The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 2. THE MAN OF TAO
Poor centipede. He had always been happy. He had no problems at all. He lived, moved, loved,
everything, no problems at all, because there was no mind. Mind came in with the problem, with the
question, with the inquiry. And there are many foxes around you. Beware of them – philosophers,
theologians, logicians, professors all around you – foxes. They ask you questions and they create a
disturbance.
Chuang Tzu’s master, Lao Tzu, said: When there was not a single philosopher, everything was
solved, there were no questions, and all answers were available. When philosophers arose,
questions came and answers disappeared. Whenever there is a question the answer is very far
away. Whenever you ask, you will never get the answer, but when you stop asking, you will find that
the answer has always been there.
I do not know what happened to this centipede. If he was as foolish as human beings, he would be
somewhere in a hospital, crippled, paralyzed forever. But I don’t think that centipedes are so foolish.
He must have thrown the question out. He must have told the fox, ”Keep your questions to yourself,
and let me walk.” He must have come to know that division wouldn’t allow him to live, because
division creates death. Undivided you are life, divided you become dead – the more divided, the
more dead.
What is bliss? Bliss is the feeling that comes to you when the obser-ver has become the
observed. Bliss is the feeling that comes to you when you are in harmony, not fragmented; one,
not disintegrated, not divided. Feeling is not something that happens from the outside. It is the
melody that arises out of your inner harmoniousness.
Says Chuang Tzu:
THE MAN OF TAO ACTS WITHOUT IMPEDIMENT....
He is not divided so who is there to impede? What is there to function as an impediment? He is
alone, he moves with his wholeness. This movement in wholeness is the greatest beauty that can
happen, that is possible. Sometimes you have glimpses of it. Sometimes when you are suddenly
whole, when the mind is not functioning, it happens.
The sun is rising...suddenly you look, and the observer is not there. The sun is not there and you
are not there, there is no observer and no observed. Simply the sun is rising and your mind is not
there to manage. You don’t see it and say, ”The sun is beautiful.” The moment you say it the bliss is
lost. Then there is no bliss, it has already become the past, it is already gone.
Suddenly you see the sun rising, and the seer is not there; the seer has not yet come into being, it
has not become a thought. You have not looked, you have not analyzed, you have not observed.
The sun is rising and there is no one, the boat is empty; there is bliss, a glimpse. But the mind
immediately comes in, and says, ”The sun is beautiful, this sunrise is so beautiful.” The comparison
has come in and the beauty is lost.
Those who know say that whenever you say ”I love you” to a person, the love is lost. The love has
already gone because the lover has come in. How can love exist when the division, the manager,
has come in? It is the mind which says ”I love you,” because, really, in love there is no I and no thou.
In love there are no individuals. Love is a melting, a merging, they are not two.
The Empty Boat 32 Osho