LAO TZU SAYS:
ACCOMPLISH DO-NOTHING. ATTEND TO NO-AFFAIRS. TASTE THE FLAVOURLESS.
WHETHER IT IS BIG OR SMALL, MANY OR FEW, REQUITE HATRED WITH VIRTUE. DEAL
WITH THE DIFFICULT WHILE YET IT IS EASY; DEAL WITH THE BIG WHILE YET IT IS SMALL.
THE DIFFICULT PROBLEMS OF THE WORLD MUST BE DEALT WITH WHILE THEY ARE
YET EASY; THE GREAT PROBLEMS OF THE WORLD MUST BE DEALT WITH WHILE THEY
ARE YET SMALL; THEREFORE THE SAGE BY NEVER DEALING WITH GREAT PROBLEMS
ACCOMPLISHES GREATNESS.
HE WHO LIGHTLY MAKES A PROMISE WILL FIND IT OFTEN HARD TO KEEP HIS FAITH.
HE WHO MAKES LIGHT OF MANY THINGS WILL ENCOUNTER MANY DIFFICULTIES. HENCE
EVEN THE SAGE REGARDS THINGS AS DIFFICULT, AND FOR THAT REASON NEVER MEETS
WITH DIFFICULTIES.
LIFE is not a problem. Rather, it is a mystery to be lived not a problem to be solved. But it
becomes a problem; and it becomes a problem because you go on postponing things, postponing
them for tomorrow. That which can be done today, that which should be done today, cannot be
done tomorrow. That which would have been a beautiful phenomenon today, a mystery to be lived,
tomorrow will become a very very hard and cold problem to be solved.
Life in itself, if lived here and now, is not a problem. Postponement creates problems, and then you
go on piling up. Then so much gathers around you that it becomes almost impossible to live – you
are paralyzed, crippled, in a straitjacket, imprisoned. First try to understand this, then it will be easy
to enter into the sutra.
I was saying, just a few days before, that even a genius, a very talented person – he may be a Nobel
Prize winner, a great intellectual, world-known – still may behave in a childish way.
If he finds in the morning when he wakes that his slippers are not in the right place, he is angry,
irritated.
If he could pay attention to his anger that very moment he would laugh, because this is so foolish!
ridiculous! But he does not pay attention to it.
He goes to the bathroom, irritated, in a bad mood, starts shaving his beard, but he is almost
unconscious that a problem has not been dealt with, that a problem is there, poking its nose again
and again into his being. And it is growing all the time, because in life nothing is non growing.
Everything alive is growing, and when you are alive your anger is alive, it grows! It never remains
the same. Moment to moment it is gathering more momentum and force.
He goes on shaving but irritated, he is not enjoying the act, the freshness of it, the beautiful moment
when one feels unburdened, no, he is not in an enjoying mood. Unconscious, he lets the razor
slip from his hand, fall to the floor. Now he is even more angry. If he can deal with it right now he
will laugh. It is foolish to be angry because a razor is not a being; a razor is never responsible for
anything; how can you be angry at a razor? But now he is more irritated. His hands are moving now
more foolishly, unconsciously; it again slips, strikes the old ancient antique mirror which he loves so
much; the mirror is broken.
Now he is sane no more. He comes out, bumps against the furniture, slams the door, slaps the child
because he has not done his homework, starts arguing, becomes quarrelsome with his wife – and
only for a small thing which was nothing! Because the slippers were not found in the right place.
Now our so-called genius takes his car and goes to the office, but never reaches it because there is
an accident. It was always going to be so. And just because of the slippers, because they were not
found in the right place.
Now he drives like a maniac, his whole anger moves to his feet, he goes on pressing the accelerator;
he is a drunkard! Drunk with his anger. There is an accident. After twelve hours or fifteen hours,
when he opens his eyes, he is in hospital. And he will never be able to connect the whole thing.
And the story can go on and on – he falls in love with the nurse – and you can go on! Just because
the slippers were not found in the right place! The whole family disturbed; divorce; and the whole
world will not be the same again – just because his slippers were not found in the right place.
Deal with things moment to moment, don’t let them pile up within you. Don’t accumulate. Life is
really beautiful. It becomes ugly. It is not a problem. Every problem is SO SMALL that it is foolish to
call life a problem. It is not a problem for the trees, it is not a problem for the birds, it is not a problem
for the earth, for the sky, it is only a problem for man, because only man has learned a trick – the
trick of postponement. Then small things become bigger. Then a moment comes when you cannot
cope with them. Then YOU become so small and the problem is so big, it is almost impossible to
cope with it, then you always carry its burden on your head. And with that much burden, how can
you enjoy? how can you delight? how can you celebrate? how can you dance?
And then somebody says, There is a God. You hear the words but you cannot believe. Maybe there
is a devil who is running the whole world, but not a God. Your whole life has become so crippled,
so paralyzed, so burdensome, you would like to commit suicide. It is rare to find a man who has not
contemplated some time or other committing suicide.
Psychoanalysts say that each man, each woman, in the long run of life thinks almost ten times of
committing suicide. You don’t commit it because you are cowards; there is nothing in it to take credit
for, that you don’t commit it. You contemplate it – that’s enough! That means life has become so
unlivable that rather than being dragged more and more into it, you would like to drop it; you would
like to become a drop out.
How can you love God? How can you pray? Because prayer comes out of great gratitude; prayer
comes out of gratefulness. A life lived well becomes a life of prayer. It has nothing to do with
churches and temples and mosques, it has something to do with the quality of your life. A life lived
well, moment to moment, aware, alert, not postponed, becomes a prayerful life; and prayer by and
by turns into meditation. Then you don’t even pray, because the words disturb. Then your prayer
becomes silent. When prayer is silent it is meditation.
So to understand that existence is beautiful, sacred, that existence is a benediction, a blessing, you
will have to live a different type of life, a life which is not one of postponement. This is the meaning
of living moment to moment.
Unburden yourself from the past. It is there no more, it has already flown away, it exists not; you are
unnecessarily burdened by ghosts – they are no more. And don’t burden yourself with the future –
it is not yet. When it comes, YOU will be there to meet it. Why plan about it right now? Because the
way you are going to plan it, it is never going to happen. Your planning is bound to create a greater
problem, because when you plan beforehand you want to impose your plan on existence.
Existence is not to follow you, you can follow existence and feel grateful. But existence cannot follow
you, you don’t know the whole. You don’t know the desire of the whole, the destiny of the whole. And
you make private plans; they are bound to be against the whole, and they are bound to be broken.
Then your heart is broken.
Drop the past. And don’t bring the future in. THIS MOMENT IS ALL. If you live this moment alert,
then things, small things, will be dealt with, and, those small things dealt with, you will grow, and
there will be no great problems.
Lao Tzu says that for a great man there are no great problems. Ordinarily you must be thinking the
other way round, that great men exist because they tackle great problems. And Lao Tzu says there
are no great problems for a great man because he never allows the problems to become great; he
always deals with them when they are small, within his hands; then something can be done. And
when you deal with problems moment to moment you are always fresh, unburdened; dust never
collects on your being. Next moment you slip, fresh, young and virgin you slip into the next moment
as a snake slips out of its old skin; the old left behind – the fresh and younger skin comes. Then
life is a mystery, it is not a problem to be solved. It has to be lived and lived totally. Then you feel
grateful. Then it has been a blessing.
Osho - Tao. The Three Treasures vol.3
Верувањата кои Ошо ги наметнува на неговите „љубовџии“ се исклучок од горното правило на Ошо.
