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The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

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CHAPTER 8. THE USELESS ”IF YOU HAVE NO APPRECIATION FOR WHAT HAS NO USE YOU CANNOT BEGIN TO TALK ABOUT WHAT CAN BE USED. THE EARTH, FOR EXAMPLE, IS BROAD AND VAST, BUT OF ALL THIS EXPANSE A MAN USES ONLY A FEW INCHES UPON WHICH HE HAPPENS TO BE STANDING AT THE TIME. ”NOW SUPPOSE YOU SUDDENLY TAKE AWAY ALL THAT HE IS NOT ACTUALLY USING, SO THAT ALL AROUND HIS FEET A GULF YAWNS, AND HE STANDS IN THE VOID WITH NOWHERE SOLID EXCEPT UNDER EACH FOOT, HOW LONG WILL HE BE ABLE TO USE WHAT HE IS USING?” This is a beautiful simile. He has got the point. You are sitting here, and you are using only a small space, two by two. You are not using the whole earth, the whole earth is useless; you are using only a small portion, two by two. Says Chuang Tzu: Suppose the whole earth is taken away, only two by two is left for you; you are standing with each foot using a few inches of earth. Suppose only that is left and the whole earth is taken away – how long will you be able to use this small part that you are using? A gulf, an infinite abyss, yawns around you – you will get dizzy immediately, you will fall into the abyss. The useless earth supports the useful, and the useless is vast, the useful is very small. And this is true on all levels of being: the useless is vast, the useful is very small. If you try to save the useful and forget the useless, sooner or later you will get dizzy. And this has happened, you are already dizzy and falling into the abyss. All over the world thinking people have a problem: life has no meaning, life seems to be meaningless. Ask Sartre, Marcel, Jaspers, Heidegger – they say life is meaningless. Why has life become so meaningless? It never used to be so. Buddha never said it; Krishna could dance, sing, enjoy himself; Mohammed could pray and thank God for the blessing that he showered upon him as life. Chuang Tzu is happy, as happy as possible, as happy as a man can be. They never said that life is meaningless. What has happened to the modern mind? Why does life seem so meaningless? The whole earth has been taken away and you are left only on the part on which you are sitting or standing. You are getting dizzy. All around you see the abyss and the danger; and you cannot use the earth on which you are standing now, because you can use it only when the useless is joined with it. The useless must be there. What does it mean? Your life has become only work and no play. The play is the useless, the vast; the work is the useful, the trivial, the small. You have made your The Empty Boat 144 Osho

CHAPTER 8. THE USELESS life completely filled with work. Whenever you start doing something the first thing that comes to the mind is, what is the use of it? If there is some use, you do it. Sartre sets one of his stories in the coming century, the twenty-first. A very rich man says, ”Love is not for me, it is only for poor people. As far as I am concerned my servants can do it.” Of course, why should a Ford go and waste time loving a woman? A cheap servant can do that. Ford’s time is more valuable. He should put it to some greater use. It is possible! Looking at the human mind as it is, it is possible that in the future only servants will make love. When you can depute a servant, why bother yourself? When everything is thought of in terms of economics, when a Ford, a Rockefeller can make so much better use of their time, why should they go and waste their time with a woman? They can send a servant, that will be less trouble. It looks absurd to us hearing this but it has already happened in many dimensions of life. You never play, your servants do that. You are never an active participant in any fun, others do it for you. You go to see a football match: others are doing it and you are just watching – you are a passive spectator, not involved. You go to a movie to see a film, and others are making love, creating war, violence – everything; you are just a spectator in the seat. It is so useless you need not bother to do it. Anyone else can do it, you can just watch. Work YOU do, fun others do for you. Then why not love? Using the same logic, somebody else will do it. Life seems meaningless because the meaning consists of a balance between the useful and the useless. You have denied the useless completely. You have closed the door. Now only the useful is there and you are burdened too much by it. It is a sign of success that if by the age of forty you get ulcers, it shows that you are successful. If you have passed forty and are now fifty and still the ulcers have not appeared, you are a failure. What have you been doing all your life? You must have been wasting time. By fifty you really ought to have your first heart attack. Now scientists have calculated that by forty a successful man must have ulcers, by fifty the first heart attack. By sixty he is gone – and he never lived. There was no time to live. He had so many more important things to do, there was no time to live. Look all around you, look at successful people; politicians, rich men, big industrialists – what is happening to them? Don’t look at the things they possess, look at them directly, because if you look at the things you will be deceived. Things don’t have ulcers, cars don’t have heart attacks, houses are not hospitalized. Don’t look at things, otherwise you will be deceived. Look at the person bereft of all his possessions, look directly at him and then you will feel the poverty. Then even a beggar may be a rich man. Then even a poor man may be richer as far as life is concerned. Success fails, and nothing fails like success, because the man who succeeds is losing his grip on life – on everything. The man who succeeds is really bargaining, throwing away the real for the unreal, throwing away inner diamonds for colored pebbles on the shore; collecting the pebbles, losing the diamonds. The Empty Boat 145 Osho

CHAPTER 8. THE USELESS<br />

”IF YOU HAVE NO APPRECIATION FOR WHAT HAS NO USE<br />

YOU CANNOT BEGIN TO TALK ABOUT WHAT CAN BE USED.<br />

THE EARTH, FOR EXAMPLE, IS BROAD AND VAST,<br />

BUT OF ALL THIS EXPANSE A MAN USES ONLY A FEW INCHES<br />

UPON WHICH HE HAPPENS TO BE STANDING AT THE TIME.<br />

”NOW SUPPOSE YOU SUDDENLY TAKE AWAY<br />

ALL THAT HE IS NOT ACTUALLY USING,<br />

SO THAT ALL AROUND HIS FEET A GULF YAWNS,<br />

AND HE STANDS IN THE VOID<br />

WITH NOWHERE SOLID EXCEPT UNDER EACH FOOT,<br />

HOW LONG WILL HE BE ABLE TO USE WHAT HE IS USING?”<br />

This is a beautiful simile. He has got the point. You are sitting here, and you are using only a small<br />

space, two by two. You are not using the whole earth, the whole earth is useless; you are using only<br />

a small portion, two by two. Says Chuang Tzu: Suppose the whole earth is taken away, only two by<br />

two is left for you; you are standing with each foot using a few inches of earth. Suppose only that is<br />

left and the whole earth is taken away – how long will you be able to use this small part that you are<br />

using?<br />

A gulf, an infinite abyss, yawns around you – you will get dizzy immediately, you will fall into the<br />

abyss. <strong>The</strong> useless earth supports the useful, and the useless is vast, the useful is very small. And<br />

this is true on all levels of being: the useless is vast, the useful is very small. If you try to save the<br />

useful and forget the useless, sooner or later you will get dizzy. And this has happened, you are<br />

already dizzy and falling into the abyss.<br />

All over the world thinking people have a problem: life has no meaning, life seems to be meaningless.<br />

Ask Sartre, Marcel, Jaspers, Heidegger – they say life is meaningless. Why has life be<strong>com</strong>e so<br />

meaningless? It never used to be so. Buddha never said it; Krishna could dance, sing, enjoy<br />

himself; Mohammed could pray and thank God for the blessing that he showered upon him as life.<br />

Chuang Tzu is happy, as happy as possible, as happy as a man can be. <strong>The</strong>y never said that life is<br />

meaningless. What has happened to the modern mind? Why does life seem so meaningless?<br />

<strong>The</strong> whole earth has been taken away and you are left only on the part on which you are sitting or<br />

standing. You are getting dizzy. All around you see the abyss and the danger; and you cannot use<br />

the earth on which you are standing now, because you can use it only when the useless is joined<br />

with it. <strong>The</strong> useless must be there. What does it mean? Your life has be<strong>com</strong>e only work and no play.<br />

<strong>The</strong> play is the useless, the vast; the work is the useful, the trivial, the small. You have made your<br />

<strong>The</strong> <strong>Empty</strong> <strong>Boat</strong> 144 <strong>Osho</strong>

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