When the Shoe Fits - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 3. FLIGHT FROM THE SHADOW
Where are you going? Where will you reach? All this flight and escape will bring you under the
Banyan tree. And as you are thanking your horse or your car, you will feel the hand of Death on your
shoulder. Death will say: I have been waiting here for you for a long time. You have come.
And everybody comes at the right moment, not a single moment is lost. Everybody reaches there
right on time, nobody is ever late. I have heard that a few people have reached before their time but
I have never heard of anybody reaching there late.
Some people reach there before their time because of their doctors.
HE ATTRIBUTED HIS FAILURE TO THE FACT THAT HE WAS NOT RUNNING FAST ENOUGH. SO
HE RAN FASTER AND FASTER, WITHOUT STOPPING, UNTIL HE FINALLY DROPPED DEAD.
HE FAILED TO REALISE THAT IF HE MERELY STEPPED INTO THE SHADE, HIS SHADOW
WOULD VANISH.
Easy it was – the easiest! If you just move into the shade where the sun is not, the shadow
disappears, because a shadow is created by the sun. It is the absence of the sun’s rays. If you
are under a tree in the shade, the shadow disappears.
HE FAILED TO REALISE THAT IF HE MERELY STEPPED INTO THE SHADE, HIS SHADOW
WOULD VANISH. That shade is called silence, that shade is called inner peace. Don’t listen to the
mind, just step into the shade, into the inner silence where no rays of the sun enter.
You remain on the periphery, that is the problem. There you are in the light of the outside world, and
shadow is created.
Close your eyes, move into the shade. The moment you close your eyes the sun is no longer there,
hence all meditations are done with closed eyes – you are moving into your own shade. Inside there
is no sun and no shadow, outside is society, and outside are all types of shadows. Have you ever
realised that your anger, your sex, your greed, your ambition, are all part of the society? If you really
move in and leave the society out, where is anger? Where is sex? But remember, in the beginning
when you close your eyes, they are not really closed. You carry images from the outside inside and
you will find the same society reflected. But if you continue simply moving, moving, moving inside,
sooner or later the society will be left out. You are in, society is out – you have moved from the
periphery to the centre.
In this centre, there is a silence: no anger, and no anti anger, no sex, and also no BRAHMACHARYA,
no greed, no non-greed, no violence, no non-voilence – because those are all outside. The
opposites are also outside – remember. Inside you are neither, not this nor that, you are simply
a being, pure. This is what I mean, being like a god – a pure being with no opposites hanging
around, fighting, ’flighting’ – no! Simply being. You have moved into the shade.
He failed to realise that if he only moved into the shade then his shadow would vanish, and if he
sat down and stayed still, there could be no more footsteps. It was really so easy. But that which
is easy is so difficult for the mind because mind always finds it easier to run, to fight, because then
there is something to do. If you say to the mind, ’Don’t do anything’, that is the most difficult thing.
The mind will ask: Give me a mantra at least, so that with closed eyes I can say: Aum, Aum; Ram,
When the Shoe Fits 43 Osho