The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 2. THE MAN OF TAO
A man of Tao, a man who has attained the inner nature, a man who is really religious, is not a man
of much activity. Only the necessary will happen. The unnecessary is cut out completely, because
he can be at ease without activity, he can be at home without doing anything, he can relax, he can
be company for himself, he can be with his self.
You cannot be with yourself, hence the constant urge to seek company. Go to a club, go to a
meeting, go to a party, move into the crowd, where you are not alone. You are so afraid of yourself
that if you are left alone you will go mad. In just three weeks if you are left absolutely alone without
any activity, you will go mad. And this is not something said by religious people, now psychologists
agree to it. For only three weeks, if all activity, if all company, is taken from you, if you are left alone
in a room, within three weeks you will be mad – because all your activity is just to throw out your
madness, it is a catharsis.
What will you do when you are alone? For the first three or four days you will dream and talk within,
an inner chattering. Then this will become boring. After the first week you will start talking aloud
because at least you will hear the sound of your own voice. When you walk along a dark street at
night you start whistling. Why? How is this whistling going to give you courage? How is this whistling
going to help you? Just listening to it you feel that you are not alone, somebody is whistling. The
illusion of two is created!
After the first week you will start talking aloud because then you can also listen. You are not alone,
you are talking and you are listening as if somebody else is talking to you. After the second week
you will start answering yourself. You will not only talk, you will answer – you are divided. Now you
are two; one who questions, one who answers. Now there is a dialogue – you have gone completely
crazy.
A man asked his psychiatrist, ”I am very worried, I talk to myself. What should I do? Can you help
me?”
The psychiatrist said, ”This is nothing to be worried about. Everybody talks to himself, this is not a
big problem. Only when you start answering, then come to me, then I can be of help.”
But the difference is only of degree; it is not of kind, it is only of quantity. If you start talking to
yourself, sooner or later you will start answering also, because how can one go on simply talking?
The answer is needed, otherwise you will feel foolish. By the third week you start answering – you
have gone crazy.
This world, the world of activity, business and occupation, saves you from the madhouse. If you are
occupied, energy moves out; then you need not care about the inward, the inner world, you can
forget it.
A man of Tao is not a man of much activity – only the essential activity. It is said of Chuang Tzu
that if he could stand, he would not walk, if he could sit, he would not stand, if he could fall asleep,
he would not sit. The essential, the most essential, only the must would he do, because there is no
madness in it.
You do the nonessential, you keep on doing the nonessential. Look at your activities: ninety-nine
percent are nonessential. You can drop them, you can save much energy, you can save much time.
The Empty Boat 35 Osho