Collecting wise sayings

It is said of a Hindu mystic that he went begging. And a woman looked at his eyes… He had beautiful eyes. Saints have beautiful eyes, nobody can have eyes like a saint — depth, the joy, the feeling that one has arrived, the relaxation, the rest, the compassion. The woman became immensely attracted to the eyes. She started following the mystic. the

One day the mystic asked, “What is the matter? Why do you go on following me? I don’t see any religious search in you.”

The woman confessed. She said, “In fact, I don’t have anything to do with religion. I have simply become attracted to your eyes; you have beautiful eyes.”

The mystic said, “You go home. Tomorrow I will come to your home.”

She was very happy. She thought that the mystic was also interested in her. She took a bath, perfumed her body, decorated everything with flowers, cleaned the whole house. With great expectation and hope she was waiting. And then came the mystic. She could not believe it! He had taken his eyes out and he had brought them on a plate.

And he said, “You keep them, otherwise you have to follow me unnecessarily. You keep these eyes. You can have them. I don’t have much use for them because whatsoever I needed to see I have seen. And it doesn’t look good that you go on following me just because of these eyes. You keep them.”

But are these eyes, eyes anymore? They are not. They were eyes only when they were in the organic unity of the body. Now they are nothing. Now you can look into them and you will not find any depth. You can look into them and you will not find any compassion or any love. There is nothing! They are just ordinary pebbles, meaningless. The meaning is always in the totality. So never think that you can become wise by collecting wise sayings.

Osho (Acharya Rajneesh) in the book Sufis: People of the Path Vol. 2

Acharya Rajneesh (1931-1990), known later as Osho, was an Indian godman, philosopher, mystic and founder of the Rajneesh movement. He was viewed as a controversial religious leader during his life. He rejected institutional religions, insisting that spiritual experience could not be organised into any one system of religious dogma. He advocated meditation and taught a unique form called dynamic meditation. Rejecting traditional ascetic practices, he asked his followers to live fully in the world but without attachment to it. Pic courtesy: https://www.sannyas.wiki/