Panch Mahavrat or The Perennial Path The Art of Living

Author(s): Osho Rajnish
Publisher: Osho Rajnish

Page 37

CHAPTER 4. NONSTEALING
about Muhammad. That is why all the followers should disappear. Muhammad should be there, his spirit, fragrance should be there, but there should be no followers in between. People should understand what Mahavira said but no one should say that I am his follower. The follower only defiles the great principles of what he follows.
A while ago I was reading a short story. A child was talking to his father. He read a proverb from his book which said that a man is known by the company he keeps. The boy asked his father 'ls this true?' The father said that it was. Then the boy wanted to know if there was friendship between one good person and another bad person who would be known by whom? The bad person is with the good one; so should we consider him a good person? Or the good person is with a bad one, so should we consider him a bad person? Now who should be known by whom? The father was perplexed.
Jesus is known through the Christians, so it has became difficult to know Jesus rightly. Mahavira is known through the Jains, so it has become difficult to know Mahavira. If the followers are removed, the great teachers' flowers will blossom in perfect beauty, his lamps can shine to the utmost. We shall be the possessors of the wealth of the whole world. At present the believer in Mahavira thinks that Muhammad is not his wealth, and he who believes in Muhammad thinks that he has no relationship with Buddha. He is somebody else's estate, not his. If at any time, there are no followers in this world, each individual will be the owner of the heritage of the whole world. In such circumstances, Socrates will be mine, Muhammad will be mine, Mahavira will be mine, and we shall be more prosperous, and a true civilization will take birth. The civilization of man will take place on that day when everything in the world will be ours. Think about this, I shall give one more illustration to explain this.
If there are twenty-five different schools of thought in the field of science, will science progress or will it be destroyed? If the followers of Newton make their own circle, and the followers of Einstein make another circle and if the followers of Newton declare that they do not believe in Einstein because he has said some opposite things which do not agree with what our teacher has said, then there will be many such schools of thought in science. Now there have been nearly fifty famous scientists during the last two or three hundred years, and if there were such fifty different circles, will science progress or die? Science could make advances because there is no such circle in the field of science. Whatever the scientists have given to the world is the common heritage of all mankind. And religion could not create any civilization because there are many different religions or circles. There are nearly three hundred such circles at present in the world, how can we expect or hope to create a true religion? These circles should be destroyed.
Mahavira saw truth from one angle of vision. Buddha saw the same Truth from another angle of vision, Muhammad saw it from a third angle of vision, and Christ explained the same Truth from a fourth angle of vision. All this is man's heritage and if all these are united together, and we become their inheritors, then true civilisation will take place in the world. A religious mind will be produced only when the whole heritage becomes ours. Today, we have only a sectarian mind, a religious mind is not there into the world. When a truly religious man comes into the world, he i5 immediately surrounded by sectarian people, and they destroy and pervert it in a few years, what that person achieved by working for it throughout his life. Mahavira belongs to none, Buddha belongs to none, they belong to all. None is their master, none can claim them, or you can say all can claim it. If such a situation takes place, then religion will become a science. Religion is certainly a science, and according to me, it is the supreme science, but as yet it has to achieve that status. When religion
The Perennial Path: The Art of Living
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Osho