Reading Scriptures

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A short story by Osho reveals the truth.

A wasp made its home near the widow of a library. It was intelligent and a thinker. During winter it snuggled to rest and in Summer it flew out in glee and collected pollen. Due to its intelligence, the wasp looked down upon the other wasps who did not take to thinking. It thought that they thrived in desires never indulging in contemplation and reading of scriptures.

The wasp sometimes flew into the big building. It liked to fly into the building because there were a lot of thinkers, the people of its kind. Since it was a library it was frequented by the learned, like professors, scientists and philosophers.

The wasp also got into the habit of reading. It started with children' books and progressed to read voluminous tomes on philosophy, science and poetry. It soon became conceited that it looked down upon the other wasps as insignificant who spent their time only in flying and collecting pollen.

Once the wasp happened to read a book on the science of aviation which theoretically said that wasps cannot fly owing to the fact that their bodies were heavier than their wings. The wasp was baffled by the fact that it read. Instead of flying back to its shelter, it crawled as it felt that it was not good going against the scriptures as they could not go wrong. It soon grew sad and depressed.

One day a bird was on its flight to attack the wasp. The wasp in its utter desperation forgot about the newly acquired bookish knowledge and flew away to escape the bird. It then rested on a bush calmly. Only then did it realised that it had flown. So it understood that there must have been a block in its mind that vanished in a moment when it flew. It had read before about mental blocks in Psychology.

Having realised its natural capacity to fly, it started flying from that very day onwards. It stopped looking down upon the other wasps. It immediately realised its true nature.

Osho says that religion is freedom from knowledge of which knowledge, opens the door for liberation. He points out that if scriptures crippled one, then there is a misunderstanding about the truth conveyed. Hence a perfect understanding of the scriptures is necessary. Blind pursual of scriptures without capturing the essence would only result in the incomprehension of them.

The master says that a scripture is a scripture when it makes one natural. It has worked fine with your understanding if you do not condemn and recoganise the divinity in others as well.