Madness is a rich man’s disease. The poor man cannot afford it.
So when you keep a person hungry and give him laxatives, it cleanses his inner system, makes him
so hungry that he becomes bodily-oriented. He forgets the mind, the question is the body. He is no
longer interested in mind and mind games.
Madness is a mind game.
So once in a while I have seen people being cured there, but that one percent cured would spread
the rumor all around, and hundreds of people were coming there. The temple became very rich. I
had gone there many times to see it but only once did I meet a man who had been cured; others
went back to their homes just beaten, hungry, starved, more sick, more weak. Many died through
that priest’s treatment.
But in India if the treatment is being given in a temple, a sacred place, by the priest, it is not a crime
if you die; in fact you are fortunate that you are dying in a sacred place. You will be born on a higher
level of consciousness; so it is not a crime.
But I spoke against the man wherever I went and I said, ”This is absolutely criminal. What authority
has he or what medical qualifications has he? Is he a psychiatrist, physiologist? – he is only a
priest.” But priests have been treating mad people for centuries, in the same way, all over the world.
Now we know that a mad person cannot be treated this way. Mad people were put into prison, in
isolated cells. Still that is happening around the world because we don’t know what to do. Just to
hide our ignorance we put the mad person into jail, so we can forget about him; at least we can go
on ignoring that he exists.
In my town one of my friends’ uncles was mad. They were rich people. I used to go in their house
often, but even I became aware only after years that one of his uncles was kept in an underground
basement, chained.
I said, ”Why?”
They said, ”He is mad. There were only two ways: either we keep him in our own house, chained
.... And of course we cannot keep him chained in the house; otherwise people will be coming and
everybody will feel worried and concerned. And his children, his wife, watching their father, their
husband .... And it is against our family’s reputation to send him to prison, so we found this way: we
have imprisoned him underground. His food is being taken to him by a servant; otherwise nobody
goes to see him, nobody goes to meet him.”
I persuaded my friend, ”I would like to meet your uncle.”
He said, ”But I cannot come with you – he is a dangerous man, he is mad! Although he is chained
he can do anything.”
I said, ”He can at the most kill me. You just remain behind me so if I am killed you escape, but I
would like to go.”
Because I insisted, he managed to get the key from the servant who used to take the food. In thirty
years I was the first person from the outside world, other than the servant, who had met him; and
that man may have been mad – I cannot say – but now he was not mad. But nobody was ready to
listen to him because all mad people say, ”We are not mad.”
So when he said this to the servant, ”Tell my family that I am not mad,” the servant simply laughed.
He even told the family but nobody took any note of it.
When I saw the man, I sat with him, I talked with him. He was as sane as anybody else in the world
– perhaps a little more, because he said one thing to me: ”Being here for thirty years has been a
tremendous experience. In fact I feel fortunate that I am out of your mad world. They think I am mad
– let them think that, there is no harm – but in fact I am fortunate that I am out of your mad world.
What do you think?” he said to me.
I said, ”You are absolutely right. The world outside is far madder than when you left it thirty years
before. In thirty years there has been great evolution in everything – in madness too. You stop
saying to people that you are not mad; otherwise they will take you out. You are living a perfectly
beautiful life. You have enough space to walk ....”
He said, ”That’s the only exercise I can do here – walking.”
And I started to teach him vipassana. I said, ”You are in such perfect conditions to become a buddha:
no worries, no botherations, no disturbances. You are really blessed.”
And he started practicing vipassana. I told him, ”You can practice it sitting, you can practice it
walking” – and he was my first disciple as far as vipassana is concerned. And you will be surprised
that he died a sannyasin – died in the basement.
But the last time I had gone to my village, I went to see him. He said, ”I’m ready; now you initiate
me. My days are numbered, and I would like to die as your sannyasin. I’m your disciple; for twenty
years you have been my master and whatever you had promised is fulfilled.”
And you could see from his face, from his eyes, that he was not the same person – a total
transformation, a mutation ....
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