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[ SATURDAY, JANUARY 01, 2005 12:00:00 AM ]
THE SPEAKING TREE:
Spread Happiness In The New Year
OSHO

Laughter is the best medicine. If you can laugh when you are ill you will get your health back sooner. If you cannot laugh, even if you are healthy, sooner or later you will lose your health and you will become ill.

Laughter brings inner energy to the fore. When you really laugh, for those few moments you are in a deep meditative state. Thinking stops. It is impossible to laugh and think together. When you really laugh, suddenly, the mind disappears. And the whole Zen methodology is how to get into no-mind.

Dancing and laughter are the best, natural, easily approachable doors to attaining no-mind. Existence melts into you; there is an overlapping of boundaries. And if you are really dancing — not managing it but allowing it to manage you, allowing it to possess you — if you are possessed by dance, thinking stops. The same happens with laughter. If you are possessed by laughter, thinking stops. And if you know a few moments of no-mind, those glimpses will promise you many more rewards that are going to come.

Before the mind disappears there open two alternatives: sleep or sushupti/ samadhi and satori. When thinking disappears, these are the two alternatives left: either you move into satori — a fully alert, no-thought state; or a fully asleep, no-thought state — sleep. And sleep is more natural, because you have practised it long. If you live 60 years, for 20 years you have been asleep. It is the greatest activity that you have been doing; one-third of your life is spent in sleep. Laughing, how can you fall asleep? It brings a state of no-mind and no-thought, and does not allow you to fall asleep.

In a few Zen monasteries, every monk has to start his morning with laughter, and has to end his night with laughter. It will be difficult, living in a family set-up, to suddenly laugh early in the morning. But do try it; it's worth getting out of bed laughing. Yes, for no reason at all. Isn't it good to be alive?

One day you will not get up in the morning. One day the milkman will knock at the door, the spouse will be snoring, but you will not be there. One day, death will come. Before it knocks you down, have a good laugh — while there is time, have a good laugh.

And look at the whole ridiculousness: again the same day starts; you have done the same things again and again for your whole life. Again you will get into your slippers, rush to the bathroom — for what? Brushing your teeth, taking a shower — for what? Where are you going? Getting ready and nowhere to go!

Look at the whole ridiculousness of it — and have a good laugh. Laughter leads to more laughter. And almost always I have seen people doing just the wrong thing. From early morning they get out of bed complaining, gloomy, sad, depressed, and miserable. Then one thing leads to another — and for nothing. And they get angry. it is very bad because it will change your climate for the whole day, it will set a pattern for the whole day.

In their insanity, Zen people are saner than you are. They start the day laughing. Then the whole day you will feel laughter bubbling, welling up. There are so many ridiculous things happening all over! God must be dying of laughter — down the centuries, for eternity, seeing this ridiculousness of the world. The people that He has created, and all the absurdities — it is really a comedy. He must be laughing.

If you become silent after your laughter, one day you will hear God also laughing, you will hear the whole existence laughing with you — even the trees and stones and stars.

(Compiled by Swami Chaitanya Keerti, Osho World Foundation, New Delhi)  

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Hindustan Times
New Delhi
january 4th, 2005

PERCIEVE TRUE BEAUTY
Swami Chaitanya Keerti                                  

There is a Zen saying: A life of Zen is to perceive at any time the beauty of the moment. The mind and body are always one; when eating, eat, and when sleeping, sleep. Zen is the Japanese word for our Sanskrit word Dhyan. A life of Zen means a meditative way of living.

There is another way of living too – a mechanical way – and we do it all the time. We may call it living, but it is not. Real living is when we live with full awareness and alertness, living each moment as it comes. There’s no postponement – we are fully present in each moment. We are not lost in thoughts of the past or in the imagination of the future. When we are lost in the past or the future, we have a horizontal existence, which can become vertical when we start living in the moment. And being in the moment makes our consciousness grow vertically – rising to touch the inner peaks of consciousness. This is truly a life of Zen. Being in the moment. Perceiving the beauty of the moment. Realizing the oneness of body and mind. But the disturbed state of consciousness is what our minds are. Life perceived with such a mind becomes a life of duality – of many fragments. And being fragmented is to be schizophrenic. The divisions within us are always in conflict. Peace and relaxation happens when all divisions have been dissolved and we become one whole within us. This is the way to multi-dimensional relaxation – truly rich and beautiful.

Osho says: Relaxation is one of the most complex phenomenon – very rich, multi-dimensional. All these things are part of it: letting-go, trust, surrender, love, acceptance, going with the flow, ecstasy. And all these start happening if you learn the ways of relaxation.

Sun
January 2005
HE WHO REMAINS ALONE, REMAINS PUREST!

Lao Tzu uses such a beautiful terminology that nobody can ever find a fault with it. But that is the reason he could never become such a great religious leader as Buddha or Jesus: nobody understood him. He talks very simply; he is the simplest possible man. He has no jargon; he does not use the word'God' at all. He does not use any terminology of theology, religion. Because of this, nobody understood him. Nobody even tried to crucify him; nobody threw even a stone at him, because even for that you have at least to be misunderstood. If you don't understand, okay. But you have at least to misunderstand. Lao Tzu was simply neglected.

I have heard a story. Once he was going from one town to another on his donkey. A messenger from the emperor came and told Lao Tzu, "The emperor has heard about you and he would like you to become a part of his court. He needs wise men there."
Lao Tzu treated the messenger very courteously, but said, "No, it is impossible. I am grateful. Thank the emperor, but it is impossible."
When the messenger was going, Lao Tzu washed his ears with water, and washed the ears of the donkey also.

A man who was standing by the road asked, "What are you doing, sir?"
He said, "I am washing my ears, because even the messenger from the world of politics is dangerous."
The man asked, "But why arc you washing the ears of the donkey?"
He said, "Donkeys are very political. He is already walking in a different way! The moment he heard and saw the messenger from the court, he became very egoistic. Donkeys tend to be political. I don't much understand the language of the court, but he understands, because similar donkeys are there. The language is the same."
The man laughed. It is said, even when the story was reported to the king, that he also laughed.

People laughed about Lao Tzu; at the most, a crazy old man, eccentric, but nobody took him seriously. And he could never influence people to such an extent that they should organize his teaching. No religion, no organization, could come out of his teachings. He remained alone. He remains alone, but purest.