eight quotes from Tao: The Pathless Path, Chapter Two
A collection of quotes from Chapter Two: A Man Who Knows How To Console Himself of “Tao: The Pathless Path” by Osho
There is a great, diametrical opposition between the Taoist attitude and the Confucian attitude; Confucius is as far away from the Taoist vision as possible. Confucius believes in law, Confucius believes in tradition, Confucius believes in discipline. Confucius believes in character, morality, culture, society, education. Tao believes in spontaneity, individuality, freedom. Tao is rebellious; Confucius is very conformist.
A disease has a reason, but health? Health is natural. If you go and ask the doctor, “Why am I healthy?” he cannot answer you. If you go to the doctor and you say, “Why am I ill?” he can answer you because illness has a cause. He can diagnose your case, and he can find the reason why you are ill; but nobody has yet been able to find a reason why man is healthy. Health is natural, health is as it should be. Illness is as it should not be, illness means something has gone wrong. When everything is going well, one is healthy. When one is harmonious with the whole, one is healthy. There is no reason for it.
This is how people are - imitating each other. And in fact there is no cause for happiness. The day you understand this, you can be happy any moment. If there is a cause, then the cause will take time. You will have to practice it, you will have to practice long. And the whole, radical attitude of Tao is that you can be happy this moment.
In fact, even when you fight for your God, it is your God. Even when you sacrifice yourself on some pedestal, on some altar, it is to your God that you sacrifice. When you bow down to an image of God in a temple, in a mosque, in a church, it is to your image that you have created, it is to your God. You are bowing down in front of your own creation. You are bowing down as if before a mirror. You are reflected there and you say “How beautiful!”
Have you ever seen any animal turning into a politician, trying to become the president of a country? They are not insane: they live naturally, they die naturally. Animals in the wild never go mad. Sometimes the go mad when they are forced to live in a zoo - the zoo is a human creation. Animals never commit suicide, but sometimes in a zoo they commit suicide.
What has your happiness to do with your neighbor? If he has made a bigger house, how does this concern you? And your house remains the same! And you are no longer happy. I told him, "Then one thing is certain, that it was not your house that you were happy with. You were happy because of the neighbor's poor house." Watch. Always watch. This is violence to be happy when somebody is miserable. This is how people start moving in the wrong direction - become oppressors, become exploiters, become dangerous. They are a curse on the earth. But their whole logic is the same.
So there are three states of mind: discontent - a state of comparison; comparing with those who have more than you, then there is discontent. Somebody has a beautiful car and you are walking on foot; you are a pedestrian, then you are discontented. The second stage is contentment - you are a pedestrian and you see a beggar who has no feet: comparing with that one who has less than you, but still comparison. Discontent one aspect of the coin; contentment, the so-called contentment - the other aspect of the same coin. And the name of the coin is comparison. When you have thrown the coin completely - contentment and discontent, all - then suddenly you are in a stae of no-comparison: that is real contentment. Then you don't compare who has more, who has less. In fact, then it is not a question of having, then it is a question of being.
Now there are three types of people: those who have, the worldly, and those who renounce - the otherworldly. The first and second are not opposite to each other, howsoever opposite they may appear. One believes that by having more you will attain happiness, the other believes that by not having more you will attain happiness, but both believe in having. The third - the totally different dimension - is of being: neither having or not having.
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