“Poor Mojud! He has gone mad.”

There was once a man named Mojud…

The word ‘mojud’ is beautiful; it means two things. Literally it means one who is present. Mojud means one who has an inner presence, who is aware, who is alert, who is conscious. And the second meaning, which comes from the first: one who lives in the present, who is present to the present. Those two things are two aspects of the same phenomenon. If you are present inside, if you have a presence of consciousness, the second thing will automatically happen – you will be present to the present. You will not have any past, you will not have any future, you will have only this moment. And this moment is vast, this moment is enormous, this moment has eternity in it. Only those who live in the present, only those who are present to the present know what eternity is, know what deathless life is, know the mystery, the inexplicable mystery.

But even by knowing it you cannot explain it to anybody else. You can indicate, you can say how to reach it, but you cannot say what it is. And you cannot say why it is. There is no why, it is simply there. Without any explanation, life exists. There is no why to it. Philosophers go on thinking, “Why? Why? Why?” And they go on fabricating systems to answer the why, but not a single answer has been true, and never will it be true, because you have asked a wrong question from the very beginning. Once you ask a wrong question you will never come to the right answer. A wrong question will take you into wrong answers. Why? is a wrong question.

Science does not ask why. Religion also does not ask why. Religion is the science of the inner; science is the religion of the outer. Between these two is philosophy, just standing between these two. It asks why, and gets very mixed, and gets very much confused. Why cannot be asked, should not be asked. Even if you find some explanation as to why, the question will again have to be asked. “Why does this world exist?” Somebody says, “God created it.” Then the question comes, “Why did God create it?” And then somebody may answer, “He created for this or that.” Then too the question goes on being relevant again and again. Each answer simply pushes the question a little deeper, but the question is not dissolved.

“Why?” is an irrelevant question. With why, you move in philosophy. Religion does not ask why. It does not even ask what. It asks only one thing: how. Science also asks how, so science becomes technology, and religion becomes Yoga, Tantra, Sufism, Zen. These are technologies of the inner world.

There was once a man named Mojud. He lived in a town where he had obtained a post as a small official, and it seemed likely that he would end his days as Inspector of Weights and Measures.

That’s how millions of people end their lives, as Inspector of Weights and Measures. Somebody will end up as a head clerk in some rotten office, somebody will end up as a stationmaster, somebody will end up as a businessman, somebody will end up as a professor; and all those things are just futile. And I’m not saying don’t become a stationmaster, but don’t end up with that. Even if you have become Inspector of Weights and Measures, what have you attained? What have you got out of life? What is your realization? You live without really living. You can have a standard of living without having any life in it. So people used to think that Mojud would end up as Inspector of Weights and Measures. But Mojud was a different kind of man, because he had a presence. He was present. Deep down, not known to anybody, he must have been meditating. His outer life was one thing, his inner life was another. He must have been getting deeper and deeper into silence, he must have been becoming more and more thoughtless – only then are you present.

Thoughts distract you from the present. Thoughts become clouds on your being and you lose contact, you become disconnected with the present. Thoughts are never of the present, they cannot be of the present; they are either of the past or of the future.

If this man were really a man of presence, that simply meant that deep down, in the dark night when everybody was fast asleep, he must have been meditating, not telling anybody. He must have been watching. He was moving in the ordinary world but there must have been a witness, a watcher, an observer. That observer, by and by, created the presence in him. He became a luminous presence, hence he is called Mojud.

One day when he was walking through the gardens of an ancient building near his home, Khidr, the mysterious guide of the Sufis, appeared to him…

Now, you have to understand this: Khidr is just a name, the name for your innermost core. When your center starts whispering things to your circumference, this is Khidr. When your fundamental being starts talking to your non-fundamental being, when the essential soul speaks with the non-essential, then Khidr is speaking to you. This is just a metaphor; Khidr is not somebody outside. When you become silent, when you become present, when you become mojud, a moment comes when the inner guide starts speaking to you. That inner guide is known as Khidr.

Khidr… appeared to him, dressed in shimmering green.

Green is the color of the Sufis. It represents life: the green trees, the greenery. It represents freshness, aliveness; it represents silence, peace. Sufis have chosen green as their symbolic color. Just to look at green you feel a kind of peace surrounding you. That’s why it is so thrilling to go into the mountains. Just to sit by the side of a forest surrounded by mysterious trees is immensely significant. It makes you again primitive, primordial. It reminds you of the primordial silence of the jungles. It reminds you that once you were also trees, as silent as the trees and as rooted as the trees.

Dressed in shimmering green, Khidr appeared.

Khidr said, “Man of bright prospects!”

And remember, whenever your innermost core will speak to you, it always speaks in this way: “Man of bright prospects” – because there has never been a man who is not of bright prospects. You may not attain to it – that is another thing – but it is your destiny. You could have attained it. If you miss, the responsibility is totally yours. The seed was there, you didn’t help it to grow. Otherwise it would have become a great tree and thousands of birds would have made their nests on it, and thousands of travellers would have rested under its shade, and flowers would have bloomed, and existence would have celebrated through you.

If you don’t become a tree only you are responsible. Nature has provided all that is needed. Each man is a man of bright prospects because each man has God as his ultimate flowering.

Khidr said, “Man of bright prospects! Leave your work and meet me at the riverside in three days’ time.” Then he disappeared.

When you go deep into meditation it will happen again and again. A moment will come when your circumference and center are very close, and there is no barrier between them – not even a curtain – and you will hear the center loudly, clearly. And again you will be clouded – again old habits, thoughts will come in, jam your inner ways, and the center and the circumference will fall apart. It will happen many times to you too. It is going to happen to those who are around me many times. Many times you will come so close to the center that you will feel almost enlightened.
You will feel you have arrived, and again it is lost. It is natural. Before it settles forever, it happens many times. Before the ultimate samadhi is attained, thousands of satoris happen: small glimpses, the opening of the window and closing again. Suddenly the door opens and you see the vision and there is a lightning experience, and again it is gone and darkness settles.

Mojud went to his superior in trepidation and said that he had to leave.

And whenever the center speaks to the circumference for the first time, you will be in trepidation, you will be in a constant trembling. You will feel as if you are dying, you will feel, “What is happening to me? Am I going crazy or mad?” When the center speaks for the first time you cannot figure out what it is. You had never heard that voice before, you had never thought that somebody lived inside you. You had never thought that any inner voice was going to come to you. You have become so engaged with the outer, the voices that come from the outside, parental voices, teachers, priests.

One man here seems to be very obsessed with the mother. He again and again goes on asking – the same man who asked the question about Eklavya. Now he also asks the question: “Who is greater, the mother or the Master?” Now he asks: “If the mother says kill the Master, then have I to follow my mother’s order? Or if the Master says kill your mother, then whom have I to obey?”

He seems to be obsessed with the mother. He will need to kill his mother. That’s what Jesus means when he says, “Unless you hate your father and mother and your brothers, you cannot follow me.” And there is a case on record of an even stranger depth.

A disciple of Buddha was taking leave of him. He was going on a faraway pilgrimage to spread Buddha’s word. He touched Buddha’s feet, he waited there for his blessing. Buddha blessed him and said to the assembly, “Look, brothers! This is a rare disciple! And what is his rarity? He has killed his mother and father!”

He had never said such a thing. And nobody had ever thought that this man could kill his father and mother. He was one of the most silent, peaceful, loving persons they had ever seen. He was compassion incarnate.

Somebody asked, “We don’t understand. What do you mean by saying that he has killed his father and mother?”

And Buddha said, “Exactly that: he has killed the voice of his father and mother inside him, the parental voice.” That is very deep-rooted in you.

This man goes on asking about the mother and the Master… my feeling is that he is afraid. He has become a sannyasin, and now he’s afraid to go back home and he is afraid of his mother. Now he is in a great tension.

Once you have chosen a Master all else is no longer relevant. Mother, father – nothing is relevant. If you have not chosen a Master then they are relevant. The Master is bound to say to you, “Kill your father and mother!” – not literally, but psychologically. And one day the Master will have to say to you, “Now kill me too!”

That’s what Buddha says. One day he appreciates this man: “Here is a rare sannyasin, a rare bhikkhu, who has killed his father and mother utterly.” And on some other day he says, “If you meet me on the way, kill me! If any day I come between you and the ultimate, kill me, destroy me!”

The Master has to teach two things: first he has to teach murder – kill your mother and father, kill your teachers, kill your priests – and one day he has to teach you to kill him so that you can go in absolute freedom, so the Master is also no longer a barrier.

When for the first time the center speaks to you there is bound to be great turmoil, chaos, because all that was settled will be unsettled, and all that was established will be disestablished, and all that you were feeling secure in is no longer secure, and all that you were feeling as meaning-ful is no longer meaningful. Everything will go topsy-turvy because the center has a totally different approach towards reality than the circumference. When the depth speaks to the surface, there is bound to be great trepidation.

Mojud went to his superior in trepidation and said that he had to leave.

But there is no way. If you are a man of presence, if you are a meditative person and the center speaks to you and Khidr appears – Khidr means your inner guide – when Khidr appears and says to you “Now do this!” if you are a man of presence you will have to do it, even in spite of yourself, even against yourself. And you know, many of my sannyasins are here in spite of themselves.

Now there is Ashoka. He has been fighting with me for years not to become a sannyasin. He has become a sannyasin, he had to become, but still the fight is there! The old is not completely gone. There are moments when the old jumps and tries to take possession. He is a sannyasin in spite of himself! And there are many, and it is natural, because you are so identified with the circumference that when you start hearing the voice from the center there is a problem: whom to choose, the mother or the Master? the teacher or the Master? the past or the present? Whom to choose? When there is no voice from the center there is no question of choice. There are a few things but all are on the surface: which dress to wear today and which not, and to which movie to go and to which not, and what book to read and what book to purchase – things like that, meaningless choices. Whether you go to this movie or that finally makes no difference. Whether you wear this dress or that makes no difference. Whether you fall in love with this woman or that or with this man or that makes not much difference.

But when the voice from the center is heard, then you are divided into two worlds, two unbridgeable worlds. The abyss is great. You are torn apart. You will have a great chaos. But if you are a man of meditation only then will you be able to absorb that chaos and make some order out of disorder.

Hence my insistence for meditation, because unless you are deep in meditation you will not be able to understand me, and you will not be able to go with me.

There are people – particularly Indians – who come here and they say, “Satsang is enough. We just want to be in your presence. Why should we have do meditation?” They don’t understand. They cannot be in my presence because they are not present yet They are not Mojud. Just sitting by my side is not real satsang, because you can think a thousand and one thoughts sitting by my side. You can be physically here and you may not be psychologically here at all. You can be anywhere in the world. You can be on some other planet. That is not satsang.

Unless you are present here – not only physically but psychologically too – unless your whole presence surrounds me, unless you are really here in this moment, connected, plugged, only then is there satsang. But for that to happen you will have to go through meditations. And people are lazy: they would like God as a gift without even trying to become worthy of receiving it.

He said he had to leave.

Everyone in the town soon heard of this and they said, “Poor Mojud! He has gone mad.”

That is what is always said about a meditator. Remember it, it will be said about you too. It must have been said already. “Poor Mojud!” they said. “He has gone mad!” – because everyone in the world thinks he is sane. They cannot believe why one should meditate. For what? They constantly go on asking the person who meditates, prays, “Why? What are you getting into? For what? Why are you wasting your time sitting silently and gazing at your navel? Don’t waste time! Time is money! You can do many things. You can have more, you can possess more. Don’t waste time! Time gone is never recovered. And what are you doing sitting silently with closed eyes? Open your eyes and compete in the world! This world is a struggle for survival; those who sit silently and meditate will be lost. The only way to attain anything is to fight, be aggressive! Don’t be passive.”

Remember, there are two modes of life: the action mode and the non-action mode. The action mode believes in action, the non-action mode believes in receptivity. Meditation is a non-action mode, what the Chinese call wei-wu-wei, action without action, action through inaction, doing without doing anything at all. Meditation is an inaction mode, and the world is full of people who live in only one mode, the action mode. And the man who lives in the action mode cannot understand what is going on in the person who has entered into the non-action mode.

Now Mojud is entering into the non-action mode. This is revolution. This is sannyas. He has seen the world, he has acted in many ways, he has done many things, and now he knows that if he goes on doing those things he will end up as an Inspector of Weights and Measures. That no longer has any appeal for him. He wants to see, he wants to be, he wants to know that which is. Before death knocks him down he wants to know something of the deathless. He risks.

People are bound to think, “Poor Mojud! He has gone mad!”

But, as there were many candidates for his job, they soon forgot him.

And that’s how it happens. If you become a sannyasin, for a few days people will think you are mad, and then they forget about you. They have a thousand and one things to think about, they can’t go on thinking about you. They take it for granted that you are mad. So you are mad: now what is the point in thinking about it again and again?

If you renounce, if you escape, if you start moving into the non-action mode, for a few days they will think about you and then all things will disappear, because there are always too many candidates for your place. When you die, immediately your place will be filled. All that you have in the world you have against others. They are just waiting for your death. You die – your house will be filled by somebody else, your post will be filled by somebody else, your bank balance will be in somebody else’s name. They are just waiting. In fact they are getting worried: “Why are you staying so long? Why don’t you go?” Everybody here is interested in everybody else’s death, because life is such a cut-throat competition. It is murderous competition!
So soon they all forgot about him.

Osho, The Wisdom of the Sands, Vol 2, Ch 1 (excerpt part 2 of 4)

Image from special edition, with illustrations by Ma Prem Pujan
Mojud: The Man with the Inexplicable Life
An Ancient Sufi Story with Commentary by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Ansu Publishing Company, Portland, Oregon, USA, 1988