When the Shoe Fits - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 8. THE TURTLE
Man comes from animals, but he is not a higher animal, he has become a neurotic animal. And the
problem is that nobody teaches you to accept yourself and to accept your nature. Worship it, be
thankful to the Divine for it, be grateful to the Whole!
Whatsoever has been given to you has a meaning, it is significant. You cannot cut it down and
change. If you try, you will be in trouble. And you are in trouble – everybody on this earth is in
trouble.
Why does man condemn himself? Why can’t he accept nature? Because through condemnation
the ego is created. There is no other way to create the ego.
To create the ego, you have to fight; to create the ego, you have to condemn something as bad,
and applaud something as good; to create the ego, first you have to create a god and a devil. And
then you have to fight with the devil and try to reach the god. A conflict is needed for the ego. If
there is no conflict, there cannot be any ego. Just think... if there is no fight within you, if you accept
yourself totally – you are happy as you are, deeply content, deeply satisfied, not even a single note
of complaint, thankful – how can the ego exist? How can you say ’I am’? The more you fight, the
more ’I’ is created.
That is why if you go to your so-called saints you will find more neurotic people there than anywhere.
And this is something to be observed, that wherever there are many saints there are many more
madmen. Madness exists less in the East, it exists more in the West. But if you simply do ordinary
arithmetic you will be surprised: in the East many mad people are worshipped as saints, so they are
not in madhouses. In the West, the same people who should be in the madhouses are on the couch
of the psychiatrist; they are not thought to be mad, but they are, because ego is mad.
Look at your saints. They have such subtle egos – refined of course, polished, very cultivated,
decorated, but they are there.
If you fight with somebody else you cannot have a very subtle ego because with the other the
possibility of being defeated always exists. Even if you have won, the other is there; any day there is
every chance he they gather strength and you may be defeated. A victory cannot be absolute and
you can never be certain; the enemy is there. And there is not only one enemy outside, there are
millions of enemies, because with whomsoever you compete, he is your enemy. You will always be
shaking and wavering, your ego cannot be on solid ground, you have made your house on sand.
But if you are fighting with yourself, then you are working on solid ground, you can be certain; you
can be a more subtle egoist.
To have the ’I’ you have to kill nature, because in nature no ego exists. Trees are there, but they
don’t know the ’I’; animals are there, but they don’t know the ego – they live unconsciously. They
simply live without any fight or struggle. When they are hungry they search for food; when they are
satisfied, they go to sleep. They make love, they eat, they sleep, they just exist, they don’t say, ’We
are.’ They are just waves in the vast ocean of life, they come and go without leaving any trace. They
have no history, no autobiography; they come and go as if they had never been there.
Lions have existed, elephants have existed, but they don’t have any history, they don’t have any
autobiography. A lion comes like a vast big wave and then disappears; no trace is left behind.
When the Shoe Fits 108 Osho