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• BHAGAVADGEETA III - Karmayoga
• From Lemurs to Lamas

Translated by Swami Satya Vedant

Discourses given by Osho at Cross Maidan, Bombay
28th December, 1970 - 7th January 1971

Question: Beloved Osho, we seem to have understood Sankhya a little bit, but it has not yet become part of our experience. Hence questions keep coming. Beloved Osho, are not belief in knowledge, that is Sankhya, and belief in action, that is Yoga, complete in themselves? Or, are they complementary to each other? Why do they appear contradictory? Please explain.

OSHO:  There is no contradiction between Sankhya and Yoga. But for one who finds the way of Sankhya comfortable, for him moving in the direction of Yoga will give adverse result. And for one who finds Yoga to be promising, Sankhya will prove to be quite opposite.  So actually, Sankhya and Yoga are not contradictory, but because there are two types of people in the world, for some Sankhya may be absolutely wrong and for others Yoga may be absolutely right. For some, Yoga may prove to be entirely wrong and Sankhya may prove to be totally right.

There are two types of people in the world. Carl Gustav Jung has made two broad divisions of people. One he calls the “extrovert”, the other he calls the “introvert”. Yoga is of no use for those who are introvert. For those who are introvert, Sankhya is enough -- more than enough. Those who are extrovert will not be able to grasp Sankhya. They will be able to understand only action. Because, remember, for action one has to go outward; for knowledge one has to move inward. If one were to get into action inwardly it will not be possible. Can you get into action inwardly? In order to involve in action one has to be an extrovert; one will have to come out from within only then action is possible.  Hence, the more hardworking a person is the more he will move away from himself -- he will go to the moon, the stars. He cannot move inward.

Yoga is a path for extrovert people. Sankhya is a path for introvert people. And these are basically the two types of people. Certainly there is a contradiction in these two types of people, but there is no contradiction between Sankhya and Yoga. This needs to be understood properly; because, often contradiction found in people appears to be contradiction in scriptures -- although, actually there is none. For example, the contrast we find between Mahavira, Buddha, Shankara and Nagarjuna exists between these individuals. There is no contradiction in what they are saying about the truth, the experience, and the state of the world beyond. But certainly the paths they have followed to reach are different -- not only different but contradictory as well.

For example, for an extrovert person religion will be an altruistic act; while for an introvert person religion will mean meditation. An introvert person will not be able to understand altruism right away. An extrovert person will not be able to follow meditation immediately. He will say: what good is moving inward? Whatever has to be done has to take place outside. Whatever possibility of happening there is, it is outside.

So these are the two broad categories of people. Ordinarily, no one is either totally extrovert or totally introvert. These are broad divisions. We are all a mixture -- partly introvert, partly extrovert. The difference is only of degrees. Sometimes it may happen that an individual is ninety percent extrovert and ten percent introvert. But by and large, people are of mixed nature. It is very rare that a person is purely introvert; because, such a person will not be able to live even for a moment. For food he will have to come out, for taking a bath he will have to be out. If a person becomes one hundred percent introvert, he will be dead. 

A one hundred percent extrovert person will also die immediately because, he too will have to sleep for which he will have to go inward. He will need rest for which he will have to go within. After work, some space for oneself is essential. One needs to spare oneself from friends and loved ones otherwise his contact with the inner sources will be lost and he will be finished. Hence this division is basically theoretical. Between one individual and another there are differences in degrees. Someone may be ninety percent extrovert and ten per cent introvert.

Arjuna is an extrovert. Hence it is impossible for him to understand Sankhya. Or, he can understand it only so much as to raise new questions. But that cannot bring fulfillment in his life, why? Why is Arjuna extrovert?  For his whole life he was trained as a Kshatriya , a warrior. He has lived his life doing something -- and doing it with great skill. He has spent his life keeping the other in mind -- through challenges, competitions, conflicts and wars. 

An introvert man can never become a Kshatriya . And even if an introvert person were to be born in a Kshatriya family, he can never remain a Kshatriya. All twenty four teerthankaras were born in Kshatriya families but could not remain Kshatriya. They are all introvert. Mahavira is an introvert person. He finds the outer world totally meaningless. Buddha was born in a Kshatriya family but could not remain a Kshatriya. He found the whole expanse of the outer world, the entire web of karmas futile; hence he dropped everything and left.

If an extrovert person were to be born in a Brahmin family, such as Parashurama; he cannot remain a Brahmin, he will become a Kshatriya. A Kshatriya is essentially an extrovert – if he wants to be successful as a Kshatriya.  It is easier for Arjuna if wants to be a successful Kshatriya. Rather, one should say, Arjuna is an ideal Kshatriya. His whole personality is exactly like it should be that of a Kshatriya. Krishna talked to him of Sankhya in the first instance because Arjuna was speaking like a Brahmin.

Although Arjuna is a Kshatriya, but he is asking questions a Brahmin would ask. He is standing on the battlefield, but the questions he is raising are worthy to be asked in gurukuls (mystery schools). His questions are such that they should be asked to a Buddha sitting under a bodhi tree in the solitariness of a forest. But he is asking questions right at the beginning of the war where conches have already been blown and the soldiers are lined up against each other. In a moment blood will start flowing. At this juncture the queries he is making are more like coming from a Brahmin.

Krishna has shown a great insight here. Since Arjuna is speaking like a Brahmin, Krishna at the outset put forward Sankhya -- the ultimate possibility for being a Brahmin. Krishna said: If you are really in the state of a Brahmin, then Sankhya is enough for you, then knowledge will be good for you. But this didn't serve the purpose. Arjuna remained stuck to where he was -- it was an effort in vain.

The work on Arjuna in the second chapter is a waste. Had it materialized, the Geeta would have stopped right there; then there would have been no reason to continue it any further.  

Now Krishna will have to talk to Arjuna coming down each step at a time hoping that perhaps the idea one step below may become easier for him to understand. One thing has become clear -- Arjuna is not a Brahmin. That is not his individuality; that is not his personality. So here, Sankhya has proven to be useless -- though not because Sankhya is useless. It proved to be so because of Arjuna, because it is useless for Arjuna. But as far as Krishna is concerned, Sankhya was the most important thing. Hence he discussed Sankhya in the very beginning. 

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Confessions of a Bodhisattva
Prem Purushottama Goodnight

This book is dedicated to this oceanic presence which we call Osho.

From the Lowlands to the Highlands

The coast of Madagascar was a sight to see. Miles and miles of white beaches, palm trees with the mountains behind and not a soul in sight. We pulled into some small village in the north of the country which had a French-run sugar mill. I think we were picking up cargo which would be dropped off in Majunga. There was to be a party at the company that night and we were invited by the French management. I don’t think I have ever seen a group of guys as shit-faced as we were including myself. We were all young lads and had been days at sea. The Comoros was a Muslim country so we didn’t have any refreshments while there. Whiskey was the drink of choice, and I’ve never really been much of a hard alcohol drinker, which I reaffirmed that night.

The boat had navigated an estuary to the small village and in order for us to leave we had to time the tides exactly. We didn’t. We missed and so ended up aground and leaning to one side. We had to wait for the next high tide. Another couple of days sailing down the Madagascar coast and we finally arrived in Majunga.

Majunga was a dusty port town. This part of Madagascar is mostly made up of people of African and Arabic descent. All of the buildings were sun-bleached white and reflected the hot

sun. Peter and I were anxious to get on our way so we didn’t linger long. We hitchhiked out of town. The journey from the coast to Antananarivo is beautiful; from the dry desert landscape near Majunga to the highlands of central Madagascar. When you reach the highlands you begin to see the terraced rice fields of the Malagasy. On the second to the last day a French expat couple picked us up and offered us a room in their house for the night. Wine and cheese in the evening and an omelet in the morning was quite a treat after days at sea.

When Peter and I arrived in Tana we were quite shocked. First there was the architecture; the city was built on hills and the houses were two stories high made with brick and had wooden balconies, unexpected in Africa. Apparently some Scottish fellow helped plan the city and put his stamp on the look. Below the hills, there was a small lake which was surrounded by jacaranda trees. On one side of the lake is the Hilton Hotel, the only high-rise building in the country. But most surprising to us were the women. The highland Malagasy people are of Indo-Malay descent; so long black straight hair, dark olive skin and almond shaped eyes. Considering we were off the S.E. coast of Africa we were quite surprised. On that very first day wandering around the city I said, “This is a place I could get stuck in for awhile.” It proved itself true.

At that time, which was 1973, there were very few travelers who ventured through Madagascar, so it became known right away to those travelers who were living in Tana that there was some new blood in town. We were introduced to an American with shoulder length hair and about our age named Derek. He was teaching English at the American Cultural Center. He offered us a place to stay until we found something else and mentioned that they needed a substitute teacher for an evening class at the center. I explained that I had never taught before and he immediately reassured me that it didn’t matter. “You just need to look over the lesson before you teach.” That was the beginning of my English teaching career. I substituted that evening and was offered a job for the next term, which would be beginning in about a month.

In the meantime the burning pee, my souvenir from Mombasa returned. Apparently I had not taken a strong enough dose. We checked in with the American Embassy, to let them know we were in town and also to get a recommendation for a doctor. The vice-consul was a young very light-skinned black American, really nice guy, Skip was his name. He pointed me towards the embassy doctor and welcomed us to Madagascar. There was a NASA listening post on Madagascar at that time, so there were a few American expats living in Tana. The Malagasy doctor gave me antibiotics for the gonorrhea and I was careful to explain that I had already been given a dose in The Comoros but apparently not strong enough. I wanted to be sure to get one strong enough this time so that I wouldn’t have to come back again.

Well I did have to go back again. It returned. So, so did I, to the doctor and got another dose. By this time I was on my third dose of antibiotics and they were beginning to take its toll. After the third dose had run its course and I still wasn’t rid of the gonorrhea, I was wasted. And my pee was no longer burning, it was brown. Somehow the gonorrhea had morphed into hepatitis. Probably what had happened was that the antibiotics played havoc on my liver and perhaps caused a reoccurrence of the hep that I had had several years earlier in the States. But regardless, my pee was brown and I couldn’t stay awake nor eat a thing. Fortunately, we had met some French school teachers who were going on holiday and offered us there flat while they were gone.

By this time I knew that I was going to stay in Madagascar to teach the next term, but Peter wanted to continue on to South Africa. After all he had a friend waiting for him there, with work. He made arrangements for a flight to Johannesburg. But Peter did stick around and look after me until I was on the road to recovery. I was pretty useless, but amazingly only for a short while. The forced down time was an opportunity to read Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi.

After only a couple of weeks I was getting better. We calculated what I owed Peter and I said I would send it to him after I started working. By buying dollars on the black market, I managed to send all the money I owed him in pretty short order. I ended up staying two years in Madagascar, teaching and traveling, and it became a crucial point in my life.

What I found in Madagascar was a reconnection with life: living, being, enjoying. Life was good. Eventually there was a girlfriend, Voahangy, a beautiful Malagasy. She helped me find a big house to rent and many of the Center’s English teachers ended up living there communally. We also had a room for the travelers coming through. Randy Dodge was on the top floor in a kind of attic space. Keenan, an American, wanted to have the verandah with his Malagasy girlfriend and I had the room on the other side of the wall. One of my windows looked out into his space. There was also a New Zealander and an Australian. Randy’s girlfriend was named Rickey, a very young, extremely beautiful and smart Malagasy girl. I think she was 18 or 19 at the time. She was one of my students from book two through book six and into the advanced English class. Voahangy didn’t need to be an English student. Her English was perfect. She was my age and a doctor. Her sister was married to another of the center’s teachers, and in

fact it was he, who I replaced. Unfortunately, I had to share Voahangy. She already had a boyfriend when I met her at a party at Skip’s, the American vice-consul. Her boyfriend worked for the FOA, the United Nations Organization for Forestry and Agriculture, and so was always traveling around the island, fortunately. We spent whatever time together that we could.

I had two visitors from Kansas City while in Madagascar. The first was a previous girlfriend. It was terribly awkward. Our relationship had finished a couple of years before I left the States, although I did visit her on the way out. It was very difficult for me and extremely uncomfortable for her. I just couldn’t pretend. It didn’t help that she had put on 20 or 30 pounds since I had last seen her, but really we were done. I hoped that she would meet a Malagasy guy. She didn’t stay very long. The second was someone who I didn’t really know very well. We had gone to high school together and she was one year behind me. She had a great time and became a teacher and stayed quite some time. I don’t remember if she left Madagascar before me or after. Her name is Donna Price. We’ll meet up again.

It was the assassination of President Ratsimandrava on February 5, 1975, that set off a series of events that would eventually lead to my leaving Madagascar. The killing was blamed on a political group from the coast and battle waged in Antananarivo for days. For a couple of them we all just stayed in the house and listened to the gunfire. I remember running to the bathroom and ducking under the windows, just in case shots came through. Actually, we found it quite exhilarating. We had never been in a coup before and were young and thought that we were invincible. When the shooting died down we went out on the street to survey the situation and had to run for cover into the American Embassy when the shooting started up again. We spent the night at the embassy and a great bond was formed with everyone who was  there: the marine guards, the staff, and us traveler teachers. A curfew was established and we had to change the schedule of our classes and begin at 6:00 am in order to be able to close before curfew.

During the curfew, one night, I went home with a lady expecting to stay the night only to find that she wasn’t a she, but a he. The curfew had already begun and I found myself out on the street when I shouldn’t be. Fortunately, one of my students was a Colonel in the Gendarmes, and it was he who drove by in a jeep and kindly dropped me off at home.

The political scene was very unsettled for months and every Malagasy who could was making plans to go to France. After Didier Ratsiraka was installed as the President in June, things got even dicier, especially for the Americans. He was much more of a socialist and had strong ties to both China and Russia. It was known that he would be closing the NASA post so all of the Americans working there started making plans too.

In the middle of the fighting in Tana between the rival factions, the prison just outside of town was closed and all of the inmates were freed. They were to be interred at a later date when it was safer. One of the beneficiaries of this situation was an American businessman, George Reppas. He had been arrested for some kind of fraud involving his business with Malagasy Beef that he was exporting. Apparently they were contrived charges in order to get him out of the picture so that his Malagasy partners could take over the business. He had kept himself fit in his tiny cell by practicing yoga daily. Because of the closing of the prison he had been released into the care of the American Embassy who was responsible for him not going anywhere. He was staying in a room somewhere in Tana and had a young Malagasy girlfriend  who had looked me up. By this time the semester at the Cultural Center had completed and I was planning a trip to Mauritius and La Reunion.

The expat scene in Antananarivo was very small and everyone knew just about everyone else and what they were up to. George’s girlfriend, who coincidentally was leaving the island with her family, which was a jazz group, and also going to La Reunion, proposed that somehow I could help George escape from Madagascar. He had made some arrangements for a boat to pick him up off Majunga in the north. We made arrangements that he go with a friend of ours who rented a car and would drive him up to Majunga while myself and a buddy would make our way south to Fort Dauphin. There we could catch a boat to La Reunion. Because everyone knew that Ginger, my Australian buddy, and I were going to Fort Dauphin we thought that it would act as a decoy for George.
Ginger and I hitchhiked to the south of the country. Southern Madagascar is very rugged terrain, with terrible roads, even today and the journey took a few days. In Fort Dauphin, there was an American school operated by the American Lutheran Church, and was a place that American expats went for R & R. When George went missing, and knowing that Ginger and I were traveling, there the embassy assumed that he was with us and figured they would get hold of him in Fort Dauphin.

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