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upon a time, in an emperor's court, a poet came to recite his compositions; these were in praise of the emperor. The words of the songs, as well as the voice of the singer enchanted the emperor, who announced a gift of five thousand gold coins to the poet. The gift was to be presented the next day. The poet who was a poor man living in a small hut, returned home overjoyed on being a successful bard. The thought five thousand gold coins did not allow him to sleep. During the night, he kept planning and re-planning how he would spend the windfall; and this kept him tossing in bed till the dawn.
In the morning he presented himself before the emperor. The emperor greeted him and inquired, 'What brings you here, Oh poet? What do you want?' The poet was confused; he queried anxiously, 'Your Majesty! Have you already forgotten that only yesterday you had announced a gift of five thousand gold coins in appreciation of my poems?' The emperor said, 'You are a silly simpleton. You had pleased me by your words; so I thought it proper to please you with my words. The give and take is over!'
In our relationship with God also, this is true. Results are achieved neither by thoughts nor by words nor by plans, but by the life lived. In living lies the reward.
[On a long train journey with Osho they noticed that each passenger readied himself to alight, much before he reached his destination. Commenting on this common practice, Osho said:]
How alert we remain in an ordinary train journey! And how we lack totally this alacrity in the important journey of life! We neither know our destination, nor are we prepared to alight. When death comes to rob us of life, we are caught unawares. And then, belatedly, we realise that we had forgotten about death; we had forgotten to prepare ourselves for dying.
Question 3
SOMEONE QUESTIONED, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THIS ALERTNESS AND PREPAREDNESS?
First thing to bear in mind is that life is a journey. We begin at one point and move on to some other point. We are not perfect, but we have to strive to be perfect. For the perfect, there is no travel and no destination. But, for the majority of us, who are
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