The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 2. THE MAN OF TAO
cannot be attained so easily, something impossible, and the nonessential is always the impossible.
There are always bigger houses, bigger cars, they go on getting bigger and bigger and you are never
allowed to rest.
The whole world is trying to fulfill the nonessential. Ninety percent of industry is involved with
the nonessential. Fifty percent of human labor is wasted on that which is not useful in any way.
Fifty percent of industry is devoted to the feminine mind, rather, feminine body: designing new
dresses every three months, designing new houses, clothes, powders, soaps, creams; fifty percent
of industry is devoted to such nonsense. And humanity is starving, people are dying without food,
and half of humanity is interested in the absolutely nonessential.
To reach the moon is absolutely nonessential. If we were a little wiser we would not even think
about it. It is absolutely foolish wasting as much money as could feed the whole earth. Wars are
nonessential, but humanity is mad, and it needs wars more than food. It needs to go to the moon
more than food, more than clothes, more than the essential, because the essential is not enough.
And now science has created the greatest horror, and that horror is that now the essential can be
fulfilled very easily. Within ten years, all humanity’s needs can be fulfilled, this whole earth can be
satisfied as far as the necessities are concerned. Then what? Then what will you do? You will feel
in the same position as the priest. He thought that he was in heaven, and then he found that it was
hell. Within ten years the whole earth can become a hell.
The nonessential is needed for your madness to remain engaged. So moons are not enough, we
will have to go further, we will have to go on creating the useless. It is needed. People need it to be
occupied.
A man of Tao is not a man of much activity. His actions are the most essential – those which cannot
be avoided. That which can be avoided, he avoids. He is so happy with himself there is no need to
move in actions. His activity is like inactivity; he does without there being anybody doing.
He is an empty boat, moving on the sea, not going anywhere.
YET HE DOES NOT KNOW HIMSELF TO BE KIND AND GENTLE.
Allow this point to penetrate deep into your heart. YET HE DOES NOT KNOW HIMSELF TO BE
KIND AND GENTLE – because if you know, you have missed the point; if you know that you are
a simple man, you are not. This knowledge makes it complex. If you know that you are a man of
religion, you are not, because this cunning mind which knows is still there.
When you are gentle, and you don’t know, when you are simple, and you are not aware of it, it has
become your nature. When something is really natural you are not aware of it, but when something
is imposed, you are aware of it. When somebody becomes rich, newly rich, he is aware of his house,
of his swimming pool, of his riches, and you can see that he is not an aristocrat, because he is so
concerned with show.
A newly rich man ordered three swimming pools for his garden. They were made and he was
showing them to a friend. The friend was a little puzzled. He said, ”Three swimming pools? For
what? One will do.”
The Empty Boat 37 Osho