In Japan there is an old art. I don’t call it ”art” but they call it art. I call it murder. But people go to see it from all over the world because there are only a few trees… five hundred years old and six inches in height. You can see that although it is just six inches high, the tree is old. Its bark is old, its leaves are old; just its tallness somehow has been prevented.
And the strategy is that in the mud pots in which those trees are put, there is no bottom. So the gardeners, from generation to generation – because the tree is five hundred years old; many generations of the family that owns the tree have passed – they go on cutting the roots, they don’t allow the roots to grow. The pot has no bottom; otherwise the roots will find their way into the earth. The roots go on becoming older, the tree goes on becoming older. But because the roots cannot spread, cannot go deep into the earth, the tree cannot go high into the sky.
People think it is an art. It is sheer murder, it is a crime against the trees. And the same crime has been committed against man all over the world. Your roots have been cut.
Intellect can have flights, but it has no roots. Once in a while a genius may suffer from his own intelligence, and finally either he will commit suicide – because the tension of his intelligence will become too much, his thoughts will become too many – or he will go mad.
The Osho Upanishad
Master And Disciple, A Journey Hand In Hand
