The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 9. RIGHT SEARCH, WRONG DIRECTION
which is mine can never be me. Whatever is mine is within my control, but it is not myself. If your
leg is amputated you do not feel yourself to be diminished by that amount. If you lose your limbs or
lose your eyes, or any other part or faculty of your body, you still remain an integrated whole. The
body is crippled but you are a perfect whole.
For this reason the most ugly men does not see himself as ugly, for inside each one of us is beautiful.
And the worst of sinners is not prepared to call himself a sinner for he catches glimpses of the good
and generous aspects of himself. He will admit that a particular action was wrong, but he will insist
that it was a mistake, for he is not a bad man. He calls the act wrong, but not his own self. This is
as it should be though he does not know why it is so.
People around you, in your family, in your neighborhood, in your town, die; but you never feel that
you too will die. This must be a deep seated, innate feeling, for is it not astonishing that you don’t
think about death for yourself when others are dying in front of you? You may philosophize outwardly,
but deep inside there is the peeling of bells proclaiming your immortality: Others may die, but I can
never die! If this were no so, it would be difficult to live where death is taking place every moment.
All around, death occurs with such persistence. Each man stands in the queue awaiting his turn –
even you! And there you live with such nonchalance, as if life were eternal. There is an intrinsic
reason, which is: that which is within can never die. No matter how much you identify yourself with
the body, you are not the body. The truth within cannot be falsified by any means. You may drown
yourself with intoxicants but the sound of truth keeps reverberating within.
One morning I found Mulla Nasruddin sitting outside his house. He was laughing so loudly and so
long that I had to ask him what made him so happy. He said, ”A most wonderful thing has happened,
but you will not understand it unless I tell you the whole story.”
”Please tell me the story,” I asked.
”I had a twin brother,” began the Mulla. ”We were so alike that it was difficult to tell who was who.
This gave me no end of trouble. He would throw a stone at someone in school and I would be caught
and punished. He would steal something and it was me who was punished. He started rows in the
street and the neighbors would catch hold of me. It was the same at home. And as if this was not
enough, he ran away with my girl.”
”Then what is there to be happy about, Mulla?” I asked him.
”Seven days ago I got even with him!” gloated Nasruddin.
”How come”? I asked
”I died, but they buried him!”
Now no one can be as stupid as this! The Mulla was dead drunk. But you have also spent many
lives just as drunk; yet you are never so drunk that your consciousness is completely absent. It
surfaces again and again. Somewhere deep within you are aware of the immortality of your being.
All the facts point to one certainty: – that you will die! And yet you keep believing that you will never
die.
The Great Path 162 Osho