22 Apr The fox really felt that big (OSHO)
There is a Sufi story about a very cunning fox …. All foxes are cunning, but there are politician foxes too. This happened to be a politician fox, very cunning. One day she woke up, and finding herself very hungry, came out of her cave in search of some breakfast. The sun was rising, and she saw her shadow so long she could not believe it. She said, “My God! I am that big? Now where am I going to get my breakfast? I will need at least one camel; less than that won’t do. My shadow is so big, naturally I must be as big.” It is logical, perfectly Aristotelian. You cannot say she is wrong.
You also know yourself only in the mirror – there is no other way. Have you known yourself in any other way except through a shadow?
So don’t laugh at the poor fox. How can she conceive that a small thing can make such a big shadow? It is very natural to conclude that if the shadow is so big, you must be as big.
And when it comes to feeling oneself big, who wants to argue against it? When anything gives you the sense of bigness, you don’t want to go into details to find whether it is true or wrong, whether it is logically right, scientifically provable. No, your whole being is so enchanted ….
The fox really felt that big. You could see – her walk changed. But where can she find a camel for her breakfast? And even if she can find a camel, it is going to be absolutely pointless; she cannot make a breakfast out of a camel. She searches, she finds many small animals which would have been enough any other day, but today is different. She does not bother about all those small creatures. They will be lost just in her teeth. She needs a camel, an elephant or something big.
But she finds nothing big. The sun goes on rising higher and higher, and she goes on becoming hungrier and hungrier. When the sun is just exactly above her head she looks again at her shadow: it has shrunken so small it is just underneath her. She says, “My God! Hunger does things to people. Just one morning I have missed breakfast and look what has happened to my poor self! In the morning I was so big; only half a day has passed and this is my situation. Now even if I can get any small creature, that may be too much, I may not be able to digest it.”
This Sufi story is significant. It is our story.
From Darkness to Light
Osho
