The fox and the grapes

1001 Tales told by the Master

“If you cannot reach, don’t try to console yourself!”

The fox and the grapes

Drop the self, and drop false consolations, because nobody else is fooled by it except yourself. You are not deceiving anybody, but you can deceive yourself, for eternity.

Drop the self, drop that ‘too much confidence’, it is egoistic, and suddenly there is enlightenment – there is no need to wait! Waiting is there because of the obstacles you are creating. Enlightenment is not creating any obstacles on your path. God is not pushing you away from himself. Nobody is creating any difficulty for you. If you are not reaching it is only because of you.

So drop self-confidence, drop the self, and then suddenly you find that enlightenment is not something that happens to you; enlightenment is your very nature, your very being. When the self is not – it is; then it is yourself.

And forget all consolations.

You must have heard, I have told it many times myself, the famous story of the fox and the grapes. One of the very extraordinary men, Aesop, wrote it.

A fox comes near a tree, and the tree is full of grapevines, bunches of grapes. She jumps, she tries hard, but cannot reach the grapes, they are too far away, her jump is not long enough.

Then she looks all around – is somebody watching?

A small hare is watching from a bush, and he asks, “Auntie, what is the matter? Couldn’t you reach the grapes”

She says, “No son, that is not the thing. The grapes are sour.”

This is consolation.

I tell you the grapes are never sour – at least the grapes of enlightenment; never sour; they are always ripe and sweet; and if you cannot reach, don’t try to console yourself that you love waiting, just try to understand why you are forced to wait. Who is forcing you to wait? You will not find anybody else, just you yourself, that self-confidence and the self.

Osho, Tao: The Three Treasures – Talks on fragments from Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, Vol 3, Ch 8, Q 1

Image: François Chauveau, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Comments are closed.