The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 8. THE USELESS
WITH NOWHERE SOLID EXCEPT UNDER EACH FOOT,
HOW LONG WILL HE BE ABLE TO USE WHAT HE IS USING?”
HUI TZU SAID:
”IT WOULD CEASE TO SERVE ANY PURPOSE.”
CHUANG TZU CONCLUDED:
”THIS SHOWS THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITY
OF WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE NO USE.”
Life is dialectical, that is why it is not logical. Logic means that the opposite is really opposite,
and life always implies the opposite in itself. In life the opposite is not really the opposite, it is the
complementary. Without it nothing is possible.
For example, life exists because of death. If there is no death there cannot be any life. Death is
not the end and death is not the enemy – rather, on the contrary, because of death life becomes
possible. So death is not somewhere in the end, it is involved here and now. Each moment has its
life and its death; otherwise existence is impossible.
There is light, there is darkness. For logic they are opposites, and logic will say: If it is light, there
cannot be any darkness, if it is dark, then there cannot be any light. But life says quite the contrary.
Life says: If there is darkness it is because of light; if there is light it is because of darkness. We
may not be able to see the other when it is hidden just around the corner.
There is silence because of sound. If there is no sound at all, can you be silent? How can you be
silent? The opposite is needed as a background. Those who follow logic always go wrong because
their life becomes lopsided. They think of light, then they start denying darkness; they think of life,
then they start fighting death.
That is why there exists no tradition in the world which says that God is both light and darkness.
There is one tradition which says that God is light, he is not darkness. There is no darkness in God
for the people who believe God is light. There is another tradition that says that God is darkness –
but for them there is no light. Both are wrong, because both are logical, they deny the opposite. And
life is so vast, it carries the opposite in itself. It is not denied, it is embraced.
Once somebody said to Walt Whitman, one of the greatest poets ever born, ”Whitman, you go on
contradicting yourself. One day you say one thing, another day you say just the opposite.”
Walt Whitman laughed and said, ”I am vast. I contain all the contradictions.”
Only small minds are consistent, and the narrower the mind, the more consistent. When the mind
is vast, everything is involved: light is there, darkness is there, God is there and the devil too, in his
total glory.
The Empty Boat 137 Osho