“Existence never copies itself. It is always new and always fresh.”
Nature never repeats. Even when you see things similar, they are only similar, but they are not the same.
Just look at a tree and watch each leaf, and you will be surprised – each leaf has its own individuality; no other leaf is exactly like it.
Go to the beach. Find seashells, and no two seashells will be exactly the same. Or find colored stones – no two colored stones will be the same.
The creativity of existence is enormous. It never repeats. You have heard the saying, “History never repeats,” but I say to you that that is not true. History repeats, only existence never repeats.
History repeats, because it is in the hands of unconscious people. Unconscious people cannot be unique.
It happened once, a man purchased a painting by Picasso. It was one million dollars, and he wanted to be sure that it was an authentic Picasso, not a fake – because there are on the market fake paintings which look exactly alike. Unless you are an experienced critic, it is impossible for you to see any difference. So he consulted a man who was an expert, particularly about Picasso’s paintings. He told him, “Don’t be worried. About this painting I can be absolutely sure, because I was staying at Picasso’s house when he made this painting; so I am an eyewitness too. You need not worry. Your one million dollars have not gone to waste.”
But the man said, “I would like you to come with me to Picasso himself. I want Picasso’s opinion also.” He said, “There is no problem.” They went to Picasso’s house. Picasso was sitting with his girlfriend. He looked at the painting and said, “It is fake.” The critic said, “What are you saying? I was present when you made it.” And the girlfriend also said, “This is too much. I was also in the house when you were painting it.”
Picasso said, that “I have not said that I have not painted it, but it is fake.” They all looked at Picasso – has he gone mad? He said, “You will not understand. The reality is, one man wanted to have a painting and I had no idea coming into my mind, so I simply painted an old painting of mine. You can go into a museum in Paris and you will find it there. I simply painted the same painting again. So although I have painted it, it is not authentic, it is a copy. And whether the copy is made by me or by somebody else does not matter. A copy is a copy. It is fake.”
Existence never copies itself. It is always new and always fresh.
Osho, Zarathustra: A God That Can Dance – Talks on Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Ch 8
Series compiled by Shanti
All excerpts of this series can be found in: 1001 Tales
Featured image (detail) by George Girnas on Unsplash
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