I have never been interested in games for the simple reason that from my very childhood there was
no way to play, there was nobody to play with. I can still see myself in those earliest years, just
sitting.
We had a beautiful spot where our house was, just in front of a lake. Far away for miles, the lake ...
and it was so beautiful and so silent. Only once in while would you see a line of white cranes flying,
or making love calls, and the peace would be disturbed; otherwise, it was almost the right place for
meditation. And when they would disturb the peace – a love call from a bird ... after his call the
peace would deepen, it would become deeper.
The lake was full of lotus flowers, and I would sit for hours so self-content, as if the world did not
matter: the lotuses, the white cranes, the silence ....
And my grandparents were very aware of one thing, that I enjoyed my aloneness. They had
continuously been seeing that I had no desire to go to the village to meet anybody, or to talk with
anybody. Even if they wanted to talk my answers were yes, or no; I was not interested in talking
either. So they became aware of one thing, that I enjoyed my aloneness, and it was their sacred
duty not to disturb me.
So for seven years continuously nobody tried to corrupt my innocence; there was nobody. Those
three old people who lived in the house, the servant and my grandparents, were all protective in
every possible way that nobody should disturb me. In fact I started feeling, as I grew up, a little
embarrassed that because of me they could not talk, they could not be normal as everybody is. It
was just the opposite situation ....
It happens with children that you tell them, ”Be silent because your father is thinking, your grandfather
is resting. Be quiet, sit silently.” In my childhood it happened the opposite way. Now I cannot answer
why and how; it simply happened. That’s why I said it simply happened – the credit does not go to
me.
All those three old people were continuously making signs to each other: ”Don’t disturb him – he is
enjoying so much.” And they started loving my silence.
Silence has its vibe; it is infectious, particularly a child’s silence which is not forced, which is not
because you are saying, ”I will beat you if you create any nuisance or noise.” No, that is not silence.
That will not create the joyous vibration that I am talking about, when a child is silent on his own,
enjoying for no reason; his happiness is uncaused. That creates great ripples all around.
In a better world, every family will learn from children. You are in such a hurry to teach them. Nobody
seems to learn from them, and they have much to teach you. And you have nothing to teach them.
Just because you are older and powerful you start making them just like you without ever thinking
about what you are, where you have reached, what your status is in the inner world. You are a
pauper; and you want the same for your child also?
But nobody thinks; otherwise people would learn from small children. Children bring so much from
the other world because they are such fresh arrivals. They still carry the silence of the womb, the
silence of the very existence.
So it was just a coincidence that for seven years I remained undisturbed – no Miss Judith Martin to
nag me, to prepare me for the world of business, politics, diplomacy. My grandparents were more
interested in leaving me as natural as possible – particularly my grandmother. She is one of the
causes – these small things affect all your life patterns – she is one of the causes of my respect for
the whole of womanhood.
She was a simple woman, uneducated, but immensely sensitive. She made it clear to my
grandfather and the servant: ”We all have lived a certain kind of life which has not led us anywhere.
We are as empty as ever, and now death is coming close.” She insisted, ”Let this child be
uninfluenced by us. What influence can we ...? We can only make him like us, and we are nothing.
Give him an opportunity to be himself.”
My grandfather – I heard them discussing in the night, thinking that I was asleep – used to say to
her, ”You are telling me to do this, and I am doing it; but he is somebody else’s son, and sooner or
later he will have to go to his parents. What will they say? – ‘You have not taught him any manners,
any etiquette, he is absolutely wild.’”
She said, ”Don’t be worried about that. In this whole world everybody is civilized, has manners,
etiquette, but what is the gain? You are very civilized – what have you got out of it? At the most his
parents will be angry at us. So what? – let them be angry. They can’t harm us, and by that time the
child will be strong enough that they cannot change his life course.”
I am tremendously grateful to that old woman. My grandfather was again and again worried that
sooner or later he was going to be responsible: ”They will say, ‘We left our child with you and you
have not taught him anything.’”
My grandmother did not even allow ... because there was one man in the village who could at least
teach me the beginnings of language, mathematics, a little geography. He was educated to the
fourth grade – the lowest four; that is what was called primary education in India. But he was the
most educated man in the town.
My grandfather tried hard: ”He can come and he can teach him. At least he will know the alphabet,
some mathematics, so when he goes to his parents they will not say that we just wasted seven years
completely.”
But my grandmother said, ”Let them do whatsoever they want to do after seven years. For seven
years he has to be just his natural self, and we are not going to interfere.” And her argument was
always, ”You know the alphabet, so what? You know mathematics, so what? You have earned a
little money; do you want him also to earn a little money and live just like you?”
That was enough to keep that old man silent. What to do? He was in a difficulty because he could
not argue, and he knew that he would be held responsible, not she, because my father would ask
him, ”What have you done?” And actually that would have been the case, but fortunately he died
before my father could ask.
But my father continuously was saying, ”That old man is responsible, he has spoiled the child.” But
now I was strong enough, and I made it clear to him: ”Before me, never say a single word against
my maternal grandfather. He has saved me from being spoiled by you – that is your real anger. But
you have other children – spoil them. And at the final stage you will say who is spoiled.”
He had other children, and more and more children went on coming. I used to tease him, ”You
please bring one child more, make it a dozen. Eleven children? People ask, ”How many children?”
Eleven does not look right; one dozen is more impressive.”
And in later years I used to tell him, ”You go on spoiling all your children; I am wild, and I will remain
wild.”
What you see as innocence is nothing but wildness. What you see as clarity is nothing but wildness.
Somehow I remained out of the grip of civilization.
And once I was strong enough .... And that’s why these people – Miss Judith Martin, and their kind
– insist, ”Take hold of the child as quickly as possible, don’t waste time because the earlier you take
hold of the child, the easier it is. Once the child becomes strong enough, then to bend him according
to your desires will be difficult.”
And life has seven-year circles. By the seventh year the child is perfectly strong; now you cannot do
anything. Now he knows where to go, what to do. He is capable of arguing. He is capable of seeing
what is right and what is wrong. And his clarity will be at the climax when he is seven. If you don’t
disturb his earlier years, then at the seventh he is so crystal clear about everything that his whole
life will be lived without any repentance.
I have lived without any repentance. I have tried to find: Have I done anything wrong, ever? Not
that people have been thinking that all that I have done is right, that is not the point: 97I have never
thought anything that I have done was wrong. The whole world may think it was wrong, but to me
there is absolute certainty that it was right; it was the right thing to do.
So there is no question of repenting about the past. And when you don’t have to repent about the
past you are free from it. The past keeps you entangled like an octopus because you go on feeling,
”That thing I should not have done,” or, ”That thing which I was supposed to do and did not do ....”
All those things go on pulling you backwards.
I don’t see anything behind me, no past.
If I say something about my past, it is simply factual memory, it has no psychological involvement.
I am telling you as if I am telling you about somebody else. It is just factual; it has nothing to do
with my personal involvement. It might have occurred to somebody else, it might have happened to
somebody else.
So remember, a factual memory is not enslaving. Psychological memory is, and psychological
memory is made up of things that you think, or you have been conditioned to think, were wrong and
you did them. Then there is a wound, a psychological wound.
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