A few days back, an article appeared on The Speaking Tree titled “When The Shoe Fits, The Foot is Forgotten”. A scanned copy was shared in our Whatsapp group and we discussed it during our health coaching class that day. The scanned article is shared here 👇
The article says it’s written by Osho… well, that’s the first problem. He never wrote anything, he spoke and his discourses have been transcribed word for word. The discourses on a single topic like Krishna or Vedanta or Lao Tzu or The Dhammapada have been compiled into books. A series of ten discourses on the Zen mystic Chuang Tzu have been compiled into a book titled “When the Shoe Fits”.
The writing in the Speaking Tree article is not Osho’s voice or his language. I read it twice and something DID NOT FIT. That’s when I read the last line which says, this is abridged from “When The Shoe Fits”. A terrible thing to do… a Master of Masters voice cannot be interpreted, especially when his discourses are available in his own voice. The words HE uses come from the beyond. You can share excerpts like many of us do and share your interpretation, however flawed but to put Osho’s name under the abridged article is a copyright violation on the universe !!!
I glanced through all the ten discourses looking for these words as they appear on the article. Didnt find them. 😔. It’s one thing to misappropriate someone’s culture like having a “Rath Yatra” for Jesus, and a whole another thing to put Vishnu’s name on it. Am sharing the link to the ten discourses and a few excerpts that speak to the article above…. BUT need help in stopping this kind of misappropriation and copyright violation.
A Master’s voice cannot be abridged, Osho is a Master of Masters and cannot be “sold” in packets of your choice …..
Read the transcript of all the discourses here – When the Shoe Fits.
The following excerpt is from Discourse #2 of the series titled “When The Shoe Fits”. These are discourses on Zen Master Chuang Tzu. To read the full excerpt click here – The Tower of The Spirit.
“…Only man is in suffering. Suffering exists nowhere else than in the heart of man.
The whole of nature is joyous; the whole of nature is always celebrating without any fear, without any anxiety. Existence goes on existing, but man is a problem. Why is this so? And every man is a problem. If only a few were problems we could call them ill, abnormal, but just the contrary is the case – only a few are not problems. Rarely is there a man like Buddha, Jesus, or Chuang Tzu – one who is at home, whose life is an ecstasy and not a suffering and an anxiety. Otherwise everybody lives in suffering and in hell.
Somewhere man has gone wrong – not any particular man, but human society as such has gone wrong. And this has gone to the roots. Whenever a child is born, the society starts changing the child to the abnormal pattern – the unnatural pattern through which everybody else is suffering.
Psychologists have been trying hard to probe the mystery of where a child goes wrong and they have stumbled upon the age of four. Somewhere near that age the child becomes part of society; somewhere around that age he is no longer natural. Before the age of four he is still part of the great world of trees, flowers, birds and animals; before the age of four he is still wild. After that he is domesticated. Then the society takes over. Then he lives according to rules, morality, right and wrong. Then he is not total. Then everything is divided. Now before he moves he has to decide deliberately how to move, what to do, and what not to do. The ‘ought’ has entered and that ‘ought’ is the disease. Discrimination has come in. Now the child is no longer part of the Divine – he has fallen from that grace.
This is the meaning of the biblical story of Adam’s fall. Before he ate from the Tree of Knowledge he was natural, he lived in the garden of Eden. That garden of Eden is here. These trees are still living in it; animals are still part of it; the sun and moon and stars are still moving in it; here and now is the garden of Eden – but you are out of it. Why was Adam turned out? He ate the fruit of knowledge.
And at the age of four every Adam and every Eve are turned out again. It is not something that happened in the past it happens every time a child is born – again the Adam comes into being, again the Eve comes into being. Up to the age of four there is no knowledge. By the age of four the child starts understanding what is what. Then he misses the path, then he is no longer natural, then the spontaneity is lost. Now he will live according to the rules.
Once you start living according to the rules you will suffer. You will suffer because you cannot love spontaneously, you cannot enjoy, you cannot dance, you cannot sing. Once you start living according to the rules you have to move in a fixed pattern – and life is never a fixed pattern, it is a fluidity, it is a liquid flexible flow. And nobody knows where it is moving. Once you start living through rules then you know where you are moving. But deep down the movement has stopped.
Now you are simply vegetating, now you are simply dying – because you are imprisoned. And the imprisonment is very subtle – unless you become absolutely alert you will not be able to see it, it is like an unseen armour around you.
One of the greatest revolutionary thinkers of this age, Wilhelm Reich, stumbled upon this armour.
But he was proved by society to be mad and was thrown in jail. He died in jail in deep anguish.
The anguish was this: whatsoever he said was true but nobody was ready to even listen to him. He came upon the same thing about which Chuang Tzu talks about in this sutra – the imprisonment.
Wilhelm Reich found that every mental disease has a bodily part to it, a parallel part in the body; in the body something has gone dead, solid. And unless that part of the body is released, that block dispersed, and again your body energy becomes a flow is impossible to make your spirit free. The imprisonment must be broken; the armour must be thrown.”
From Discourse #8. Do read the full transcript – The Turtle.
“….Every child is born sane, but every man becomes insane – the whole of humanity is neurotic.
Neurosis is not a problem for only a few people, the human being as such is neurotic. And this neurosis is created through such a subtle mechanism that you cannot even become aware of it. It has become an unconscious thing, it goes on influencing you, your behaviour, your relationships, your whole life is coloured by it. But it has gone so deep into your roots that you cannot find from where your misery, conflict, anxiety and neurosis have arisen. A few things have to be understood then this story will become clear, and very helpful.
First, if you condemn yourself you are creating a division, and that division will be your misery and your hell. If you condemn yourself, it means you condemn nature, and there is no victory against nature, there cannot be. You are just a tiny part in a vast ocean of nature, you cannot fight it.
And all so-called religions teach you to fight it. They condemn nature and they acclaim culture.
They condemn nature, and they say: This is behaving just like animals, don’t be like animals! Every parent is saying don’t be like animals. What is wrong with animals? Animals are beautiful! But in your mind animals are something to be condemned, something bad, something evil, something not worthy of you. You are superior, you are not an animal, you are born of the angels.
And animals…. They are just to be used, exploited, you don’t belong to them.
That is why when Darwin first declared that man has come out of the same heritage as animals, that he belongs to the animal world, the whole of humanity was against him. From every church pulpit, from every temple, from every mosque, he was condemned as a heretic. They said that he was teaching something absolutely wrong and if he were believed then the whole culture will be lost.
But he was right. Man is as natural as other animals, trees and birds; and trees and birds and animals are not neurotic, they never go mad – unless you put them in a zoo. In a zoo it happens, animals do go neurotic. Even to be in contact with man is dangerous. Man is infectious. Sometimes dogs go mad, but never when they are wild, only when they are domesticated. Domestic animals go mad; living with man is living with something unnatural. In the wild no animal commits suicide, no animal goes mad, no animal murders. But with man even animals turn unnatural, they start doing things they have never done in the wild; they become homosexual, they become neurotic, they murder, and sometimes they have even tried to commit suicide.
What happens when you bring a dog to your home? You immediately start teaching him, as if he lacks something. He is perfect! Every dog is born perfect. Nature has given him everything that is needed, he is already equipped, you need not teach him.
What are you doing? You are trying to make him a part of human society, and now the trouble starts.
Now even the dog will learn to condemn himself. If he does something wrong, inside he feels guilty; condemnation has entered.”
“…..You are continuously not accepting yourself. From the very beginning you have been taught that nature is not enough, you have to be more than nature. And you have tried, and that effort has failed – it is impossible, you can never be more than nature. And if you try too much you will be less than nature. You can never be more than nature because nature is perfect: nothing more is needed, no polishing is needed, no effort is needed to make it better – it cannot be made better. But if you try too much you will fall from the perfection of nature and you will become a neurotic animal.
Man comes from animals, but he is not a higher animal, he has become a neurotic animal. And the problem is that nobody teaches you to accept yourself and to accept your nature. Worship it, be thankful to the Divine for it, be grateful to the Whole!
Whatsoever has been given to you has a meaning, it is significant. You cannot cut it down and change. If you try, you will be in trouble. And you are in trouble – everybody on this earth is in trouble.
Why does man condemn himself? Why can’t he accept nature? Because through condemnation the ego is created. There is no other way to create the ego.
To create the ego, you have to fight; to create the ego, you have to condemn something as bad, and applaud something as good; to create the ego, first you have to create a god and a devil. And then you have to fight with the devil and try to reach the god. A conflict is needed for the ego. If there is no conflict, there cannot be any ego. Just think… if there is no fight within you, if you accept yourself totally – you are happy as you are, deeply content, deeply satisfied, not even a single note of complaint, thankful – how can the ego exist? How can you say ‘I am’? The more you fight, the more ‘I’ is created.”
Stay true to your nature and to your natural state …. the best way to avoid “dis-ease”. Stay sane, stay healthy.
Happy Dhanteras.
Disclaimer – I post excerpts from Osho’s books and discourses and sometimes share his quotes. In most of the posts, the link to the full audio or full transcript is given. Osho is the Master, and to understand him, please listen to him or read his books. These excerpts are my limited interpretations with my limited understanding. Nothing original and I could be totally off the mark.