Life is not a process of death death is a process of life.
Buddha Will Follow
Be a Zorba and the Buddha will follow automatically.
These people are saying, ”Sacrifice Zorba so that you can become the Buddha.”
I(Osho) am telling you, ”Live the Zorba so completely that the Buddha has to follow.”
I(Osho) have heard a beautiful story. In a restaurant in paradise Gautam Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu they were all contemporaries –were just sitting and chitchatting. What else can you do in heaven? Everybody is wise; you cannot teach. You can only chitchat –small gossip, small talk. And as they were chitchatting, a beautiful naked woman, with a beautiful ask full of wine, came to their side and said, ”This is the juice of life; would you like to have some?”
Buddha immediately closed his eyes. First, a naked woman…. He has not allowed his disciples to see even a woman who is perfectly clothed –and in India a woman is perfectly clothed. You cannot imagine what figure is hidden behind the sari –impossible! In a way it is good, you can only see the face. Everything else may be ugly, but the sari is a great protection; the body may not be proportionate.
A naked woman, so beautiful… with the exact proportions to be chosen the universal queen, a beauty queen. Naturally Buddha closed his eyes. He had to keep them closed tightly because they wanted to open.
And then she was carrying the juice of life; and he was teaching his disciples to renounce life, and he has renounced life himself. A great stir in him –perhaps it is worth tasting? But to go against his own philosophy, and that too before Confucius and Lao Tzu. No, it was against his ego. He is the suprememost Buddha and he cannot fall just because of a naked woman with a ask containing the juice of life.
Confucius was a very practical man. He looked at the woman from up to down, from down to up, and he said, ”Perfect proportions.” He was a very practical man, perhaps the only practical master in the whole of history, very pragmatic.
And he said, ”Bring the flask. I cannot drink it completely because I don’t know what the taste of life is. I sacrificed my life for my disciples and for future generations, so I have never tasted it. I will just take a sip, just to experience what I have missed, whether I have missed anything or not.”
He sipped from the ask and returned the ask. He said, ”It is bitter.” It has to be bitter for a man who his whole life poured condemnation on life, poisoned millions of people, convinced them not to live. The bitterness is not in the juice, it is in the tongue of Confucius. His tongue has become bitter through all that condemnation, hatred….
Lao Tzu was a totally different man. He stood up, touched the woman, went through her geography, said, ”Really groovy! Now give me the flask” –and he drank the whole flask.
And he said to Confucius, ”To know the sweetness of the juice of life you have to clean your tongue.”
To Buddha he said, ”Now you can open your eyes. The woman is gone and the juice of life is also gone. I have drunk it completely.”
Now this is the man I want to be.
Whatever is available to you, live totally.
You may not get a woman of such proportions as Lao Tzu got. It does not matter, just put the light off –and then drink as much as you can.
But dying, you should be grateful to the life which gave you so many opportunities. And you can be grateful only if you have not missed anything; otherwise there will be repentance.
Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it’s at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.
– Earl Nightingale
