“The water takes care of fishes, the Tao takes care of you.”
Chuang Tzu says that as fishes are born in water, so man is born in Tao. The water takes care of fishes, the Tao takes care of you. You are fishes in Tao, nature – you can call it God. Chuang Tzu never uses that word deliberately, knowingly, because it has been overloaded with so much nonsense. He simply uses Tao – a more neutral word. The Vedas use the word rit – rit means Tao, nature.
Man is born in Tao, that is why we cannot feel it. Fishes cannot feel water, they know it too deeply because they have been born in it. They have lived with it so much that there has never been a separation. The fishes never know what water is. They move in it, they live in it, they die in it, they come into it and disappear in it, but they don’t know what water is.
It is said that once a young fish became very worried because she had heard so much about the ocean and she wanted to know what the ocean was.
She went from one wise fish to another wise fish. She searched for a master, a guru. There were many – fishes have their own masters and gurus. They said many things, because when you go to a guru even if he does not know, he has to say something just to save his gurudom.
They said many things about the ocean but the fish was not satisfied because she wanted a taste of it.
One guru said, “It is very far away and it is difficult to reach; only rarely does somebody reach the ocean. Don’t be foolish. One has to prepare for it for millions of lives. It is not an ordinary thing, it is a great task. First purify yourself and do these asanas – one part of the eight fold path of Patanjali.”
Somebody was a Buddhist, he said, “This won’t help. Move on the path of Buddha, the eight disciplines of Buddha will help – first become purified absolutely, no impurity left, and then only will you be allowed to see the ocean.
Then somebody else said, “In the Kaliyuga, this present age, only the chanting of the name of Ram will help. Chant Ram, Ram, Ram – only by his grace one reaches.”
And the fish was always in the ocean. She searched and searched, consulted many scriptures, consulted many doctrines, doctrinaires, doctors, visited many ashrams, but, reaching nowhere, she got more and more frustrated.
Where was the ocean? It became an obsession.
Then one day she met a fish, a very ordinary fish – he must have been like Chuang Tzu, just ordinary. Nobody ever thought that this fish could be a guru, just living an ordinary fish-life.
This fish said, “Don’t be mad, don’t be foolish. You are already in the ocean. What you see all around is the ocean. It is not very distant, it is near, that is why you cannot see it. Because to see a thing a distance is needed; to have a perspective, space is needed. It is so near you cannot see it; it is outside you, it is within you, you are nothing but a wave in the ocean – a part of it, a concentration of its energy.”
But the seeker didn’t believe.
The seeker said, “You seem to be going mad. I have visited many masters and they all say it is very distant. First one has to purify, do yoga asanas, cultivate discipline, character, morality, be religious, go through many rituals – and then after millions of lives it happens. And if one does reach the ocean, that too is through the grace of God.”
But Chuang Tzu is true. The ocean is all around you. You are in it, you cannot be otherwise.
Osho, When the Shoe Fits, Ch 10
Series compiled by Shanti
All excerpts of this series can be found in: 1001 Tales
Featured image: commons.wikimedia.org
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