When the Shoe Fits - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 10. MAN IS A BORN IN TAO
great a pushing of the river – that is what it is renouncing. The river moves by itself, you need not
push. The river has brought you up to this moment, to this shore, and the river will bring you up to
many other shores. Why be worried? Birds are not worried, trees are not worried. And man is the
most conscious being, why should he worry? If the Tao takes care of a rock, if the Tao takes care of
a river, if the Tao takes care of a tree, why do you doubt that life will take care of you? You are the
supreme most flowering of life at this moment. Life is bound to take care of you more than anything
else. Life is more concerned with you because more is at stake with you – you are a challenge. Life
is becoming conscious through you; life is becoming more and more aware through you. You are
reaching a peak – life is trying to reach a peak through you. So life will take care. To allow life and
not to be concerned with your ego and yourself is renunciation. To me it is SANNYAS.
My SANNYAS is totally different; it is not the old concept at all. The old concept was to leave life,
renounce life, the old concept was just the opposite of mine – it was to be very concerned with
oneself, you had to take care of yourself, you had to care about meditation, your yoga, you had to
care about your SADHANA, and you had to take care to see that you reached God before anybody
else did. My SANNYAS is just the opposite. I say that you need not worry – you will reach, but you
will not reach through worrying. You need not even make an effort. Be effortless. Let your whole life
be a let-go and you will reach. Life takes care. In your own hands you are in dangerous hands; in
Tao’s hands, you are in the hands of a mother – the ultimate mother.
Now listen to these words:
FISHES ARE BORN IN WATER, MAN IS BORN IN TAO.
Chuang Tzu says that as fishes are born in water, so man is born in Tao. The water takes care
of fishes, the Tao takes care of you. You are fishes in Tao, nature – you can call it God. Chuang
Tzu never uses that word deliberately, knowingly, because it has been overloaded with so much
nonsense. He simply uses Tao – a more neutral word. The Vedas use the word RIT – RIT means
Tao, nature. Man is born in Tao, that is why we cannot feel it. Fishes cannot feel water, they know it
too deeply because they have been born in it. They have lived with it so much that there has never
been a separation. The fishes never know what water is. They move in it, they live in it, they die in
it, they come into it and disappear in it, but they don’t know what water is.
It is said that once a young fish became very worried because she had heard so much about the
ocean and she wanted to know what the ocean was. She went from one wise fish to another wise
fish. She searched for a master, a guru. There were many – fishes have their own masters and
gurus. They said many things, because when you go to a guru even if he does not know, he has to
say something just to save his gurudom. They said many things about the ocean but the fish was
not satisfied because she wanted a taste of it.
One guru said: It is very far away and it is difficult to reach; only rarely does somebody reach the
ocean. Don’t be foolish. One has to prepare for it for millions of lives. It is not an ordinary thing, it is
a great task. First purify yourself and do these ASANAS – one part of the eight fold path of Patanjali.
Somebody was a Buddhist, he said: This won’t help. Move on the path of Buddha, the eight
disciplines of Buddha will help – first become purified absolutely, no impurity left, and then only
will you be allowed to see the ocean. Then somebody else said: In the Kaliyuga, this present age,
When the Shoe Fits 144 Osho