To be really kind implies that you can be unkind too !

I have heard about a Zen Master who was driving a carriage with a woman and her child in it. Much snow was falling and the morning was very cold and there was no sun in the sky, it was cloudy. The Master started freezing and the woman in the carriage did too. By and by he saw that she was becoming blue and was losing consciousness. So he took away the child, pushed the woman out of the carriage and drove away.

The woman was shocked. She was left standing there in the falling snow, her child had been taken away – what type of man was this? And he had taken the carriage. She started running and shouting and screaming and cursing – and within half a mile, because of all the running and cursing and shouting and screaming, she was perfectly okay!

Then the Master stopped the carriage, took her in and said, ’Now it is okay. I had to do that otherwise you would have died.’

Sometimes to be really kind implies that you can be unkind too. If you cannot be unkind then your kindness is not of much worth. It is cultivated. It is not out of awareness.

Now think. If you had been that driver you could not have done that. It looks immoral. But it is not.

Osho

~Chap 7, Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 2