The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 7. THREE FRIENDS
Whenever you feel mystery you have two alternatives: either you weep or you laugh. It depends
on your personality, your type. It is possible, if they had been different types of personality, that the
three friends would have wept. When such a mystery surrounds you, when you encounter such an
unknowable mystery that no explanation is possible, what can you do? How can you respond?
But laughter is better than weeping because weeping comes when the mystery of death surrounds
you. Then you weep. And the question was about life so it was relevant to laugh. Whenever you
encounter the mystery of death you weep, you feel the relevance whenever death is there.
The question was about life, not about death. So it seems relevant that they should look into each
other, into the life that was in each – the life pulsating, the life dancing all around and with no
explanation, with no secret book to reveal the keys; life in its total mystery, in its total unknowability.
What was there to do? They were not philosophers, they were truthful men, mystics. They laughed,
they had no explanation.
THUS THEY WERE BETTER FRIENDS THAN BEFORE.
This is beautiful! Whenever there is an explanation enmity arises, whenever you believe in
something you are divided. Belief creates conflict. The whole world is divided because of belief.
You are a Hindu and someone is a Mohammedan, and you are enemies. Why are you enemies? –
because of your belief. Belief creates the conflict; foolish explanations, ideologies, create conflict,
war.
Look at this: if there is no explanation, who is a Hindu and who is a Mohammedan? And how can
you fight? For what? Men have always been fighting over philosophies, shedding blood, murdering
each other, just for foolish beliefs. And if you DO look into beliefs, you can see the foolishness –
not of your beliefs, but of others’ beliefs! Your belief is something sacred, but everyone else’s belief
looks foolish!
All beliefs are foolish. You cannot see your own because it is so near. Really, explanations are
foolish, stupid.
I have heard that a flock of birds was flying south for the winter. One bird at the rear asked another,
”How come we always follow this idiot leader?”
The other said, ”In the first place, all leaders are idiots...” otherwise who wants to lead? Only the
foolish are always ready to lead. A wise man hesitates. Life is so mysterious – it is not a readymade
path. How can you lead? A wise man hesitates and an idiot is always ready to lead.
”...And in the second place, he has got the map, so every year we have to follow him.”
Life has no map and there is no possibility of making a map. It is a pathless path. Without
explanations how can you be divided? If there is no explanation, the world will be one. But there are
millions of explanations, millions of fragments.
Chuang Tzu says a really very penetrating thing:
The Empty Boat 130 Osho