The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 9. MEANS AND ENDS
IS TO CONVEY IDEAS.
WHEN THE IDEAS ARE GRASPED
THE WORDS ARE FORGOTTEN.
If you really understand me, you will not be able to remember what I said. You will catch the fish
but you will drop the trap. You will be what I said but you will not remember what I said. You will
be transformed through it but you will not become a more learned man through it. You will be more
empty through it, less filled; you will go away from me refreshed, not burdened.
Don’t try to gather what I say because whatsoever you gather will be wrong. Gathering is wrong:
don’t accumulate, don’t fill your treasure chest from my words. Words are excreta, they are not
worth anything. Throw them out, then the meaning will be there, and meaning does not have to be
remembered; it never becomes part of the memory, it becomes part of your wholeness. You have
to remember a thing only when it is part of the memory, just of the intellect. You never need to
remember a real thing that has happened to you. If it happens to you, it is there – what is the need
to remember? Don’t repeat, because repetition will give you a false notion.
Listen, but not to the words – just by the side of the words the wordless is being given to you. Don’t
be too focused on the words, just look a little sideways also because the real thing is being given
there. Don’t listen to what I say, listen to me! I am also here, not only the words. And once you listen
to me, then all words will be forgotten.
Buddha died, and the bhikkhus, the disciples, were very disturbed because none of his sayings had
been collected while he was alive. They completely forgot to record his words and did not think that
he would die so soon, so suddenly. Disciples never think of that – that the master may disappear
suddenly.
Then suddenly one day Buddha said, ”I am going.” There was no time left and he had been speaking
for forty years. When he was dead, how could his words be collected? A treasure would be lost, but
what was there to do?
And it is beautiful that Mahakashyapa could not repeat Buddha’s words. He said, ”I heard him, but I
don’t remember what he said. I was so much in it, it never became part of my memory, I don’t know.”
And he had become enlightened!
Sariputta, Moggalyan, all these who had become enlightened, shrugged their shoulders and said,
”It is difficult, he has said so much, but we do not remember it.” And these were the disciples who
had reached.
Then Ananda was approached. He had not become enlightened while Buddha was alive; when
Buddha died, then he became enlightened. He had remembered everything. He dictated word by
word the contents of the forty years he was with Buddha. He dictated word by word – a man who
was not enlightened! It looks like a paradox. Those who had reached should have remembered, not
this man who had not yet reached the other shore. But when the other shore is reached, this shore
is forgotten, and when one has oneself become a buddha, who cares to remember what Buddha
said?
The Empty Boat 165 Osho