SUDDEN TRANSFORMATION

There is a Jaina story: A man came home tired after the whole day’s work. His wife was giving him a bath – it is an old story, now no wife gives a bath to the husband. His wife was giving him a bath, and while pouring water on his body and cooling his tired limbs, she talked and she said, ”My brother has become a follower of Mahavira, and he is thinking to renounce the world.”

The man laughed and said, ”Thinking? – then he will never leave the world!”
The wife felt hurt, because it was a question of HER brother. She said, ”What do you mean? And I have never seen you going to Mahavira or to Buddha or anybody, and you think you understand?

He is a great scholar and he understands what Mahavira says. And he meditates, worships, and he is a religious man. And you? I don’t see any religiousness in you. I have never seen you praying or meditating. And you have the courage and you dare to say such a thing – that he will never renounce?”

The man stood – he was naked, taking his bath – came out of the bath, went onto the street. The wife cried, ”Are you crazy? What are you doing?”

He said, ”I have renounced.”

He never came back. This is the man – he understood. He never prepared for it; nobody ever knew about him that he was a religious man, but this quality... He reached to Mahavira, he surrendered himself, he became a naked fakir.

The wife came, weeping and crying. Even the wife’s brother came to convince him that ”There is no hurry. Look at me! I have been thinking for twenty years. And you are a madman – is this a way to renounce?”

The man said, ”I don’t bother, is there any other way? For twenty years you have been thinking, for twenty lives you will continue thinking. And whenever you renounce you will renounce this way, because this is the only way – at once!”

You see a thing clearly and it happens. The question is of clarity. An immediate look into the nature of things, then there is no question of changing somewhere in the future. No one changes in the future – transformation is always here and now. This moment is the only moment something can happen. There is no other moment.

OSHO

MOMENT TO MOMENT

Swami Ramteerth has told a small story: a lover went away to a far land. He did not return. His beloved kept watching the road she became tired, waiting and waiting. He wrote letters, saying again and again, I am coming now, I am coming soon, this month, next month. Years began to pass and finally the beloved got upset. There is a limit to waiting. She travelled to the distant city where her beloved was. She inquired the way and arrived at his house. The door was open. It was evening, the sun had set.

She stopped at the door looking inside. For many days she had not seen her lover. He was sitting before her, but he was absorbed in deep concentration, he was writing something. He was so absorbed that the beloved felt to wait a little, not to interfere with him, who knows what threads of thought might be lost. He was so overwhelmed with emotion that tears were flowing from his eyes. He was writing something and kept right on writing. An hour passed, two hours passed.

Then he lifted his eyes and saw: he couldn’t believe it, he was shocked. He had been writing a letter to his beloved. He was writing a letter to this one who had sat two hours in front of him. And she was waiting for him to lift his eyes. He couldn’t believe it, he thought, ”It must be hallucination, it is an illusion, perhaps a sort of auto-hypnosis. I had such abundance of feeling for the beloved, perhaps that is why she is appearing like a dream. Is it not an illusion?” He rubbed his eyes.

His beloved began to laugh. She said, ”What are you thinking? Do you think I am a mirage?” He started trembling. He said, ”But how did you come? I was writing a letter to you. Mad one – why didn’t you stop me? You were in front of me while I was writing you a letter.”

Existence is here in front of us and we are praying to become one with it – Oh lord where art thou? Tears are pouring from our eyes but because of our wall of tears we don’t see what is in front of us. We are searching for it. We miss only because of our search.

 

                                                        

OSHO