When the Shoe Fits - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 7. AUTUMN FLOODS
no more and an old man is happy, then he has known something else: he has found some eternal
source.
When you are young, you have a dance in your feet – that is nothing, it is just the flood. When you
are old and everything has been taken back, nobody even remembers you, nobody bothers about
you; you are simply neglected, out of the way, thrown away like rubbish, garbage, and you are still
happy....
Buddha has said that when you find an old man as happy as a youth, there is something there – bow
down to him, listen and learn from him. In India, it was the tradition that whenever we found an old
man happy, dancing, we would make him a master. He would move to the forest, he would create a
small university around him – A GURUKUL, a household of the master – and disciples would start
pouring in from all over the country.
In India we have never made a young man a teacher. Only an old man can be a teacher, and that is
right. Exceptions may happen, but generally it is right. Only an old man can be a teacher, one who
has lived through all seasons of life, who is seasoned and still happy and blissful. To be in flood and
happy is nothing special, it is ordinary, but to be happy and ecstatic when the stream is almost dry,
when only sands are left, when one’s whole body is just a ruin.... To be alive at the peak of life and
to dance is nothing. But when death comes near and you go dancing to meet it, then it is something.
Then the rare has happened, the extraordinary has entered into the world of the ordinary, then the
Divine has penetrated.
If you are happy because you are young you will not be happy for long, soon your happiness will
be shattered. And if you can become aware before it is shattered, it is good. This is the beauty: if
you can become sad while you are young, you will be happy when you become old. Otherwise you
will become sad because now this is just a flood. If you look at it, it is not you; it is the thousand
torrents falling into you that is giving you the impression that you are vast. Soon that which is given
to you will be taken, and if you can be happy when everything is taken only then is your happiness
unshakeable. Then your happiness has become bliss. This is the difference between happiness
and bliss.
Happiness depends on others – the thousand torrents falling in – bliss depends just on you, it is
independent. It has no conditions to be fulfilled, it is unconditional. It is simply because of you; it has
no casuality, nothing causes it. If you are happy with your girl friend, your boy friend, your lover, then
somebody is causing your happiness. Soon it will be taken away, because it is an autumn flood.
Seasons will change, the wheel of life will go on moving – it will be taken away. That which is caused
cannot be forever; that which is uncaused can be forever. Remember that always whenever you are
happy; remember... is it something uncaused or caused? If it is caused then it is better to be sad,
because it is going to be taken away. It is already on the way, it has already left you – sooner or
later you will realise it has gone. Because causation is part of the world which is in a flux, this dream
world that Hindus have called MAYA, this illusion which goes on moving like a dream. And if you
believe in it, it becomes a nightmare. If you don’t believe it, you can discard it – then you can look at
the witness, which is uncaused.
The River God became swollen. SO DOWNSTREAM HE SWUNG, UNTIL HE CAME TO THE
OCEAN. And someday or other you will come to the ocean. What is the ocean? Death is the ocean
When the Shoe Fits 99 Osho