Osho and the Beedi Baba
Posted on 26 May, 2012 by sannyasnews
The Beedi Baba
One day in Pune one Osho asked
two disciples to visit the Beedi Baba. (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj). He lived in the Bombay back streets over his tobacco shop. He taught advaita there, and some westerners had also begun to go and see him. This followed the 1973 publication of a book, called “I am That” which was a brilliant translation by Maruice Frydman of Maharaj’s satsang talks in a crowded room above his shop. Whether Maharaj smoked Beedi’s all the time when he wasn’t talking, well, I was never there. Osho seemed to think so. The two disciples, were requested to rendezvous with Vivek in front of Lao Tzu house so they could obtain directions. They found his shop easily enough when they got to Bombay.
“Smoke?” he asked.
They nodded
“American?” he asked
, again assent. All sat in the smoking area. Silence descended for some time. one of the disciples later said it was like “The silence of another dimension” . After a while Maharaj stirred and left, as did they. As one said later “what transpired
remains
a mystery”.
Not surprisingly, as Osho clearly had some regard or interest in Maharaj, in that he sent two disciples there, Osho was typically scathing in his public comment. For example:
“There is a man in Bombay, Nisargadatta Maharaj. Nobody knew this big name; he was known to the masses as “Beedie Baba” because he was continuously smoking beedies. You can find such in every village such kinds of beedie babas. I think India has seven hundred thousand villages and each village must have at least one; more is possible. And Amrito wrote a few days ago to me, because another young Dutchman became very much involved with Beedie Baba…
The man seems to be very sincere, but the trouble is that the people who come from the West have a very childlike heart, very trusting, and they are unaware that in India spirituality is just a routine. Everybody talks about great things and their lives are as ugly as possible. When Beedie Baba said that he would speak only to this young Dutchman, naturally his ego must have felt tremendously vast.
The crowd that surrounded Beedie Baba was also of the same quality… rickshaw wallahs waiting for their passengers, sitting by the side of Beedie Baba. And when he said he would not speak to anybody unless it was this Dutchman… So he spoke to the Dutchman, who has now compiled books on Beedie Baba.
Now in India it is almost parrot-like, but to the Westerner it seems to be a tremendous revelation — when Beedie Baba said, “Aham brahmasmi; I am God, I am that” the young Dutchman immediately wrote a book: I AM THAT! Because for the West, spirituality is a foreign affair, just as for the East, science is a foreign affair.”
So there you have it, Osho in paradoxical form. I have read “I am That”. It is a great book. Maybe Osho had also read it and sensed something… As someone once said you can hold that book in your hand, and still get transmission after only reading a few paragraphs. To me it is a miracle, because Maharaj had absolutely no formal education, and yet felt at home , as we would say in the west, with this high level of spiritual discourse. And one more thing, Maharaj lived until 84, so did he really smoke that much. I doubt it.