You act always with impediment; the opposite is always there creating the impediment; you are not a flow.
If you love, the hate is always there as an impediment. If you move, something is holding you back; you never move totally, something is always left, the movement is not total. You move with one leg but the other leg is not moving. How can you move? The impediment is there.
And this impediment, this continuous moving of the half and non moving of the other half, is your anguish, your anxiety. Why are you in so much anguish? What creates so much anxiety in you? Whatsoever you do, why is bliss not happening through it?
Bliss can happen only to the whole, never to the part.
When the whole moves without any impediment the very movement is bliss. Bliss is not something that comes from outside — it is the feeling that comes when your whole being moves, the very movement of the whole is bliss. It is not something happening to you, it arises out of you, it is a harmony in your being.
If you are divided — and you are always divided: half-moving, half-withholding, half saying yes, half saying no, half in love, half in hate, you are a divided kingdom — there is constant conflict in you. You say something but you never mean it, because the opposite is there impeding, creating a hindrance.
Baal Shem’s disciples used to write down whatsoever he said, and Baal Shem used to say: I know that whatsoever you are writing is not what has been said by me. You have heard one thing, I have said something else, and you are writing still something else. And if you look at the meaning, the meaning is something else again. You will never do what you have written, you will do something else — fragments, not an integrated being.
Why are these fragments there?
Have you heard the story about the centipede? A centipede was walking along on his one hundred legs — that is why he is called a centipede. It is a miracle to walk with a hundred feet, even to manage two is so difficult! To manage one hundred legs is really almost impossible. But the centipede has been managing to do it!
A fox became curious — and foxes are always curious. The fox is the symbol in folklore of the mind, of the intellect, of logic. Foxes are great logicians. The fox looked, she observed, she analyzed, she couldn’t believe it, looks at him, cannot believe her eyes, blinks her eyes, looks again… a hundred feet! How does he manage?
Which one to raise first, then the second, then the third, then the fourth…? One hundred legs! If you forget the number you will be caught in your own legs and fall down. She said, “Wait! I have a question. How do you manage, and how do you know which foot has to follow which? One hundred legs! You walk so smoothly. How does this harmony happen?”
The centipede said, “I have been walking all my life, but I have never thought about it. I will try and see how I have been managing. I have never thought about it – I really have never looked down and counted the legs. You are great; you are a mathematician and a philosopher! Give me a little time.”
So he closed his eyes and for the first time he became divided: the mind as observer, and himself as the observed. For the first time the centipede became two. He had always been living and walking, and his life was one whole; there was no observer standing looking at himself, he was never divided, he had been an integrated being. Now, for the first time, division arose. He was looking at his own self, thinking. He had become subject and object, he had become two, and then he started walking. It was difficult, almost impossible. The centipede tried, and you can visualize what must have happened. He fell immediately, all his hundred legs entangled in each other. He fell down — because how do you manage one hundred legs?
The fox laughed and he said, “I knew it must be difficult, I knew it beforehand.”
He was very angry at the fox and said, ”Never again ask anybody such questions. Keep your philosophy to yourself! You idiot – I have been managing my whole life, and not only I, millions of centipedes are managing perfectly well. Nobody has fallen like me. But now I am afraid: you have created such a question in my mind that if I don’t get rid of this question I may not be able to walk at all. Now tell me how to get rid of this question.”
The centipede started crying and weeping. With tears in his eyes he said, “It has never been difficult before, but you have created the problem. Now I will never be able to walk again.”
The mind has come into being; it comes into being when you are divided. The mind feeds on division. That is why Krishnamurti keeps saying that when the observer has become the observed you are in meditation.
The opposite happened to the centipede. The wholeness was lost, he became two: the observer and the observed, divided; the subject and the object, the thinker and the thought. Then everything was disturbed, then bliss was lost and the flow stopped. Then he got frozen.
Whenever the mind comes in, it comes as a controlling force, a manager. It is not the master, it is the manager. And you cannot get to the master unless this manager is put aside.The manager won’t allow you to reach the master, the manager will always be standing in the doorway managing. And all managers only mismanage — mind has done such a great job of mismanaging.
Poor centipede. He had always been happy. He had no problems at all. He lived, moved, loved, everything, no problems at all, because there was no mind. Mind came in with the problem, with the question, with the inquiry.
And there are many foxes around you. Beware of them — philosophers, theologians, logicians, professors all around you — foxes. They ask you questions and they create a disturbance.
Chuang Tzu’s master, Lao Tzu, said: When there was not a single philosopher, everything was solved, there were no questions, and all answers were available. When philosophers arose, questions came, and answers disappeared. Whenever there is a question, the answer is very far away. Whenever you ask, you will never get the answer, but when you stop asking, you will find that the answer has always been there.
I don’t know what happened to that centipede afterwards, but I can imagine that his whole life must have become a mess. Again and again the question would have come to him, ”A hundred legs! Am I putting the right leg in the right place?”
If he was as foolish as human beings, he would be somewhere in a hospital, crippled, paralyzed forever. But I don’t think that centipedes are so foolish. He must have thrown the question out. He must have told the fox, “Keep your questions to yourself, and let me walk.” He must have come to know that division wouldn’t allow him to live, because division creates death. Undivided you are alive, divided you become dead — the more divided, the more dead.
Life has its own ways. The moment you start managing everything, you spoil it.
Allow life its freedom. About love, allow freedom, and don’t be guided by fixed ideas.
Experience – don’t go with the idea that love is permanent or not permanent. Experience, and you will know it, what it is.
What is bliss? — Bliss is the feeling that comes to you when the observer has become the observed. Bliss is the feeling that comes to you when you are in harmony, not fragmented; one, not disintegrated, not divided. Feeling is not something that happens from the outside. It is the melody that arises out of your inner harmoniousness.
When in meditation you have the glimpse of some ecstasy, let it happen, let it go deep. Don’t divide yourself. Don’t make any statement, otherwise the contact is lost.
Sometimes you have glimpses, but you have become so efficient at losing your contact with those glimpses that you cannot understand how they come and how you lose them again. They come when you are not, you lose them when you come again. When you are, they are not. When the boat is empty, bliss is always happening. It is not an accident, it is the very nature of existence. It doesn’t depend on anything — it is a showering, it is the
very breath of life.
It is really a miracle how you have managed to be so miserable, so thirsty, when it is raining everywhere. You have really done the impossible! Light is everywhere and you live in darkness; death is nowhere and you are constantly dying; life is a benediction, and you are in hell.
How have you managed it? Through division, through thinking…. Thinking depends on division, analysis; meditation is when there is no analysis, no division, when everything has become synthesized, when everything has become one.
Osho: The Empty Boat Chapter #2 Chapter title: The Man of Tao (excerpts)
सिखा देती हैं चलना ठोकरें भी राहगीरों को
कोई रस्ता सदा दुश्वार हो ऐसा नहीं होता………………….निदा फ़ाज़ली
sikhā detī haiñ chalnā Thokareñ bhī rāhgīroñ ko
koī rasta sadā dushvār ho aisā nahīñ hotā…………………….Nida Fazli
“Even stumbles teach travelers how to walk.
No path remains difficult forever.”
Like the centipede who stumbled the moment he thought about walking, we too often lose our rhythm when we try to micromanage life. Life flows naturally — when we let it. The more we divide and dissect, the more we disconnect from our own aliveness. Bliss is in the wholeness, the undivided movement, the surrender to the flow.
And in those moments when doubt creeps in — when the fox within or without questions our walk — may we hear a familiar voice singing softly:
“Ruk jaana nahin tu kahin haar ke,
Kaanton pe chalke milenge saaye bahaar ke…”
Keep walking. Don’t let the questions trip you. Don’t let fear freeze your steps. Even on paths filled with thorns, there’s a spring awaiting. The song “Ruk jaana nahin, tu kahin haar ke” from Imtihaan (1974), sung by Kishore Kumar, lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri and music composed by Laxmikant Pyarelal is a poignant anthem of resilience, trust in movement, and not giving in to doubt or fear.
RUK JANA NAHIN TU KAHIN HAAR KE KANTON PE (The Great Kishore Kumar) Laxmikant Pyarelal.flv