Osho story on Real Contentment

Osho : There is a story which I like very much of two fakirs: The two fakirs, the old guru and the young disciple, were returning to their hut in Japan for the rainy season. For eight months of the year they traveled from village to village singing the praises of the Lord, but in the rainy season they returned to their hut. When they reached the bank of the lake where the hut stood, they found the roof fallen to the ground by a violent storm that had struck just the night before. It was not only a very small hut, but on top of that, half the roof was on the ground.

There were ominous clouds in the sky and darkness all around. Nothing could be done for they were far away from any other habitation. The younger sannyasin couldn’t contain himself. ”Look at this. We kill ourselves singing His glories and this is how we are rewarded. What use is all that prayer and worship? What do we get in return? Rich sinners are lying blissfully in their mansions while the gale has carried away the roof of two poor fakirs. The storm is also His.” Having given vent to all his rage, he turned to the guru and what did he see?

There knelt the guru with folded hands looking up at the sky, his eyes filled with tears of joy and supreme contentment. He was singing, ”Oh Lord, Your compassion knows no bounds. The tempest could have blown the whole roof away and you must have stopped it half-way for us. Only You can be so thoughtful.” Then they both entered the hut. Though they seem to enter the same hut, they are different people: one is contented, the other dis-contented. They both slept. The younger fakir kept tossing and turning, grumbling and worrying about the rain, constantly complaining and filled with anger.

But the guru slept very soundly. When he got up at 4 a.m. he wrote a song. He could see the moon above through the half-open roof. He said in his song, ”Oh Lord, had we known before, we would not have troubled Your tempest to rip off half the roof. We would have done it ourselves. We have been so foolish, but now we can see the wonderful work of the storm; we can watch the moon over the hut! How close is Your sky, and we shut it off with a roof! Your moon came and went so many times and we remained behind a roof.

We did not know, please forgive us! Had we known we wouldn’t have put the storm to so much trouble.”

A man who can sing like this under the most direct circumstances is truly a contented person. But he who becomes contented out of helplessness follows the path of impotent and vigorless people; if only they could find contentment before having to lose everything then they wouldn’t have to lose anything; for you cannot steal anything from a contented man. You may take away his belongings but not his contentment. His inner equilibrium cannot be disturbed. His true possessions are all within.

Source: "The True Name, Vol 2 " - Osho

Stories to Stir the Soul

Osho story on Real Contentment