Stop
chasing behind property, name and fame!
In India it is common wisdom that the world is like a waiting room in a railway station; it is not your house. You are not going to remain in the waiting room forever. Nothing in the waiting room belongs to you—the furniture, the paintings on the wall . . .You use them— you see the painting, you sit on the chair, you rest on the bed—but nothing belongs to you. You are just here for a few minutes, or for a few hours at the most, then you will be gone.
Yes, what you have brought in
with you, into the waiting room, you will take away with you; that's yours.
What have you brought into the world? And the world certainly is a waiting
room. The waiting may not be in seconds, minutes, hours, days, it may be in
years; but what does it matter whether you wait seven hours or seventy years?
You may forget, in seventy years,
that you are just in a waiting room. You may start thinking perhaps you are the
owner, perhaps this is the house you have built. You may start putting your nameplate
on the waiting room.
There are people—I have seen it,
because I was traveling so much: people have written their names in the
bathrooms of the waiting room. People have engraved their names on the
furniture of the waiting room. It looks stupid, but it is very similar to what
people do in the world.
There is a very significant story
in ancient Jaina scriptures. In India it is believed that if somebody can
become the emperor of the whole world he is called a chakravamn. The word
chakra means the "wheel." In ancient India it was a way to avoid
unnecessary fighting and violence: a chariot, a golden chariot, very valuable,
with beautiful and strong horses, would move from one kingdom to another
kingdom. That was the finest way to conquer world. So every king had the desire
to become a chakravartin.
The story is that one man became
a chakravartin—and it happens only once in thousands of years that a man
becomes a chakravartin. Even Alexander the Great was not a world conqueror; there
was yet much left unconquered. And he died very young, he was only
thirty-three: there was not even time enough to conquer the world. What to say
of conquering, the whole world was not even known! Half of the world was
unknown, and the half that was known, even that was not conquered. This man,
of whom I am going to tell you the story, became the chakravartin.
It is said that when a
chakravartin dies—because a chakravartin happens only in thousands of years, he
is a rare being—when he dies he is received in heaven with great rejoicing and
he is taken to a special place.
In Jaina mythology, in heaven
there is a parallel mountain to the Himalayas. The Himalayas are just made of
rocks and earth and ice. The parallel to the Himalayas in heaven is called Sumeru.
Sumeru means the ultimate mountain: nothing can be higher than that, nothing
can be better than that. It is solid gold; instead of rocks there are diamonds
and rubies and emeralds.
When a chakravartin dies he is
led to Sumeru mountain to engrave his name on it. That is a rare opportunity;
that happens only once in thousands of years. Of-course this man was immensely
exited that he was going to write his name on Sumeru. That is the ultimate of
all the great ones that have been, and will also be the catalog of all the
great ones that have been, and will also be the catalog of all the great ones
who are going to be. This emperor was becoming party to a lineage of supermen.
The gatekeeper gave him
instruments to engrave his name. He wanted to take few of his men who had
committed suicide just because their emperor was dying-they could not think of living
without him. His wife, his prime minister, his commander in chief: all the
great people who were around him had all committed suicide, so they had come
with him.
The emperor wanted the gatekeeper
to let them all come to see him engrave his name, because what is the joy if
you go alone and engrave your name and nobody is there even to see?—because die
real joy is that the whole world should see.
The gatekeeper said, "You
listen to my advice, because this is my inherited profession. My father was a
gatekeeper, his father was a gatekeeper; for centuries we have been gatekeepers
to Sumeru mountain. Listen to my advice: Don't take them with you; otherwise
you will repent."
The emperor could not understand,
but neither could he ignore the advice-because what interest could that man
have in preventing him?
The gatekeeper said, "If you
still want them to see, first go engrave your name; then come back and take
them with you if you want. I have no objection even now if you want to take
then, but just in case you decide not to, then there will be no chance to change
your mind . . , they will be with you. You go alone."
This was perfectly sane advice.
The emperor said, "That's good. I will go alone, engrave my name, come
back, and call you all.
The gatekeeper said. "I am perfectly
agreeable to that"
The emperor went and he saw the Sameru
shining under thousands of suns—because in heaven you cannot be so poor as to have
just one sun—thousands of suns, and a golden mountain far bigger than the
Himalayas—and the Himalayas are almost two thousand miles long! He could not
open his eyes for a moment, it was so glaring there. And then he started
looking for a space, the right space, but he was very much puzzled: there was
no space; the whole mountain was engraved with names.
He could not believe his eyes.
For the first time he became aware what he was. Up to now he was thinking he
was a superman who happens once in thousands of years. But time has been from eternity;
even thousands of years don't make any difference, so many chakravartins had
happened already. There was no space on that biggest mountain in the whole
universe where he could write his small name.
He came back, and now he
understood that the gatekeeper was right not to take his wife and his commander
in chief and his prime minister and other intimate friends. It was good that
they had not seen the situation. They could still believe that their emperor was
a rare being.
He took the gatekeeper aside and
he said. -But there is no space!
The gatekeeper said. "That's
what I was telling you. What you have to do is to erase a few names and write
down your name. That's what has been done; my whole life I have been seeing
this done. my father used to say this has been done. My father’s father - none of my family have seen Sumeru
empty, with any space, ever.
"Whenever a chakravartin has
come he had to erase a few names and write his own name. So, this is not the
whole history of the chakravartins. Many times, it has been erased, many times
it has been engraved. You just do your work, and then if you want to show your
friends you can bring them in.
The emperor said, "No, I
don't want to show them and I don't want to even write my name. What is the
point?—someday somebody will come and erase it.
"My whole life has become
utterly meaningless. This was my only hope, that Sumeru, the golden mountain in
heaven was going to have my name. For this I have lived, for this I have staked
my life; for this I was ready to kill the whole world. And anybody else can
erase my name and write his. What is the point of writing it?
I will not write it."
The gatekeeper laughed.
The emperor said, "Why are
you laughing?"
The gatekeeper said, "This
is strange, because this too I have been hearing from my grandfathers—that
chakravartins come, and seeing the whole story, just turn back; they don't
write their names. You are not new: anybody having a little intelligence would
do the same."
In this whole world what can you
gain? What can you take away with you? Your name, your prestige, your
respectability? Your money, your power—what? Your scholarship? You cannot take
anything. Everything will have to be dropped here. And in that moment you will
understand that all that you possessed was not yours; the very idea of
possession was wrong. And because of that possession you were corrupted.
To increase that possession -to
have more money, to have more power, to conquer more lands—you were doing
things that even you cannot say were right. You were lying, you were dishonest.
You were having hundreds of faces. You were not true even for a single moment
to anybody or to yourself; you could not be. You had to be false, phony,
pretending, because these are things that help you to succeed in the world. Authenticity
is not going to help you. Honesty is not going to help you. Truthfulness is not
going to help you.
Without possessions, success,
fame—who are you? You don't know. You are your name, you are your fame, you are
your prestige, your power. But other than these, who are you? So, this whole possessiveness
becomes your identity. It gives you a false sense of being. That's the ego.
Ego is not something mysterious,
it is a very simple phenomenon. You don't know who you are, and to live without
knowing who you are is impossible. If I don't know who I am, then what I doing
here? Then whatsoever I am doing becomes meaningless. The first and the
foremost thing is to know who I am. Perhaps then I can do something that
fulfills my nature, makes me contented, brings me home.
But if I don't know who I am, and
I go on doing things, how can I manage to reach where my nature was supposed to
reach, to lead? I have been running hither and thither, but there is not going to
be any point that I can say, "Now I have arrived, this was the place I was
searching for. "
World not going to remember
anyone’s name, don’t be desperate in engraving your name, someone will erase
your name and write their names…!!!
Start living life with simplicity
and authenticity. That gives you a great time for you to see the beauty of love,
kindness and celebrations of joy in Life.
If you are chasing behind
property, name and fame, you will surely miss love, kindness and joy. Just question to yourself, when was the last time you have great peace, celebrations and joy? By chasing
behind name and fame, you missed to enjoy the beauty in life.
Source: These above stories are taken from the Book: Courage written
by Osho. Please read this book to get more lights on life and courage. Worth reading
book!!!
