The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 9. MEANS AND ENDS
Nasruddin said, ”I became this rich through fishing. I started my life as a fisherman. I have become
rich, but just to pay respect to the original profession that gave me so much, I always carry this net
on my shoulder.”
A really humble man. Generally, if a poor man becomes rich he starts wiping his whole past clean
so that nobody knows that he was ever a poor man. He drops all contacts which show that once
he was a poor man. He doesn’t want to see his relatives, he doesn’t want to be reminded of the
past. He simply drops the past completely. He creates a new past as if he is a born aristocrat. But
this man was humble. So the messengers informed the king that Mulla Nasruddin was the humblest
man they had ever seen and he was appointed the wise man.
The day he was appointed, he threw away the net. The men who had recommended him asked,
”Nasruddin, where is your net now?”
He said, ”When the fish is caught, the net is thrown away.”
But you cannot throw it away before – it is impossible, you have to carry it. But carry it indifferently.
Don’t get attached, don’t fall in love with it, because one day it has to be thrown away. If you fall in
love with it then you may never catch the fish, you will be just afraid that if you catch the fish you will
have to throw away the net.
Don’t fall in love with the mind. It has to be used and it is there because you don’t know the no-mind
yet, you don’t know the innermost core of your being. The periphery is there and you have to carry
it but carry it indifferently. Don’t become a victim of it.
One story more:
There was a man who used to go to the race course every year on his birthday. The whole year he
accumulated the money just for one stake on his birthday. And he lost and lost for many years. But
hope always revives again and again! Each time he went he decided never to go again...but one
year is such a long time! For a few days he would remember and then again hope returned. He
thought, ”Who knows, this year I may become rich so why not one more try?”
By the time his birthday came round he was again ready to go to the race course. And it was his
fiftieth birthday, so he thought, ”I should try wholeheartedly.”
So he sold all his possessions, gathered a small fortune, all that he had earned in his whole life, all
that he had, and he said, ”Now I have to decide this way or that. Either I am to become a beggar or
an emperor; no more in the middle, enough!”
He went there, to the windows, and looked at the names of the horses and saw a horse named
Adolf Hitler. He thought, ”It will do well. Such a great man, such a victorious man, he threatened the
whole world. This horse must be ferocious and strong.” So he staked all, and he lost – as all those
who stake on Hitlers will lose. Now he had nowhere to go, even his house was lost. So there was
nothing left to do but commit suicide.
So he went to a cliff, just to jump and finish it all. When he was about to jump he suddenly heard a
voice, and he couldn’t tell whether it came from the outside or from the inside. It said, ”Stop! Next
time I will give you the name of the winner – one more try. Don’t kill yourself.”
The Empty Boat 168 Osho