Osho on Fear

In my childhood I had a friend whose father was a magician. They had a very good business—the business was that they had a few snakes. Being continually in their house, slowly I learned that ninety-seven percent of snakes don’t have any poison. Only three percent of snakes have poison, and only one percent, the cobra, is very dangerous. Once the cobra bites you it is very difficult to save you. Death is almost certain. But the snakes all look alike.

The father used to have non-poisonous snakes, and he would send his son—who was my friend, and I accompanied him many times—to somebody’s house. There we would leave two or three snakes around, and then the father would come with his special musical instrument that was used for snakes. He would announce, “If anybody has snakes in his house, I can catch them.” As he started playing on his instrument, the snakes that we had left around the house would start coming, and for that service the housekeeper had to pay. He would say, “It is very good of you—once in a while you should come back, because we were not aware that there were snakes in our garden.”

Knowing that there are snakes which don’t have any poison, I would enter into my class with a snake in my pocket. I would just leave it on the table of the teacher, and he would stand on his chair and shout, “Save me!” The other students are running out…who is going to save him except me? And I would tell him, “I will save you, but remember that I have saved your life. You should not be nasty with me. Promise?” And with that snake sitting on his table, you could have taken any kind of promise.

Finally it was reported to the principal that a strange thing was going on. But a principal is just the same as anybody else. When he called me, I went there with two snakes. And I left them on his table, and he stood on his chair, and everybody in the whole school was looking through the windows—what is happening? I said, “Now, do you have something to say to me?”

He said, “No. Just don’t bring these things in my office!”

I said, “I have not come on my own, you have called me. Now I cannot go without your promising me that you will not be nasty to me.”

He said, “This is strange…but I promise, I will not be nasty to you.”

I said, “That’s okay; then I can persuade the snakes.”

People have lived with such fear. Fear always seems to be around them—anything can create fear. And if the man had been a little spontaneous, he could have seen that if I can manage those snakes, certainly there must be some trick and there is no need to be afraid. But the very word snake is enough to trigger all the fears, of centuries of humanity, that you are carrying within you.

To my father it was reported, “Now your son is becoming more and more dangerous.” My father said, “I have promised him, just as you have promised, not to interfere. Otherwise he will start bringing those snakes in the house!” (Om Mani Padme Hum: #20)
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