The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 7. THREE FRIENDS
CONFUCIUS SENT A DISCIPLE
TO HELP THE OTHER TWO CHANT HIS OBSEQUIES.
Neither life nor death is a mystery to him. It is something with a place in a system, and some formality
had to be followed. So he sent his disciples to see whether the dead man had been disposed of
according to the rules, with the right prayer, the right chanting – as written in the books. The dead
should be respected.
This is the difference. A man who lives through manners is always thinking of respect, never of love.
And what is respect in comparison to love? Love is something alive; respect is absolutely dead.
THE DISCIPLE FOUND
THAT ONE FRIEND HAD COMPOSED A SONG
WHILE THE OTHER PLAYED THE LUTE.
This was unbelievable! This was disrespectful to a person who is dead! The dead body was lying
there, and one friend had composed a song. They loved the other man, and when you love a man
you want to give him the last farewell through your love, not through books, not through a readymade
song which so many have chanted, so many have used, something already rotten and rubbish. They
made up a song of their own, fresh, young. Of course, it was homemade, not produced in a factory,
not mass-produced. Just homemade, not very polished of course, because they were not poets,
they were friends, and they didn’t know how poetry was created. The meter may have been wrong
and the grammar incorrect, but love doesn’t care about grammar, love doesn’t care about meter,
love doesn’t care about rhythm, because love has such a vital rhythm of its own, it need not care.
When there is no love, everything has to be taken care of because you have to substitute care for
love.
One was playing the lute – and I know that he was not a lute player either. But how do you say
goodbye to a friend? It must come from your heart, it must be spontaneous, it cannot be readymade.
That is the point.
THEY SANG:
”HEY SUNG HU, WHERE’D YOU GO?”
The mystery! They did not say, ”You are going to heaven.” They don’t know. Otherwise, when
someone dies you say, ”He has gone to heaven.” Then who will go to hell? No one seems to go to
hell.
In India, the word for a dead person is SWARGIYA. It means, one who has gone to heaven. Then
who is going to hell? They didn’t know, so what was the point of uttering a falsehood? Who knows
where this man had gone, this Sung Hu – to hell or heaven? Who knows whether hell and heaven
exist? Nobody knows; it is a mystery, and one should not defile a mystery, one should not make it
profane, one should not assert falsehoods. It is such a sacred thing, one should not say anything
which is not known directly.
The Empty Boat 132 Osho