I have always loved an ancient story.
God made the world, and from that very day the sun went running after darkness. And darkness could not understand: it has not harmed the sun, it has not even talked with the sun, it has not even met the sun, yet the sun is continuously harassing her.
After millions of years of harassment, she finally got tired and went to God and said, “It is ungrateful to complain, but there is a limit to everything. I have been harassed for millions of years, and I cannot conceive of any fault on my part. The sun goes on expelling me from everywhere. It is even difficult to take a rest without anxiety — the sun may be coming, the sunrise may be close. I have not slept for millions of years — the anguish would not allow it. The sun has been almost a continuous torture, and without any reason. I simply want to know: what have I done wrong?”
God said, “You should have come earlier. There was no need to wait so long. This is very ungentlemanly on the part of the sun. The sun should be called immediately.”
The sun was called. He asked the messenger, “What is the problem? — because I have never done anything wrong. I simply go on doing the same routine every day. Since God made me, I have not done anything else.”
But the messenger said, “God is very angry. You have been hurting, harassing a poor woman — darkness.”
He said, “My God, I have never heard of her. I have never met her. I am not interested in women at all — I am a born celibate. I am coming, I want to see who this woman is.”
And as the sun came to the house of God, darkness disappeared.
God said, “Where has that woman gone?” They searched everywhere; darkness was not found.
Millions of years passed again, and one day the woman appeared and she said, “You have not done anything; it is still continuing, the same torture.”
God said, “You are strange. When the sun was here, where did you go?”
She said, “You are behaving like a simpleton. If the sun is here, I cannot be here; if I am here, the sun cannot be here. We cannot stand each other. You will have to hear our story separately and then decide.”
God said, “That is not my way. You both have to be present here so I can be certain that nobody is lying.”
The woman said, “Then it is better I take my complaint back.”
Since then, the woman has not appeared again. Once in a while the sun comes to inquire, “What happened to the woman — because I want to clear it up, it has become a worry on my head that somebody is being hurt by me, perhaps unknowingly.”
God said, “You need not be worried. The problem is such that it cannot be solved. I cannot give any decision unless you are both present in my court together and I have listened to both sides in the presence of each other. But by the very nature of things, you cannot both be present. That woman is your absence. So of course you cannot be present and absent simultaneously. Drop your worry. You are doing perfectly fine, and that woman is not going to report against you again. The file in your case is closed.”
Story told by Osho
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