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Chapter 9 - Lovers of tao
On a very low level the statement is right, but from the heights of a buddha, the ailment is as illusory as the medicine.
You are suffering from illusions. Certainly you need a cure, but the cure has to be as illusory as your suffering; otherwise it will disturb rather than help. Once your ailment is cured you don't keep the bottle of medicine with you, you throw it away.
The people who go on carrying their scriptures are carrying medicines prescribed perhaps five thousand years before to a certain person, who was certainly suffering from an illusory ailment. The prescription you are carrying ... the time has changed, so much water has gone down the Ganges. You are no longer living in the world where the BHAGAVADGITA had a truth, or the Bible had a truth. The whole world has changed, but you cling to your medicine bottles, and you are no longer suffering from those ailments. Now the medicine has become your illness.
THE HOLDER OF SUCH A VIEW IS A TRUE LEAVER OF HOME, AND CAN
ENJOY HIMSELF TO THE FULLEST, AS IF HE WERE SPENDING, EVERY DAY, TEN
THOUSAND OUNCES OF YELLOW GOLD ON HIS PLEASURES.
It is true that a man of enlightenment lives each moment in such bliss and in such splendor --
AS IF HE WERE SPENDING TEN THOUSAND OUNCES OF YELLOW GOLD ON
HIS PLEASURES.
He is not spending a single paisa but what Rinzai is saying is that his blissfulness is far bigger than any emperor. He may be a beggar, but his inner silence and his inner peace and his inner dance is far bigger than any Alexander the Great.
Rinzai has to be understood with very open eyes. He is carrying all his childhood superstitions, he is carrying all that he has learned as a student of philosophy, and he has attained the truth. So when he says something it is very mixed up. It is not pure twenty-four carat gold; it has some truth mixed with some falseness.
Studying Rinzai is arduous, you have to sift it. But how can you sift it unless you know?
My own understanding is that people should read scriptures only when they have attained to the truth. In fact, then there is no need. But that is the only right way, because then they can see what is false and what is right, what is superstitious and what is just garbage. There may be a small truth hidden somewhere, but the problem is that those who have attained don't read and those who read have not attained.
I have read much, but I started reading after my attainment because before that I simply refused ... Philosophers, my professors, well-wishers wanted me to read this book, that book. I said, "No. Before that I have to be absolutely certain about my truth. I don't have any criterion to judge and I don't want to get confused with all kinds of thoughts." But fortunately the enlightenment came very early to me, and then reading was an absolute joy because I could separate the false from the true, the fictitious from the real.
One of my professors used to say, "Why do you unnecessarily waste your time in reading?" Because he had seen my books. I would make comments on my books
-- that this is stupid, this is idiotic, this is nonsense carried from their childhood. He said, "Why do you read if you ... he is such a great philosopher and you are making such comments."
I said, "Only now am I able to read it." Osho - The Language of Existence 111
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