When the Shoe Fits - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 2. THE TOWER OF THE SPIRIT
was drunk – you could smell it on his breath. So the doctor said: All right then. Do you chase after
women? Nasrudin said no. And he had just come from a prostitute – you could see the lipstick on
his face. ’Do you smoke, Nasrudin?’ said the doctor.’No never,’ said Nasrudin – and you could see
a packet of cigarettes in his pocket, and his fingers were brown. ’What do you do then?’ said the
doctor. ’I tell lies,’ said Mulla Nasrudin.
And this is how all your successful men are: the greater liar you are, the greater will be your success.
To succeed in this world you have to be a liar. But then you miss yourself. You succeed in this world
but you become a failure in the other. And, finally, the other counts.
ALL SUCH DEMONSTRATIONS ARE LIES. WHEN ONE DISPLAYS HIMSELF IN THIS
AMBIGUOUS WAY THE WORLD OUTSIDE STORMS IN AND IMPRISONS HIM.
Once you show the inclination towards demonstration and showmanship, the world comes in and
imprisons you immediately. You have become a victim.
HE IS NO LONGER PROTECTED BY THE SINCERITY OF TAO.
EACH NEW ACT IS A NEW FAILURE.
Once you become interested in what others say about you, each new act of yours will be a failure.
Here it may succeed but this success is absolutely useless because you are never fulfilled by it. You
never flow through it. You never come to the fulfillment of your destiny. Your seed remains a seed.
You may accumulate cuttings from newspapers about yourself, but those dead cuttings, certificates,
that you put on the wall of your sitting room, are not life. Faces that you carry with you when you go
out, smiles that are false, are not life. And by and by, with every new act, you go deeper into lies.
How do you think you can be blissful through these lies? You may attain much of the rubbish of this
world but you will lose all of the real.
Says Chuang Tzu: Be in Tao, authentically in it, sincerely in it. There is only one sincerity needed of
you, and that sincerity is towards Tao – your inner nature, your authentic being. No other sincerity is
needed – let the whole world say you are insincere.
That is what Buddha’s father said to him – because Buddha deserted his parents. That is what
Buddha’s wife said to him because he deserted her. That is what his whole kingdom said to him
because he deserted the whole kingdom. But he was happy, and he remained sincere to his Tao, his
nature. And he said: No other way is possible. If you suffer, you suffer because of your expectations
– not because of me.
You are here to fulfill yourself. Others are here to fulfill themselves. If they expect something from
you this is their problem; they will suffer. But you need not become false because of it.
Be sincere to your inner nature and help others to be sincere to their inner nature. This is what
I call a religious man. A religious man is one who is sincere to his inner nature and helps others
to be sincere to their inner nature. You are here to fulfill your destiny, and others are here to fulfill
theirs. Don’t expect anything from them, otherwise you will turn them into showmen, you will turn
them into liars. Don’t expect anything from anybody, and don’t fulfill others’ expectations of you.
When the Shoe Fits 30 Osho