Muddy Rivers

[Guest guest]

I love this story by Osho, and thought to share it with you.

Love, dhyana

 

Gautam Buddha told one day, while they were passing into a

mountainous region -- it was the midday, hot sun and he was

getting old -- he told his disciple, Ananda, that " I am very thirsty.

You should go back. Because while we had been traveling

we passed a small current of the mountainous water, a few bullock

carts have passed through the current, making it muddy. Dead

leaves, which may have rested in the bed, are floating over the

water, It was not worth drinking. " And particularly for Gautam

Buddha he could not take that water.

 

Ananda knew that, if he goes ahead, where he had left Gautam Buddha,

then five miles ahead of that place there is a big river and he can

find good crystal clear water. He came back empty-handed.

 

Buddha was very strict. He said, " You go back and you bring that

water, because I remember when we had passed, it was so pure

and so crystal clear. " But Ananda said, " You should understand me.

In the meantime some bullock carts have passed. " Buddha said, " I

understand, but you go sit by the side of the bank -- however long it

takes. You just go and sit there. Don't get into the current, because

your getting into the current will make it muddy again. You simply

wait, watching, doing nothing. All those dead leaves will be taken

away. The mud will settle down. Then you fill the begging bowl and

come back. "

 

Ananda wanted to go ahead towards the river, but he could not disobey

Gautam Buddha. Unwillingly, he went back -- but he was in for a great

surprise. By the time he reached there, the miracle has already

happened. The dead leaves had moved with the current, and the mud

has already settled. And the water was as clean and as pure as it could

be.

 

Taking that bottle back, he tried to figure out why Gautam Buddha

insisted, because he never does anything without some purpose

behind it, some meaning behind it. And then he realized on the way,

that it is a message to him, that " Ananda, don't get into the river, into

the current of the mind. That's what you have been doing all your life.

Just wait on the bank, and simply watch. "

 

It is one of the secrets of inner life, that as your watcher becomes more

and more strong, the thoughts become less and less. It is exactly in

proportion. When there are hundred percent thoughts in the mind, you

have zero watcher. When you have ten percent consciousness involved

in watching, ten percent of your thoughts will disappear -- because it is

the same energy that creates thoughts, that creates the watcher.

 

When you are hundred percent a watcher, a pure witness, a mirror, all

thoughts disappear. You cannot stop them, but you can manage a

situation, a device in which they get stopped. They simply disappear.

 

And to know such a state, when you are aware and alert, fully conscious

and watchful and there are no thoughts there, your whole consciousness

for the first time in your life returns back on itself. Becomes aware of

awareness. You become conscious of consciousness.

 

Osho