The Cracked Pot

At the Rajneesh Ashram in Pune, under the morning sun filtered through neem trees, a disciple once asked Osho, “Master, I’ve read hundreds of books on Zen, Yoga, Sufism, and Quantum physics. I feel I’m close to enlightenment. Am I ready?”

Osho smiled gently, leaned back into his cane chair, and motioned the disciple to sit.

“Let me tell you a story,” he said.

“There was once a man who came to a potter, carrying a beautifully carved clay pot. ‘Fix it,’ he said. ‘It has a tiny crack.’ The potter examined it and replied, ‘To fix it, I must break it entirely and mold it again.’

The man was aghast. ‘Break it? But this pot is from Persia! It’s precious.’

The potter smiled, ‘Then keep your crack. But it will never hold water again.’

You see,” Osho continued, eyes half-closed, “you are like that pot—decorated with borrowed knowledge. But cracked. And unless you allow yourself to be shattered—your mind, your identity, your beliefs—you will remain incapable of holding truth.”

The disciple sat in stunned silence.

Later that day, the same man was seen sweeping leaves in the courtyard—eyes emptied, smile blooming—his books nowhere in sight.

Moral:

True understanding begins only when the mind surrenders its fortress of knowledge.

Inspiration:

"Unless you are totally destroyed as a mind, there is no hope for you." — Osho