Palace Full Of… – A Spiritual Story by Osho

An ancient story is, a king is getting old…. He has three sons, and all are intelligent. They are triplets, born together, so there is no question of who is the eldest; otherwise, there would have been no problem, the eldest son would have been the successor. The problem was, who out of the three is going to be the successor? They are all of the same age. In horse riding they are all of equal efficiency; in archery they are equally great. In every field it is impossible to decide who is the best of the three.

He asked his master, an old wise man living in the forest: “I am getting old, and somebody has to succeed me and take care of the kingdom. And I am in great difficulty: can you give me some idea how to choose the right person?” And the wise man gave him some advice.

The king came back, and he gave an equal amount of money to all three sons and told them — because they all had their own palaces — that, “With this money, you have to manage to fill your palaces completely. And after seven days I will come to see: whoever succeeds in filling the house totally, better than the other two, is going to succeed me as the king of the kingdom.”

They were puzzled, because the money was not that great. They thought of many things, but the palaces were big — how to fill them completely?

The first prince went to the municipal corporation and asked, “From today, all the trucks that throw the garbage of the town outside the city should throw it into my palace — because with that money only this much is possible, to fill the palace completely.”

He filled the palace completely. The whole neighborhood was angry; even the traffic on the road stopped — because it was stinking. But they could not do anything — he was the prince, and it was a question of a certain test. The king himself has asked.

The second prince was very much worried… asked many people. But they said, “With such a small amount of money it is very difficult. What your brother has done… he has filled the house; you can do something similar. Just purchase cheap grass, fill the house.” He purchased cheapest quality of grass, which even animals were not ready to eat, but still the house was not full; it was only half full.

They were both worried about what the third brother was doing, because he looked absolutely unconcerned. Six days had passed and he had not done anything. And the seventh day came, and by the evening, as the sun set the king came with the wise old man.

It was impossible to come close to the first son’s house. The king said, “This idiot, he has really filled the house — but with garbage! It is disgusting, I am feeling sick.”

But the old man said, “You had asked… and we have to go and see. Just have a little patience. You need not stay long; just have a look to see whether he has filled the house or not.”

They saw it.

They went to the second son’s house…. It was not better, but it was not worse either. It was rotten grass, but the house was half full.

The king was very much disappointed — so much so that he thought that it would be better not to go to house of the third prince. Because these idiots… what they have done is not worth seeing.

But the wise man said, “You have to go, because the decision has to be taken.”

They went to the house of the third young man. They entered the house, and they were puzzled — because it was absolutely empty. He had even removed the furniture, the paintings, the statues, other things of the house… everything was removed. The house was utterly empty.

They asked the son, “What have you done?”

He said to the father, “You just see, it is full.”

He looked around. He said, “It is absolutely empty, you are befooling us.”

The wise old man said, “Don’t be angry with him; it is full, but it is full with something that you are not acquainted with. What he has done is that he has just purchased candles and put the candles all over the house — it is full of light.” Light is not material, it is not objective.

The word `objective’ is beautiful; it means that which objects to you. You want to go through the wall. The wall will object, will prevent you; the wall is objective.

Light is immaterial. It is a strange phenomenon on the earth. In a sense it is outside you, can be called objective, but in another sense it is not creating any objection — you can pass through it, it is immaterial.

It was thought for centuries that light had no weight; just recently they have discovered that it has weight, but it is almost neglible. When the sky is without clouds and the sun is burning hot, all the rays that fall on five square miles will have some weight that can be detected. If we could collect all those rays, they would give you a little sense of weight.

So in a way, light is part of the objective world, and in a way it is part of the non-objective world.

The old man said, “You don’t understand the boy.”

And the boy returned most of the money. He said, “This was too much. I could have filled the house in many other dimensions also. I could have brought music into the house, which has no weight. I could have brought incense into the house — the fragrance has no weight, and it would fill the house. But I thought that would be doing too much. This is enough — and why waste your money? You take your money back; a small part of your money was enough.”

Osho – “Beyond Enlightenment”