Today, I received a lovely message from my very precious former student Emel. She shared with me the picture of the Osho book “Empty Boat - Commentaries on Chuang Tzu Stories”, which she started reading. Immediately after sharing, she threw a smiley emoji with its eyes squinting. I interpreted the emoji as she was happy and she guessed that I would be happy too.
“Great, I hope it will change your life too,” I replied, not forgetting to add the same emoji.
“I didn’t know whether it should change or develop now,” she wrote shortly afterwards. And again a squint-eyed smiley emoji.
“It needs to transform, transformation,” I said.
First, Emel sent a thinking and frowning emoji with the thumb and forefinger on its chin, and then she wrote the following reply: Franz Kafka’s book Transformation came to my mind, if we are going to transform, may God grant us to transform into a better state than this state.
I wrote her the following long reply: The psychological state called awakening from the sleep of heedlessness in Islam and Sufism is the real transformation. This transformation has nothing to do with knowledge or becoming knowledgeable. It has nothing to do with the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of religious practices. In other words, even if a person knows everything about religion and fulfills all the rituals of religion, he may be in a deep sleep of heedlessness. I say it may be because of courtesy and because only God knows the unseen, but in fact everyone who is not enlightened and has not given birth to his soul is in a deep sleep of heedlessness. Waking up from the sleep of heedlessness has its counterpart in our brain and body. Waking up from the sleep of heedlessness is indeed similar to waking up from sleep in this respect. The new psychological state of those who awaken from the sleep of slumber can be easily recognized by the awakened person himself and by the environment. Some mystics have laughed when they awoke from the sleep of heedlessness. Some were frightened and went to bed (like the Prophet Mohammed), some sat under a tree, broke their fast, and feasted on the sustenance sent by God (like the Buddha), and some ran outside and spent the whole night outside (like Osho).
And I finished like this: So the core of the blog post I will write today has emerged 😅 Can I use your name in the blog post?
Emel: Wonderful 🌿☺️ Of course, Dear Master.
So, here I am, writing this blog post with the permission of dear Emel. I want to share with you some insights from the book that she is reading, and how it relates to the real transformation that I mentioned.
The book is called “Empty Boat - Commentaries on Chuang Tzu Stories” by Osho, one of the most influential spiritual masters of the 20th century. Chuang Tzu was an ancient Chinese philosopher and one of the founders of Taoism, a philosophy that teaches the harmony of nature and the spontaneity of life. The book consists of Osho’s interpretations of Chuang Tzu’s stories, which are full of wisdom, humor, and paradox.
One of the stories that struck me the most is the one that gives the title to the book: The Empty Boat. It goes like this:
A man is crossing a river in a small boat. Suddenly, he sees another boat coming towards him. He shouts to the other boatman to steer clear, but the other boat keeps coming closer and closer. The man becomes angry and starts cursing and waving his arms. He is ready to fight with the other boatman. But as the other boat comes near, he sees that it is empty. There is no one in it. It is just drifting with the current. The man’s anger disappears. He laughs at himself for being so foolish. He realizes that there was no one to blame, no one to fight with. He was just reacting to his own projections.
Osho explains that this story is a metaphor for our lives. We are constantly in conflict with others, because we think that they are the cause of our problems. We are not aware that we are the ones who create our own misery. We are like the man in the boat, who sees enemies everywhere, but does not realize that they are just empty boats. We are not in touch with our true nature, which is pure, peaceful, and blissful. We are identified with our ego, which is full of fear, anger, and desire. We are asleep, and we need to wake up.
Osho says that the way to wake up is to become empty. To empty ourselves of all the thoughts, emotions, and attachments that cloud our vision and prevent us from seeing the reality as it is. To empty ourselves of all the false identities and roles that we have assumed and that limit our freedom and creativity. To empty ourselves of all the expectations and judgments that we have of ourselves and others, and that create conflict and suffering. To empty ourselves of all the beliefs and doctrines that we have borrowed from others, and that do not reflect our own experience and understanding. To empty ourselves of all the past and future, and to live in the present moment, which is the only reality.
Osho says that when we are empty, we are also full. Full of love, joy, and compassion. Full of wisdom, creativity, and spontaneity. Full of life, energy, and awareness. Full of God, or Tao, or whatever name we give to the ultimate source of existence. When we are empty, we are also one. One with ourselves, one with others, one with nature, one with the whole. When we are empty, we are also free. Free from fear, free from anger, free from desire. Free from conflict, free from suffering, free from death. When we are empty, we are also transformed. Transformed from human beings to divine beings. Transformed from sleep to awakening. Transformed from ignorance to enlightenment.
This is the real transformation that I wish for myself, for Emel, and for all of you who are reading this blog post. This is the transformation that can change our lives, and the world. This is the transformation that can make us happy, and make others happy. This is the transformation that can make us empty, and make us full.
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