The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 10. WHOLENESS
when your whole being is still, then, says Chuang Tzu, you are an impenetrable fort. Fire cannot
burn you, death is impossible. That is the meaning of: Fire cannot burn you; death is impossible,
you cannot die. You have got the secret key of eternal life.
And sometimes this happens in ordinary circumstances too. A house is on fire – everybody dies
but a small child survives. There is an accident – the old people die and the small children survive.
People say that this is a miracle, God’s grace. No, it is nothing of the sort, it is because the child
accepted that situation too. Those who were cunning started running and trying to save themselves;
they got themselves into trouble. The child rested. He was not even aware that anything was
happening, that he was going to die. The child is saved through his innocence.
It happens every day. Go and observe at night near a bar, a wine shop, drunkards falling down in the
street, lying in the gutter, absolutely happy. In the morning they will get up. They may be bruised a
little but no harm has happened to their bodies. Their bones are intact. They have got no fractures.
You try to fall like a drunkard on the street – immediately you will have fractures. And he falls like
this every day, every night, many times, but nothing happens to him. What is the matter, what is the
secret? When he is drunk there is no desire. He is absolutely at ease, here and now. When he is
drunk he is not afraid, there is no fear, and when there is no fear, there is no cunningness.
Cunningness comes out of fear. So the more fearful a person, the more cunningness you will find in
him. A brave man is not cunning, he can depend on his bravery; but a man who is afraid, who is a
coward, can depend only on cunningness. The more inferior a person, the more cunning. The more
superior a person, the more innocent. Cunningness is a substitute. When one is drunk, absolutely
drunk, future disappears and past disappears.
I have heard: Once it happened that Mulla Nasruddin was walking along with his wife, absolutely
drunk. She had found him lying in the street and was bringing him home. Of course, as usual, she
was arguing, and winning all the arguments, because she was alone. Mulla Nasrud-din was not
there; he was simply coming along with her.
Then suddenly she saw a mad bull approaching. There was no time to warn Nasruddin, so she
jumped into a bush. The bull came up and spun Nasruddin almost fifty feet in the air. He fell into a
ditch, and as he crawled out of it he looked at his wife and said, ”If you do this to me again, I shall
really lose my temper. This is too much!”
Ordinary wine gives so much power when one is drunk, what about Tao, the absolute drunkenness?
What about Krishna or Buddha, the greatest drunkards – so drunk with the divine that not even a
trace of the ego is left? You cannot hurt them because they are not there, you cannot insult them
because there is no one who will resist the insult and create a wound. Your insult will pass through
them, as if passing through an empty house. Their boats are empty. A breeze comes in and passes
with no barrier. When the breeze has gone the house is not even aware that the breeze has been
there.
The appeal of wine is really because you are so egoistic. You are too burdened by it and sometimes
you want to forget it. So the world will have to follow alcohol or Tao – these are the alternatives. Only
a religious man, a really religious man, can be beyond alcohol, marijuana, lsd – any type of drug.
The Empty Boat 177 Osho