When the Shoe Fits - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 3. FLIGHT FROM THE SHADOW
Ram.... Something to do, because how can we remain without doing anything, without something to
run after, chase?
Mind is activity, and being is absolute inactivity. Mind is running; being is sitting. The periphery
is moving; the centre is not moving. Look at a bullock cart moving – the wheel is moving, but the
centre around which the whole wheel moves is static, absolutely static, non-moving. Your being is
eternally unmoving, and your periphery is continuously moving. This is the point to remember in
Dervish dancing. When you do it, let the body become the periphery – the body moves, and you
are eternally unmoving. Become a wheel. The body becomes the wheel, the periphery, and you are
the centre. Soon you will realise that although the body goes on moving faster and faster and faster,
inside you can feel that you are not moving; and the faster the body moves the better, because then
the contrast is created. Suddenly, the body and you are separate.
But you move with The body continuously so there is no separation. Go and sit. Simply sitting is
enough, not doing anything. Simply close your eyes and sit, and sit, and sit and allow everything to
settle. It will take time, because you have been unsettled for so many lives. You have been trying to
create all sorts of disturbances. It will take time, but only time. You need not do anything; you simply
look and sit, look and sit.... Zen people call it ZAZEN. ZAZEN means just sitting, not doing anything.
This is what Chuang Tzu says: HE FAILED TO REALISE THAT IF HE MERELY STEPPED INTO
THE SHADE, HIS SHADOW WOULD VANISH, AND IF HE SAT DOWN AND STAYED STILL,
THERE WOULD BE NO MORE FOOTSTEPS.
There was no need to fight, and there was no need to escape. The only thing needed was just
to move into the shade and sit still. And this is to be done during your whole life. Don’t fight
with anything and don’t try to escape from anything. Let things take their own course. You simply
close your eyes and move inside to the centre where no sun ray has ever penetrated. There is no
shadow. And really, that is the meaning of the myth that gods have no shadows. Not that there are
gods somewhere who have no shadows, but the god that is within you has no shadow because no
outside penetrates there. It cannot penetrate, it is always under the shade.
That shade Chuang Tzu calls ’Tao’, your innermost nature – utterly innermost, absolutely innermost.
So what is to be done? One, don’t listen to the mind. It is a good tool for the outside but it is
absolutely a barrier for the inside. Logic is good for people, it is not good for yourself. On the
contrary, faith is better, because faith is illogical. Faith is dangerous in society because they will
cheat you. There logic is needed, doubt is needed. In tackling things, logic and doubt are needed.
Science depends on doubt and religion depends on faith, SHRADDHA. Just sit, with a deep trust
that your inner nature will take over. It always takes over, you have only to wait, patience only is
needed. And whatsoever your mind says simply don’t listen to it because mind says: Drop it!
And mind will go on saying things because you have always listened to it, you have given it so much
significance. Even where it is absolutely useless it will go on suggesting and advising.
I have heard that a bank was trying to decide if they should have computers and automatic
mechanisms installed in their headquarters. So an efficiency expert was called in to do some
research work: which people were needed, and which people were not needed. which could be
disposed of.
When the Shoe Fits 44 Osho