EARTHEN LAMPS : 60 parables and stories

 

Man is an earthen lamp and his immortal flame of soul is constantly rising towards the sky. 

Someone asked an old sage, “Among all the things of the world, which is the biggest?” The sage replied, “The sky, because whatever exists, exists in the sky and the sky itself does not exist in anything.” The person continued, “And what is the best thing?” The sage replied, “Grace, because everything can be sacrificed for grace but grace cannot be sacrificed for anything.” Then he asked, “And the most mobile?” “Thought,” responded the sage. And the man asked, “And what is the easiest to give?” The sage replied, “Advice.” “And the most difficult?” “Knowledge of the self,” said the sage. Knowing the self is the most difficult because in order to know it, everything else has to be given up. The self, the soul is not a dead lamp but an immortal flame which is constantly rising towards the sky. This book of sixty parables and stories is Osho’s only book that is written by him. In these parables Osho’s saying of things is poetic , simple and direct. The stories can even overturn our conventional thinking process. Here is one such story:

 A boat was travelling to a distant land. Among those on board sat a poor monk. Some mischievous people were teasing him in all kinds of ways. While he was praying at night, they thought that he would be unable to protect himself and so they started beating on his head with their shoes. He was deep in prayer and tears of love were falling from his eyes. Then a voice came from the sky. “My beloved one, you just have to ask and I will overturn the boat.” The antagonists became nervous and the other travellers were also concerned. Their sport was becoming too dangerous. They fell at the monk’s feet and started apologizing to him. When the monk’s prayers came to an end he got up and spoke to them saying, “Don’t be worried.” then he lifted his face up to the sky and said, “Dear God, in what Devil’s language were you talking? If you want to play the game of overturning, overturn the understanding of these people. What is the use in overturning the boat?” 

Given below are some of Osho’s observations:

A person whose opinion has any value will never express it without being asked.

He who takes an oath is a weak man and who decides to renounce never does so.

If a man is ignorant, he stuffs himself with words and scriptures and covers himself with their knowledge.

The person who sees the small, is filled with the small; the one who sees the great, is filled with that greatness.

THE BOOK OF CHILDREN: Supporting the Freedom and Intelligence of a New Generation

Parental conditioning is the greatest slavery in the world.

The child is the most exploited phenomenon in the world and he is exploited behind a facade of love. The child, says Osho, is a slave to his own parents, who love him. Osho’s responses to questions on children and parenting selected from his various talks are compiled in this book.

 Every child, according to Osho, is being enveloped in many layers of conditioning by the parents, by the society, by the teachers and by all the vested interests. The obedient child is praised by his parents, by his teachers and by others whereas the playful child is condemned by everybody. The children, Osho says, are very intelligent and he asks us to watch the intelligence of small children and see how spontaneous they are in their day to day life.

 A passerby asks a boy,”Son, can you please tell me what time it is?” “Yes, of course,” replies the boy, “but what do you need it for? It changes continuously!”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    *  

Little Pierino comes home from school with a big smile on his face. “Well, dear, you look very happy. So you like school, do you?” “Don’t be silly, Mom,” replies the boy. “We must not confuse the going with the coming back!” 

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Small children are innocent but they have not earned it. It is natural. A little boy, seized with hiccups, cried, “Mommy, I am coughing backwards!” 

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The second - grade teacher had sent the children to the board to work out arithmetic problems. One little fellow said, “I ain’t got no chalk.” “That is not right,” the teacher said. “The right way to say it is, ‘I don’t have any chalk. You don’t have any chalk, we don’t have any chalk, they don’t have any chalk...’ Now do you understand?” “No,” said the little boy. “What happened to all the chalk?”  

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Childhood has its beauties, because it does not know the etiquette, the manners, and all kinds of crap. It is so simple and so innocent and so spontaneous. In a better world, Osho says, every family will learn from children. All the religions of the world, according to Osho, have the idea in parables that once man lived in paradise and somehow, for some reason he has been expelled from that paradise. Osho is of the view that these stories are nothing but a poetic way to express that every man is born in paradise and then loses it. Osho says, “The search for paradise is the search for your childhood again” and “those golden moments of wonder, joy, no tension, no worry, no anxiety, have to be regained and rediscovered.”

 Some of Osho’s observations are given below:

Children come through you, but they don’t belong to you. You can give your love to them, but you should not impose your ideas on them.

 Education is to give you inner richness. It is not just to make you more informed; that is a very primitive idea of education. 

 If parents really love children, they will help them to be courageous - courageous even against the parents themselves.