The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 7. THREE FRIENDS
Friends can discuss. Why? You can love a person, you cannot love a philosophy. Philosophers
cannot be friends. You can be either their disciple or their enemy but you cannot be their friend.
Either you are convinced by them or not convinced, either you follow them or don’t follow them, but
you cannot be friends. A friendship is possible only between two empty boats. Then you are open
to the other, inviting to the other, then you are constantly an invitation, come to me, enter me, be
with me.
You can throw away theories and philosophies but you cannot throw away friendship. And when you
are in friendship a dialogue becomes possible. In dialogue you listen, and if you have to speak, you
speak not to contradict the other, you speak just to seek, to inquire. You speak, not with a conclusion
already reached, but with an inquiry, an ongoing inquiry. You are not trying to prove something: you
speak from innocence, not from philosophy. Philosophy is never innocent, it is always cunning, it is
a device of the mind.
Three friends were discussing life – because between friends a dialogue is possible. So in the East
it has been the tradition that unless you find friendship, love, reverence, trust, no inquiry is possible.
If you go to a master and your boat is filled with your ideas, there can be no contact, there can be
no dialogue. First you have to be empty so that friendship becomes possible, so that you can look
without any ideas floating across your eyes, so that you can look without conclusions. And whenever
you can look without conclusions, your perspective is vast, it is not confined.
A Hindu can read The Bible, but he never understands it. Really, he never reads it, he cannot listen
to it. A Christian can read the Gita, but he remains the outsider. He never penetrates its innermost
being, he never reaches the inner realm, he moves round and round it. He already knows that only
Christ is true, he already knows that only through Christ is salvation; he already knows that only
Christ is the son of God. How can he listen to Krishna? Only Christ is truth. Krishna is bound to
be untrue, at the most, a beautiful untruth, but never true. Or if he concedes much, then he will say,
approximately true.
But what do you mean when you say approximately true? It is untrue! Truth is either there or not.
Nothing can be approximately true. Truth is, or truth is not. It is always total. You cannot divide it.
You cannot say it is true to some degree. No, truth knows no degree. Either it is or it is not.
So when the mind contains the conclusion that Christ is the only truth, then it is impossible to listen
to Krishna. Even if you come across him on the path you will not be able to listen to him. Even if you
meet Buddha you will not meet him.
And the whole world is filled with conclusions. Someone is a Chris-tian, someone is a Hindu,
someone is a Jaina, someone is a Buddhist – that is why truth is missing! A religious person cannot
be a Christian, a Hindu, or a Buddhist, a religious person can only be a sincere inquirer. He inquires
and he remains open without any conclusions. His boat is empty.
Three friends discussing life.... Only friends can discuss because then it becomes a dialogue, then
the relationship is of I and thou. When you are debating, the relationship is of I and it. The other is
a thing to be converted, convinced, the other is not a thou; the other has no significance, the other
is just a number.
The Empty Boat 123 Osho