The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 7. THREE FRIENDS
”HEY, SUNG HU, WHERE’D YOU GO?”
– it was a question mark.
”HEY, SUNG HU, WHERE’D YOU GO?
YOU HAVE GONE WHERE YOU REALLY WERE,
AND WE ARE HERE – DAMN IT, WE ARE HERE!”
They say, ”You have gone to the place from where you came.” This is a secret law: the ultimate can
only be the beginning. The circle goes round and becomes perfect, complete, and it reaches the
same point it started from. The end cannot be anything else but the beginning, the death cannot
be anything else but the birth. The final should be the source, the original. One is born out of
nothingness and then one dies and moves into nothingness. The boat was empty when you were
born and when you die the boat will be empty again. Just a flash of lightning. For a few moments
you are in the body and then you disappear. Nobody knows from where you came and where you
go.
They don’t claim any knowledge. They say, ”This much we feel: Sung Hu, you have gone to the
place from where you came, and damn it, we are still here.” So they are not sorry for Hu, they are
sorry for themselves, that they are hanging in the middle and his circle is perfect.
Whenever somebody dies, have you felt this? Are you sorry for the person who is dead or sorry for
yourself? Really, when someone dies, are you sad for him or her, or for yourself? Everybody is sorry
for himself because every death brings the news that you are going to die. But a person who can
laugh at the mystery of life knows what it is, because only knowledge, real wisdom, can laugh.
Where you really were you have gone...
”AND WE ARE HERE – DAMN IT, WE ARE HERE!”
And we are still in the middle. Our journey is incomplete, but your circle has become perfect. So
they are sorry for themselves, and if they weep, they are weeping for themselves. For the friend who
has departed they have nothing but a song, nothing but a celebration of the heart. If they are sorry,
they are sorry for themselves.
This is something to be understood very deeply. If you understand life, if you can laugh at it, then
death is the completion, then it is not the end. Remember, death is not the end of life, it is the
completion, it is the climax, the crescendo, the peak from where the wave returns to the original
source.
They are sorry for themselves, that their wave is hanging in the middle. They have not reached the
crescendo, the peak, and their friend has reached where he was before. He has reached home.
Those who understand life, only they can understand death, because life and death are not two.
Death is the peak, the ultimate, the final flowering, the fragrance of life.
The Empty Boat 133 Osho