Once a man was traveling, accidentally he entered paradise. In the Indian concept of paradise there are wish-fulfilling trees, kalpatarus. You just sit underneath them, desire anything, and immediately it is fulfilled–there is no gap between the desire and its fulfillment. You think, and immediately it becomes a thing; the thought realizes automatically.
These kalpatarus are nothing but symbolic for the mind. Mind is creative, creative with its thoughts.
The man was tired, so he fell asleep under a wish-fulfilling tree. When he woke up he was feeling very hungry, so he said, “I wish I could get some food from somewhere.” And immediately food appeared out of nowhere–just floating in the air, delicious food. He immediately started eating, and when he was feeling very satisfied, another thought arose in him: “If only I could get something to drink…” And there is no prohibition in paradise so immediately, precious wine appeared.
Drinking the wine, relaxed in the cool breeze of paradise under the shade of the tree, he started wondering, “What is happening? Have I fallen into a dream, or are some ghosts around and playing tricks with me?” And ghosts appeared! They were ferocious, horrible, nauseating. He started trembling, and a thought arose in him: “Now I am sure to be killed. These people are going to kill me.” And he was killed.
This parable is an ancient parable, of immense significance. Your mind is the wish-fulfilling tree–whatsoever you think, sooner or later it is fulfilled. Sometimes the gap is such that you have completely forgotten that you had desired it in the first place–sometimes the gap is of years, or sometimes of lives, so you can’t connect the source. But if you watch deeply you will find all your thoughts are creating you and your life. They create your hell, they create your heaven. They create your misery, they create your joy. They create the negative, they create the positive. Everybody is a magician, spinning and weaving a magic world around himself, and then he is caught–the spider itself is caught in its own web.
Once this is understood, things start changing. Then you can play around; then you can change your hell into heaven–it is just a question of painting it from a different vision. Or if you are so much in love with misery you can create as much as you want, to your heart’s content. But then you are never complaining, because you know that it is your creation, it is your painting, you cannot make anybody feel responsible for it.
Then the whole responsibility is yours. Then a new possibility arises: you can drop creating the world, you can stop creating it. There is no need to create heaven and hell, there is no need to create at all. The creator can relax, retire. That retirement of the mind is meditation.
The thinker is creative with his thoughts–this is one of the most fundamental truths to be understood. All that you experience is your creation. First you create it, then you experience it, and then you are caught in the experience–because you don’t know that the source of all exists in you.
- Osho
