The Thought and the Reality – A Hindu Spiritual Story by Osho

The Hindu heaven has certain trees, which they call kalpavriksha, wish-fulfillment trees. You don’t have to order a cup of tea or a woman or a car; you don’t have to order anybody; you don’t have to call any bearer or give a call to some agency. You just sit under the wish-fulfilling tree — and they are all over heaven, everywhere — you just sit underneath and you say whatever you want, and immediately, instantly, it will be provided.

There is a beautiful story of a man, who by some accident stumbled into heaven. He had no idea where he had reached. He was sitting under a kalpavriksha. He was feeling very hungry. He had been traveling a lot and that is how he had stumbled somehow by accident into heaven.

He said, “I am feeling hungry but I don’t see any hotel anywhere, any restaurant, nothing. I don’t see even a single man. But I am feeling very hungry, if I could get some good food… Immediately beautiful women appeared from nowhere with all kinds of sweets and delicious foods. He was so hungry that he did not pay attention to where all these things were coming from.

He started eating, feeling perfectly well. He was tired. He went to sleep. Before going to sleep, he thought that sleeping on the ground, uneven with stones, if someone could arrange just a mattress, and suddenly — he could not believe — again beautiful women appeared with a beautiful bed and they put him on the bed. But he was so tired that he still did not think what was going on.

When refreshed, he awoke. He thought, my God, there is nobody here who has brought the food, and I have not said to anybody; I just thought about it! And he looked at the beautiful bed, “Who has brought this? I had simply thought about lying down on the ground. It seems there must be ghosts around.” That was the natural conclusion, because he was not aware that he was in heaven, under a kalpavriksha.

“There must be ghosts all around, my God” — and immediately ghosts appeared, because whatever you would say…

ThThe moment he saw the skeletons of ghosts dancing all around, he said, “My god, they are going to kill me” — and they killed him. The man never came back.

As told by Osho in “The Invitation”