I had to leave my professorship for a strange reason – perhaps nobody has ever left for such a reason.- OSHO

I had to leave my professorship for a strange reason – perhaps nobody has ever left for such a reason.

I had to teach Shankara, Bradley, Kant – and I don’t agree with these people, so I made it clear to my students: ”For half an hour I will go into the minutest detail of Shankara’s philosophy, unprejudiced, remaining absolutely aloof, and then in the remaining half hour I will give you my opinion, because I cannot teach you something which seems to me to be creating belief, not creating search.

I will create doubt in you – not faith, not belief.”

The students were very much
confused. I was doing the best that I could do when I was teaching them Shankara, Ramanuja, Nimbarka.

I was as fair as anybody can be, but after half an hour I was just as critical – creating doubt, creating questions, making it clear that their whole philosophy was not based on any
foundation of experience.

The students were in a difficulty.
They said, ”What are we going to do in the examination?”
I said, ”That is your problem.

That is not my business;
I have nothing to do with the examination.

My function here is to teach you.

The examination is your business, and that of your examiners.”

Finally they reported to the vice-chancellor, that ”We are getting into a mess.

Naturally he is very fair about anybody he teaches, but when he comes to criticize, then it is something of his heart.

When he teaches, it is only his mind; and when he criticizes, it is his heart.

And our problem is that we are
left in an absolute uncertainty: we cannot answer any question because we know that if we listen to him, Shankara is wrong.

And if we write that Shankara is right, then we are not only betraying him,we are betraying ourselves too – because we have also felt that the whole philosophical system is based on belief, not on experience.”

The vice-chancellor told me, ”It is a strange way of teaching.

We have never heard....”
I said, ”It has to be strange – have you ever heard of me? –

I am doing my best. You should look at my situation: I am walking on a razor’s edge.

I am being fair to people whom I would like to crush completely; still, I am giving them as much support, reason, logic, as humanly possible.

But I cannot lie to my students.”

My vice-chancellor suggested, ”You’d better resign; you are not supposed to be a professor.

These people have come here to get some degrees to become clerks, to become teachers, to become station masters, postmasters.

They are not interested in God, they are not interested in truth.”

I resigned.

If every teacher, every parent is honest, there will be Christs and there will be Buddhas and there will be Mahaviras, but there will not be Christians, there will not be Buddhists and there will not be Jainas.

There is no need for believers.

When you can become a Christ yourself, why become a
Christian?

OshO ❤
CHAPTER 42. BE A SEEKER, NOT A BELIEVER
The Osho Upanishad