Anecdotes

Osho, your style of discourse is parable-centered, anecdotal. Does it never happen that the moral of one anecdote ends up hurting the heart of another?

The damage can occur in understanding the moral. From my side, it does not. Because in my vision there is a coherence between the two, and that is what I am pointing toward. But it can happen sometimes. A parable has many facets. I am emphasizing one facet; your attention may go to another.

Osho, can we accept this story as a doctrine and move ahead...?

No one ever moves ahead by accepting anything as a doctrine. To accept something as a doctrine means you have already rejected it; you have not understood. You will have to inquire. You must search for the element of this story in your own life. Only if you search will the siddhant be revealed to you. Siddhant is a very unusual word. It means that which has been proven, a consummation. There is no exact equivalent for it in English or other languages. Siddhant does not mean principle. Siddhant means that which you have proved in your own life. What has become your experience—only that is a siddhant. Without your experience, no “principle” is a siddhant at all. It is talk, hypothesis, theory, scripture—but not siddhant. You have to search in life. Search from any corner; you will arrive quickly. When anger arises, the mind at once slips into a…

Osho, Lord Buddha used to tell a story. A man met a tiger in a field. He ran. The tiger chased him. He reached the edge of a terrifying ravine, with no way forward. Grabbing the root of a wild vine, he hung down into the chasm. The tiger came up and sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked into the ravine and saw another tiger below, waiting to swallow him. Meanwhile two mice—one white and one black—began gnawing the root of the vine. And just then the man spotted a ripe, sweet fruit. Holding the vine with one hand, he plucked the fruit with the other. How sweet it tasted! Osho! Pl

The story is older than Buddha, but the way Buddha used it is entirely his own. Both meanings are worth understanding. The story, in its original form, is the essence of Hindu thought. But Buddha wrote over it with a bold, new ink—and the entire meaning changed. Buddha’s interpretation is unique. First, let us understand the Hindu perspective. It has its own validity. Then we will also see how the same symbol can become a foundation for two different visions. Change the way of seeing, and what is seen also changes. The world is in our vision, not in things. As the seer is, so the world appears. Hindu thought rests on the idea that the world is maya—illusion. The pleasures found in it are momentary, not true. Now they are, and in the next moment they are not. Death erases life—indeed, every moment it is erasing it. The white…

There are many who can see a lot of contradictions in what you are saying. Once you explained why this is so. But up to this moment I have not come across one single contradiction. Even when there obviously should be one. I just cannot see it, even when I try to. Is there anything wrong with me? Please explain.

I am not a philosopher, and I am not trying to prove any theory to you, and I am not here talking to you to prove some hypothesis. There is nothing to prove. Truth is there, already given. Religion has nothing to prove; it has no theory about it. It simply gives you a way how to see that which is already there. I go on talking to you not that I have a theory. If I have a theory then I will be consistent. I will always look whether it fits with my theory or not; if it fits, okay; if it doesn't fit, I drop it. But I have no theory. Everything fits with me. If I have a theory, then I have to look at my theory. Then the fact becomes secondary and the theory becomes primary. If the fact fits with the theory then it is…