When the Shoe Fits - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 9. DUKE HWAN AND THE WHEELRIGHT
I can tell you what the trouble is. Surprised, he looked around because he thought that there was
nobody else there. No, there was nobody but a horse, standing in a farm just nearby. The man got
afraid and scared; down the road he sped! After twenty minutes, he reached a filling station. When
he caught his breath, he told the man, the owner, what had happened: There was nobody else but
a horse, and I heard a human voice say that if I ask him, he could tell me what the trouble was. The
owner said: By any chance was the horse black, sway backed, bow legged? The man said: Yes, that
is right. Said the owner: Don’t mind him, he is just an old philosopher, dead long ago, still haunting
the place. Just because of his old habit he goes on seeking people to ask him questions. He does
not know a thing about engine trouble. And he is not a horse, he is just using that poor old horse as
a medium. So don’t mind him.
But this is how it happens on all the roads of life. The old ghosts go on haunting, and they know all
the answers. You have only to ask – just for the asking they are ready to give you all the answers.
Yet life goes on changing and they don’t know a thing about engine trouble. Life goes on changing
moment to moment. You cannot find the answer in the past because nothing is the same today.
You cannot find the answer in the past because the answer is not the thing, it always dies with the
man who has discovered it. But ghosts go on haunting. Your Vedas, Korans, Bibles, Gitas, they are
ghosts. They are not realities now, they are long dead, but they have an appeal.
So first try to understand why the dead have so much appeal, why the dead past has so much
appeal over the living, why the dead go on pulling your legs. Why do you carry them? Why do you
listen to them? You are living, you are fresh. Why do you look to the past, to the authorities and to
the experts?
The first thing – the longer a person has been dead, the greater is the tradition. Time. Time hallows
everything. If Buddha is alive you can barely tolerate him. At the most, if you are very kind to him,
you may go and listen. But you cannot believe that he is a Bhagwan. You cannot believe that this
man has known the ultimate because he will look just like you: a man of blood and bones, young
or old, ill or healthy, as prone as you are to death – just like you. Hungry, he needs food, sleepy;he
wants a bed, ill, he has to rest – just like you. How can you believe that he had known the ultimate,
the deathless? Difficult, almost impossible.
Even if you try, it never happens; even if you force yourself, deep down the doubt remains. But now,
twenty-five centuries later, Buddha is no longer a man of bones and blood. He never falls ill, he is
never hungry, never needs food, never needs any medicine. He will never die now, he is immortal.
Time hallows everything and by and by you forget that he belonged to you. By and by the dead
image becomes golden. It reaches higher and higher, it is completely lost somewhere in paradise,
you can have only a glimpse. Then you can believe.
Hence the past goes on haunting you. If Buddha comes again, you will reject him. That is why
Jesus is worshipped now and yet he was crucified when he was alive. Alive, you crucify him; dead,
you worship him. Why does death make him so meaningful, so significant? Death destroys the
body, and then the link with you is broken. Then you have a spiritual image: bloodless, boneless,
super-physical. Now you can imagine, and it is up to you to give all the qualities to him – you project.
It is difficult to project onto a living man because the reality is there, and he will destroy all your
projections. He will not be ready to become a prisoner of your projections. But dead, what can he
do? What can Jesus do? What can Buddha do? Helpless whatsoever you do, they have to suffer.
When the Shoe Fits 121 Osho