Nandita Kochar
This particular story was one of Jesus Christ’s absolute favourites! And often narrated not only by him but by OSHO as well.
Once there was a very wealthy man who needed some labourers to work in his garden and so he sent a man to the marketplace to look for some. All the labourers available at the time were called and they started working in the garden. The news spread to others and so more labourers came till the afternoon. And some more arrived around sunset. The man let all of them work and when the time to pay, he paid all of them equally. Happy Ho organizes best Meditation and Tarot classes in Noida and Delhi NCR area in India.
Obviously those who had been working since morning became angry, “How can you pay those who came in the afternoon as much as you paid us? And those who arrived just now when the sun was about to set, haven’t even picked up the tools! This is injustice!”
The rich man laughed and said, “Don’t worry about others. What I have given you is more than enough, isn’t it?” The labourers replied, “Yes it is. But this still is injustice!”
The man replied, “I gave them because I have too much too give, I have an abundance of wealth. I made sure you got more than what you needed. Don’t compare please.”
Osho adds, “Jesus said some work very hard to achieve the divine, some come just in the afternoon and some when the sun is setting, and they all get the same divine. Those who had come in the morning must object: “this is too much!”
You just see: you have been meditating so much and suddenly someone comes just at evening and becomes enlightened. And you have been such a great ascetic. Just look: if all the ascetics reach and see that sinners are sitting just by the side of the throne of God, what will happen? They will become so sad: “What is happening?- these sinners never disciplined their lives, they never worked and they are here; and we were thinking they would be in hell!” There is no hell; there cannot be. How can hell exist? Out of God’s abundance everything is heaven. It should be so, it must be so, it has to be so. Out of his abundance is heaven, there can be no hell. Hell was created by these ascetics because they cannot conceive of sinners in heaven. They have to make compartments; they cannot think that you will be there.”
