The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 8. THE USELESS
marketplace, in the very center of the town, just to show that the useless must remain at the very
center, otherwise all utility is lost. The opposite must be taken into account, and the opposite is
greater.
What is the purpose of life? People keep coming and asking me this. There is no purpose. There
cannot be any. It is purposeless, fun. You have to enjoy it, you can only enjoy it, you cannot do
anything else about it. It is not marketable. And if you miss a moment you have missed; you cannot
go back.
Religion is just a symbol. One man came to me and said, ”In India there are five hundred thousand
sannyasins. This is very uneconomical. And what are these people doing? They live on others’
labor. They should not be allowed to exist.”
In Russia they are not allowed to exist, not a single sannyasin. The whole land has become like a
prison. You are not allowed to be useless. In China they are killing Buddhist monks and BHIKKUS,
they have killed thousands of them, and they are destroying all the monasteries. They are turning
the whole country into a factory, as if man is just the stomach, as if man can live by bread alone.
But man has a heart, and man has a being which is not in any way purpose-oriented. Man wants to
enjoy without cause and without reason. Man wants to be blissful just for nothing.
That man asked, ”When are you going to stop these sannyasins in India?” And he was very much
against me. He said, ”You are increasing the number of them. Stop it. What use are these
sannyasins?”
And his question seems relevant. If he had gone somewhere else, if he had asked some other
religious head, he would have been given the answer that they have a use. But he was very disturbed
when I said that they have no use at all.
But life itself is without use. What is the purpose of it? Where are you going? What is the result?
No purpose, no result, no goal. Life is a constant ecstasy, moment to moment you can enjoy it but
if you start thinking of results you miss enjoying it, your roots are uprooted, you are no longer in it,
you have become an outsider. And then you will ask for the meaning, for the purpose.
Have you observed that when you are happy you never ask, ”What is the purpose of happiness?”
When you are in love, have you ever asked, ”What is the purpose of all this?” When in the morning
you see the sun rising and a flock of birds like an arrow in the sky, have you asked, ”What is the
purpose of it?” A flower blooms alone in the night, filling the whole night with its fragrance; have you
asked, ”What is the purpose of it?”
There is no purpose. Purpose is part of the mind, and life exists mindlessly; hence the insistence
on the useless. If you are looking too hard for use, you cannot drop the mind. How can you drop the
mind if you are looking for some use, some result? You can drop the mind only when you have come
to realize that there is no purpose and mind is not needed. You can put it aside. It is an unnecessary
thing. Of course, when you go to the market, take it with you. When you sit in the shop, use it: it is
a mechanical device, just like a computer.
The Empty Boat 148 Osho