The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 3. THE OWL AND THE PHOENIX
BUT THE MOST EXQUISITE RARE FRUIT,
AND HE DRINKS ONLY FROM THE CLEAREST SPRINGS.”
This soul, this innermost core of your being, never alighting except on certain sacred trees, this inner
bird, this is your being. It alights only on certain sacred trees.
”HE WILL TOUCH NO FOOD
BUT THE MOST EXQUISITE RARE FRUIT,
AND HE DRINKS ONLY FROM THE CLEAREST SPRINGS.
”ONCE AN OWL
CHEWING AN ALREADY HALF-DECAYED DEAD RAT
SAW THE PHOENIX FLY OVER.
LOOKING UP HE SCREECHED WITH ALARM
AND CLUTCHED THE DEAD RAT TO HIMSELF
IN FEAR AND DISMAY.”
Chuang Tzu is saying: I am the phoenix, and you are just an owl with an already dead rat, chewing
it. And you are alarmed that I am coming to supplant you. Your position, your power is nothing to
me but a dead rat. This is no food for me. Ambition is not a way for life, it is only for those who are
already dead. I have looked into ambition, and I have found it useless.
Once a woman came wailing and weeping to a rabbi, but the rabbi was at prayer. So she said to the
secretary, ”Go in, and even if his prayer has to be interrupted, interrupt. My husband has left me. I
want the rabbi to pray for my husband to come back.”
The secretary went in and interrupted the prayer. The rabbi said, ”Tell her, don’t worry, her husband
will be back soon.”
The secretary went back to the woman and said, ”Don’t worry, don’t be sad. The rabbi says that
your husband will come back soon. Go home and be at ease.”
Happy, the woman left, saying, ”God will reward your rabbi a million times over, he is so kind.”
But once the woman had left, the secretary became sad, and told someone who was standing there
that this was not going to help. Her husband cannot come back, poor woman, and she left here so
happy.
The bystander said, ”But why? Don’t you believe in your rabbi and his prayer?”
The Empty Boat 58 Osho