Osho talks about Mohammed

I am reminded of Mohammed. He was an uneducated man, he was a shepherd. But he was very sincere and very honest, very truthful and very kind. One very rich woman, who was a widow, and who was far older than Mohammed…

Mohammed was only twenty-six, and he was so poor that he could not manage to get married — it was difficult for him even to survive. To take a burden of a woman, and then children, was inconceivable for him. But this widow was very rich; she was forty years old and he was twenty-six. She fell in love with Mohammed.

He used to take care of her sheep and other animals; he used to take them to the mountains. His sincerity and his truthfulness was the cause of her falling in love with the man; otherwise the man had nothing. And the woman was very rich, she could have married any rich man, any prince.

Mohammed was surprised when she proposed, he could not believe it. He said, “But I don’t have anything – for what reason are you marrying me?”

She said, “You have everything, because you have a sincerity, a truthfulness, a deep honesty. You can be trusted. And these are the qualities I have fallen in love with.”

The first experience of Mohammed… he himself could not believe that he had experienced the ultimate peak of consciousness. Because he was a poor man, and he had never even thought himself worthy… that existence would be so kind to his poor self! He became so afraid, seeing the light, that he came back home. He had a high fever, the experience had been such a shock. Although it had happened, he could not believe it; it had shaken him to the very roots, he was a transformed man.

The first person to recognize that something great had happened was his wife; because there was a light all around him, and there was a different vibe that had never been there before. But he was trembling with fever, so she took him inside the house, dropped over him all the blankets that she had, and still he was trembling.

She said, “What is the matter? Why you are so much afraid? What have you seen?”

He said, “Don’t tell anybody, perhaps it is what people call God. I am not worthy of it, but what I have seen has shaken me from the very roots. I am a totally different man. I don’t see myself continuous with my past; suddenly a new man, a rebirth.”

It was his wife who became the first Mohammedan. She touched his feet, and she said, “You don’t be worried. You don’t understand because you are not educated. You are so innocent that you are not aware of your worth, of your sincerity, of your truthfulness, of your honesty. God has chosen you for the same reason that I have chosen you. And initiate me to be your first disciple. Don’t say no just because I am rich and old, and I am your wife – and before that I had been your master, your boss. Don’t say no, just accept me. And many more will be coming, but don’t let me miss the chance to be the first Mohammedan. Love has its own ways, truth has its own ways, sincerity has its own ways.”

She was his first convert, although he himself was not yet certain what had happened; it was too much for him, too overwhelming, beyond his capacities of understanding. But that woman was well-educated, well-cultured, and she spread the message of Mohammed in the beginning days of Islam.

And when people saw that she had become a convert… it was a rare thing that a woman became a convert by her own husband. First, it was a shock to the people that an educated, a super-rich woman, had fallen in love with one of her servants – uneducated, almost a beggar. And now, a second surprise: that she had become a convert to the servant.

It all depends on you. In life never throw responsibilities on others. If you are sincere and your rebelliousness has your heartbeat in it, then nobody can prevent you; particularly those who are close to you will be the first to join hands with you.

Osho – ‘The Rebel’, chapter 30
15 June 1987 pm, Chuang Tzu Auditorium, Pune, India