Osho on meeting with Morarji Desai and Acharya Tulsi

Osho - Anybody who is interested in power is suffering from an inferiority complex; deep down he feels himself worthless, inferior to others. And certainly in many ways everybody is inferior You are not a Yehudi Menuhin, but there is no need to feel inferior because you never tried to be, and it is not your business. Yehudi Menuhin is not you either; so what is the problem? -- where is the conflict?

But the political mind suffers from a wound of inferiority, and the politician goes on scratching the wound. Intellectually he is not an Albert Einstein -- he compares himself with giants -- psychologically he is not a Sigmund Freud.... If you compare yourself with the giants of humanity you are bound to feel completely shrunk, worthless. This worthlessness can be removed in two ways: one is religion, the other is politics.Politics does not really remove it, only covers it. It is the same sick man, the same man who was feeling inferior, who sits as a president. But just sitting on a chair as the president, what difference can it make to your inner situation?

My first conflict with Morarji Desai happened exactly in such a situation. One of the great Jaina monks... great to the Jainas, not to me -- to me he is the phoniest person you can find. In fact it is very difficult for me to compare him with any other phony person, he will defeat all. He had called a religious conference; that was their annual celebration, the birthday of their founder. Morarji Desai was invited. I was also invited. There were at least twenty guests from all over India, from every religion, from every direction of thought and ideology, and at least fifty thousand of Acharya Tulsi's followers.

Before the meeting, Acharya Tulsi greeted the guests, these twenty special guests. It must have been about 1960, in a small beautiful place in Rajasthan, Rajsamund. It has such a beautiful lake, so big and vast, hence the name, Rajsamund. Samund, in Rajasthani means the ocean, and Raj means royal. It is so beautiful that the name exactly suits it. It is a royal ocean, very emperor-like. The waves on it are almost as big as in the ocean. It is only a lake but you cannot see the other shore.

He called us to meet -- before we all went and talked to the fifty thousand people who had gathered there -- just to be introduced, and because he was the host who had invited us there. But from the very beginning trouble started.

The trouble was that he was sitting on a high pedestal and all the guests were sitting on the ground. It was not a problem to anybody except to Morarji Desai, the politician. He was the only politician among those twenty people. Somebody was a scientist, D.S. Kothari who was chairman of the atomic energy commission in India -- somebody was a vice chancellor.... From different directions those people had come, but it was not a problem for anybody.

Osho on Morarji Desai

Morarji Desai

Morarji said, "I would like to start the conversation." He was just sitting by my side. Neither he knew, nor I, that now a lifelong friendship was starting. He said, "My first question is that you are the host, and we are the guests. Guests are sitting on the floor and the host is seated on a high pedestal. What kind of courtesy is this? If you were addressing a meeting it is understandable that you should sit higher so the people can see and hear you. But there are only twenty persons -- and you are not addressing the meeting, just chit-chatting, just introducing people to each other before the conference, the real conference starts."

Acharya Tulsi was at a loss. It would have been so easy for a real religious person to come down, and apologize, "This is really a most idiotic error on my part." But he did not budge from his place. Instead he asked one of his chief disciples, who has now become his successor, Muni Nathmal, "You answer the question."

Muni Nathmal was even more at a loss, nervous -- what to say? Morarji Desai at that time was finance minister of India and that's why they had invited him. They were making efforts to create a university of Jainism, and he was the man. If he was willing, then finance would not be a problem. Muni Nathmal said, "It is not any discourtesy to the guests, it is just our tradition that the head of the sect sits higher. And just a convention is being followed, nothing else is meant by it. Nobody is insulted by it.

Morarji is not an easy person to be silenced by such answers. He said, "We are not your disciples, you are not our head. None of these twenty people here recognize you as their master or head. You may sit on any pedestal you want amongst your disciples, your sect, your people -- but we are guests. Secondly, you proclaim yourself a revolutionary saint, so why cling to a convention, tradition which is so uncivilized, uncultured?" That was one of the claims of Acharya Tulsi, that he was a revolutionary saint.

Now Nathmal was silent, Acharya Tulsi was silent, and all the other guests started feeling a little uneasy: this was not a good beginning.

I asked Morarji Desai, "Although this is not my business, and I am not concerned at all, but seeing the situation, would you like me to answer you? It is just to start the conversation so this group does not end in an awkward situation."
He said, "I am concerned about the answer. Yes, you can answer."

I said to him, "A few things: first, there are nineteen other persons, you are not alone here. Nobody else asked the question -- why did only you ask it? It didn't occur to me." And I asked the people, "Had the question occurred to you? If it has not occurred, please raise your hands." All the eighteen hands were raised, that it didn't occur to them.

Then I said to Morarji, "You are the only person who felt hurt. You must be carrying a wound, you must be suffering from some inferiority -- you are a psychological case. You can see: you know Doctor D.S. Kothari perfectly well, because he is chairman of the atomic commission of India; you know these other prominent people -- nobody is bothered by it. And what does it matter?

Do you see the spider walking on the ceiling? -- he is higher than Acharya Tulsi.... Just being higher, do you become greater? But somehow it hurts you. There is a wound in you which has not been filled even by being the finance minister of India. You would like to be one day the prime minister of India."
He was very angry. He said, "You call me psychologically sick?"

I said, "Certainly. These eighteen hands were raised for what? They are supporting me, they are saying,'This man seems to be very vulnerable as far as his ego is concerned, shaky' -- just a monk sitting a little higher, and it disturbs you."

I said, "Let us assume, for example: if Acharya Tulsi invites you also to sit with him on the high pedestal" -- and let me remind you, even then Acharya Tulsi did not invite him. I said, "For example, if he invites you and you are on the pedestal, will you ask the same question again for these eighteen poor souls who are sitting on the floor? Will the question ever arise?"

He said, "That I have never thought of. Perhaps the question will not arise, because in hundreds of meetings and conferences, I have been sitting on the high pedestal, but the question has never arisen."
I said, "That makes it clear that it is not a question of why Acharya Tulsi is sitting higher than you. The question is why you are sitting lower than Acharya Tulsi. Change the question to why are you sitting lower than Acharya Tulsi -- this is what you should have asked. It would have been more authentic. You are projecting your sickness on somebody else.

"But perhaps that somebody else is also as sick as you, because if I was in his place... in the first place, I would not have sat there -- if I was the host and you were my guests. Secondly, if by chance, by some coincidence, I was sitting there, the moment you asked the question I would have come down. That would have been enough of an answer:'There is no problem; it is just our convention and I forgot that you are my guests, because only once a year do I meet guests, but every day I meet my disciples. So just forgive me and let us start our conversation for which we have gathered.'

"But he did not come down. He has no guts. He is sitting there almost dead, he cannot even breathe he is so afraid. And he has no answer -- he asked his secretary to answer you. And the question that you have raised about which he is also silent, is that he has been proclaiming himself a revolutionary saint. He is neither a revolutionary, nor a saint, so what answer can he give to you? But my basic concern is not him, my basic concern is you. This is the political mind who is always thinking in terms of lower and higher, in terms of power."

Of course he was angry, and is still angry, and has remained angry for all these twenty-four, twenty-five years. And he has been in positions from where he could have harmed me, but he has no guts either. He was deputy prime minister and then became prime minister. Before he became prime minister, he had even asked my help. He had called me, unaware -- later on he came to know that to call me was absolutely absurd. He was Indira Gandhi's deputy prime minister; the post is not in the constitution itself.

Source - Osho Book "From Ignorance to Innocence"

Osho discourse on : Alice Bailey, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Confucius, Dalai Lama, Swami Ramtirth, Swami Vivekananda, Vishnu Devananda & Ram dass, Yogananda

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