The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 9. MEANS AND ENDS
A small boy of five was asked by his teacher, ”Has your younger sister learned to talk yet?”
The boy said, ”Yes, she has learned to talk – and now we are teaching her to be quiet.”
This is the misery. You have to teach words, it is part of life, and then you have to learn how to be
silent, and how to be wordless. Universities, parents, teachers, they teach you words, and then you
have to find a master who can teach you how to keep quiet.
A German scholar came to Ramana Maharshi and said, ”I have come from very far away to learn
something from you.”
Ramana laughed and said, ”Then you have come to the wrong place. Go to some university, some
scholar, some great pundit; there you will be able to learn. If you come to me then be aware that
learning is not possible here, we teach only unlearning. I can teach you how to unlearn, how to
throw words away, to create space within you. And that space is divine, that space is God.”
Where are you seeking? In words, in scriptures? Then one day or other you will become an atheist.
A pundit, a scholar, cannot remain a theist for long. Remember, howsoever he knows, whatsoever
he knows about The Bible and the Gita and the Koran, a scholar is bound to become an atheist one
day because that is the logical consequence of gathering words. Sooner or later he will ask: Where
is God? No Bible can reply, no Gita can supply the answer. Rather, Bibles and Gitas and Korans,
when they are too much on your mind, will make you miss the divine because the whole of your
mind space is filled...there is too much furniture in you. God cannot move. God may not be able to
make any contact with you if the mind is too wordy. Then it is impossible to listen, and if you cannot
listen, how can you pray? It is impossible to wait, words are too impatient, they are knocking from
within to get out.
I have heard:
Once it happened that at three o’clock one morning Mulla Nasruddin phoned the bartender and said,
”What time is the bar going to open?”
The bartender said, ”This is no time to inquire such a thing. You are a regular customer, Nasruddin,
and you know that we don’t open before nine in the morning. Go back to sleep and wait until nine.”
But ten minutes later he phoned again and said, ”This is urgent. Tell me when the bar is going to
open.”
Now the bartender felt annoyed. He said, ”What do you think you are doing? I told you not a single
minute before nine. And don’t keep phoning me.”
But ten minutes later he phoned again. The bartender said, ”Have you gone mad? You will have to
wait until nine.
Nasruddin said, ”You don’t understand. I am locked in the saloon and I want to get out!”
If your mind is too burdened with words, theories, scriptures, they will keep knocking: Give way, we
want to get out! And when the mind wants to get out, God cannot enter in you. When the mind
The Empty Boat 155 Osho