Nobody knows from where you came or where you go.
This book is a transcript of Osho’s talks on Chuang Tzu stories, an ancient Chinese collection of anecdotes and fables; one of the fundamental text of Taoism. (Taoism is a religious tradition of Chinese origin which means living in harmony) Chuang Tzu says that if a man is crossing a river and an empty boat collides with his skiff, he will not become angry. . But if he sees a man in the boat he will become very angry and shout at him. Osho says that your boat is too heavy with your ego. Your boat is not empty. If you are too much in your boat , then everywhere there will be collision, anger, depression, aggression and violence . An empty boat is not going anywhere. Even if it is moving it is not going anywhere.
‘
If you can empty your own boat
crossing the river of the world,
no one will oppose you,
and no one will seek to harm you’.
According to Osho, a man of Tao is an empty boat. He is gentle, innocent, not knowing, not worried and wise. Only a man of Tao can just sit in a chair and go on sitting and sitting and sitting.
The whole of Chuang Tzu’s philosophy is that when everything is happening, why are you worried? Allow it to happen. If rivers and trees can reach, man will reach. When the whole existence is moving , you are part of it. Chuang Tzu says: ‘ Everything is amply taken care of.’
Chuang Tzu’s whole teaching consists of being spontaneous. What he says is that don’t choose religion against the world, don’t choose goodness against badness, don’t choose grace against sin, don’t try to be a good man against the bad man and don’t make any distinction between the Devil and God.
A few of Osho’s observations taken from this book are quoted below:
When you have become so rich you are not aware of it. When you are so rich, there is no need to exhibit it.
Hell is a bondage, heaven is also a bondage. Heaven may be a beautiful prison, hell may be an ugly prison - but both are prisons.
We live together without knowing what togetherness is.
When Bibles and Gitas and Korans are too much on your mind, you miss the divine - because the whole space in you is filled with too much furniture.
You never need to remember a real thing that has happened to you. If it happens to you, it is there - what is the need to remember.
There are altogether 11 chapters in this book spreading over 226 pages. Each chapter begins with a Chuang tzu story followed by Osho’s reflections on it. Osho uses parables, anecdotes and jokes to give emphasis to his points as well as to make his audience active and live. Here is one joke:
A man was caught, and the magistrate asked, "Tell me, when you were caught, what did the policeman say to you?"
The man said, “Can I use the vulgar language that he used, here in court? Will you not feel offended?”
The magistrate said, “Leave out the vulgar language and say what he said.”
The man thought and said, “Then ...he said nothing.”
How much power wine can give when one is drunk is pictured in the following Mulla story.
Mulla Nasruddin was walking with his wife, absolutely drunk. She had found him lying in the street and was bringing him home. She was arguing, and winning all the arguments, because Mulla Nasaruddin was not there, he was simply coming along with her.
Then suddenly she saw a mad bull approaching. There was no time to alert Nasruddin, so she jumped into a bush. The bull came up and spun Nasruddin almost fifty feet in the air. He fell into a ditch, and as he crawled out of it he looked at his wife and said, “If you do this to me again, I shall really lose my temper. This is too much.”
Osho asks, If ordinary wine gives so much power, what about Tao, the absolute drunkenness?.
