H.G. Wells
Osho – This world is almost a madhouse. To be sane here will look like becoming insane. H.G. Wells has written a story: There is a valley somewhere in Mexico where a small tribe lives, hidden deep in the mountains. They are all blind. A fly is found in that valley; once a person is bitten by that fly he becomes blind. Every child is born with eyes, but it is difficult to avoid that fly. It is very common, every house is full of those flies.
So one day, two days, three days, at the most a week or two weeks; if a child is very fortunate then one month, two months, three months, but sooner or later he is going to be bitten by the fly and he will become blind. By the time he becomes a little conscious he finds himself blind. So the whole community is blind.
A man comes from another community to visit, to see. He had heard rumors. He could not believe that the whole community was blind. He saw, but he could not believe his eyes. He fell in love with a blind girl of that community, but the community wouldn’t allow them to be married because it had never happened, there was no precedent.
And they could not believe that he had eyes, and of course they were in the majority. They thought he was mad. Nobody had ever heard about eyes — what was he talking about? Rainbows and colors and the sun and moon… he must be mad, utterly mad! Who had ever heard about these things?
But he was in such love, and the girl was in such love, that finally the community conceded, but with a condition. They said, “We have never married our girls to another community, never before. This is happening for the first time. We will allow you to marry our girl, but with a condition: we will have to destroy your so-called eyes.
We cannot allow our girl to be married to a madman. If you are ready to be blind, as you think we are, then only can you marry the girl.” Their logic was right — if they had never heard of anybody having eyes, how could they believe?