When the Shoe Fits - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 5. MONKEY MOUNTAIN
The mind goes on finding ways and means to be outstanding. If you cannot be anything else, at least
you can be the tallest dwarf. But be something, somebody. The whole education, culture, civilization
teaches you to be outstanding, and Tao says: Don’t be outstanding, drop all that is outstanding; just
be ordinary, just be simple. Easy is right; to be ordinary is to be right, because to be ordinary you
will be easy. If you want to be extraordinary, outstanding, you will always remain uneasy and tense
because you have to prove something. You have to convince others, and your whole life will remain
always indecisive. With indecision there will be a wavering inside, a trembling.
.... YEN PU’I BECAME A DISCIPLE OF A SAGE TO GET RID OF EVERYTHING THAT MADE
HIM OUTSTANDING. HE RENOUNCED EVERY PLEASURE. HE LEARNED TO HIDE EVERY
DISTINCTION.
SOON, NO ONE IN THE KINGDOM KNEW WHAT TO MAKE OF HIM. THUS THEY HELD HIM IN
AWE.
And Tao says, that when nobody knows what to make of you – you are so ordinary that nobody
knows what to make of you, nobody knows any utility for you, you cannot be used, you are so
ordinary, without any talent – then, they say, the real mystery reveals itself through you. Then you
become a real mystery. When you cannot be used you become god like. What is the meaning?
Whenever you are used, you become a thing; whenever you cannot be used, you become a person.
A person is not a utility; a thing is a utility. If somebody asks you: Who are you? You say: I am a
doctor. What do you mean? It means that society is using you as a doctor. It is a function, not a
personality. It is not your person, not your being, it is a utility – society is using you as a doctor.
Somebody is a carpenter, somebody else is a shoemaker. Is this your being? Or just a utility in
society? Society is using you as a thing, and the more valuable your use, the more society will
value you. But if you drop all talents, if you become just ordinary, and nobody knows what to do with
you, nobody can use you, you have gone beyond society. Now you are no longer a thing, you have
become a person. And this does not mean that you will not do anything, you will, but nobody will
use you. You will ’do’ on your own, it will be your flowering.
A rose flowers, not for those who will pass, not for those who will see, not for those who will smell
the fragrance. No! It flowers on its own. A man of Tao flowers on his own. He is like a rose, he is not
a utility. And a man who has not known his innermost being is always like a thing, always on display
in the window of a shop; always waiting for somebody to come and use him with all his certificates,
distinctions, talents; always crying: Come and use me, make me a thing. I am a most valuable thing,
you will never get any thing better than me. Come and use me! This is your whole cry.
And if this is your cry, you will become a thing.
A man of Tao drops all distinctions, he burns all certificates, he destroys all bridges, he remains
in himself, he becomes a flower. And this flowering is purposeless – it has no utility. Many are
benefitted by it, but it is not for them, it is for one’s own self. He has attained his own destiny. Then
there is fulfillment.
As a thing you will remain unfulfilled because you have to be a person, an authentic person. You
have not to be a thing, not to be a husband, because to be a husband is a thing; you have not to
When the Shoe Fits 76 Osho