posted December 09, 2007 02:31 PM         

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A Sufi mystic was made a kazi; he was made a justice, a judge. He was a wise man, a man of understanding – what Lao Tzu calls of “deep” understanding.

The first case was brought before him. The first party argued. He listened intently, and then he said, “Right, absolutely right.”

The clerk of the court was worried because he had not yet heard the other party, and how can a judge say this without listening to the other party? So he leaned toward the judge and whispered in his ear, “I think you are not aware of the ways of the court. You should not say this because it is a judgment, the case is finished. But you have not heard the other party! How can you say to one party that they are right?”

The judge said, “You are right. Let me hear the other party.”

He heard the other party, listened intently and then said, “Right, absolutely right.”

Now the clerk thought that this man was mad. How could both be right together? He leaned over again and said, “What are you doing? Are you drunk or are you mad? How can both be right?”

The judge said, “Of course, you are right. How can both be right?”

This is a man of deep understanding, for whom everybody is right – because he can penetrate to the very depth of your being and can see your viewpoint also. He is not enclosed in his own viewpoint, in his own philosophy, in his own doctrine. He has none, in fact. He is an open phenomenon. He can come into you and look through you and can see why, why you are insisting; he can feel why you feel you are right.

But then this type of man will be a mystery. Either you will call him mad or you will call him a sage who is beyond the world, but it is none of his affair to interfere with your life.

This is what happened to Mahavira. He created a logic; such a logic never existed before. He created a logic which is called syatvad, the logic of perhaps. Whatsoever you say he would say, “Perhaps you are right.” If somebody came and said, “I believe in God,” he would say, “Perhaps God is.” Always perhaps. How can you be absolutely wrong? With a life force, a god in you, how can you be absolutely wrong? Something must be right. Maybe we cannot understand it, maybe we cannot feel it, but something must be right in you. If god exists in everybody, then everybody has a right to be right somehow.

Mahavira penetrates deeply. The man is sitting there, another comes and says, “I don’t believe in God, God does not exist.” And Mahavira says, “Perhaps you are also right. There is a sense in which god exists and there is a sense in which god doesn’t exist.” He created a
new logic, a new dimension to logic.

There are only two logics: one is that of Aristotle and the other is that of Mahavira. Aristotle says A can only be A and A can never be B. And Mahavira says A is A and can also be B, can also be C, can also be D – up to Z. Just so many angles, so many angles of seeing a thing – he says that there are seven standpoints. But it is difficult to understand Mahavira, that’s why his following could not grow much. It was impossible. Even those who follow him, they follow him because they are accidentally born in his fold; otherwise it is impossible. I have not come across a single Jaina who can really follow Mahavira. was talking to a Jaina muni, one of the great acharyas of Jaina munis, and I asked him, “What do you think about syatvad?”

He said, “It is absolutely true.”

I said, “Then you are not a syatvad.

You should say ‘perhaps.’ Even about Mahavira you should say, ‘Perhaps he is right.’”

But no Jaina can say that perhaps Mahavira is absolutely right – there they miss. They say that Jainism is absolutely right, and the whole point of Jainism is that nothing is absolutely right.

Absolute Tao - Osho

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