What Am I Doing Here?
Hey God! What the hell are we doing here?
I don′t know anything about you. I know only what I am doing here. About you, you will have to know what you are doing here. You can ask only one thing - what I am doing here.
I would like you to meditate on this beautiful poem of Eustace Owen.
That′s what I am doing here.
Listen to it carefully:
A butterfly rested upon a flower,
Gay was he and light as a flake,
And there he met a caterpillar
Sobbing as though his heart would break;
It hurt the happy butterfly
To see a caterpillar cry.
Said he, ′whatever is the matter?
And may I help you in any way?′
′I′ve lost my brother,′ wept the other,
′He has been unwell for many a day;
Now I discover, sad to tell,
He′s only a dead and empty shell.′
′Unhappy grub, be done with weeping,
Your sickly brother is not dead:
His body′s stronger, and no longer
Crawls like a worm, but flies instead.
He dances through the sunny hours
And drinks sweet nectar from the flowers.′
′Away, away deceitful villain,
Go to the winds where you belong.
I won′t be grieving at your leaving,
So take away your lying tongue.
Am I a foolish slug or snail,
To swallow such a fairy tale? ′
′I′ll prove my words, you unbeliever,
Now listen well, and look at me.
I am none other than your brother,
Alive and well and fancy free.
Soon you′ll be with me in the skies
Among the flirting butterflies.′
′Ah!′ cried the mournful caterpillar,
′It′s clear I must be seeing things.
You′re only a spectre sipping nectar,
Flicking your ornamental wings,
And talking nonsense by the yard.
I will not hear another word.′
The butterfly gave up the struggle.
′I have,′ he said, ′no more to say.′
He spread his splendid wings and ascended
Into the air and flew away.
And while he fluttered far and wide,
The caterpillar sat and cried.
I know what I am doing, I don′t know what you are doing. You are
all caterpillars. And I know you don′t trust me, and I know you
can′t trust me - and I understand. It is impossible to trust me. How
can a caterpillar trust a butterfly?
The caterpillar has not known anything like that, it is not his
experience. He lives in a totally different dimension, on a
different plane, in a separate reality. How can a caterpillar
believe that some day he will fly into the skies? He only knows
crawling on the ground. He is encaged in his shell, he knows nothing
about his possible wings. He knows nothing about his potentiality.
And man is an embryo, yet not born, yet in the womb.
And when somebody - a butterfly, a Buddha, a Christ - comes and
tells you, it looks like a fairy-tale. It looks as if the Buddha is
Lying. If I tell you ′I am God′ it looks a lie, a fairy-tale. And I
know why. You cannot believe that you can be a God - that′s why. You
cannot believe that you can have wings. When you cannot have wings,
how can you believe somebody else has wings? And I look almost like
you....
That was the problem with Buddha, that was the problem with Jesus.
When Jesus said ′I am the son of God′ people became very angry -
caterpillars angry at the butterfly. And the caterpillars gathered
together, and they killed the butterfly.
When Buddha said ′I am Bhagwan′ the Hindus were very angry. They
uprooted the whole Buddhist religion from India; they destroyed it
utterly. In that way Hindus are more cunning than Jews. Jews killed
Jesus - that is not much of a loss, because Christianity got rooted.
Hindus didn′t kill Buddha - they are more cunning people - they
killed Buddhism. They allowed Buddha. They said, ′Okay, leave him
alone. Just be indifferent to him, don′t take any notice of him. If
you take notice, he becomes important. If you fight against him, you
give energy. If you kill him, people will remember him for thousands
of years.′
That′s what happened to Jesus′ story - he was killed. And that′s why
two thousand years have passed, but Jesus is more alive than anybody
else - more alive than Buddha, more alive than Mahavir, more alive
than Krishna. Jesus holds more hearts close to him than anybody
else. Why? He was killed. If he had been born in India, Hindus would
have simply neglected him. And that would have been a sure death.
It is impossible to believe that which has not happened to you. So I
know, if you trust me, that is a miracle. If you don′t trust me,
that is just natural. If you trust me you are showing great courage
- you are adventurous, you are a dare-devil. If you don′t trust me,
if you doubt, you are simply an ordinary human being. Nothing wrong
with it; it is normal, it is how the normal mind moves.
I know what I am doing here. I am trying to bring this
consciousness to you that you are a butterfly - that the whole sky
is yours, that all the nectar of all the flowers is yours. But I
don′t know what you are doing here - that you have to decide. If you
trust me, then you are using your time in a creative way. If you
don′t trust me, then you are simply wasting your time and wasting
your energy.
Be here only if you trust me.
Many examples were given, but I liked one example.
A small boy stood up and said, "Telling a hair-raising story to a bald-headed man. That is wastage of energy."
I loved it... true.
Don′t waste your energy. If you can trust me, be here, come with me, allow me to take you to some unknown lands. If you don′t trust me then be somewhere else, do something else. If you have decided to remain caterpillars, it is your decision and I respect it. If you are not happy with being a caterpillar and you dream about being a butterfly, then come with me. It is possible - it has happened to me, it can happen to you. You have just to come out of your shell, you have just to drop your clinging to the shell. You have to drop your defence, your armour. You have to come out of your egg, the ego.
(Osho - Zen: The Path of Paradox vol.2 #4)