When the Shoe Fits - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 10. MAN IS A BORN IN TAO
distance will remain the same; always somewhere ahead the earth will be meeting the sky. But you
will never reach that place, that point where the earth meets the sky. They never meet. This is just
an appearance, what Hindus call MAYA: it appears, but it is not so. It appears if you are standing at
a distance. The nearer you come the more you realise that it is not so. The horizon moves further
ahead, and the distance between you and it always remains the same.
The distance between you and your desire always remains the same. How can you fulfill it? If you
desire ten thousand rupees, you may get them some day. But by the time you get them, the desire
will have gone ten thousand times ahead again. You have one thousand rupees; the desire will ask
for ten thousand. Now you have ten thousand; the desire will ask for one hundred thousand. The
distance remains the same. You may have one hundred thousand – it makes no difference. Ten
times again, the desire will remain the same.
Needs are simple. They can be fulfilled. You feel hungry and you eat; you feel thirsty and you drink;
you feel sleepy, you go to bed.
Desires are very cunning and complex. You are frustrated, but not because of needs. You are
frustrated because of desires. And if desires take too much of your energy you will be unable to
fulfill your needs also, because who is there to fulfill them? You are moving into the future; you are
thinking of the future; your mind is dreaming. Who is there to fulfill ordinary needs of the day? You
are not there. And you would like to remain hungry but reach the horizon. You would like to postpone
needs so that the whole energy moves towards the desire. But in the end, you find that the desire is
not fulfilled, and because needs have been neglected, in the end you are just a ruin. And the time
that is lost cannot be regained; you cannot go back.
There is a story told of one old wise man, whose name was Mencius. He was a follower of Confucius
and he died when he was very, very old. Somebody asked him: If you were given life again, how will
you start it? Said Mencius: I will pay more attention to my needs and less attention to my desires.
And this realisation will come to you also. But it always comes very late and then life is no more in
your hands. If you were given life again....
Needs are beautiful; desires are ugly. Needs are bodily; desires are psychological. But look at your
so-called saints and sages: they always condemn your needs and always help your desires to be
projected. They say: What are you doing? Just eating? Sleeping? Wasting your life? Try to reach
heaven! Heaven is the ultimate desire. Paradise is waiting for you, and you are wasting your life on
ordinary things – just vegetating. Stand up and run, because there is not much time left! Reach!
Knock at the door of heaven! Reach God! But don’t stand there!
They always condemn your needs and they always help your desires. That’s why the world has
become so ugly – everybody is full of desires and nobody’s needs are fulfilled. That which can
be fulfilled is neglected and that which cannot be fulfilled is being fed. This is the misery of man.
Chuang Tzu is for needs. Fulfill them and don’t ask for desires. Simply drop the very idea, because
there is no future, only the present exists. And how beautiful it is! when you feel hungry, you eat –
there is no future. And when you are so much into eating it becomes a paradise unto itself. That’s
what Jesus says: Don’t think of the morrow. Look at the lilies of the field, they don’t accumulate, they
don’t think, they are not worried about the future. They flower here and now. Look at the blooming
lilies – the tomorrow will take care of itself.
When the Shoe Fits 136 Osho