The Goose is Out by Osho

Beloved Osho,

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Yes, Osho, yes. There is no more bottle, no more You, no more I. only this drunken joy that makes my toes curl in ecstacy. But, Osho... what was the joke?

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Yoga Lalita, the ultimate joke, the only joke... The official, Riko, once asked Nansen to explain to him the old problem of the goose in the bottle.

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"If a man puts a gosling into a bottle," said Riko, "and feeds him until he is full-grown, how can the man get the goose out without killing it or breaking the bottle?"

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Nansen gave a great clap with his hands and shouted, "Riko!"

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"Yes, Master," said the official with a start.

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"See," said Nansen, "the goose is out"

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This is the only ultimate joke in existence. You are enlightened! You are buddhas, pretending not to be, pretending to be somebody else. And my whole work here is to expose you.

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See, Lalita, the goose is out! You will make every effort to put it back into the bottle, because once the goose is out then you don't have any problems. And man knows only how to live with problems, he does not know how to live without problems, so he goes on putting the goose back into the bottle.

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There is a beautiful story of Rabindranath Tagore.

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He says: I was searching for God for thousands of lives. I saw him... sometimes far away, close to a distant star. I rushed. By the time I had reached there he had gone further ahead. It went on and on. Finally I arrived at a door, and on the door there was a signboard: "This is the house where God lives" - Lao Tzu House!

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Rabindranath says, I became very worried for the first time. I became very troubled. Trembling, I went up the stairs. I was just going to knock on the door and suddenly, in a flash, I saw the whole point. If I knock on the door and God opens the door, then what? Then everything is finished - my journeys, my pilgrimages, my great adventures, my philosophy, my poetry, all my longings of the heart - all is finished! It will be suicide.

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"Seeing the point so crystal clear," Rabindranath says, "I removed my shoes from my feet, because going back down might create some noise - he might open the door! Then what? And from the moment I reached the bottom of the steps I have not looked back. Since then I have been running and running for thousands of years. I am still searching for God, although now I know where he lives. So I only have to avoid that Lao Tzu House and I can go on searching for him everywhere else. There is no fear... but I have to avoid that house. That house haunts me! I remember it perfectly. If by chance I accidentally enter that house, then all is finished.

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It is a beautiful insight.

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Man lives in problems, man lives in misery. To live without problems, to live without misery, needs real courage.

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I have lived without any problems for twenty-five years, and I know it is a kind of suicide. I simply go on sitting in my room doing nothing. There is nothing to do!

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If you can allow so much silence to penetrate your very being, only then you will be able to leave the goose out of the bottle. Otherwise, for a moment maybe... and then again you will push the goose back into the bottle. That gives you some occupation; it keeps you occupied, keeps you concerned, worried, anxious. The moment there are no problems there is no mind. The moment there are no problems there is no ego. The ego and the mind can exist only in the turmoil of problems.

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As I see it, man creates problems to nourish his ego. If there are not real problems he will invent them. But he is bound to invent them, otherwise his mind cannot function anymore.

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So, Lalita, this is my simple declaration: that all is divine. The trees and the rocks and the stones and the mountains and the stars - all are divine. The goose has never been in the bottle. it is only the man who cannot live without problems who forces the goose back into the bottle; and then he starts asking how to get it out. And then he makes impossible conditions: first, the bottle should not be broken, the goose should not be killed.

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Now the goose is big, it fills the whole bottle. It is impossible to fulfil the conditions. Either the bottle has to be broken - that is not allowed; or the goose has to be killed - that is not allowed. You have to bring the goose out without killing it and without destroying the bottle. That is not possible, in the very nature of things. Aes dhmmo sanantano: this is how life's law is, it is not possible. So man remains happy because it is not possible, so he can go on carrying the bottle.

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I see Lalita carrying the bottle with the goose... But the truth is that the bottle is only your imagination, fantasy, just made of the same stuff that dreams are made of.

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This is the most difficult thing for humanity to accept. Hence, so much opposition to me - because I am telling you that you are gods, that you are buddhas, that there is no other God than you. That is the most difficult thing to accept. You would like to be a sinner, you would like to be guilty, you would like to be thrown into hell; but you cannot accept that you are a buddha, an awakened one, because then all problems are solved. And when problems are solved, you start disappearing. And to disappear into the whole is the only thing of worth, is the only thing of any significance.

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What I am telling to you is not a teaching. This place is a device - this is a buddhafield. I have to take away things which you don't have, and I have to give you things which you already have. You need not be grateful to me at all because I am not giving you anything new. I am simply helping you to remember. You have forgotten the language of your being.

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I have come to recognize it: I have remembered myself. And since the day I remembered myself I have been in a strange situation: I feel compassion for you, and deep down I also giggle at you, because you are not really in trouble. You don't need compassion, you need hammering! You need to be hit hard on the head! Your suffering is bogus. Ecstacy is your very nature.

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You are truth.

You are love.

You are bliss.

You are freedom.

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Enough for today.

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- An excerpt from The Goose is Out by Osho -