“Detectives? The police then? The police stations and policemen, must there be such things?”
“They are useless, at least, to artists.”
“Nor are they of any good to me. I have never had any occasion to be taken care of by them.”
“I do not doubt you.”
“For that matter I don’t see why you should take their sniffing so much to heart. If I were you I would let them do all the sniffing they want. Even the police won’t bother you as long as you keep straight. My predecessor used to tell me that a man must be able to make a clean breast of everything within him in broad daylight at Nihonbashi, the centre of Tokyo, and to find nothing to be ashamed of in it. Till then, he cannot be said to have finished his culture. You, my young friend, should strive to reach that stage of culture. Then you shall have no need of fleeing from Tokyo.”
“You can rise to that height as soon as you shall have become a true artist.”
“You had become one, then.”
“But the police sniffing is more than I can bear.”
“There, there, you are at it again. Look at that Nami-san of the hot spring hotel. She was tormented by all kinds of worrying thoughts on coming home to her father after being divorced from her husband, until she at last came to me, asking me, to free her from her mental anguish. I have been training her in the holy teaching, and she is now mastering herself wonderfully. You have seen yourself what a highly rational young woman she is.”
“Yes, yes, I have thought she is a woman of no ordinary culture, Osho-san.”