Ekant

Osho, the other day you spoke of “ekant” in relation to Lord Mahavira. Was Mahavira’s realization also ekant—one-sided? Was it not complete? This is my question.

What news we bring back are drishtis, thoughts. What we actually knew and lived was darshan. In that darshan, Srinagar was one. There, night-day were joined, mountain-lake were joined, good-bad were joined—everything was together. But the moment we speak, we choose; we sift; we stand somewhere and select a viewpoint. The moment anything is spoken, a drishti is formed. This has been the great danger: mistaking drishti for darshan. Hence, the Hindus have a drishti, not darshan; the Jains have a drishti, not darshan; the Muslims have a drishti, not darshan. If we speak of darshan, then Hindu, Muslim, Jain all disappear—only the One remains; there is no drishti, no ideology. Mahavira’s experience is total; expression cannot be. Whenever we try to say it, we cannot say the total. The experience of the divine is a far greater matter—even a small, simple experience cannot be expressed in its wholeness. You…

Osho, Mahavira refused to take anyone’s support—that is right. But along with that, a question arises: just as it is important not to take support, it should be equally important not to give support. Yet his way of expressing himself, and then the whole structure of shravaks and shramans and all that—this amounts to giving support to others. So why was this aspect not considered: if I do not take support, who am I to give support to another?

They would say… Sicily is a small island to the south. The Sophists offered an example: a man came from Sicily and, on arriving in Athens, said, “In Sicily, everyone is a liar.” Someone stood up and asked him, “Where are you from?” He said, “I am from Sicily.” The man said, “Now we are in trouble! You say everyone in Sicily is a liar, and you are from Sicily; so you are a liar—what shall we do with your statement? And if we accept that everyone in Sicily is a liar, then at least one person in Sicily must be telling the truth, and your statement becomes false. If we do not accept that everyone in Sicily is a liar—if we take you to be lying—again we land in a difficulty.” Someone stood up and said, “What shall we do?” Perhaps the man himself had no idea what to…

Osho, in Jainism the principles of ahimsa, aparigraha, anekantavada, co-existence, etc., have a special place. But today in a newspaper I read a statement about you by a Jain muni, Shri Bhadragupta Vijayji, and was surprised. This monk is calling people to sacrifice everything and organizing them in protest against your entry into Kutch. For those who profess aparigraha, why this attachment to the Kutch region? And within their anekantavada, why opposition to your vision of life? Does it befit a muni to incite people in this way?

What of a Jain muni’s claim on Kutch! But it makes no difference; if “my India” is possible, why not “my Kutch”? Then “my district, my tehsil, my village.” Then what trouble with “my house”? It’s the same thing. Then why such difficulty with “my wife” and “my children”? If “mine” must remain, what fault is the wife’s and the children’s that you ran away, leaving them? It’s not that the wife wasn’t from Kutch—she must have been a Kutch woman. The children too were Kutchis—they were born of two Kutchis. You left your wife—no shame at leaving a Kutch woman! You left your children—the little Kutchis—no shame! And still: “My Kutch”? But I understand. It is a flock of the blind—led by the blind. The blind lead the blind, and both fall into the well. They keep falling—day after day. But if it is “my own well,” why not…

Mahavira gave birth to the doctrine of saptabhangi. He began to answer a single question in seven ways. You want a yes or no when you ask, “Is there God?” Mahavira gives seven answers because he says every viewpoint is partial, and there can be seven ways of looking. Man can see in seven modes. So Mahavira combined all seven in his answers so that when the seven viewpoints are joined, the whole might be glimpsed. Any single view is only a fraction. The quarrel between dog and donkey is a quarrel of viewpoints. All quarrels are quarrels of viewpoints. You cannot quarrel with Mahavira, because he accepts all viewpoints. Whatever you say to him, he says, yes, that too is true. Mahavira says: never say “this alone is the truth,” for there the mistake begins.