When the Shoe Fits - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 5. MONKEY MOUNTAIN
point of view also. You cannot be wise if you have only one point of view. Sometimes try to stand in
others’ shoes and just look from there.
Many couples come to me, wife and husband, and there are great problems, the greatest, because
that is the basic unit of life. Much tension, much ego, much falsity goes on and on and on, and it
becomes a hell. Couples come to me and I always suggest that for one day they try the other’s role:
let the wife become the husband and the husband become the wife. For twenty-four hours try the
other’s role and then it will be very easy to understand the other. Even in a one-hour dialogue play
the other’s role and reply from the other’s point of view and you will feel very relaxed.
One must be flexible enough to see what the other is feeling at that moment. The husband comes
home and he says something and he feels very innocent, but the wife feels offended. He can’t
understand what is happening, he has not said anything. Just meditate a little, be in the wife’s place,
think that you are the wife and the husband comes in and says the same sentence. How would you
feel? Immediately you will be able to understand why the wife is feeling that way. And if you can
understand the other, you will be able to understand yourself more. The other always sees that you
are an egoist. You never see it, you are blind to yourself.
The Prince was also blind. He could see that this monkey was trying to display but he couldn’t see
why he himself was feeling offended. Let him display – monkeys are monkeys, let him enjoy; he is
not doing any wrong to anybody, just jumping from one branch to another, swaying, playing a game.
Let him play. Why was the Prince so concerned? He felt that he was being insulted, that this monkey
was trying to say: You are nothing, I am unconcerned. You may be a prince of men but monkeys
don’t bother about you. And I also am a prince and you are nothing before me. Can you sway like
me from one branch to another?
It is said that when Darwin discovered that man evolved from monkeys, somebody retorted: First
ask also the monkeys. I am also of the opinion that if we ask the monkeys they would not say that
man is an evolution. He is a fall – a fall from the monkeys. Look... monkeys are stronger than
you, they can do a few things that you cannot do. They are much happier than you, they enjoy life
more than you. So what have you gained through your evolution, your mechanical gadgets, your
weapons, your atomic bombs? Why do you think it is an evolution, a growth, a development? Ask
the monkeys, they will laugh and they will say that you are fools. You cannot even walk on all fours.
You cannot climb a tree like a monkey.
The monkey and the Prince are both in the same boat.
THE PRINCE SHOT AN ARROW AT THE MONKEY, BUT THE MONKEY DEXTEROUSLY CAUGHT
THE ARROW IN MID-FLIGHT. The Prince is more violent than the monkey because the monkey’s
display is simply to ask: Why should you kill me? But man is more violent than any animal.
There is a zoo in Tokyo – if you ever go to Tokyo, never miss the zoo. Go there! All sorts of wild
animals are there, hundreds of cages, and there is a last cage on which there is a notice board: ’The
Most Dangerous Animal of All’. But the cage is vacant, empty. If you look – and you will look – for
the most dangerous animal of all, you will find him, because there is a mirror.
The monkey was innocent in his ego. Animals have their egos but they are still innocent, not so
violent. But man is violent, man seems to be the only violent animal. Tigers kill, lions kill, but just to
When the Shoe Fits 69 Osho