The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 10. WHOLENESS
The child looked up and said, ”Who do you think I am – Daddy?”
Only a small child, and the fighting starts – the ego has arisen. He knows Daddy can be silenced,
but not him. The moment the child feels he is separate the natural unity is broken, and then his
whole life becomes a struggle and fight.
Western psychology insists that the ego should be strengthened. That is the difference between the
Eastern attitude and the Western. Western psychology insists that the ego should be strengthened;
the child must have a strong ego, he must fight, struggle, only then will he be mature.
The child is in the mother’s womb, one with the mother, not even aware that he is – he is, without
any consciousness. In a deep sense all consciousness is illness. Not that he is unconscious – he
IS aware. His being is there, but without any self-consciousness. The am is there, but the I has not
been born yet. The child feels, lives, is fully alive, but never feels that he is separate. The mother
and the child are one.
Then the child is born. The first separation happens, and the first cry. Now he is moving, the wave is
moving away from the ocean. Western psychologists say: We will train the child to be independent,
to be individual. Jung’s psychology is known as the way of individu-ation. He must become an
individual, absolutely separate. He must fight. That is why, in the West, there is so much rebellion
in the younger generation. This rebellion was not created by the younger generation, this rebellion
was created by Freud, Jung, Adler and company. They have given the basis.
Fight will give you a stronger ego. It will shape you. So fight the mother, fight the father, fight the
teacher, fight the society. Life is struggle. And Darwin started the whole trend when he said only
the fittest survive; life means survival of the fittest. So the stronger you are in your ego, the more
chance you will have of surviving.
The West lives through politics, the East has a totally different attitude...and Tao is the core, the very
essence of the Eastern consciousness. It says: No individuality, no ego, no fight; become one with
the mother; there is no enemy, the question is not of conquering.
Even a man, a very knowledgeable man, a very penetrating, logical man like Bertrand Russell,
thinks in terms of conquest – conquering nature, the conquest of nature. Science seems to be a
struggle, a fight with nature: how to break the lock, how to open the secrets, how to grab the secrets
from nature.
Eastern consciousness is totally different. Eastern consciousness says: Ego is the problem, don’t
make it stronger, don’t create any fight. And not the fittest but the humblest survive.
That is why I insist again and again that Jesus is from the East; that is why he could not be
understood in the West. The West has misunderstood him. The East could have understood him
because the East knows Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Buddha, and Jesus belongs to them. He says:
Those who are last will be the first in my kingdom of God. The humblest, the meekest, will possess
the kingdom of God. The poor in spirit is the goal. Who is poor in spirit? The empty boat, he who is
not at all – no claim on anything, no possession of anything, no self. He lives as an absence.
The Empty Boat 179 Osho