When the Shoe Fits - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 7. AUTUMN FLOODS
at least the water is part of the ocean. And howsoever opposite the fire may be to the ice, they are
degrees of the same phenomenon.
Heat and cold are not two things, but the same energy. Energy becomes heat, the same energy
becomes cold; the energy is the same, degrees differ. That’s why with one thermometer you can
measure both heat and cold, because the energy is the same. Where does cold become heat, can
you say exactly where? At which degree does the cold cease to be cold and become heat? You
cannot say, it depends.
Try a simple experiment. Put one hand, your left hand, on an ice cube and your right hand near a
fire. Let the right hand become hot, let the left hand become cool. Then put both the hands together
in a bucket of water and tell me whether it is cool or hot. You will be in difficulty, because one hand
will say it is hot, and one hand will say it is cool, it is cold. What is it – cold or hot? They are degrees
of the same energy.
So I say to you, even to a well frog it is possible to communicate something about the sea.
And if the messenger is really inventive, he can create devices to communicate. That is what a
Buddha is doing, a Jesus is doing – creating devices to communicate something of the sea to well
frogs – because there is one thing in common, the water. If there is one thing in common, then
communication is possible, a bridge exists.
Even to a dragonfly something can be communicated about ice. Even if we say it is not hot like the
fire, something has been said about the ice – negative, of course. That is why all great scriptures are
negative. They don’t say what truth is. They always say what truth is not, just to make the message
meaningful to dragonflies. So we cannot say what the ice is, but we can say that the ice is not fire –
this much can be communicated.
But even by that method it is impossible to talk to a philosopher about the way of life, or to talk to
a philosopher about existence. Even if the philosopher is an existentialist, then too it is impossible
to talk about existence, because between a word and the corresponding reality there is no bridge.
A rose and the word ’rose’ are not related in any way,’ all relationship is arbitrary. What is the
relationship between the word ’rose’ – R,O,S,E – and the rose? If there is some relationship then
you cannot call it GULAB. There are three hundred languages in the world and three hundred words
for rose; there is no relationship, all relationship is arbitrary. Cold is related to hot, well is related to
the ocean. Their relationship, howsoever indistinct, is there – real, not arbitrary.
But between a word and reality there is no relationship, they are not related at all. So you can
have your own words, a private language, you can call anything by any name. If you like to call
it something else the rose will not fight in a court. And nobody can prove that their word is more
correct than yours, nobody can prove it because no word is more correct or less correct – words are
irrelevant, they are not related. And a philosopher lives in words. A philosopher is the falsest thing
in existence, and the more you become philosophic, the less you live. Then you think about love,
you never love, then you think about God, you never become divine. Then you go on talking and
talking and talking and your whole energy is wasted in words, there is not a single moment to enter
into existence.
Chuang Tzu says be aware of all philosophies because their base is the same – they depend on
words. And reality is not a word. Move into the real – you are real, existence is real – move into the
When the Shoe Fits 104 Osho