Talk:Main Kahta Aankhan Dekhi (मैं कहता आंखन देखी)

The principal source of the confusion surrounding and permeating this book appears to be a conflation with Gahre Pani Paith (गहरे पानी पैठ). Thus it will be useful to explore the relationship of these two books, since their overlapping/merging is deep-rooted and long-standing.

A good place to start will be the amazing variety of choices for number of discourses. Four: In recent years, the Diamond and OMI editions have both had four chapters, with the same titles in the same order and with the page count the same order of magnitude. This is good, has an appearance of solidity. Six: According to the CD-ROM, Dimensions Beyond the Known, MKAD's translation, has six chapter-discourses. This also seems like a relatively solid datum, corroborated by numerous editions of Dimensions. Seven: Many of the Indian audio sites have seven mp3-discourses. Most will be based on Osho World's seven, but since they have no titles -- no OW audiobook was found, just the unnamed free download ones -- this might be considered a little less solid, but, okay, let that fact be noted.

For parallel universe fans, let it also be noted that Gahre has its four-and-six aspects. The six is again the CD-ROM, ie it shows six discourse-chapters for Gahre's translation, Hidden Mysteries, and the four is Gahre "itself." It is augmented by two one-chapter booklets on Jyotish, Indian Astrology, to make six in the translation. And a fairly useless factoid but nonetheless interesting: the 2012 Diamond edition of Gahre and the 2010 OMI edition of MKAD have exactly the same picture of Osho, not exactly a high-odds possibility. Got the hair on the back of your neck standing on end yet?

Anyway, back to the numbers of discourses, what about thirteen and 33? As it turns out, the one source of the thirteen info has an excellent record of sorting out these kinds of anomalies, and that is Tao Vision. So what do they have to offer this time? Well, they assert that MKAD is the über-name of an amalgamation of four smaller volumes: the four-discourse versions of MKAD and Gahre, two discourses worth of Jyotish and a three-discourse volume called "Sannyas." This thirteen-theory can thus account for all the other lower numbers AND for the confusion with Gahre. Is that all there is to it?

Well, not exactly. There is info from other sources to weigh in. Some of it is garbled, some contradictory, but some cannot be easily brushed aside.

We have, from Osho World again, an audiobook offering for the two Jyotish discourses, which they identify as "Mai Kahta Ankhan Dekhi, 9 to 10)":

प्रवचन:

1. ज्योतिष अद्वैत का विज्ञान (Jyotish Advait Ka Vigyan)

2. ज्योतिष अर्थात अध्यात्म (Jyotish Arthat Adhyatma),

both chapters from the version of Gahre that became Hidden Mysteries.

We have "Doc X," giving dates for MKAD that have a few small mistakes but basically correspond to dates for the first four of MKAD plus the whole of Gahre, including the two Jyotish dates.

And we have Neeten, who has a few references to MKAD in his Osho Source Book (see link at his page):

From his Bibliography section: Main Kahata Akhem Dekhi (What I'm telling you I've seen with my own Eyes). Jevan Jagruti Kendra, 1971. 136 p. 1st ed. Colored front and back. Alt.t.: Hidden Mysteries.

From his Appendix: Main Kahta Akhan Dekhi (Dimensions Beyond the Known). 28.02.70-09.07.71.(1973). 7 talks. Bombay. (A)

and Main Kehata Ankhan Dekhi. 28.02-10.07.1971. 10 talks. Poona.

and from Bombay: the image used for the first cover shown, but without any info attached.

Okay. On the one hand it confirms the entanglement of Gahre and MKAD. At this point we could accept the model from Tao Vision as sufficient description/explanation. But there is a nagging concern that arises from Neeten's data. His book cover image from the 70s does match the description of the cover in his Bibliography section. But when we consider the rest of the data there, some potentially disturbing implications arise: a) There is nothing on that cover to suggest Gahre, either as a component of MKAD or whatever. b) The alt-title suggested is of course Gahre's translation title. c) The pub date, 1971, can only connect with Gahre, as the final discourses of MKAD were not given until 1973.

Yes, and ...? Well, if it is legitimate to join that image with that description, then the incongruity of the lack of any mention of Gahre on the cover is striking and may tend to rule out a "systematic" or organized connection, Gahre as an intended component of MKAD. What we may have is something unintended, an accident, mistake, confusion or afterthought, "rectified" and rationalized later. If it matters.

To finish off the numbers-of-discourses exploration, the 33 comes from another quarter entirely, a G**gle Books peek inside the 2006 Diamond Books edition of Kranti Sutra (क्रांति सूत्र). There it says baldly in plain English that Kranti was previously published as chapters 11-33 of MKAD. We can quibble or not about the fact that Kranti actually has only 22 chapters, not 23, but note that those 22 chapters are fairly short, with Kranti only coming to 168 pages. Thus, if we consider what a 33-chapter MKAD might look like, it will not be the purported 525-page monster of the 1988 Tao edition. (How about 325? Could 525 be a mistake? What kind of scenario would 525 pages fit anyway, irrespective of Kranti?)

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Meanwhile, the four-discourse chapter titles of OMI's book, osho.com's audiobook and Diamond's book. And fwiw, the Hindi blurb for that book describes it as autobiographical, in keeping with the autobiographical themes of the English chapter titles and indeed of MKAD (roughly "I am saying what my eyes have seen"), though these chapter titles seem unrelated to those of Dimensions:

1. सत्य सार्वभौम है

2. चिन्मय कौन? अजन्मा क्या?

3. आकाश जैसा शाश्वत है सत्य

4. धर्म की गति ओर तेज हो!

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Finally, a note on transliteration. MKAD has more than its share of transliteration variety, with Mein, Mai, Kehta, Kahata, Akhan, Ankhan and more showing up. The good news is that it doesn't seem to interfere much with relatively complete searches. -- doofus-9 (talk) 22:53, 5 October 2014 (PDT)