The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 4. APOLOGIES
much that the river keeps fighting with itself. Nothing is left to move, no energy is left; you are so
tired fighting with yourself, how can you move towards the sea?
One of the basic laws of Tao, of Lao Tzu, of Chuang Tzu, is that if you are spontaneous it is the
highest prayer; you cannot miss God, whatsoever you do you will reach him. So Chuang Tzu never
talks about God; talk is irrelevant, it isn’t needed. He talks only of how to bring out the wholeness
in you. The holy is irrelevant. When you become whole, you become holy. When your fragments
dissolve into one, your life has become a prayer. They never talk about prayer, it is not needed.
Spontaneity, living as a whole.... If you want to live as a whole, you cannot plan. Who will plan?
You cannot decide for tomorrow, you can live only here and now. Who will decide? If you decide,
division has entered, then you will have to manipulate. Who will plan? The future is unknown, and
how can you plan for the unknown? If you plan for the unknown the planning will come from the past.
That means that the dead will control the living. The past is dead, and the past goes on controlling
the future, hence you are so bored. It is natural, it has to happen. Boredom comes from the past,
because the past is dead and the past is trying to control the future.
The future is always an adventure, but you don’t allow it to be an adventure. You plan it. Once
planned, your life is running on a track. It is not a river.
When you run on a track you know where you are going, what is happening. Everything is just a
repetition. Who will plan? If mind plans, mind is always of the past. Life cannot be planned, because
through planning you are committing suicide.
Life can only be unplanned, moving moment to moment into the unknown. But what is your fear?
You will be there to respond; whatsoever the situation you will be there to respond. What is your
fear? Why plan it?
The fear comes because you are not certain of whether you will be there or not. You are so
unconscious, that is the uncertainty. You are not alert.
You are going to have an interview for a job, so you keep planning in your mind what to answer, how
to answer, how to enter the office, how to stand, how to sit. But why? You will be there, you can
respond.
But you are not certain about yourself, you are so unalert, you are so unconscious, you don’t know
– if you don’t plan, something may go wrong. If you are alert, then there is no problem. You will be
there, so whatever the situation demands, you will respond.
And remember, this planning is not going to help, because if you cannot be conscious, cannot be
aware in a situation when you are planning, then that planning is also being done in sleep. But
you can repeat it so many times it becomes mechanical, then when the question is asked you can
answer. The answer is readymade, you are not needed. It is a fixed pattern, you simply repeat it;
you become a mechanical device, you need not be there at all. The answer can be given, it comes
from the memory; if you have repeated it many times you know you can rely on it.
Through planning life becomes more and more unconscious, and the more unconscious you are,
the more you need planning. Before really dying, you are dead. Alive means responding, sensitive.
The Empty Boat 66 Osho