When the Shoe Fits - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 10. MAN IS A BORN IN TAO
only the chanting of the name of Ram will help. Chant Ram, Ram, Ram – only by his grace one
reaches.
And the fish was always in the ocean. She searched and searched, consulted many scriptures,
consulted many doctrines, doctrinaires, doctors, visited many ashrams, but, reaching nowhere, she
got more and more frustrated. Where was the ocean? It became an obsession. Then one day she
met a fish, a very ordinary fish – he must have been like Chuang Tzu, just ordinary. Nobody ever
thought that this fish could be a guru, just living an ordinary fish-life. This fish said: Don’t be mad,
don’t be foolish. You are already in the ocean. What you see all around is the ocean. It is not very
distant, it is near, that is why you cannot see it. Because to see a thing a distance is needed; to have
a perspective, space is needed. It is so near you cannot see it; it is outside you, it is within you, you
are nothing but a wave in the ocean – a part of it, a concentration of its energy.
But the seeker didn’t believe. The seeker said: You seem to be going mad. I have visited many
masters and they all say it is very distant. First one has to purify, do yoga asanas, cultivate discipline,
character, morality, be religious, go through many rituals – and then after millions of lives it happens.
And if one does reach the ocean, that too is through the grace of God.
But Chuang Tzu is true. The ocean is all around you. You are in it, you cannot be otherwise. How
can you live if God is not breathing in you? Who is breathing in you? Who moves into your blood?
Who digests your food? Who dreams distant dreams in you? Who gives birth to poetry and love?
Who beats in your heart with the beat of the unknown? Who is the music in your life? How can it
be possible that God is distant If God is distant and far away, how can you be here? How can you
exist? It is not possible, because God is life and you are a crystallization of life itself.
You are God – maybe miniatures, but you are Gods. And I don’t say that someday in the future
you will be like Gods; I say here, this very moment, you are. Whether you know or you know not, it
makes no difference – you are Gods. The otherwise is not possible. It may take millions of lives to
realise this but that was not because the distance was vast, but because you behaved foolishly; it
was not because you were impure, but because you were ignorant. No discipline is needed except
awareness – just becoming aware of the near and the close, just becoming aware of that which is
already touching your skin, of that which is throbbing in the heart, of that which is flowing in your
blood stream – just becoming aware of the close and the near. And to come to the close you have
to live in the moment, because if you are in the future you have gone into the distance. Then you
are on a far off journey and God is here, you have already left him behind.
Says Chuang Tzu:
FISHES ARE BORN IN WATER, MAN IS BORN IN TAO. IF FISHES, BORN IN WATER, SEEK THE
DEEP SHADOW OF POND AND POOL, ALL THEIR NEEDS ARE SATISFIED.
Needs – yes; desires – no. If a fish becomes a politician, no. But they are not so foolish as to
become politicians. Fishes are not as foolish as man. They simply live, they enjoy, they eat, drink
and are merry. They dance. They are so grateful for the littlest pond that has been given to them.
They delight in it. Look at the fishes in a pond Jumping, delighting, running hither and thither. It
seems there is no goal for them, no ambition, their needs are fulfilled. When they are tired, they
move into the shadow in pond and pool. They rest. When energy comes they move and dance and
When the Shoe Fits 145 Osho