Accidental and Essential of Life
I lost my Mother on Tuesday, 16th March 2021. She was 83. It was so sudden — Heart Failure. Within minutes she departed peacefully. I went into a deep silence. Life time memories flashed before my eyes and there also emerged this story by Osho. I wish to share today.
“A man who has attained to his essential center moves on dancing in different situations. Sometimes it is hot, sometimes it is cold; sometimes it is joy, sometimes it is sadness — but now everything brings him some message from the Whole. Everything has become a messenger.
THIS STORY, today’s story, is a very simple story but very significant. And it always happens that significant things are very simple, and simple things are very significant.
THERE WAS A MAN OF WEI, TUNG-MEN WU, WHO DID NOT GRIEVE WHEN
HIS SON DIED.
HIS WIFE SAID TO HIM:
“NO ONE IN THE WORLD LOVED HIS SON AS MUCH AS YOU DID, WHY DO
YOU NOT GRIEVE NOW HE IS DEAD?”
HE ANSWERED:
“I HAD NO SON, AND WHEN I HAD NO SON I DID NOT GRIEVE. NOW THAT
HE IS DEAD IT IS THE SAME AS IT WAS BEFORE, WHEN I HAD NO SON. WHY
SHOULD I GRIEVE OVER HIM?”
A very simple parable, but tremendously significant, very meaningful. Enter into it layer by layer:
THERE WAS A MAN OF WEI, TUNG-MEN WU, WHO DID NOT GRIEVE WHEN
HIS SON DIED.
It is very difficult not to grieve when somebody you loved so much has died. It is possible only if you have known something of the essential. It is possible only if you have tasted something of the deathless. It is possible only if you have transcended the accidental. He did not grieve; he was not sad. He was not weeping or crying, he was not broken. He remained just the same as he was before. The wife was disturbed. She said:
“NO ONE IN THE WORLD LOVED HIS SON AS MUCH AS YOU DID, WHY DO
YOU NOT GRIEVE NOW HE IS DEAD?”
Ordinarily, this is our logic, that if you love a person too much you will grieve too much when he is gone. The logic is fallacious; the logic has a very deep flaw in it. In fact, if you have loved a person really, when he is gone he is gone; you will not grieve much. If you have not loved the person deeply, then you will grieve very much. Try to understand this.
Your father dies, or your mother dies. If you have loved him totally while he was alive, you will be able to say goodbye to him without any grief — because you loved him. That experience of love was total and fulfilling; nothing is left undone; nothing is hanging over your head. Whatsoever was possible has happened; now you can accept it. What more was possible? Even if he had been alive, what more would have been possible? The experience is complete.
Whenever an experience is complete, you are ready to say goodbye very easily. But if you have not loved your father as you always wanted to, you have not been respectful towards him as you always wanted to, you will feel guilty. Now the father is gone; now there is no way to fulfil your desire — now there is no way to show your respect, your love. Now there is no way, you will feel yourself hanging in the middle, in mid-air, in a limbo. You will not be at ease; you cannot say goodbye. You will cry and weep and you will be broken, and you will say that you are broken because your father is dead, but the real thing is something else.
You are broken because now the possibility to love him, to respect him, is gone. Now there is no possibility — the doors are closed and you have missed an opportunity. The son will cry more if he has not really loved his father. If he has loved his father he will be able to accept the fact — love is very accepting and very understanding.
This is the understanding of all the sages, that while you are loving a person, if you love him totally there is going to be no misery. If you love him totally, if you enjoy and delight in him totally, and the person is gone — of course, one feels a little sad but it is not grief; one misses a little but one is capable of remaining centered, one is not distracted.
And the problem is that now there is no way — what to do with them? You cannot complete them because the person has disappeared. You cannot drop them because incomplete experiences cannot be dropped. It is just like a ripe fruit drops of its own accord. When it is ripe, it drops; when it is not ripe, it is difficult to drop. Whenever an experience is complete, it is a ripe fruit — it drops of its own accord. It leaves no scar behind, no wound.
The wife says: “NO ONE IN THE WORLD LOVED HIS SON AS MUCH AS YOU
DID, WHY DO YOU NOT GRIEVE NOW HE IS DEAD?”
She is giving the argument of the accidental mind. That is the argument of the accidental man: Why don’t you grieve? In fact, the accidental man was not really happy while the person was alive, but he becomes very unhappy when the person is gone.
If you love a person totally, and the experience is complete, has enriched you, you can say goodbye. Of course, there will be sadness but there will be no grief. And sadness is natural. It will disappear in time; it is nothing to be worried about. You will miss the person a little while — natural — but you will not be in grief.
The accidental man says if you don’t cry when a person is dead, that means you never loved him. Now what has happened? There is no grief! What type of love is this?” If you ask me, I say it is because he really loved the child. Now that he is gone, he is gone!
Love is understanding. And love is so understanding that not only does it understand life, it understands death also.
He answered: “I HAD NO SON, AND WHEN I HAD NO SON I DID NOT GRIEVE.”
This is the logic of the essential man. He says: “There was a moment in my life when the son was not there, and I was happy without him. I had known no grief then. Then the son came and I was happy with him. Now that he is gone, I am again in the same situation as before, before he was born. And I was not in grief then so why should I be in grief now?
Again I am in the same situation: the son is not there; I am not a father again. Once I used not to be a father, then I became a father. I am again not a father. Something has happened, disappeared… I am left in the same way as I was before.”
IT IS said about a great sage who was a prime minister: When he was appointed prime minister to a king, he was almost a beggar on the streets. But the news of his wisdom spread, rumors started coming to the palace, and the king started going to him and he was impressed. He was tremendously impressed by the man and his insight — he appointed him his prime minister.
The beggar came to the palace. The king said, “Now you can drop your robe.” Beautiful clothes were ready for him. He was given a good bath; beautiful robes were given to him, ornaments — and as befits a prime minister.
Then everybody became intrigued by the fact that in one room he had something like treasure locked. And every day he used to go, unlock the door — he would go alone, he would not allow anybody inside — lock the door again, and he would remain there for at least half an hour, then come out. Everybody became suspicious: What is happening in that room? What is he having in that room? Is there some conspiracy? Is there some secret? And, of course, the king also became interested.
One day the king said, “I would like to come with you in your private room. I could not sleep last night. I continuously worried about what is there.”
The prime minister said, “There is nothing. And it is not worthy of your eyes. I will not take you.”
The king became even more suspicious. He said, “There seems to be some danger! I cannot allow this to happen in my palace. You will have to take me in!”
The prime minister said, “If you don’t trust me then I will take you in — but then this is the end of my prime-ministership. Then take my resignation and come into the room. Otherwise, trust me and never ask about the room!”
But the king was really suspicious. He said, “Okay, you give your resignation but I am coming into the room.
With his whole court they entered. There was nothing… his old robe. Just the old robe hanging on a nail in the room. They looked around: there was nothing — the room was empty. They said, “Why do you come here?”
He said, “Just to see this robe — to remind me that once I was a beggar, and any day I will be a beggar again. Just to remind me so that I don’t get too much attached to this prime ministership.”
He dropped out of his dress, took his robe. The king started weeping and crying; he said, “Don’t go!” But he said, “Now, enough is enough. You could not trust me, and when there is no trust there is no point in my being here. I must go.”
But he left the palace the same way he had entered one day. Those ten, twelve years he remained the prime minister meant nothing; that was just an accident.
This is what this man is saying: “I had no son, and when I had no son I did not grieve. I never missed this son when he was not there. When I was not a father, I never missed him, so why now should I miss him? Again the same situation has come back: now that he is dead, it is the same as it was before when I had no son. Why should I grieve over him?”
This is the way to watch life. Whatsoever is accidental…
One day you were not in this world! When you were not born, do you remember that you were in any way unhappy? — then why be worried when you die? You will be again in the same state. You were not, and you don’t remember any unhappiness. One day you will again disappear… why be worried? You will be again in the same state: you will not be again — at least not in the way that you are here.
This is what Zen people say: Find out your original face — the face that you had before you were born, and the face that will be there when you are dead. Find out the eternal, and don’t pay much attention to the accidental.
If you can drop out of the accidental, you have dropped out of the world. There is no need to go anywhere: it is an inner attitude.
Osho: A Sudden Clash of Thunder Chapter #3 Chapter title: Why Should I Grieve Over Him? (Excerpts)
मेरी ख्वाहिश है की मैं फिर से फरिश्ता हो जाऊं
माँ से इस तरह लिपट जाऊं की बच्चा हो जाऊं।…………………….मुनव्वर राणा
Meri khwahish hai ke mein phir se farishta ho jaun
Maa se ees tarah lipat jau ki bachcha ho jaun……………………..Munnawar Rana
My desire is to become an angel once again
and to hug my mother in such a way that I become a child again.
Now when I listen to this song from the film “Tare Zameen Par” (2007), I am melting in a tsunami of emotions in my heart — dedicated to my mother and to the universal feeling called “MAA”.
