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| Osho in Mother Womb |
My mother was just telling me yesterday., that when I was five months old
in her womb, a miracle happened.
She was going from my father's house to her father's house; and it was the
rainy season. It is customary in India for the first child to be born at the
maternal father's home, so although it was the rainy season and very
difficult-no roads, and she had to go on a horse-the sooner she went, the
better; if she waited longer then it would have become more difficult, so she
went with one of her cousin-brothers.
In the middle of the journey was a big river, the Narmada. It was in flood.
When they reached the boat, the boatman saw that my mother was
pregnant, and he asked my mother's cousin-brother, "What is your
relationship?"
He was not aware that he would get into trouble so he simply said, "We are
brother and sister."
The boatman refused; he said, "I cannot take you because your sister is
pregnant-
that means you are not two, you are three."
In India, this is a custom, an old custom-perhaps it started in the days of
Krishna--
that one should not travel on water, particularly in a boat, with one's sister's
son.
There is a danger of the boat sinking.
The boatman said, "What guarantee is there that the child in your sister's
womb is a girl and not a boy? If he is a boy I don't want to take the risk-
because it is not a question only of my life, sixty other people are going in
the boat. Either you can come or your sister can come; both I won't take."
On both sides there were hills and jungle, and the boat used to go only one
time a day. In the morning it would go--and the river is really vast at that
point--and then it would come back by the evening. The next morning it
would go again, the same boat. So either my mother had to remain on this
side, which was dangerous, or go on that side, which was just as
dangerous. So for three days they continued to ask him, beg him, saying
that she was pregnant and he should be kind.
He said, "I can't help it—this is not done. If you can give me a guarantee that
it is not a boy then I can take you; but how can you give me a guarantee?"
So for three days they had to stay in a temple there. In that temple lived a
saint, very famous in those days in that area. Now, around that temple
there has arisen a city in the memory of that saint, Saikheda. Saikheda
means "the village of the saint." Sai means the saint; he was known as Sai
Baba. It is not the same Sai Baba who became world-famous--Sai Baba of
Shirdi--but they were contemporaries...
Finally my mother had to ask Sai Baba, "Can you do something? For three
days we have been here. I am pregnant and my brother has told the
boatman that he is my brother, and he won't take us in the boat. Now,
unless you do something, say something to that boatman, we are in a fix.
What to do? My brother cannot leave me
here alone; I cannot go alone to the other side. On both sides are wild
jungles and forests, and for at least twenty-four hours I will have to wait
alone."
I never met Sai Baba, but in a way I did meet him; I was five months old. He
just touched my mother's belly. My mother said, "What are your doing?"
He said, "I am touching the feet of your child."
The boatman saw this and said, "What are you doing, Baba? You have
never touched anybody's feet."
And Baba said, "This is not anybody; and you are a fool-you should take
them to the other side. Don't be worried. The soul that is within this womb is
capable of saving thousands of people, so don't be worried about your sixty
people-take her."
So my mother was saying, "At that time I became aware that I was carrying
someone special."
I said, "As far as I understand, Sai Baba was a wise man: he really
befooled the boatman! There is no miracle, there is nothing. And boats
don't sink just because somebody is traveling with their sister's son. There
is no rationality in the idea, it is just absurd. Perhaps sometime accidentally
it may have happened and then it became a routine idea."
My own understanding is that because in Krishna's life his mother's brother
was told by the astrologers that "one of the children of your sister will kill
you ,"he kept his sister and his brother-in-law in prison. She gave birth to
seven children, seven boys, and he killed them all. The eighth was Krishna,
and of course when God Himself was born, the locks of the prison opened
up, and the guards fell fast asleep, and Krishna's father took him out.
The river Yamuna was the boundary of Kansa's kingdom. Kansa was the
person who was killing his sister's sons in the fear that one of the sons was
going to kill him. The Yamuna was in flood-and it is one of the biggest
rivers in India. The father of Krishna was very much afraid, but somehow
the child had to be taken to the other side, to a friend's house whose wife
had given birth to a girl so he could exchange them. He could bring the girl
back with him because the next morning Kansa would be there asking,
"Where is the child?" and planning to kill him. A girl he wouldn't kill—it had to
be a boy.
But how to cross this river? There was no boat in the night, but it had to be
crossed.
But when God can open locks without keys, without anybody opening
them-they simply opened up, the doors opened up, the guards fell asleep-
God would do something.
So he put the child in a bucket on his head and passed through the river¬
something like what happened to Moses when the ocean parted. This time
it happened in an Indian way. It could not have happened to Moses
because that ocean was not Indian, but this river was.
As he entered the river, the river started rising higher. He was very much
afraid: what was happening? He was hoping the river would subside, but it
started rising. It went to the point where it touched the feet of Krishna, then
it receded. This is the Indian way, it cannot happen anywhere else. How
can the river miss such a point?
When God is born and passing through her, just giving way is not enough,
not mannerly.
Since that time there has been this idea that there is a certain antagonism
between a person and his sister's son, because Krishna killed Kansa. The
river was crossed, it subsided; it favored the child. Since then rivers are
angry against maternal uncles-
all the rivers of India. And that superstition is carried even today.
I told my mother, "One thing is certain-that Sai Baba must have been a
wise man and had some sense of humor." But she wouldn't listen. And it
became known in the village what had happened, and to support it, after
one month another thing happened which.. In life there are so many
coincidences out of which you can make miracles. Once you are bent upon
making a miracle then any coincidence can be turned into a miracle.
After one month there was a very great flood, and in front of my mother's
house in the rainy season it was almost like a river. There was a lake, and a
small road between the lake and the house, but in the rainy season so
much water came that the road was completely like a river, and the lake
and the road became merged into one. It was almost oceanic; as far as you
could see it was all water. And that year perhaps India had the biggest
floods ever.
Floods ordinarily happen every year in India, but that year a strange thing
was noted, that floods started reversing the rivers' flow of water. The rains
were so heavy that the ocean was not able to take the water as quickly as it
was coming, so the water at the ocean front was stuck; it started flowing
backwards. Where small rivers fall into big rivers, the big rivers refused to
take the water, because they were not able even to contain their own water.
The small rivers started moving backwards.
I have never seen it—that one also I missed--but my mother says that it was
a strange phenomenon to see the water moving backwards. And it started
entering houses; it entered my mother's house. It was a double-storied
house, and the first story was completely full of water. Then it started
entering the second story. Now, there was nowhere to go, so they were all
sitting on the beds, the highest place that was possible there. But my
mother said, "If Sai Baba was right, then something will happen." And it
must have been a coincidence that the water came up to my mother's
stomach and then receded!
These two miracles happened before I was born, so I have nothing to do
with them.
But they became known; when I was born I was almost a saint in the
village!
Everybody was so respectful; people were touching my feet, even old
people. I was told later on that "the whole village has accepted you as a
saint."
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