Attention is invisible nourishment

Question 1:

Prem Vishva, laughter has never been accepted by any religion of the world as a spiritual quality. As far as I am concerned, it is one of the most important spiritual qualities for the very simple reason that when you are in total laughter your ego disappears. The laughter is: you are not.

And if this is not being spiritual, then nothing else can be. It is because of this that when you laugh together, you melt into each other, and you melt with me.

Small egos disappear like dewdrops in the early morning sun.

The mind has never been able to laugh: it is basically serious; it is basically pathological. The moment you laugh, suddenly you are not functioning from the mind center anymore, you start functioning from the heart center. And if the laughter is really total you can even go deeper than the heart: you can reach to the very center of your being. It can give you a glimpse of truth, of beauty, of the celebrating existence. That's why I love to see you laugh as much as possible.

And you are right: "In those moments it feels as if we are all sharing a cup of divine champagne."

It is not "as if"... you are really sharing a cup of divine champagne. "And in this rejoicing we lose ourselves and come close to You" - not only close, you can become one with me.

To be close is also to be distant; to be close is also to be separate. Love is never fulfilled by just closeness; it is fulfilled only when boundaries disappear, and merging and melting happens.

Prem Vishva, for you especially, I am telling this joke. A very famous Zulu warrior went to the king of Zululand to ask for the hand of the King's daughter in marriage. The King said, "No man can marry my daughter unless he can first carry out three tasks which I have set."

The warrior said, "Just tell them, O King, and I will do them immediately."

The king said, "I have set aside three tents. In the first tent is a large barrel of alcohol: you must drink it all in one breath. You must immediately go to the second tent, in which there is a seven-foot gorilla who is crazy with toothache; you must find his bad tooth and pull it out with your bare hands.

In the third tent, which you must go to immediately after, is an English lady who has been specially trained not to have an orgasm. You must satisfy her totally!"

"Yes, my King," said the warrior. He went inside the first tent and drank the full barrel of alcohol in one mighty effort. He staggered out and went immediately into the next tent containing the mad gorilla. There was a terrible fight, the tent shook and the air was rent with screams and howling, large pieces of fur came flying out of the door, and a human ear.

The roaring and shouting went on for twenty minutes. Then the blood-soaked warrior crawled out, staggered to his feet, and said, "Okay, your kingship, now show me where the English lady with the toothache is."

Question 2:

Prem Arup, simmering slowly is certainly not our way. And you are wrong about feeling that you are the cook and the cooked: I am the cook, you are the cooked. So please leave it to me; you just get relaxed and be cooked.

You say: "I feel half-cooked. On the one hand I am happy, more blessed and blissful, more loving and loved than ever before - and I feel so thrilled about it. And on the other hand my old companions - jealousy, competitiveness, the need to be important, special - they are also still around."

Don't be worried about them, don't take them seriously. The more you take them seriously, the more you nourish them. Let them be around: just be playful with them. Your blissfulness, your being more loved and more loving will take care of the whole thing.

Qualities like jealousy exist only when you are not loved, when you are not capable of loving.

Competitiveness, the need to be important, special, they are all part of the same phenomenon:

jealousy. They are not separate things, separate aspects. And if you are feeling blissful, happy, loved and loving, then there is no need to be worried: if you have light, the darkness will disappear on its own.

They are your old companions, so just out of habit they still come to see you. Be courteous; don't be angry about them, and don't try to push them away. Just watch - but watch joyously. Your watchfulness can also become serious, and that is a great problem: it should remain part of your playfulness... and jealousy cannot exist.

And when you are blissful, who cares about being important? - you are important. And when you are loved and you are loving, who bothers about being special? These desires arise in people who don't have any taste of bliss, any taste of love.

It is true you are half-cooked - because these things are still coming; but even being half-cooked is a great phenomenon. The rest will also happen. And that is not your responsibility: I am the cook here, and I have cooked so many people that you can trust me, Arup.

Question 3:

Rich Frank, now you can retire. You have done the last thing - surrender. Now you are no longer there. Now it is my concern - you are completely free, because beyond surrender, there is nothing to be done.

Surrender means that you have dropped the ego; and now "You are flying out of control." It feels out of control because you have remained always in control. Now drop that control; now you are no longer the pilot; you have surrendered. And the sky is vast - there is no fear of your falling out of the sky.

You say that people think you are crazy. You are! I attract only crazy people. The so-called saints remain always at a distance.

When I was a student at the university one of my professors told me that it would be a great act of compassion towards him if I didn't come into his class: "As far as your attendance record is concerned, I will give you one hundred percent."

I said, "But what is the matter? I have joined the class, I have paid the fee for it."

He said, "You can take the fee from me, but just the idea of having you for two years in the class drives me crazy. The moment I see you, something in me starts trembling." And he was a very sane person, but people's sanity is superficial: just a little scratch and they will go insane.

I don't want you to be superficially sane: I want you to drop all superficial sanity. Everybody will think you are crazy, but you are simply being natural; and nature is not crazy. To be natural is the authentic sanity: the more natural you become, the bigger will become the distance with the artificial society and the artificial people - but you will be becoming more and more sane.

When you reach to the very core of your being, you have attained the final sanity; but in the eyes of other people you will look absolutely mad. People have created their own game of sanity, and if you break their rules, immediately they condemn you as crazy. I am not here to condemn you, but to transform you. Your craziness is the beginning of your authentic sanity.

Don't be worried about what people say; remember only how you feel yourself. If you are feeling joyous, drunk with blissfulness, there is no need for any control. Control is dangerous, because control means you are not allowing your nature its flow. Control means you are cutting off... trying to force yourself to be a certain way, the way others expect you to be. People give respectability and honor to those who are following the rules of their game; they will not give you respectability, and they will not give you honor. But to be crazy and natural is so valuable that these bogus values of honor, respectability, reputation, don't have any meaning.

You cannot fly out of control; it is simply not possible. It is just that you have always remained in control, so just relaxing a little you become afraid.

It happened in the religious class of a small school: the teacher was telling the students to draw, according to them, the concept of God. She had been explaining to them the Christian concept of God.

The bishop had come to see how things are going in the class, and she wanted to show something from the small boys and girls.

They had all drawn pictures, and one small boy had drawn a picture of an airplane with four windows.

Even the bishop was struck: what kind of an idea of God does he have? And from every window something looking like a man...?

The teacher said, "What is this? This is your idea of God?"

The boy said, "You have told us that God is a trinity: the first is God the Father - you can see...

with the beard of ancient old age. In the second window is the son - you can even see the cross - Jesus Christ. In the third you don't see any face because it is the holy ghost - just something like a whirlwind."

The bishop and the teacher together asked him, "What about the fourth? From where has the fourth come?"

The little boy said, "The fourth?... Pontius the pilot. Without him the airplane will go out of control."

Don't be worried; nature itself takes care of you. You relax... and that is the meaning of surrender:

that you relax and you allow nature to take you wherever it wants to take you. You don't have any plan, you don't have any guidebook, you don't have a certain goal, you don't have any desire to reach somewhere; wherever nature takes you will be your home, will be your destiny.

You are also worried that "my meditations are difficult... I am so excited and high most of the time.

Maybe You will give some clue to quiet this bouncing heart." There is no clue; let it bounce as much as it can. And you are excited and high most of the time: enjoy it. Nobody can remain forever excited and high - and the more you are excited and high, the sooner you will be relaxed.

And right now - when you are so excited and high, with a bouncing heart - if you try to meditate, you are just trying something which is against your nature at this moment. Forget meditation for the moment. Meditation will come; first get tired.

When you are calm, you will see that meditation is happening. The heart is bouncing no more; you are not flying high; you are no longer excited; flat on the earth... and meditation begins. But first, let this whole energy be exhausted.

I once lived with a friend for a few days. He had a small son so full of energy, that it was impossible to talk. He was jumping into everything, throwing things, putting on the radio. My friend said: "What to do with this boy? He is so full of energy...."

I said, "Don't be worried." I told the boy, "You just go around the house as many times as you can.

Then you can ask for any reward, and I will give it to you."

He said, "Promise?"

I said, "Promise." He could go only seven times around the house and then he was flat on the ground.

I said, "What are you doing?"

He said, "Finished!"

I said, "What about your reward?"

He said, "I will think later on. Right now, don't disturb me."

His father said, "Strange... I have been telling him continually, not to disturb me! It is the first time he has said ?don't disturb me!'"

I said, "He has gone into meditation!"

You will also go into meditation. Everybody who is here is going to go into meditation, but first, jog and jump as high as you can; let your heart bounce... and don't be worried: when the energy is moving high, you cannot relax.

Many people asked me about the fact that they cannot sleep - and they have tried all kinds of methods: mantras, chanting, listening to music, but nothing helps.

I said, "These things won't help. You just go for two or three miles of jogging and jumping."

They said, "What? That will make us even more awake."

I said, "You don't understand the dialectics of life: after three miles you will find it is difficult to reach back home; you will start feeling so sleepy and so tired. So don't be worried: I will come with my car and I will pick you up; but I will pick you up only when I see that you are absolutely unable to reach home by walking. You will fall fast asleep anywhere on the street - in deep meditation."

You are new here. Just it will take a little time.... but soon you will find that every day meditation becomes easier and easier. The energy just has to be exhausted. With so much energy, trying to meditate is just doing something which is impossible. So the clue is simple: allow this energy to have its dance - because when it is gone, then you will ask me, "Now, how to dance, how to sing?"

So while it is there, use it creatively. Meditation can wait a little. And here nobody will think you crazy, because there are far crazier people - you are just a beginner.

I have heard: in one prison, a man entered a cell in which there was another man lying by the side of the wall, resting. This man asked, "How long are you going to be here?" The newcomer said, "I have been sentenced to fifteen years."

The other said, "Then you remain near the door, because you will be getting out first. I have been sentenced to thirty years. So why take the trouble of coming too far inside? Just stay there, near the door. Fifteen years only...?"

You are a newcomer, but you have come to the right place. Here, nobody will think you are crazy if you start jumping and dancing and singing on your own. Nobody is going to think that you are crazy - just a beginner - in the kindergarten.

Exhaust this energy; and then you will not ask how to meditate: you will find yourself flat on the ground and you will find meditation is happening.

Sometimes it has happened that people have thought that perhaps their hearts have stopped, or their breathing has stopped: the energy has been so exhausted that even to breathe or for the heart to beat, very little energy is left. Those are the moments when meditation is the easiest thing in the world. Always wait for the right time, for the right moment.

Question 4:

Anand Virag... then remain in between. Don't do anything. If you find yourself in the middle of these two polarities - one is "let go," another is "go for it" - and you find yourself in between that is even better than either one of them. You have found the golden mean. Just remain there, don't do anything; and all that has to happen to you will happen on its own accord.

It is a very rare question. People find it very easy either to go for it, with effort, with will, with power; or to let go, to surrender, trust and relax. But to find yourself in between is far better than both. There is no need to do anything; there is no need to choose between the two; just remain in between, silent, and watch whatsoever happens. Nature, or existence, or God - any name will do - will take care of you .

If you do something, then it will be forcing, repressing the other, and choosing one against the other.

The repressed part will remain within you; and whatever you have chosen is only one half: and there will be moments when you will start thinking, perhaps I have chosen the wrong thing, perhaps the other one was right.

So whatever you choose, if it is only half, you will always repent, because half can never give you fulfillment. The other half will always go on pinching you, it will take revenge, it will not allow you so easily to choose its opposite. It depends on different people.

For you it is not a question of choice: you already understand that you are exactly in between. And you are asking me for my suggestion, what to choose. I am never in favor of choosing anything.

Remain choiceless; and wherever you are, relax at that stage, at that step, at that space... and remain a watcher. The moment you choose you become a doer - and my whole effort is somehow to hammer it into your head that you are not to be a doer.

Two old ladies went to the zoo. They approached a very dangerous gorilla. As the zoo-attendant was opening the door of the cage, the gorilla reached out and pulled one of the old ladies inside and attacked her savagely. The alarm was raised, and the old lady was rescued. She was taken to the hospital, where she made a slow recovery. After several weeks, her friend was visiting her and consoling her, saying that it was time to forget her ordeal and start living again.

"Ooohh," wailed the old lady, "but he never writes, he never phones."

Half-hearted... perhaps somebody has pulled her for the first time in her whole life. She must have been a Catholic nun.

Do not choose. Let your life remain a freedom, without choice. A choiceless freedom and awareness is the very essence of all spiritual growth.

Question 5:

Devaprem, if it is me, I must be pulling your leg. Holding your hand is not going to help - because you are not to be pulled out; you have to be completely drowned.

This place is not for stepping higher, this place is for going deeper. And to take you deeper, naturally, I have to pull your leg. You are trying in every possible way to hold on to something, but there is nothing to hold on to. I make sure that there is nothing around you to hold on to - and then I push you. Not even satisfied by that, I start pulling your leg.

One day you will be grateful for all the difficult tasks that I had to do for you.

Question 6:

Satgyana, become friendly with the lunatic in your head. I am against creating any antagonism in you, any kind of split, any schizophrenia.

You are saying, "At times the joy, the love, the silence. At other times it seems I have got a lunatic asylum in my head." Everybody has got that lunatic asylum - that is our heritage. Your parents have given it to you, your priests have given it to you; your leaders, your teachers, your whole culture has given you only one thing as a heritage - and that is a lunatic asylum in your head.

But they are not responsible. The same has been done to them: every generation goes on giving all kinds of tensions and diseases, superstitions, madnesses, to the new generation. They don't have anything else to give. But you are fortunate that a part of your mind feels joy sometimes, and love, and silence. These are such powerful and potent forces that you need not pay any attention to the lunatic asylum.

Remember that paying attention is giving food. Ignore the lunatic asylum. Pour all the nourishment into your joy and into your love and into your silence. Don't leave anything for all the lunatics that are living in your head. They will start deserting you; they will start entering into somebody else's mind.

There are always people who are very receptive; they are only receptive about lunatic things... so don't be worried that they will die or starve. They will find their way.

You should simply ignore them. Let them be there, but behave as if they are not, and pour all your energy - without holding anything back - into joy, into love, into silence. So the lunatic part of your mind will start shrinking on its own accord, will die out.

This is the difference between western psychology and the eastern exploration of man's interior being. Western psychology pays too much attention to the lunatic asylum - and that is giving food to it. You will not see Sigmund Freud talking about joy or love or silence or peace or blissfulness.

In the whole literature of psychology you will not find these words even mentioned. They have their own vocabulary... schizophrenia, neurosis, psychosis.

Whenever a psychoanalyst looks at you, he is looking for the lunatic; he is not looking for anything that is sane in you. He goes on bringing more and more up, digging more and more into the lunatic part of your mind. He makes you convinced that you are completely mad.

The eastern approach is so totally different, and so healthy, that you will not find neurosis, psychosis, schizophrenia, split personality... all these words and their complex definitions, explanations... and there is not much difference in them either - but they are making so much fuss about all these things.

I have heard: somebody asked a great psychoanalyst, "What is the difference between psychosis and neurosis?" The great psychoanalyst said, "The difference is very subtle but very great. The psychotic thinks that two plus two are five; and the neurotic thinks two plus two are four but is uncomfortable about it." The difference is very subtle, but they are making so much business out of it.

The East has emphasized the healthier part in you, the joyous part in you, the spiritual part in you.

My own experience is that whatever you pay attention to, starts growing. Attention is nourishment; and whatever you ignore starts dying out.

In a small experiment one psychoanalyst was trying to find out whether giving someone attention or ignoring them made any difference. The eastern concept is that they make a tremendous difference.

So he raised two small monkeys. Both were given sufficient food, medical care, everything that is necessary. But one was ignored: nobody even petted him, nobody hugged him, nobody touched his head with love - this was a deliberate experiment. The other monkey was given so much attention:

whoever passed by would say "hello" to him, just pat his head or hug him.

It was a very surprising revelation to the psychoanalyst who was working on it, that the monkey who was not given any attention started shrinking, and the monkey who was given love, attention and friendliness, was growing perfectly well. The ignored monkey died within three months, and the other lived a full life. The experiment has been done many times in different labs, but the same is the result.

Attention is invisible nourishment: when you look at somebody with love, with joy, with compassion, you are giving that person something which cannot be purchased, something which makes him feel needed, something which makes him feel worthy to exist. When the person is ignored, slowly, slowly the person starts feeling, "I am not needed; nobody even takes note of me. So why go on living?"

He starts losing interest in being alive. And the moment you stop being interested in being alive, you cannot be alive for long, even if every physical necessity is fulfilled.

But there is some spiritual necessity. I call it the need to be needed. Somebody needs you and suddenly you feel a new upsurge of energy. The meditator starts feeling as if the whole of existence needs him: the trees need him, the mountains need him, the rivers need him. The ecstatic life of the mystic is based on this experience, that he is needed even by the faraway stars; that when the rose blossoms, it needs somebody to appreciate it.

I had a gardener once, absolutely uneducated, illiterate. But he knew something that even great botanists are not aware. He was a poor man, but every year his flowers were winning the competition in the city. I asked him, "What is your secret?"

He was my gardener, so he was looking after my plants. He felt a little embarrassed and said, "It would have been better if you had not asked." He was very shy.

I said, "Don't be worried, whatever it is, you just tell me."

For years nobody has been able... and there were many competitors in the city, but that poor gardener was always coming first with his flowers. His roses were so big and so juicy, so red, so fragrant.... He said, "I am an uneducated man; I don't know anything. All that I know is that I love my plants and, when there is nobody, I talk with them."

And he asked me, "Don't tell anybody; people will think I am mad. I talk with the roses, I sit with them and I tell them, ?You have to win the competition - this is a question of my whole prestige: for years I have been winning; don't let me down.' They have never failed me. They have always listened to me; and they always remembered that the competition has to be won for this poor old man, who loves them so much."

He has never found in his whole life any garden where he was given total freedom. He was so happy with me that he was writing again and again, "... wherever you go, just call me there, I don't ask anything, just food, even once a day will do, and I will grow your roses."

And it was not only roses, all kinds of beautiful flowers he grew. He had one plant which is I think does not exist in the West. It is called the "queen of the night": it blossoms in the night, with very small flowers, but thousands of them. When they blossom you cannot see the leaves, only the flowers, just small white flowers.

His nightqueen was so fragrant that the neighbors even complained to me, "We cannot sleep because of the perfume. You have to remove this plant from here. The perfume is so strong that it keeps us awake. It is so beautiful, but we also need rest in the night." I have seen thousands of nightqueens in different places, but I have never known that so much fragrance could come out of a single plant and disturb the whole neighborhood.

I said, "That is not possible. You can move, you can go to hell, but that plant can not be removed, because my gardener does not treats the plants as plants, but as people. He has their names, he calls them by names." Slowly, slowly my gardener became aware that I don't think him crazy. So even in front of me, he will go on talking with his plants - working, watering, and talking.

Now even scientist have come up with the discovery, that plants understand your feelings. They understand your joy, they understand your sadness too. And they understand your ignoring them. If this is true about plants, then mens mind is far more sensitive.

So just remember one thing, ignore the lunatic asylum that you have in your head. Everybody has it, so it is nothing special. Just keep your back towards it. And poor your whole energy in the joy and love and silence and peace, in compassion, into friendliness.

You will be surprised that when your whole energy is transformed into these positive qualities, the negative qualities start disappearing like darkness. One should never make the problem of negative qualities, that is the beginning of a wrong journey. If you have something that you feel should not be there, even this much is giving attention to it, that it should not be there.

When I say, "Ignore!", I am simply saying, "Behave as if it is not there - and pour your whole energy to the positive world, into all those beautiful values, which make you not only human beings, but can even help you to transcend humanity and become a Gautam Buddha.

Okay Vimal, Yes Osho.