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Osho Stories on MahaviraOsho - There is an incident in Mahavira's life.... A thief was lying on his deathbed, and his son asked him to give him some final word of advice that would help him in his work. The thief said, "Don't have anything to do with a person called Mahavira. If you know he is in your village, run to another. If he passes your way on the road, hide somewhere on a side street. And if without realizing it you are somewhere where you can hear his words, close you beware of him!" When the son asked him why he should be so afraid of Mahavira, his father told him not to argue: "Just listen to what I say. If you go near that man our business will be in danger and the family will starve." What happens next is very interesting. The son of that thief always ran away from Mahavira, but one day he made a mistake. Mahavira was sitting silently in a mango grove, and, unknowingly, the thief's son happened to pass that way. Suddenly yyhavira started speaking. The thief heard half the sentence, closed his ears and ran. But he had already heard half the sentence, and that landed him in a lot of trouble.... He was being chased by the police -- the whole state police were after him for his thieving -- and after a few weeks he was eventually caught. Thieving was in his family and so he was an expert in his trade. He was so clever that he never left behind any incriminating evidence. It was well known that he was a thief and had committed a lot of thefts; everybody knew about it, but there was no evidence. So there was no alternative but to make him confess. He was made totally drunk and kept in such a state of intoxication that he remained unconscious for two or three days. When he did open his eyes again, he was still in a state of semi-consciousness. All around him he say beautiful women standing and he asked where he was. He was told that he had died, and that preparations were being made to take him either to heaven or hell. He was told that people were waiting for him to become conscious so that he could confess the sins he'd committed. If he did, he would be taken to heaven; otherwise he would be sent to hell. If he spoke the truth he would be saved. He felt that now he should tell the truth and not lose the chance of going to heaven; now that he had died there was nothing to fear. But just at that moment he remembered that half-sentence he had heard Mahavira say. Mahavira had been talking about gods and ghosts. He had also hinted about the yamadoots, who take people to the worlds beyond death. The thief had heard him say that the toes of yamadoots are always inverted: he opened his eyes and saw that the feet of the people standing by him were normal, so he became alert. He now saw there was no need to confess. He saw through the trick, and said that he had not committed any sins; what could he confess? If they wanted they could take him to hell. But as he hadn't committed any sins, how could they? So they had to let him go. He went running to Mahavira, fell at his feet, and asked him to complete the sentence which had saved him. When half of Mahavira's sentence had saved him, of how much more benefit would be the whole sentence! He said he was totally surrendered to Mahavira. Sometime or other he was bound to be caught and hanged but if he heard the rest of the sentence he might still be saved. So Mahavira used to say that even if half the sentence of an awakened one was heard, it could be useful one day. Similarly, a man running past a temple, or just passing by casually, hears the sound vibrations coming from a temple or smells the fragrance of the place... and even that can be of help to him. Source - Osho Book "Hidden Mysteries"
Osho - There is a beautiful story of a disciple of Mahavira. He was a great king, he renounced and became a disciple of Mahavira. He was very ascetic, austere, and did whatever Mahavira said to the very extreme. His name spread all over the country -- it was Prasannachandra. Even kings started coming to pay homage to him. One king, Bimbasar, who had been a friend of Prasannachandra when he was also a king, came to the cave where he was standing naked under the sun, with his eyes closed. Bimbasar bowed down before Prasannachandra and thought, "When will the time come when I will also become so peaceful, so silent, blissful? This man has achieved!" Then he went to Mahavira, Prasannachandra's master -- he was near, somewhere in the same forest. He said to Mahavira, "Bhagwan, just before coming to you I went to Prasannachandra. He was standing with his eyes closed, so blissful, so heavenly. He has achieved. When will the moment come for me? I am not so fortunate -- I feel jealous. I have another question: If Prasannachandra had died that very moment when I was there, paying my respects to him, where would he reach? Which heaven would he attain?" Jainas say there are seven heavens and seven hells. Mahavira said, "He will fall to the seventh hell." Bimbasar couldn't understand, he was puzzled and confused. He said, "What are you saying, the seventh hell? Prasannachandra was standing so silently, so peacefully, so meditatively; he was in such ecstasy. If he falls to the seventh hell what will happen to me? Are there more hells beyond the seventh? No, you must be joking, tell me the truth." Mahavira said, "This is the truth. Just before you a few people had passed by; they also went to pay homage to Prasannachandra. They started gossiping around him; he heard, and the doors of hell opened. Those people were coming from his capital where he had been king. They said, "This fool has renounced all! The prime minister, to whom he has given the whole responsibility for running the kingdom, is a thief. He is looting, he is destroying. When Prasannachandra's son comes of age, when he comes to be king, there will be nothing left. And this fool is standing here with his eyes closed." Prasannachandra heard this. Suddenly the door of hell opened. He forgot. He was also a samurai, a warrior, a kshatriya. He completely forgot that he had renounced, he forgot that there was no sword; he completely forgot that he was now a monk. The samurai who had gone to Hakuin had a sword. Prasannachandra had none, he was standing naked. He pulled out his sword -- the sword was not there, it was just an illusion -- and completely forgot that he was a sannyasin. The whole thing was so burdensome, so much anxiety was created by the news, that he pulled his sword out of the sheath and said, "I am alive! What does that prime minister think? I will go and cut off his head. I am still here!" Whenever he used to become angry in the old days he would always touch his crown, so he touched his crown. There was no crown, just a shaven head. Suddenly he remembered, "What am I doing? There is no sword; I am a sannyasin and have renounced all." Mahavira said, "If he had died at the very moment he realized this he would have achieved the seventh heaven. Prasannachandra realized what he had been imagining. Just through imagination the door of hell was opened, now it had closed. If he had died at this moment, he would have achieved the seventh heaven." Hell and heaven are within you. The doors are very close: with the right hand you can open one, with the left hand you can open another. With just a change of your mind, your being is transformed -- from heaven to hell and from hell to heaven. This goes on continuously. What is the secret? The secret is whenever you are unconscious, whenever you act unconsciously, without awareness, you are in hell; whenever you are conscious, whenever you act with full awareness, you are in heaven. If this awareness becomes so integrated, so consolidated, that you never lose it, there is no hell for you; if unconsciousness becomes so consolidated, so integrated, that you never lose it, there is no heaven.Fortunately unconsciousness can never become so consolidated; a part always remains conscious. When your whole being seems to be unconscious, even then a witnessing part always remains conscious. Even while asleep, a part is witnessing. That's why in the morning you sometimes say the sleep was beautiful. Sometimes you say the sleep was disturbed, nightmarish; sometimes you say, "I slept so deeply, so peacefully, it was such great happiness." Who knows this? You were asleep -- who knows that you were so happy? A part has witnessed; a part was continuously alert, knowing. Who knows that you were disturbed, uneasy, uncomfortable? You were asleep -- even in sleep a part of you knows. You cannot become completely unconscious. Once achieved, consciousness cannot be lost, you cannot reverse the process. You cannot be eternally in hell -- this Christian doctrine is absolutely false -- but you can be eternally in heaven. This is the Hindu doctrine: hell can only be temporary, it can be only for the time being; it is temporal. Heaven can be eternal. Source - Osho Book "A Bird on Wing"
Osho - Your experiences, unless they transform you, are not experiences. They are only clouds in your mind. If you have felt the truth, then it is going to transform your whole life. It will have its impact on your every action, on your every attitude. There is no other way to know whether a man has found the truth or not. The only way is, all his gestures, his eyes, his very presence will start affecting you in a totally different way than you have ever been affected by another being, another man. He may not say a single word, but his silence will overwhelm you. He may not look at you, but his eyes you will not be able to forget, ever. They will haunt you, they will follow you like a shadow. His words will be just the same as your words.
Dictionaries cannot make any distinction, but you are not a dictionary
-- when a man like Gautam Buddha speaks, he uses the same words that
everybody else is using but his words have a flavor, an authenticity, a
sincerity of the heart, a tremendous love and compassion which the word
itself does not necessarily carry. Mahavira was staying for four months of the rainy season in Vaishali. The master thief was training his son in the art of which he was the master. He said, "Listen, one thing: never go to hear this man Mahavira. Even if by chance you are passing and you hear a word or a sentence from the man, close your ears. Because he can destroy just with a single word my whole effort of making you my successor." Naturally it created a great curiosity in the young man. The father has been training him for years, and he is so afraid of a man that just a single word from him and the whole discipline can be destroyed! He might never have heard Mahavira, but his father created the curiosity. One day he went, but he heard only one sentence and became afraid of his father, because his father was no ordinary man -- if he comes to know, he will kill him! There is no other punishment. But he heard one sentence and escaped. That night his father was in the palace of the king, and much jewelry was stolen. The father escaped. The son was not part of the stealing process but the son was caught. He was coming from the discourse of Mahavira where he had heard only one sentence, which was absolutely meaningless. The sentence which he heard was that in heaven men and women have a few strange things about them: one is that their feet are not the same as ours. Their feet are backwards; they walk forwards but their feet are backwards. This is not great philosophy. But the young man was caught in place of his father because they looked alike. There was a difference in age, but in the dark night... The police used a strategy to make the young man confess. He was given so much alcohol that he fell asleep. When in the middle of the night he opened his eyes, he was in a beautiful palace, with such beautiful women -- he has never seen such beautiful women -- all kinds of delicious foods, ready for him. He thought, "Perhaps I have died and I have entered heaven!" Then he suddenly remembered what Mahavira was saying, that in heaven the feet are backwards. So he looked at the feet -- they were not backwards. Otherwise he would have been caught, because those beautiful women were asking him: "Tell us everything you have done in your life. You are just in the reception room of heaven, and this is customary, to give your whole record before you enter heaven." He was just going to give them an account of his whole life but he stopped. He said, "My God! If I had not heard that one sentence, I would have been finished today. Although I have not done great robberies, I have done smaller things. This has been my whole training." He simply remained silent. Asked again and again, he said, "I don't have any record. I am a man of silence, not a man of action. I am a meditator." There was no other way -- in the morning he was released. He did not go to his home, he went to Mahavira and he said, "Your single sentence, which was absolutely irrelevant, has saved my life. Now this life belongs to you, not to my father. And if your single sentence can save my life I can conceive the tremendous transformation that can happen if I understand all your words, and if I can understand even your wordless silences." Mahavira said, "I will accept you only on one condition: you go and tell your father what has happened. It is your duty. Your father also needs to be saved. What he is doing is utterly stupid." The son was very afraid but he had to go. He told the whole story. The father was shocked at first, but then he realized the truth of it. And the story is that both became initiates of Mahavira. A man of the qualities of Mahavira not only transforms his actions, they change automatically. His words also start growing new meanings, new fragrances. His silences are also messages. Prem Jivan, what has happened to you is going to happen to everybody who is sincerely here to be transmuted, who is not here for any ego trip, who is here for a deeper understanding of himself. The miracle of the deeper understanding of oneself is that simultaneously you understand the whole mystery of existence. Just one thing to be remembered: when I use the word `understanding', I don't mean knowledge. You feel it, you touch it, you live it. You sing it, you dance it, but you don't know it. It never becomes knowledge; it becomes your very life. You are it. But unfortunate are those who are just curiosity-mongers, who are just beggars in a way, collecting dregs from scriptures, from other people, from the rotten old past, and then covering their ignorance with their so-called knowledge. These are the most stupid people in the world, but they dominate the world because they are knowledgeable people and knowledge gives them a certain power. A man who wants to understand the mystery of existence
has to drop the idea of power completely. He has to be utterly
non-existential, as if he is not, and all the doors suddenly open.
Paradise is not somewhere else. Paradise is the moment you are available
to existence in totality. On this same earth, in this same time, you
have entered the lotus paradise of Gautam Buddha. Source - Osho Book "Om Mani Padme Hum"
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