A Disposable Boat to Cross
the Turbulent Rivers
I have always been an avid reader and listener of Osho Rajneesh. When I was a graduate student of English Literature in Trivandrum in mid 1980s, I happened to befriend a senior executive officer in the Revenue Department of Kerala. It was a chance encounter and seeing my interest in reading in general he asked me whether I had ever come across the discourses of Osho Rajneesh. I knew Rajneesh as a controversial man and I told the executive that I had read the news features about Osho. He said, “You should not be drinking from the gutters, drink from the river.” He gave me a few books, the compiled discourses of Osho. Then and there I fell in love with this man. I collected most of the discourses, in book and audio tape forms and followed them quite closely. Osho took me to Jiddu Krishnamurthy. Later I stopped reading them. May be that was the best way to do justice to both of them.
Recently, when I was going through one of the toughest of times in my life, I took out this book titled ‘Walking in Zen Sitting in Zen’. A nation wide mud slinging campaign was going on against me. A few friends who turned foes initiated a vicious rumor mongering, saying that JohnyML was brash, arrogant and he over rates his role in the art scene. They said, no artist should collaborate with JohnyML anymore. Instead of answering these allegations I continued my work as an ‘art worker’ (I would like to call myself as an art worker which strangely rings with sex worker) and kept producing www.artconcerns.com.
‘Walking in Zen Sitting in Zen’ saw me through the crisis. I forgot the problems. I was overwhelmed by the observations of Osho, who could look at God with a lot of reverence and look at the mediators of God (religion) with a lot of irreverence. Zen is Dhyana. From India it traveled to China and from there it went to Japan. Then Dhyana became Zen. Some elements of linguistics interpolations. Osho says that when you do your work and you are purely aware (not conscious) of what you are doing then there is no problem. Nobody remembers the men who have crucified Jesus. But the world remembers Jesus. Nobody remembers those people who made Socrates to drink hemlock. But Socrates remains. Do your work.
The most interesting thing that I got from this book was a lesson for the art critics in this country. Osho recounts a story. A King was very much interested in archery. He went out to find out the best archer in the country. When he entered a village he found a row of trees with arrows stuck exactly in the centre point of the target circles drawn on those trees. The King was fascinated by the marksmanship of the archer. He asked for the man. The villagers laughed. The King was surprised and asked them to explain. They told him that the archer was not a great shooter. He was a mad man. What he did was this. He shot an arrow at every tree and later on added target circles around it.
Indian art criticism is going on these lines. The art critics shoot the arrows at anything and everything that they want. And then they add target emblems around these arrows. They speak on any art and once it is stuck, they put some theories around it. It is a mad man’s situation. Osho says, a mad man never accepts he is mad. If he accepts that he has some problem with his mind, there is a chance of recovery. But no mad men in this world accept that they are mad. No art critics in this country would accept that they are shooting arrows first and making targets later. Read Osho.
I would recommend this book to all operators and all art workers in India. Osho says another story. Mulla Nasiruddeen was dreaming that he was bargaining with a rich man. Mulla asked hundred rupees. The man agreed to give seventy five. Mulla insisted on ninety five. The man said, eighty. Suddenly Mulla’s dream was broken. He wanted to dream again. He wanted at least to get eighty as offered by the man. But now there was no money and no man. So we are going through a dream. There would be a waking moment. So open your eyes and see the reality. Live like ordinary people. Because it is very difficult to become ordinary.
Recommending this book to all the art workers does not mean that I am going to keep reading this book like Bible or Ramayana. I am going to leave it somewhere in my bookshelf. It is a disposable boat. I cannot carry a boat after crossing the river. But when I see the next turbulent river on my way, I will have the memories of a boat. |
