The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 10. WHOLENESS
Once, Mulla Nasruddin’s son came home and said that he had trusted a friend and had given him
his toy to play with, but now the friend refused to return it. ”What should I do?” he asked.
Mulla Nasruddin looked at him and said, ”Go up this ladder.” The boy did so, he trusted his father.
When he was ten feet high, Nasruddin said, ”Now jump into my arms.”
The boy hesitated a little, and said, ”If I fall, I will get hurt.”
Nasruddin said, ”When I am here, you need not worry. Take a jump.” The boy jumped, and Nasruddin
stood aside. The boy fell down, and started crying and weeping.
Then Nasruddin said, ”Now you know. Never believe anybody, not even what your father says: don’t
even believe your father.”
Don’t believe in anybody, otherwise you will be deceived all your life. This is what every father, every
parent, every school, every teacher, teaches you. This is your learning. Don’t believe in anybody,
don’t trust, otherwise you will be deceived. You become cunning. In the name of cleverness you
become cunning, untrusting. And once a man is untrusting he has lost contact with the source.
Trust is the only bridge, otherwise your whole life is wasted; you fight an impossible fight in which
defeat is bound to happen, it is absolutely certain. It is better to realize it now, because at the
moment of death everybody realizes that it has been a defeat. But then nothing can be done.
Real intelligence is not cunningness, it is totally different. Real intelligence is to look into things....
And whenever you look into things deeply, you will come to know that you are just a wave, that this
whole is the ocean and there is no need to worry. The whole has produced you, it will take care of
you. You have come out of the whole, it is no enemy to you. You need not worry, you need not plan.
And when you are not worried, not planning, for the first time life starts. For the first time you feel
free of worries, and life happens to you.
This intelligence is religion. This intelligence gives you more trust, and finally, total trust. This
intelligence leads you to the ultimate nature, acceptance – what Buddha called TATHATA. Buddha
said: What-soever happens, happens. Nothing else can happen, nothing else is possible. Don’t ask
for it to be otherwise; be in a letgo, and allow the whole to function. And when you allow the whole
to function and you are not a barrier, a resistance, then you cannot be defeated.
In Japan, through Buddha, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, a particular art has been developed called
ZENDO. Zendo means the Zen of the sword, the art of the warrior – and nobody knows it like they
do. The way they have developed it is supreme. It takes years, even a whole lifetime, to learn
zendo because the learning consists in acceptance. You cannot accept in ordinary life – how can
you accept when a warrior is standing before you, waiting to kill you? How can you accept when the
sword is raised against you and every moment, any moment, death is near?
The art of zendo says that if you can accept the sword, the enemy, the one who is going to kill you,
and there is no distrust; if even the enemy is the friend, and you are not afraid, not trembling, then
you become a pillar of energy, unbreakable. The sword will break on you, but you cannot be broken.
There will not even be any possibility that you could be destroyed.
The Empty Boat 174 Osho