When the Shoe Fits - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 8. THE TURTLE
There is a particular time which has to be passed in sleep, two hours every night. Now scientists
have discovered that out of twenty-four hours there are two hours every day when the temperature of
the body falls; those two hours are the deepest for sleeping. If you miss them, then for the whole day
you will feel that something is missing. If you can sleep during those two hours then there is no need
to sleep for five or seven hours, they will be enough. But those two hours are different for everybody
and rules are not different for everybody – this is the problem. If somebody has those two hours
when his temperature drops between three and five, then at five he can get up absolutely fresh –
that is his BRAHMMUHURT. But somebody else who really falls asleep at five, whose temperature
falls between five and seven, if this man follows Hindus, his whole life will be lost.
You have to seek your own, and it differs from individual to individual; everything differs from
individual to individual. There is no rule that you have to fix and fit into, you have to find your
own rules.
Just try to understand – whatsoever gives you happiness and blessings and peace and silence,
seek in that way, more will be coming soon. And that is the criterion: if you are happy, I say you
are a religious man although you may not be going to the temple. If you are unhappy and you go
continuously to the temple, I don’t call you a religious man. If you are happy, blissful, if your whole
being exudes ecstasy and peace, at homeness in existence, you are a religious man – whether you
believe in God or not. Those are just words, don’t bother about them.
Find your peace, find your mud where you can drag your tail and be alive; that is your temple.
Nobody else’s temple will suit you – cannot suit you, because every temple was made by somebody
for somebody.
Buddha lived in his own way, then a temple was born, then thousands followed and they started
living like Buddha; they missed their goal. Buddha never followed anybody, his way was his own, he
was happy – then it is okay. But you will be unhappy following him.
Don’t follow anybody, otherwise you will be unhappy. And you are unhappy enough because you
have been following your father and mother, teachers, religion. You have been following so many,
and all those voices are different, contradictory, inconsistent. You are being pulled in all directions;
how can you be together? You are a disintegrated phenomenon, a crowd, one part going to the
East, another part going to the West; the lower body has gone to the South, the upper body has
gone to the Himalayas, North. You are a disintegrated phenomenon, not together.
Be together! And I tell you, if you remain together, if you don’t listen to anybody, if you only listen to
your own voice, even if you have to err sometimes, even if you go wrong sometimes – don’t bother.
You will go wrong, because you have become accustomed to following others so much that you have
lost your inner voice. You don’t know what the inner voice is. Many voices are there and they are all
from others. Sometimes the mother speaks – do this! Sometimes the father speaks – don’t do this!
Sometimes somebody else, a Buddha, a Jesus, a Christ, a Chuang Tzu... drop all those voices.
Listen!
Meditation is a deep listening, listening to the inner voice. As you become silent, voices cease.
Chuang Tzu goes to his home, Buddha goes to his home, Jesus is no longer there, your father
and your mother are really gone; everybody goes, only you are left, alone in your emptiness. Then
When the Shoe Fits 117 Osho