The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 3. THE OWL AND THE PHOENIX
Says Chuang Tzu:
”...THAT LIVES IN THE SOUTH –
THE PHOENIX THAT NEVER GROWS OLD?”
Have you ever seen a picture of Rama or Krishna which belongs to their old age? They are always
young, without even a beard or mustache. Have you ever seen a picture of Rama bearded? Unless
he had some hormonal defect it must have grown; if he was really a man – and he was – then the
beard must have grown. If Rama was historical, then the beard would have been there; but we
have pictured him beardless, because the moment the beard grows you have started becoming old.
Sooner or later it will turn white. Death is coming near and we cannot bear to think of Rama dead, so
we have washed his face completely clean of any sign of death. And this is not only so with Rama;
the twenty-four TIRTHANKARAS of the Jainas are all beardless, no mustaches. Buddha and all the
AVATARS of the Hindus had no beards, no mustaches. It is just to indicate their eternal youth, the
eternity, the timelessness, the far-awayness.
”...THE PHOENIX THAT NEVER GROWS OLD.”
There is time – in time everything changes – and there is eternity. In eternity nothing changes.
History belongs to time, myth belongs to eternity. Science belongs to time, religion belongs to the
nontemporal, the eternal.
In you also, both exist – time and eternity. On your surface the wheel, time: you were born, you
will die, but this is only on the surface. You are young, you will become old. You are healthy, you
will be ill. Now you are full of life, sooner or later everything will ebb, death will penetrate you. But
this is only on the surface, the wheel of history. Deep down right now in you the eternity exists, the
timeless exists. There nothing grows old – the phoenix, the south, the India, the eternal. Nothing
grows old, nothing changes, everything is unmoving. That south is within you.
That is why I keep saying that India is not part of geography, it is not part of history, it is part of an
inner map. It doesn’t exist in Delhi, it never existed there. Politicians don’t belong to it; it doesn’t
belong to politics. It is the inner. It exists everywhere.
Wherever a man comes deep down into himself he reaches India. That is the reason for the eternal
attraction, the magnetism, of India. Whenever a person becomes uneasy with his life, he moves
towards India. This is just symbolic. Through physical movement you will not find India. A different
movement is needed, where you start moving from the outer to the inner, to the south, to the land of
myth, and the deathless, ageless phoenix – THE PHOENIX THAT NEVER GROWS OLD.
”THIS UNDYING PHOENIX RISES OUT OF THE SOUTH SEA
AND FLIES TO THE SEAS OF THE NORTH,
NEVER ALIGHTING EXCEPT ON CERTAIN SACRED TREES.
HE WILL TOUCH NO FOOD
The Empty Boat 57 Osho