The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 5. THREE IN THE MORNING
second place, if he has to choose because of objective conditions, he will choose three courses in
the morning and four in the evening. But the monkeys said, ”No. We will choose. We will have four
in the morning.” That trainer, the keeper, was willing to comply in order to meet objective conditions.
He lost nothing by it. But what happened to the monkeys? They lost something.
So whenever you are near a wise man let him make the arrangements, don’t insist on your own. To
choose in the first place is wrong, and in the second place, whatsoever choice you monkeys make,
it will be wrong. The monkey mind only looks for immediate, instant happiness. The monkey is not
worried about what happens later on. He doesn’t know, he has no perspective of the whole. So let
the wise man choose.
But the whole arrangement has changed. In the East the wise men decided. In the West there
is democracy: the monkeys vote and choose. And now they have converted the whole East to
democracy – democracy means that the monkeys vote and choose.
Aristocracy means that the wise men will choose the arrangement and the monkeys will yield and
follow. Nothing can work like aristocracy if aristocracy is run properly. Democracy is bound to be
a chaos. The monkeys feel very happy because they are choosing the arrangement, but the world
was happier when the choice was with wise men.
Remember, kings always used to go to ask the wise men to make the final decision on important
matters. The wise men were not kings because they couldn’t be bothered with it, they were
beggars, living in their huts in the forest. Whenever there was a problem the king did not run to
the constituency to ask the people, ”What is to be done?” He ran to the forest to ask those who
had renounced all – because they have a perspective of the whole, no attachment, no obsessions,
nothing, by their own choice. They are choiceless; they see the whole and decide.
THE TRULY WISE MAN,
CONSIDERING BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION
WITHOUT PARTIALITY,
SEES THEM BOTH IN THE LIGHT OF TAO.
THIS IS CALLED FOLLOWING TWO COURSES AT ONCE.
To look at the total means to follow two courses at once. Then it is not a question of four in the
morning, three in the evening. It is a question of seven in the whole life.
Arrangement is immaterial. Arrangements can be made according to objective conditions, but there
will be seven in all, two courses together. The wise man looks at the whole of everything. Sex gives
you pleasure, but he looks also at the pain that comes out of it. Wealth gives you pleasure, but he
looks at the nightmare that comes with it. Success makes you happy, but he knows the abyss that
follows the peak, the failure that will become intense, unbearable pain.
The wise man looks at the whole. And when you look at the whole you have no choice. Then you
are having two courses at the same time. Morning and evening are together now – four plus three
The Empty Boat 99 Osho