When the Shoe Fits - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 6. SYMPHONY FOR A SEABIRD
very deeply, because on this path there is every possibility that you may start following rules, and
once you become the victim of rules you will never come to know who you are.
You can know yourself only in total freedom – and rules are prisons. They are prisons because
no-one else can make rules for you; he may have discovered the truth through these rules, but they
were for him. Nature differs – they helped him but they will not help you; on the contrary, they will
hinder you.
So let understanding be the only rule.
Learn, grow in understanding, but don’t follow rules. Rules are dead, understanding is alive; rules will
become an imprisonment, understanding will give you the infinite sky. And every man is burdened
with rules, every religion becomes nothing but rules. Because Jesus attained, because Buddha
attained, their life became a rule for everybody else to follow. But nobody else is a Gautam Buddha;
nobody else is a Jesus Christ. So at the most you can become a decorated carbon copy, but you
will never be your authentic self. If you follow Jesus too much you will become a Christian but never
a Christ, and that is the danger. To become a Christian and to miss Christ is not worth it. You can
become Christ, but then Jesus cannot be your rule, only your own understanding will be the law.
Jesus followed nobody. He had a master, John the Baptist, but he never followed any rule. He felt
the master, he remained with the master, he looked at the flame of the master, he absorbed the
master, he was baptised by the master, but he never followed any rules. Other followers of John
went against Jesus. They said: This man has betrayed you. He is going on his own, he is not
following the rules strictly. No man of understanding can follow rules strictly. Only people who are
dead can follow rules strictly because no rule is for you, you are your own rule. Understand, learn
from others, just to find your own rule, but remember, never impose that rule on anybody else – that
is violence. Your so-called mahatmas go on enforcing rules on others because through rules they kill
and destroy, and they enjoy violence. Their violence is very subtle, they don’t kill you directly, they
kill you very indirectly. If somebody attacks you directly you can defend yourself. When somebody
attacks you indirectly – for your own sake – you become completely a victim, you cannot even defend
yourself.
Many gurus are nothing but violence, but their violence is subtle. So whenever you come near a
man who wants to impose his rules on your life, wants to give you a fixed frame, wants to give you
a window to look at the truth through, escape from him. There is danger. A real master will not give
you a window to look at the truth through, he will bring you out under the sky. He will not give you a
pattern to live by, he will simply give you the feeling, the understanding, and understanding will help
you to move; understanding is free and your own.
Remember.... Because you don’t want to understand, because understanding is difficult and
arduous, because understanding needs courage and understanding needs transformation, you
simply become victims of those who want to give you rules. But rules are substitutes, you can
get them easily. You can easily make your life a disciplined life but this will be a false thing. You may
be acting, pretending, but this cannot be real.
There is a Jewish story I would like to tell you. Jesus must have heard it because it is older than
Jesus and everybody knew the story in those days. He must have heard it from his mother, Mary, or
from his father, Joseph. The story is beautiful, you may also have heard it.
When the Shoe Fits 79 Osho