Osho’s Discourse: A Bird on the Wing
Osho says: If you are unhappy, you will become ambitious;
if you are happy, ambition will disappear. You cannot eat fame or love or sleep with it. The more famous you become, the more difficult it is to become happy.
The Emperor of China wanted a wise Taoist
mystic to become his prime minister. When
ambassadors were sent to him with a golden chariot, they found him fishing in a small river-poor and ordinary. They thought he will be filled with joy on this sudden befall of good fortune and will thank them, the forebears of the news, earnestly. So the ambassadors informed him of the royal sermon, expected him to alight the golden chariot and ride back with them to the capital to fulfill royal orders. Astonished Taoist fixed his gaze on an ordinary turtle, who was waging his tail in mud and was blissfully unaware of the world around him.
Taoist then told the ambassadors about the turtle’s peace and happiness .He enquired about the 3000 years old dead turtle in the royal place who was encased in gold and diamonds and was worshipped. He posed a question to the king’s ambassadors –“would the living turtle like to take the place of dead turtle in palace and be worshipped by king or would he choose existence in mud?” The ambassadors replied that “It would be foolish to even think of taking the place of dead turtle and turtle would like to stay in mud.”
The mystic then replied –“Do you think I am more foolish than the turtle?” The mystic preferred to be alive in his spartan surroundings than be dead and doomed in luxuries of royal palace.
The moral of the story is that –A happy person lives here and in present. And is so infinitely happy that he has no concern for the future or materialistic gains of the world.
With this Osho has enlightened us, in simple language, about the secret of universal happiness that has existed since eternity.