This is by the Indian mystic Osho, at the conclusion of his book Courage. With all of the fear the media is promulgating these days, I believe this tale is worth remembering:A man walking in the night slipped from a rock. Afraid that he would fall down thousands of feet ~ he knew that place was a very deep valley ~ he took hold of a branch hanging over the rock. In the night, all he could see was a bottomless abyss. He shouted, but his own shout was reflected back. There was nobody to hear.
You can imagine that man and his whole night of torture. Every moment there was death, his hands were becoming cold, he was losing his grip.
And as the sun came out he looked down and he laughed. There was no abyss. Just six inches below his dangling feet there was a rock. He could have rested the whole night, slept well ~ the rock was big enough ~ but instead the whole night had been a nightmare.
From my own experience I can say to you: the fear is not more than six inches deep. Now it is up to you whether you want to go on clinging to the branch and turn your life into a nightmare, or whether you would love to leave the branch and stand on your feet.
There is nothing to fear.
2 comments:
Osho is the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, heh. That story is an old one and I have heard it in many different incarnations in AA. Usually it is a teaching story about trusting God who simply suggests you let go and you refuse, not trusting His Voice.
Yes, it's a good story for these times when every newscaster is proclaiming "it's going to get much, much worse." It certainly will if we all succumb to that type of thinking, for sure.
As for Osho, I've read a sizable amount of his teachings now and have concluded he was surrounded by some very unscrupulous people, especially during his stay in Oregon. And, of course, there again we had a media feeding-frenzy during the several years of his communal presence in the state.
So it goes.
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