The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 7. MEDITATION IS THE SEED
always asks. Faith says: ”What do I have that I fear losing?” There is nothing apart from anxiety,
anguish and distress. Why be afraid of losing them? Is there any bliss, any joy in you, so that you
are afraid you might lose it and be so much the poorer for it? You have nothing. You are like the
naked man who wouldn’t bathe because he had no place to dry his clothes. he had no clothes, so
there was no question of washing and drying them, but such anxieties catch hold of the mind.
You have nothing to lose, absolutely nothing, and everything to gain. This is false. Truth always
looks inward: ”What do I have?” Logic always looks to the future: ”What will happen?” Truth looks to
the present.
People come to me and I tell them to jump into sannyas. They say, ”Not now, after a year,” as if I
am taking something away from them. As if they need a full year to muster the courage. They want
to postpone it as if I want them to renounce something. They have nothing; they possess nothing
except misery, wretchedness and poverty. I want to give them the glory of sannyas. I don’t intend
to take anything away; rather, I want to give them something. To me, sannyas is not renunciation;
rather, it is a door to supreme enjoyment. You become... you feel... like a king for the first time in
your life when you take sannyas, but alas, you view your beggar’s attitude as a treasure.
Whenever I tell someone to jump into sannyas he looks at me as if I am snatching something away
from him. I am amazed. If only he had something to lose then I could understand it. You have
nothing! Not even rubbish! All that you have, all that you own, is a Pandora’s box filled with the
scorpions and snakes of anxiety suffering, anguish and all kinds of ills. Why you hold on to all of
this is beyond my understanding. What is the reason? The reason is plain: you don’t look in this
direction at all. You are always concerned with what you will get.
People ask me: ”What will we attain by meditating?” And that is the error that they make. I want
them to ask themselves what they have attained by not meditating. We cannot vouch for what will
be attained, for the future is unknown. Besides, the seed and the tree never meet. The seed will
remain a seed. How can we make the seed meet its future? When the seed perishes, only then
does the tree come into being. By the time the tree is formed the seed is no more, so how can you
show the tree to the seed? As long as you are a seed, you are a seed; when you become the tree
you are no longer the seed. The seed and the tree never meet.
You want a guarantee for the future. To whom is this guarantee to be given? The seed you no longer
exist – you will not remain. The man who trusts asks: ”What do I have?” Then he finds: ”I have
nothing. I am naked.” Once he realizes that he is naked, why worry about drying his clothes?
Once this knowledge dawns on you, you will be ready to set out on the journey into the unknown,
because then you are prepared for anything. You hold no fear of losing anything. If you gain
something, good! If you don’t, you can’t be any worse off than you already are. Or do you think
you can be? People are worried that they might fall into a state worse than their present condition.
Mulla Nasruddin was habitually saying: ”It could have been worse.” Whenever anyone told him
something the Mulla invariably replied, ”It could have been worse.” His friends were tired of hearing
this. At last an incident occurred in the neighborhood and the friends were confident that the Mulla
would never be able to use his pet phrase in this context.
The Great Path 136 Osho