“The seeker is the sought. Just a few unnecessary things are crowding you. The search is negative – drop them and you discover yourself in all your glory.”
The search is not going to help you to reach the goal because the goal has never been lost. The search is only going to help to drop greed, fear, possessiveness, jealousy, hatred, anger. The search is only going to help you drop the hindrances, and once the hindrances are not there, suddenly one becomes aware: I have always been here, I have never gone anywhere else.
So the whole search is negative in a way. It is just like when somebody makes a statue out of a marble block. What does he do? He simply chips unessential parts away, and by and by the image appears.
Somebody asked Michelangelo…. He was making a statue of Jesus – somebody said, “Your creation is great.”
He said, “I have not done anything. Jesus was hiding inside this marble block and I just helped him to be released. He was already there, just more marble was there than was needed. The unessential was there – I have cut away the unessential. I have simply discovered him, I have not created him.”
In fact, the marble block had been discarded by the builders. Walking around the church which was going to be built, Michelangelo asked the builders, “Why has this marble block been thrown away?”
They said, “It is useless.” So he took it away – and one of the most beautiful images of Jesus came out of it.
Michelangelo used to say, “When I was walking by the side of this block, Jesus called me. Hidden inside the block he said, ‘Michelangelo, come and release me!’ I have done only negative work.”
…The seeker is the sought. Just a few unnecessary things are crowding you. The search is negative – drop them and you discover yourself in all your glory.
Osho, The Search, Ch 1
Series compiled by Shanti
All excerpts of this series can be found in: 1001 Tales
Featured image (details), Il Cristo Redentore by Michelangelo. Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Roma, Italy – wikimedia.org
Comments are closed.