When the Shoe Fits - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 5. MONKEY MOUNTAIN
talk about your grandchildren, because we are all grandmothers. Third, never talk about jewelry,
because we all have precious jewelry purchased from the best of places, and fourthly, never talk
about sex – what was, was!
But everybody wants to talk about himself, his mink coats, his jewelry, his children, his sex. And
everybody bores everybody else. And if you tolerate bores, you tolerate them only because it is
a mutual understanding: if he is boring you he will allow himself to be bored by you. You are just
waiting – when he stops his display, you can start your own. And the whole of life becomes a false,
a continued display. What do you achieve through it? Just a false feeling that you are important,
extraordinary.
How can one become extraordinary by having mink coats? How can one become extraordinary
by owning valuable jewelry? How can one become extraordinary by doing this or that?
Extraordinariness is not concerned with what you do, it is concerned with what you are. And you are
already extraordinary, everyone is unique, there is no need to prove it. If you try to prove it, you will
just prove the opposite. If something is already the case, how can you prove it? If you try to prove it
you simply show that you are not aware of the uniqueness that has already happened to you.
So if you want to prove something it shows that you are doubtful about it. You want to destroy your
doubt through others’ eyes, through their opinions. You are not really convinced of your beautiful
person, you would like others to say that you are beautiful.
In a small village it was the custom of the village priest that whenever he married somebody he
would kiss the bride. It was an old tradition. One woman who was going to be married was very
concerned. She thought herself very beautiful, as every woman does. It is womanly, it is nothing
new. Really, every woman thinks so – even the ugliest. She thought herself very beautiful and she
was very concerned and worried. She said again and again to the would-be husband, to the groom:
Go and tell the priest that I don’t want to be kissed after the marriage.
Just before the marriage, she again asked the groom: Have you been to the priest and told him?
The groom very sadly said: Yes. The bride asked: Why are you so sad? The groom said: I told the
priest and he was very happy. He said: ’In that case I will charge only half the usual fee.’
You may go on thinking yourself a beautiful person but nobody thinks that way about you because
everybody is concerned with his own beauty, not with yours. And if anybody nods and says, ’Yes,
you are beautiful’, he or she is just waiting for you to nod about his or her beauty. It is a mutual
bargain: You fulfill my ego, I fulfill yours. I know well that you are not beautiful, you know well that I
am not beautiful, but I fulfill your ego, so you fulfill mine.
And everybody seems to have such a need to feel unique. That means you have not come upon your
own being which is unique without any need of proof. Proofs are needed only for lies – remember.
That is why you cannot prove God – because he is the ultimate truth. Proofs are needed only for
lies, truth needs no proof; it is – simply it is.
And I tell you that you are unique, extraordinary. Don’t try to be so, it is ridiculous, you simply
become a laughing stock and everybody smiles when you turn your back. If you are not convinced
about your uniqueness who is going to be convinced about it? Conviction is beyond proof. And how
does it come? It comes through self knowledge.
When the Shoe Fits 63 Osho