives a musical sound. “Even for a two-paisa earthen pot, people move around the whole market — and I am going to decide about four years of my life. You want me to fill in the forms without knowing what I am doing?” The principal said, “Okay, I will keep it in my file. For two weeks go around, but don’t create any trouble, because if I am caught with this form then I will be in trouble.” I said, “Don’t be worried.” The first class I attended was history, because just accidentally that was the first classroom I came to as I entered the building. So I said, “Okay, this is good: start with history.” The lecturer was giving a general introduction, and all the people he was talking about were these idiots: Nadirshah, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, Babur, Humayun, Aurangzeb — all the invaders of India. I asked him, “Are you teaching us or are you simply reminding us that we are born to be slaves? Are you teaching us history or are you simply reminding us that we have been slaves for thousands of years and we are always going to be slaves — because a country so big has been conquered by small armies, barbarous, uncivilized.” I said to him, “If you have any sense of dignity please stop all this nonsense. Can’t you find something that gives dignity to man, that makes him feel that the past has not been just idiotic and stupid, that there is something in the past which makes him feel that he inherits something of beauty, of grandeur, and makes him hopeful about the future?” He said, “Have you come here to change the whole syllabus of history?” I said, “Totally, because only then can I study here. I have come just to check whether it is worthwhile wasting time, because all these nightmares…. What have I to do with Nadirshah? And why should I want to know about him? There is something far more beautiful. Can’t you talk about Buddha, Bodhidharma Nagarjuna, Shankara, Parshwanath, Mahavira, Vasubandhu? Can’t you talk about these people?” He said, “My God! I have never heard these names! Vasubandhu? I am a doctorate, a degree-holder in history, but Vasubandhu? — I have never heard the name.” I said, “Then you come down and sit here, and I will teach something about Vasubandhu. And this is not the only name that you don’t know. I will tell you a few other names that you don’t know either. Do you know Dharmakirti? Do you know Chandrakirti?” He said, “No. Are you inventing these names?” I said, “I am not inventing them — these are the real people. But they are not even in your footnotes because they never killed anybody, they never invaded any country, they never made any empire, they never massacred people, they never slaughtered people, they never raped women, they never burned people alive. What is history? Just cuttings from newspapers of ancient times. If you go and help somebody, no newspaper is going to publish the story; you go and kill somebody and all the newspapers are full of it. And what is your history about except these people who have been a nuisance, who have left wounds on human consciousness? This you call history?” I said, “If this is history then it is not for me, because I have a different dimension of history. What you are teaching is really the history of politics. You should change the name of your subject. This is not history, it is political history. And what I am talking to you about is the history of human intelligence and ultimately the history of human enlightenment.” He was simply in shock. He just told the class, “Now I am not in a position to say anything. First I have to see the principal about this boy.” I said, “There is no need to see the principal — I have seen him. He knows what I am doing. And I am not going to come again so you need not be worried; you go on teaching about all these idiots. You have only this garbage in your mind. It is very strange that the real flowers of intelligence are not even mentioned.” It was so difficult for me to find out about these people. I had been looking in so many libraries, trying to find out something more about these people who; are really the creators; they have put the foundations. But we know only one kind of world, the world where might is right.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 14:12:32 +0000
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