The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 3. THE OWL AND THE PHOENIX
THAT LIVES IN THE SOUTH?”
To China, India is the south, and that bird lives here. It is said that when Lao Tzu disappeared, he
disappeared into the south. They don’t know when he died...he never died. Such people never die,
they simply go to the south – they disappear into India.
It is said that Bodhidharma came from the south. He left India, and searched for the disciple to
whom he was to transmit the treasure of Buddha. After nine years waiting, he was able to transmit
it and it is said that then he disappeared again into the south. India is the south for China. Really,
India is the source of all myth; not a single myth exists in the whole world which has not arisen here.
Science arose out of the Greek mind, myth out of the Indian mind. And there are only two ways of
looking at the world: one is science, the other is religion. If you look at the world through science, it
is looking through analysis, mathematics, logic.
Athens, the Greek mind, gave science to the world, the Socratic method of analysis, logic and
doubt. Religion is a totally different pattern of looking at the world. It looks at the world through
poetry, through myth, through love. Of course, it is romantic. It cannot give you facts, it will only give
you fictions. But I say fictions are more factual than any fact, because they give you the innermost
core, they are not concerned with the outer event. Hence, India has no history. It has only myth,
Puranas, no Itihas, no history.
Rama is not an historical person. He may or may not have been, it cannot be proved. Krishna is a
myth, not an historical fact. Maybe he was, maybe he was not. But India is not bothered whether
Krishna and Rama are historical. They are meaningful, they are great epic poems. And history is
meaningless for India because history contains only bare facts, it never reveals the innermost core.
We are concerned with the innermost core, the center of the wheel. The wheel keeps on moving,
that is history, but the center of the wheel, which never moves, is the myth.
Said Chuang Tzu:
”HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THE BIRD
THAT LIVES IN THE SOUTH –
THE PHOENIX THAT NEVER GROWS OLD?”
All that is born grows old. History cannot believe in this bird, because history means the beginning
and the end, history means the span between birth and death. And the span between the birthless
and the deathless is myth.
Rama is never born and never dies. Krishna is never born and never dies. They are always there.
Myth is not concerned with time, it is concerned with eternity. History changes with the times,
myth is always relevant. No, myth can never be out of date. Newspaper is history, and yesterday’s
newspaper is already out of date. Rama is not part of the newspaper, he is not news, and he
will never be out of date. He is always in the present, always meaningful, relevant. History keeps
changing; Rama remains in the center of the wheel, unmoving.
The Empty Boat 56 Osho