OSHO: OSHO International Foundation presents Osho: Books I Have Loved. I have loved reading from my very childhood. My own personal library consisted of one hundred fifty thousand rare books of all the religions, philosophies, poetry, and literature.

And I have read all of them, but with no purpose; I enjoyed it.

My father used to go at least three or four times to Bombay, and he would ask all the children, "What would you like?

" And he would ask me also, "If you want anything, I can note it down and bring it from Bombay." I never asked him.

Once I said, "I only want you to come back more human, less fatherly, more friendly, less dictatorial, more democratic.

Bring a little more freedom for me when you come back." He said, "But these things are not available in the market." I said, "I know they are not available in the market, but these are the things I would like: a little more freedom, a little bigger rope, fewer orders, fewer commandments, and a little respect." No child has asked for respect.

You ask for toys, sweets, clothes, a bicycle, and things like that. You get them, but these are not the real things which are going to make your life blissful.

I asked him for money only when I wanted to purchase more books; I never asked for money for anything else.

And I told him, "When I ask for money for books, you had better give it to me." He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "I simply mean that if you don't give it to me, then I will have to steal it.

I don't want to be a thief, but if you force me, then there is no way.

You know I don't have money. I need these books and I am going to have them, that you know.

So if money is not given to me, then I will take it; and remember in your mind that it was you who forced me to steal." He said, "No need to steal.

Whenever you need money, you simply come and take it." And I said, "You be assured it is only for the books," but there was no need for the assurance because he went on seeing my library growing in the house.

Slowly, there was no place in the house for anything other than my books. And my father said, "Now, first in our house, we had a library; now in the library, we have a house!

And we all have to take care of your books because if something goes wrong with any book, you make so much fuss, you create so much trouble that everybody is afraid of your books.

And they are everywhere; you cannot avoid stumbling on them. And there are small children...." I said, "Small children are not a problem to me; the problem is the older children.

The smaller children—I respect them so much that they are very protective of my books." It was a strange thing to see in my house.

My younger brothers and sisters were all protective of my books when I was not there: nobody could touch my books.

And they would clean them and they would keep them in the right place, wherever I had put them, so when I needed any book, I could find it.

And it was a simple matter because I was so respectful to them, and they could not show their respect in any other way than to be respectful to my books.

I said, "The real problems are the older children, my uncles, my aunts, my father's sisters, these are the people... my father's brothers-in-law-- these are the people who are the trouble.

I don't want anybody else to mark my books, underline in my books.

I hated the very idea that somebody should underline in my books. One of my father's brothers-in-law--he was a professor, so he must have been in the habit--would write notes on my books.

I had to tell him, "This is simply not only unmannerly, uncivilized, it shows what kind of mind you have.

To me, a book is not just a book; it is a love affair.

If you underline any book, then you have to pay for it and take the book. Then I don't want that book here, because one dirty fish can make the whole pond dirty.

I don't want any book prostituted--you take it." He was very angry because he could not understand.

I said, "You don't understand me because you don't know me much. You just talk to my father." And my father said to him, "It was your fault.

Why did you underline his book? Why did you write a note in his book?

What purpose did it serve you? Because the book will remain in his library. In the first place, you never asked his permission that you wanted to read his book.

You will be surprised that by the time I was a matriculate, I had read thousands of books.

I was finished with Kahlil Gibran, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, Turgenev.

When I was finishing my intermediate, I was finished with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Bertrand Russell -- all the philosophers that I could find in any library, in any bookshop, or borrow from anybody.

Why did you stop reading in 1980 and how do you stay informed on world events?

I've heard that you enjoy movies... and watch movies at times. Is that true?

Once in a while, because I don't read anymore. Otherwise, I was perhaps the most educated man in the whole world.

My own personal library was one hundred fifty thousand volumes, of immense value, and I was reading continuously. But then I got my own truth and all those books started seeming rubbish.

Slowly, slowly they became meaningless. Once in a while, one book may turn out to have some significance, but five years before, I stopped it.

It was too much. You read one hundred books and one book sometimes turns out to be of any meaning.

And that too is not going to increase my consciousness, my being. So for five years I have not read anything -- no newspaper, no radio, no television.

Once in a while, if my sannyasins see a film which they feel has something significant, then I see it.

But very rarely. For example, Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, when it became a film, then I saw it because I consider that book to be far more valuable than the Holy Bible.

It is so immensely rich with insights. So it happens once in a while that they bring something if they feel that it may interest me.

Then I see it. But rarely. Featuring: "Music From the World of Osho." Source: The Last Testament, Vol. 1, #26; From Misery to Enlightenment, #15; The Last Testament, Vol. 3, #4 Copyright © Osho International Foundation, Switzerland.

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OSHO: Books I Have Loved

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