The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 6. THE MAD PROJECTIONIST
operation was a success and the man was able to see. But he was very annoyed with the doctor.
He went to his house and said, ” You lied to me. I still cannot read.” ”How is that possible?” asked
the doctor. ” You are able to see everything, then why can’t you read?” ”I never learned how to read,”
replied the man.
Even if you recover your eyesight, it does not make you able to read when you have never learned
how to. No matter how smooth the floor, if you don’t know dancing.....; dancing does not depend
on the smoothness of the floor, it has to be learned. And remember there is no one else who can
teach you! You are all alone! The enlightened ones can give you hints, but it is you alone who will
have to learn. Nobody can hold your hand and teach you. The dance of life is so within, so deep
that outside hands cannot reach there. Nobody else except you can enter there. You are completely
alone there. Everybody else is outside.
The soul is a dancer. Sorrow and joy are the two ways in which it can dance. If you are unhappy
then you have chosen the wrong way to dance. Change your way. Don’t blame anybody. Do not
complain. As long as you complain, you will go on dancing in the wrong way; because you will never
realize that the mistake is mine....; it is always the other that you try to blame.
Stop complaining. Look at yourself and wherever you find sorrow arising, look closely, you will find
the cause within you. Drop those causes! What is the purpose of doing things which bring only
sorrow and pain? Why do you go on sowing seeds which yield only poisonous fruits? Why do you
go on gathering their crop every year? It would be best not to sow the crop at all. Even if it stays
empty, it is not bad. In fact, it is best that the field stays unsown for a while, so that all the old seeds
have time to die away; and you are able to sow new ones.
Why are you so afraid of being empty? Meditation is this empty state. It is like a farmer leaving
the land empty for a year or two, doesn’t sow anything; meditation is such a state in between; it
is the empty space between heaven and hell. Leave it alone for a few days. Don’t sow anything.
Remember one thing: rather than doing something wrong, it is better not to do anything at all. Just
stop for a while and don’t do anything. Till you know how to do it right, it is better not to do at all; for
each action, each wrong action gives rise to a chain of actions. One wrong action sets off a chain
of wrong actions. This is what we call karma, a net of our actions.
You are always doing something. You cannot sit idle, you will go on doing something. Sitting idle,
doing nothing – in itself is meditation. Sit and do nothing, so that the old habit drops away and
gradually you begin to see things clearly. But you are so busy that you do not have the time or the
convenience to see.
The only meaning of meditation is that you sit silently and do nothing for one or two or three hourswhatever
time you have. Just watch, observe so that by and by your vision becomes sharp and
penetrating, and you begin to realize that whatever has happened in my life up to now, I was the
cause. As soon as this realization dawns on you, you will stop sowing worthless seeds. A meaningful
dance will be born within you.
Religion is supreme bliss; it is not the sadness of renunciation but the enjoyment of existence. It is to
be merged with the supreme enjoyment. It is to become one with the dance of existence. Don’t ever
think of religion in terms of sadness and renunciation. The religion that thinks in terms of sadness
The Great Path 109 Osho