The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 4. APOLOGIES
Look at the religious attitude which is totally different, qualitatively different. A religious man thinks
himself responsible: If someone is begging, I am responsible. The beggar may be at the other end
of the earth, I may not know him, I may not come across his path, but if there is a beggar, I am
responsible. If a war goes on anywhere, in Israel, in Vietnam, anywhere, I am not participating in
it in any visible way, but I am responsible. I am here. I cannot shift the responsibility onto society.
And what do you mean when you say society? Where is this society? This is one of the greatest
evasions. Only individuals exist – you will never come across society. You will never be able to
pinpoint it: This is society. Everywhere the individual is in existence, and society is just a word.
Where is society? Ancient civilizations played a trick. They said: God is responsible, fate is
responsible. Now communism plays the same game saying that society is responsible. But where
is society? God may be somewhere, society is nowhere; there are only individuals. Religion says:
You are...rather, I am, responsible. No explanation is needed to avoid this.
And remember one thing more: whenever you feel that you are responsible for all the ugliness,
for all the mess, anarchy, war, violence, aggression, suddenly you become alert. Responsibility
penetrates your heart and makes you aware. When you say, ”This place is much too crowded,” you
can go on walking sleepily. Really, you step on the stranger’s foot not because the place is crowded,
but because you are unconscious. You are walking like a somnambulist, a man walking in his sleep.
When you step on his foot, you suddenly become aware, because now the situation is dangerous.
You make the apology, you fall asleep, and again you say, ”The place is crowded!” You resume your
walk, then you start moving again.
I have heard of a simple villager who had come to the city for the first time. On the platform at the
station someone stepped on his foot and said, ”Sorry.” Then he went into a hotel, someone again
clashed with him and said, ”Sorry!” Then he went into a theater and someone almost knocked him
down, and he said, ”Sorry.”
Then the villager said, ”This is beautiful, we never knew this trick. Do whatever you want to do to
anybody and say sorry!” So he punched a man who was passing and said, ”Sorry!”
What are you really doing when you say sorry? Your sleep is broken, you were walking in a dream
– you must have been dreaming, imagining, something was on your mind – and then you stepped
on someone. Not that the place was crowded – you would have stumbled even if no one had been
there, even then you would have stepped on someone.
It is you, your unconsciousness, your unconscious behavior. A buddha cannot stumble even if it is a
marketplace, because he moves with full consciousness. Whatsoever he does, he does knowingly.
And if he steps on your foot it means he has stepped knowingly; there must be some reason for it.
It may be just to help you awake, he may have stepped on your foot just to wake you up, but he will
not say that the place is crowded, he will not give any explanation.
Explanations are always deceptive. They look logical, but they are false. You give explanations only
when you have to hide something. You can watch and observe this in your own life. This is not a
theory, this is a simple fact of everybody’s experience – you give explanations only when you want
to hide something.
The Empty Boat 69 Osho