Alexander the Great meets a fakir

The whole message of Gautama the Buddha is to turn in. The message is simple, but the implementation is arduous. It is arduous because for many many lives we have lived outwardly, we have lived the life of an extrovert. We have completely forgotten how to relate with our own beings, how to be with ourselves.

We have forgotten the path, the language, the method. Not only that, we have become completely oblivious that there is an interiority to us. We think as if we have only an outside. Now that is stupid. The outside can exist only with an inside; without the inside the outside is impossible. If we can see out, we can also see in. In fact, to see in is easier because it is there that we are rooted.

But never seeing in, we go on rushing in all directions, doing all kinds of things, not knowing why, just because others are doing them. We are imitating, following. We become carbon copies. That’s the most ugly thing in life: to be a carbon copy. Man can never be blissful unless he is original, unless he knows his original face.

I have heard a very beautiful story. It may be true, it may not be true. Its truth is not historical but, far more significant, it is metaphorical.

The story is:

Alexander the Great was on his way to India. He met a fakir sitting by the roadside with a round, small, crystal-like object in his hand.

“What’s that?” inquired Alexander.

“I will not tell you,” said the fakir, “but I will bet you that it is heavier than all your gold, silver and jewels.”

Alexander ordered an enormous balance to be brought along with all of his treasures. On one side of the balance he piled all the treasures; the fakir put his small round crystal on the other side and, lo! it was heavier. Down it went and the vast treasures were lifted into the air. Alexander was amazed.

Then the fakir said, “I will show you one more thing.” He took a little dust and spread it over the crystal. It immediately became light, went up into the air, and the treasures came down.

Alexander could not contain his amazement anymore and asked the fakir, “Please, you must tell me. What is this object?”

Said the fakir, “It is nothing special. It is only a human eye.”

Man has the capacity to see himself too, but that capacity is full of dust. We have an inner eye too – the third eye – but that eye is not functioning, and we have not used it for so long that it has gone out of function completely; it has become a paralyzed part in our being.

Now even physiologists have discovered a certain part in the human brain which seems to be absolutely superfluous. They are puzzled because nature never creates anything superfluous. It must have a purpose, but it seems to have no purpose. It can be removed and that will not affect you at all.

But all the mystics down the ages have been saying the same thing – of course, not in scientific terminology; they have their own way of saying it. They call it the third eye. A certain part of your mind is capable of functioning in an introvert way only. Meditation creates the right atmosphere, the right climate for it to function.

Meditation simply means removing the dust that the fakir threw on the eye. And the dust is nothing but the whole mind process of thoughts, desires, imagination, memory. If you become capable of a few intervals, gaps, when all thought processes cease… suddenly you are and there is nothing to see inside. Then the turning happens; then immediately there is a radical change in your vision, your gestalt changes. The outside world disappears and the inside world appears.

Osho, The Dhammapada, Vol 11, Ch 1

Series compiled by Shanti
All excerpts of this series can be found in: 1001 Tales
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