I think, that of all Osho’s talks that I know, this is the most significant, and the most helpful, if you EVER want to be able to return HOME, to the present moment, where you can be content, happy, and start living.
Osho talks: The Man Who Loved Seagulls
7 May 1975 am in Buddha Hall
There was a man living by the seashore who loved seagulls. Every morning he went down to the sea to roam with the seagulls. More birds came to him than could be counted in hundreds.
His father said to him one day: I hear the seagulls all come roaming with you — bring me some to play with.
Next day, when he went to the sea, the seagulls danced above him and would not come down.
The greatest secret of life is — and remember it always — that life is a gift. You have not deserved it in the first place. It is not your right. It has been given to you, you have not earned it. Once you understand this, many things will become clear.
If life is a gift then all that belongs to life is going to be a gift. Happiness, love, meditation — all that is beautiful is going to be a gift from the holy, from the whole.
You cannot deserve it in any way and you cannot force existence to make you happy, or to make you loving, or to make you meditative. That very effort is of the ego. That very effort creates misery. That very effort goes against you. That very effort has destroyed you — it is suicidal.
In the American constitution they have given a right, a basic right — and they call it the basic fundamental right — to pursue happiness. It is impossible to pursue happiness. Nobody has ever pursued it. One has to wait for it. And it is not a right at all. No law court can force you to be happy or force happiness to be with you. No government violence is capable of making you happy. No power can make you happy.
The founding fathers committed a very deep mistake. It seems Jefferson didn’t know much about happiness. Politicians can’t know — they are the unhappiest people on earth. Jefferson added this right to the American constitution, and you will be surprised that because of this, the very wording of it, America has become one of the unhappiest countries in the world, ever. … Because the very idea that you can pursue happiness, that you can deserve it, that you can demand it, that you have the RIGHT to be happy, is foolish. Nobody has the right to be happy. You can be happy, but there is nothing like a right about it. And if you think that it is your right you will go on missing, because you have started to look in the wrong direction from the very beginning.
Why is it so? If life is a gift, all that belongs to and is intrinsic to life is going to be a gift. You can wait for it, you can be receptive to it, you can remain in a surrendered mood, waiting, patient, but you cannot demand, and you cannot force.
Emile Coue is more alert than Jefferson. Emile Coue has discovered a law he calls The Law of Reverse Effect. There are certain things which, if you try to do, you will undo. If you don’t try to do them you may be able to do them. The very effort leads you to the reverse effect. For example, sleep. You want to go to sleep — what can you do? Everybody has a fundamental right to sleep, but what can you do? Can you ask the police to come and help? What can you do when you don’t feel like going to sleep? Whatsoever you do is going to disturb you because the very effort works against sleep. Sleep is an effortlessness. When you simply relax, not doing anything, by and by you drift into sleep. You cannot SWIM towards it — you drift. You cannot make any conscious effort.
And this is the problem with all those people who suffer from sleeplessness, insomnia. All insomniacs have their rituals. They do certain things to cause sleep to come to them. And that is where they miss, that is where everything goes wrong. How can you force sleep? The more you force the more YOU will be there — aware, alert, conscious. Every effort will make you more aware, more alert, and sleep will be put off.
What do you do when you want to go to sleep? You don’t do anything. You simply wait, in a restful mood. You simply allow sleep to come to you — you cannot force it. You cannot demand, you cannot say, “Come!” With closed eyes, in a dark room, on your pillow, you simply wait… and waiting, you start drifting. Like a cloud glides, drifts, you drift by and by from the conscious mind to the unconscious.
You lose all control. You have to lose control; otherwise you cannot go to sleep, because the part that controls is the conscious mind. It has to allow. Control has to be left completely. Then — you don’t know when and why and how — sleep comes to you. Only in the morning you become aware that you have been asleep, and you slept well. Ninety-nine percent of people who suffer from sleeplessness create their own trouble. I have not come across more than one percent of insomniacs who are really suffering from something in their body chemistry. Ninety-nine percent are simply suffering because they don’t know Emile Coue’s Law of Reverse Effect. They are followers of Jefferson; they think sleep is a right.
In life, only on the surface, in the marketplace, rights exist. As you move deeper, rights disappear. As you move deeper, gifts appear. This is one of the most basic things to remember always: you have not deserved life, and life is there! Absolutely undeserved, you are alive, with tremendous energy — alive!
How does it happen? And if life can happen without deserving it, without any right to it, why not happiness? why not love? why not ecstasy? They can all happen, but you have to understand the law. The law is: don’t try directly. Happiness cannot be pursued. It can be persuaded. Persuasion is indirect. It is not an attack. You move, but not directly, because when you are direct you are aggressive. Nothing is as direct as violence. And nothing is as violent as directness.
Life moves in circles, not direct. The Earth moves around the sun. The sun moves around some greater sun. Galaxies move, the whole universe moves, in rounds. Seasons move in a round. Childhood, youth, old age, move in a round. The whole of life is circular, it never goes direct. It is not like an arrow that goes direct to the target. An arrow is man’s invention. In life there is nothing like an arrow. An arrow is man’s violent mind. An arrow chooses the very shortest cut between two points. The arrow is in a great hurry, seems to be too time-conscious. But God is not in a hurry.
Just the other day I was reading a small booklet from Jesus freaks — ninety-nine percent nonsense, but one percent really beautiful! And even if something is one percent beautiful it is so much, because if you go to the Christian theologians, they are one hundred percent nonsense. The one percent that was meaningful, I loved. That part says, “Hurry kills! Haste is waste.” And God is not in a hurry. He moves with infinite patience. God is a loafer, he hangs around. In fact, God is not going anywhere — he is already there. So there is no goal. The arrow is dancing round and round and round. It is not going to any target — there is no target. Just BEING is the target. So God hangs around like the fragrance of a flower which hangs in a summer night — just around and around, nowhere to go.
And God has infinite patience. He works with care, and in very indirect ways. He creates a baby, and takes nine months — he doesn’t seem to have any efficiency experts around him. This has been going on for millions of years, and he has not learned anything; otherwise he could have managed to create better instruments so that a baby could be created within nine minutes. Why nine months? And from the very beginning he has been doing the same thing; he has not learned anything. He should ask the experts, particularly the efficiency experts. They will show him how to produce, how to produce on a mass scale, and not waste so much time — nine months per baby!
But it is not only with babies — with flowers also he takes infinite care; with birds, even with a blade of grass he takes infinite care and time. He is not in a hurry. In fact it seems he is not aware of time at all. He exists timelessly. If you want to be with him, don’t be in a hurry; otherwise you will bypass him. He will be always loitering here and now, and you will always be going there and then. You will always be like an arrow, and he is not like an arrow.
And to be with God is to be happy, to be with God is to be alive, to be with God is to be in meditation.
But the whole training of man is how to do things fast. Speed in itself seems to be a value. It is not. In itself it can create only madness — and it HAS created madness.
Move indirectly. And what is indirectly?
I used to know an old man who was always complaining, always grumpy. Everything was wrong — he was a born critic. And of course as critics suffer, he suffered, because sometimes it was too hot, and sometimes it was too cold, and sometimes it rained too much, and sometimes it didn’t rain at all. All seasons, all the year round, he was suffering. A negative mind, a negative attitude — and he was continuously in search of being happy, continuously making every effort to be contented and satisfied. But I have not seen a more discontented man than him; he was the very personification of suffering, dissatisfaction, discontent. In his eyes there was nothing but discontent. On his face many wrinkles of tension and discontent, all the grumblings of his whole life were written there.
But suddenly one day he changed. He had become sixty and the next day was his birthday; people came to greet him, and they could not believe their eyes — he had changed so suddenly, in the night. Somebody told me about it also, so I walked down to his house to inquire, because this was a revolution! The Russian Revolution was nothing compared to it. The Chinese Revolution, nothing compared to it. A revolution! For sixty years this man had trained himself for discontent. How, suddenly…? What had happened, what miracle? I could not believe that even Jesus could have done such a miracle, it was not possible, because you never hear in The Bible…. Jesus cured blind men, he cured the deaf and dumb, he cured even the dead, but you don’t hear a single story of Jesus curing anybody of discontent. It is not possible.
I asked the old man — he was really happy, bubbling with happiness — I said, “What has happened to you?”
He said, “Enough is enough! For sixty years I tried to be happy and could not, so last night I decided: Now forget about it; don’t bother about happiness, just live. And here I am, happy.”
He PURSUED happiness for sixty years. If you pursue, you will become more and more unhappy. You are going direct, like an arrow, and God doesn’t believe in shortcuts. You will attain to YOUR target, but happiness will not be there.
Millions of people attain their targets: they wanted to be successful, they are successful — but unhappy. They wanted to be rich, they are rich — but unhappy. The richer they get, the unhappier they become, because now even the hope is lost. They were thinking that when they became rich they would be happy; now they are rich, and happiness — they cannot see any sign of it anywhere. Now, with unhappiness hopelessness also settles.
A poor man is never hopeless, a rich man always is. And if you find a rich man who is not yet hopeless it is certain he is not yet rich. Hopelessness is the symbol of being rich. A poor man can hope. Millions of things are there which he has not got. He can dream, he can hope that when these things are there he will have attained the target. Then everything will be okay, he will be happy.
This man pursued happiness for sixty years. At sixty death is coming nearer, and he must have felt it that night, because whenever a birthday comes a subtle feeling of death arises. To suppress that feeling we celebrate birthdays. Whenever a birthday comes, on that day it is impossible to forget death. To help you forget, friends come and greet you and they say, “This is your birthday.” Every birthday is a death day, because one more year has gone, death is nearing. In fact a birthday is not a birthday, cannot be — death is approaching, death is coming nearer. Time is slipping fast through the fingers. The very earth on which you are standing is being pulled away. Soon you will be in the abyss. A birthday is a death day. To hide it, to suppress it, the society has created tricks. People will come with flowers and gifts to help you forget that death is coming nearer — and they call it a birthday.
He had become sixty. Next morning a new birthday was approaching. He must have felt, he must have heard the sounds, the footsteps, of death somewhere around… the shadow. And he decided: Enough is enough. I pursued long — almost my whole life has been wasted in trying to be contented, and I could not be, so now I will do without. The old man said, “Now here I am. I have never been so contented as I am today, absolutely contented. There is no discontent, no unhappiness.”
In the very search you create unhappiness. When you don’t search, happiness searches for you. When you search, you search alone and you will not find. Where will you seek? How will you search? Mind can never be happy. Mind is your accumulated discontent. Mind is your accumulated unhappy past, the whole suffering that you have passed through: it is a wound in your being. And the mind tries to seek, to pursue, and you miss.
When you forget about happiness, suddenly you are happy. When you forget about contentment, suddenly it is there. It has always been there around you, but YOU were not there. You were thinking: Somewhere in the future a target has to be achieved, happiness earned, contentment practiced. You were in the future and happiness was just around you like the fragrance of a flower.
Yes, God is a loafer. He is always loitering somewhere around. And you have gone too far, seeking. Come back home! And just be. Don’t bother about happiness. Life is there as a gift; happiness is also going to be there as a gift — a gift from the whole, a holy gift.
When you are seeking too much you are closed; the very tension of seeking and searching closes you. When you are desiring too much, the very desire becomes such a tense state of affairs that happiness cannot penetrate you. Happiness penetrates you in the same way as sleep; contentment comes to you in the same way as sleep: when you are in a letgo, when you allow, when you simply wait, they come.
In fact, to say they come is not right: they are already there. In a letgo you can see them and feel them, because you are relaxed. In relaxation you become more sensitive — and happiness is the subtlest thing possible, the most subtle, the very cream of life, the essence. When you are relaxed in a total letgo, not doing anything, not going anywhere, not thinking of any goals, no target, not like an arrow but like a bow, relaxing, without tension — it is there.
I have heard a story about a great mogul emperor, Babur, who conquered India. He became one of the greatest emperors in the world, ruled almost the biggest part of the world any man has ever ruled.
A man, a very wise man, came to see him, but the wise man was very disappointed because Babur was talking to his court people in such a profane way — vulgar, cracking jokes; ordinary, not refined even — and laughing a belly laugh. The wise man was disappointed. He said, “I was thinking that you were a cultured man, and I have heard many stories that you love wisdom; that’s why I am here. I have heard that in your court you have many wise men, learned men, scholars, musicians, philosophers, religious men, and what do I see here? A simple vulgarity. It is intolerable. I cannot be here in your court a single moment more!”
Babur said, “Just one moment, then you can go. Look in that corner.” In that corner was a bow.
The wise man said, “What has that to do with the situation?”
Babur said, “I cannot be always tense. If the bow is always tense, and the arrow is always on it, soon the bow will be broken. It will lose its elasticity. It won’t be flexible then, and a bow has to be flexible; only then is it alive… the more flexible, the more alive. That is my bow, and I am like my bow. Sometimes, yes, I am tense; the arrow is on it, the bow is stretched. But only sometimes. Then I rest and relax also.”
I don’t know what happened to that wise man. I feel Babur was wiser than that wise man. A bow needs relaxation. You are also a bow. You also need relaxation.
For small matters, the world of the market, you can move like an arrow, because that is man-created. But for that which is not man-created, you cannot be like an arrow — you have to be like a relaxed bow.
God is total relaxation. Hence Patanjali says that perfect SAMADHI is like sleep, with only one difference — otherwise the quality is the same, the same flavor, the same taste — with just one difference: in sleep you are unconscious, in samadhi you are conscious. But the relaxation, the letgo, is the same. Everything untense, not going anywhere, not even a thought of going anywhere, just being here and now — suddenly everything starts happening.
You are not to do anything to be happy. In fact you have done too much to become unhappy. If you want to be unhappy, do too much. If you want to be happy, allow things, allow things to be. Rest, relax, and be in a letgo.
Letgo is the secret of life. Letgo is the secret of religion. Letgo is the greatest secret. When you are in a letgo many things, millions of things, start happening. They were already happening but you were never aware. You could not be aware; you were engaged somewhere else, you were occupied.
The birds go on singing. The trees go on flowering. The rivers go on flowing. The whole is continuously happening, and the whole is very psychedelic, very colorful, with infinite celebrations going on. But you are so engaged, so occupied, so closed, with not even a single window open, no cross-ventilation in you. No sunrays can penetrate you, no breeze can blow through you, you are so solid, so closed, what Leibnitz called monads. You are monads. Monad means something without any windows, with no opening, with every possibility of opening closed. How can you be happy? So closed, how can you participate in the mysteries all around? How can you participate in the divine? You will have to come out. You will have to drop this enclosure, this imprisonment.
Where are you going? And you think that somewhere in the future there is some target to be achieved? Life is already here! Why wait for the future? Why postpone it for the future? Postponement is suicidal. Life is slow; that’s why you cannot feel it. It is very slow, and you are insensitive; otherwise postponement is the only poison. You kill yourself by and by. You go on postponing — and you go on missing the life that is here and now.
For those who have attained to the here and now, the whole life starts showering flowers on them. Many things start happening which they never dreamed of.
When for the first time you are really relaxed in a meditative state, you cannot believe that life is so beautiful, so euphoric, such infinite bliss, such a SAT-CHIT-ANAND; you cannot believe it! It is unbelievable. When a Buddha reports, nobody believes. When a Jesus talks about his kingdom of God, nobody believes. Even those who follow, they also are not absolutely trusting.
There is a story that Thomas was Jesus’ most beloved disciple, but even he was not an absolute believer, even he doubted; hence the phrase, Doubting Thomas. Thomas was the most beloved disciple, the closest — and yet he too was a doubting Thomas.
It happened that Jesus was moving from one shore of Lake Galilee to the other shore. He told his disciples to move ahead and he would be coming. So they moved off in a boat. Then suddenly, when they were just in the middle of the lake, they couldn’t believe their eyes — Jesus was coming on the water, walking. They forgot everything about Jesus; they thought this must be a ghost. They had seen so many miracles, even the dead had been raised, but now they could not believe. They forgot everything in the moment of surprise, it was such an unbelievable phenomenon — Jesus walking on the water.
The disciples became so afraid and trembling, they started praying to God: “Save us! Who is this man coming? It must be a ghost! We are in danger.” Even Thomas cried, “Who are you?” when Jesus came near.
Jesus said, “Can’t you see me? Have you forgotten me completely? Can’t you believe that I am Jesus, your master?” But still they were trembling.
Thomas said, “If you are really Jesus and not a ghost, or the Devil in disguise, if you are really Jesus, and if you are really walking on the water, then let me also walk on the water, master.” This was a trick to test.
Jesus said, “Yes, you can come!” Then there was trouble. Thomas walked two, three steps. Yes, he could walk, but then the doubt arose: “Maybe this is the Devil playing a trick on me; otherwise how can I walk? It is impossible!” The thing was happening, he was walking on the water, but he couldn’t believe it himself: a doubt arose and immediately he sank into the lake and Jesus had to run and bring him out.
And Jesus said, “You man of little faith.” From that day the phrase Doubting Thomas became prevalent. But he was the MOST beloved. The others were not even trusting enough to come out of the boat, even to TRY.
When Jesus brings the news, the good news of the kingdom of God, nobody believes him. When Buddha talks about the infinite emptiness within, nobody believes him. We cannot believe! How can we believe unless we know? At least a glimpse is needed.
We live in such a suffering, hell, the news about the kingdom of God seems to be just a dream, a poetry maybe, but nothing more. Religion seems not more than literature: fictitious — great fiction, but nothing more. It has to be so, it is natural in a way, because you don’t know where you are standing, what is happening all around you. You are so insensitive, closed….
Open the windows, break the doors open! And run out of this imprisonment, stand under the skies. Feel again! Thinking won’t help. Thinking can go on and on inside you without opening a single window. Only feeling brings you out of yourself — and you are so afraid of feeling, so much at ease with thinking and so afraid of feeling, because feeling will bring you out. It will bring you again into the very current of life. You will be in the river, moving towards the ocean.
Feel more, think less, and by and by you will see that the more you can feel, the more relaxed you are. The more you can feel, the more you become aware of the secret of life — that you need not do anything about it, you just have to be available. Just available, I say, and everything comes to you. Once the idea arises to catch hold, to cling, everything disappears. This is the meaning of this Sufi story.
There was a man living by the seashore who loved seagulls.
Love is the very center of all feelings, love is the soul of all feelings. All feelings hang on love. If you don’t love, by and by all feelings will disappear. If you love, all feelings will be revived. And remember, I say ALL feelings: negative, positive, all. When you love, you start hating also — immediately. When you love, you start feeling anger also — immediately. When you love, you feel sad, you feel happy. When you love, all feelings are again back to life.
This is the trouble. That’s why no society allows love; because if it were the case that with love only good feelings, feelings that society decides are good, came up, there would be no trouble. But with love, the trouble is that not only heaven starts flowering, but hell also. They are together, they are two aspects of the same coin. They cannot be separated — and there is no need to separate them, because a heaven without a hell would be poorer. A love without anger would be impotent. A love without sadness would be shallow.
Life is a polarity, and through polarities life becomes richer and richer and more and more complex. Life is not like ordinary Aristotelian logic, life is more like Hegelian dialectics: thesis, antithesis. Two polarities meet and fight, and a third phenomenon arises: synthesis. A greater harmony arises out of two polarities; then that greater harmony again becomes thesis, a new antithesis arises, then again a higher rung of the ladder of synthesis is reached.
This is how life moves. Life is Hegelian dialectics, it is not Aristotelian logic. It is not simple duality. It again and again reaches to oneness through duality — and that oneness again becomes a pole. It creates another pole; the movement starts. This is how life is trying to reach higher and higher pinnacles of being.
When you love you become happy, and you become sad also. These are the thesis and antithesis. Love is a harmony, the synthesis. Life moves through opposites, just like a river moves through two banks. You cannot conceive of a river with one bank. If you conceive of this, then all rivers disappear. If you try to ensure that one shore will be better, then rivers cannot exist.
That’s what has happened to human consciousness. In the very beginning man decided against hate, against anger, against all negative poles, that they are not good. They are not good if they are alone, they are very bad. If a man is simply angry without love, he is mad. This anger is a disease. But if a man is angry because of love, a father angry with his child, with love, then anger has a beauty of its own.
No child will ever feel bad towards a parent who was angry with love. But a parent who was simply angry without love cannot be forgiven. The child may forget him, but he cannot forgive. Just anger, with no love? It is illness. It is poisonous. But if you are angry with love, the child understands. He understands your love. And in that bigger whole of love, the anger fits. It is just love in action, nothing else; and the child immediately feels it, and loves you more for it.
A husband angry without love is just ego, trying to possess, dominate. A husband angry with love is not ego trying to possess, but love, trying to help. Even if anger is needed, love is ready to be angry.
When love arises, all feelings erupt; a volcano explodes and man becomes afraid. So it is better, man decided, not to touch this volcano. Let it be there, hidden, because it brings negatives also. But those who know, they say don’t be afraid of the negative. The negative is bound to be there with the positive, like a shadow is bound to be with you. If you want no shadow, you will have to kill yourself. Then only can the shadow disappear. But nothing is wrong in a shadow. If you are there, nothing is wrong. If love is there, nothing is wrong.
Somebody asked Saint Augustine, “Tell me in one sentence, in a simple sentence, the whole message of Christ, because I am an ignorant man, and I cannot understand the subtleties of theology. And I don’t know much about morality, so don’t give me complex disciplines I may not be able to follow. Give me a simple discipline, so simple that I can understand and follow.”
It is said Saint Augustine closed his eyes and meditated, and then he said, “Then there is only one thing — love, and everything else will follow.”
Love is the greatest morality, because it brings the feeling part of you up, and the thinking part goes down. Nothing is wrong with the thinking part, but it is playing the role of the master, which is wrong. Reason is good if it helps feeling. Feeling should be the master and reason should be the servant. Feeling should guide and reason should manage. But if reason becomes the master and feeling has to follow, you will be dead… because how can you be alive only with reason? Life is feeling. Trees can exist without reason, but they cannot exist without feeling.
Now even scientists are becoming more and more aware that trees feel, and feel tremendously. Stars, rocks, rivers — they cannot exist without feeling. Feeling is their very life. Birds, animals, the whole — exist with feeling. Except man. Man is upside down. The head has become the prominent thing, and head has been suppressing feeling.
And it has happened all over life in that way. Politicians rule, dominate; in fact, poets should be the guides, not politicians. But as it happens in the atomic individual, so it happens on a vaster scale in society. If feeling rules the individual, then poets will rule life, then poets will rule nations. The world will be totally different. If the head rules, if reason rules the individual, then politicians will rule the world, and the world is going to be constantly in trouble, constantly at war, in constant conflict.
It is good to feel, and if feeling surrounds you, then there is nothing wrong in thinking. If thinking follows feeling — beautiful; it helps. It is like a radar. It opens the way for the feeling to move on. It protects the feeling from dangers. It helps the feeling to know what is going to happen next, to plan a little. It is good! But good only as a servant.
If you love, you will have a deep affinity with existence. Trees will talk to you. Birds will start coming nearer to you. Animals will not be afraid of you — there is no need. Man creates fear because of his head. With his heart he is again one with the universe.
there was a man living by the seashore who loved seagulls. Every morning he went down to the sea to roam with the seagulls. More birds came to him than could be counted in hundreds.
Thousands of seagulls gathered around him. They jumped and hopped, and they flew and they danced, and they moved with him on the shore. The man was accepted by the seagulls, because feeling is everywhere accepted. That is the language of existence: feeling. Reason is the language of humanity, not of existence — a local phenomenon, not universal. Feeling is the language, the forgotten language. If you understand feeling, you understand the whole.
lt is said of Lukman, one of the wisest men ever born — he is the founder of Yunani medicine — it is said about Lukman that he would go to plants, to bushes, trees, sit there, feel them, and ask them, “What use can you be put to? What disease can you be helpful in?” And it is said that he discovered millions of herbs, just by feeling them. The herb would say, “It will be good if you use me in tuberculosis; I can help.”
This looks like a myth, a fiction, but scientists have been at a loss: if this is a fiction, then how did Lukman come to know?… because whatsoever he knew has been proved by all scientific experiment to be right. And no laboratories existed then, like they exist today; not such refined instruments, not at all! If this is a fiction, then a greater problem arises: How did he come to know? And not one or two or a hundred herbs — millions! If he had been experimenting with crude implements then it would have taken at least ten to twenty thousand years for him to discover all that. That seems to be more fictitious. The first fiction seems to be nearer reality — that he asked.
And there is the same story in India also. Ayurveda, the Indian medicine, is based on the same secret. Those secrets were revealed by the plants themselves. But then a language is needed, a language which is universal and not local to humanity. Feeling is that language. Greek or Arabic or Sanskrit won’t do. No language originating in the mind is divine language. No, the divine language originated in the heart. Feeling is the language.
If you start really feeling, and your heart starts really throbbing with feeling, you can ask a tree, and a tree is always ready to reveal its secret. You can ask a bird, and the bird is ready to reveal its secret. You can ask existence, and existence is ready to reveal its heart. That heart is God, the kingdom of God, the ecstasy, the final liberation, MOKSHA, nirvana; whatsoever you want to call it, you can call it.
more birds came to him than could be counted in hundreds.
he knew the language of feeling. It is love. Nobody is afraid of love, not even birds. And they can certainly feel more than you because they have no thinking apparatus, no disturbance of the mind.
In the West now they are experimenting with plants. They say that if you come near a plant with the idea to pluck the flowers, just with the idea — you have not plucked the flowers yet — if just with the idea you come near the plant then the whole plant starts trembling. A fear arises: the enemy is coming.
Now they have made very refined instruments which can check what emotion the plant is going through. If it is fear, then just like a cardiogram, on the paper the instrument records fear. If you come with the idea to water the plant, the whole plant feels happy. This is recorded, the instrument goes on recording that the plant is very happy. You water the plant, the plant is satiated, very thankful; in fact, showing all gratefulness towards you.
It happened in one of the laboratories in New York, suddenly it happened: A scientist was working on insects, and a plant was in the room, a cactus plant. He was working with earthworms, experimenting in many ways — and scientists, in the name of experiment, are torturing many types of insects, animals; he threw one earthworm in hot boiling water. He was also working with plants, and the cactus plant was accidentally connected with the instrument that records the feelings of the plant. Suddenly the plant went through much anger, fear, a very violent state. An earthworm had just been thrown into hot water!
Life is dying: a plant feels it. You cut one plant — the whole garden feels it, because everything is surrounded by an ocean of feeling, all around. You create vibrations. When you are angry you create vibrations. When you are lustful you create vibrations. When you are loving you create vibrations. Those vibrations are the universal language — they are understood by the whole existence.
It is said that when Buddha attained to enlightenment, trees flowered out of season. It may not be a fiction, it may be true. And one day we may be able to prove it scientifically, because if an earthworm, not related to a plant at all, of a totally different species, is thrown into hot water, and the death, the torture, the violence, is felt by the plant and the plant goes through a turmoil, a terrible turmoil, shaken to the very roots, then the other thing also seems possible.
Buddha attains to nirvana, he becomes enlightened. One life has reached the goal: it does not seem too fictitious that the trees around him suddenly flower out of season, in celebration. If pain can be felt, celebration can also be felt. Just a few steps more and science will be saying, “Yes, this is not a fiction.” Life sometimes is stranger than fiction. It is.
his father said to him one day: I hear the seagulls all come roaming with you — bring me some to play with.
Now an idea had entered the head. The man was no longer the same. Love was not there. The heart was not functioning that day. A desire had entered. He had a target now. He had come to the seashore now with a business. He was no more a friend to the seagulls — he was going to catch them — he was the enemy.
next day, when he went down to the sea, the seagulls danced over him and would not come down.
The seagulls cannot understand what you are thinking in the mind but they can understand the vibes that you are creating around — and you are continuously creating vibes around you. You are a continuous broadcast of vibes, CONTINUOUS. Whatsoever happens in your heart, it is just as if someone has thrown a stone in a lake: ripples arise, and they go on and on and on — they will go to the very end, to the very shore, all around. A feeling arises in you; immediately a stone has been thrown in the lake of your being. An idea arises in you — ripples arise. They go all around.
Those seagulls don’t know exactly what the father has said to the son, because they don’t understand the local language of man. They don’t know what has really happened, but deep down they still know that this man is not the same. Somebody else has come, a stranger, not the old friend. Now he has come with an idea. The idea is not known, but throughout his whole body he is now not in a letgo. He has some idea to DO, some plan, some desire. He is not the same relaxed man with whom seagulls could feel at home.
And this is the secret of the whole of life: not only seagulls but happiness, meditation, ecstasy — they all come to you when you are in a total letgo, in a deeply friendly mood, in a loving attitude towards existence. When you are at the heart, they come. When you are persuading them, and you think that happiness is something like a right, that you have to pursue it, suddenly the seagulls of happiness are not descending. They will dance above your head but they will never come down to play with you, to move with you, to jump and hop! No, they will never become one with you. They will not descend into your being.
Yes, happiness is a seagull. Meditation also is a seagull. Ecstasy is also a seagull. Existence understands only letgo. If you are in a letgo, you will attain. You will attain to whatsoever this existence can give you — and it can give you infinite blessings, infinite benediction. It can give you total satiety, contentment. You can become a buddha.
Existence is ready to give, but you are not ready to take it, because you are thinking in terms of how to snatch it. Existence gives to you as gifts; you cannot snatch, you cannot conquer, you cannot achieve. You surrender, please. Please, be in a letgo.
All that is beautiful is like seagulls. Remember this: nothing can be done. The feast is already ready — you have been invited. You can enter from the front door. But you are foolish, you are trying to enter from the back door, and in existence there is no back door. You are trying to enter like a thief. The front door is open for you, and the host is waiting on the steps to receive you, and you are trying to enter from the back door like a thief.
Life has no back doors. You cannot steal life. You cannot be a thief. Life gives, and gives infinitely and gives unconditionally. You please be just in a letgo. Let the seagulls descend and play with you, and loiter with you on the seashore. Everything is ready. The feast, the host — everything is ready, just waiting for you to come in from the front door. Effort is not needed. Effort is the back door. Effortlessness is needed.
Don’t listen to Jefferson. Happiness is not a right, you cannot pursue it. You have to persuade it. It is like a shy woman: you have to court it, indirectly. You don’t go to a woman and say, “I would like to go to bed with you.” That is too direct, too insulting, too vulgar. Any worthwhile woman would slap your face. One has to be a little more subtle with a woman. One has to be a little more indirect.
Patience is needed. Poetry is needed. And even if you have the idea in your mind to go to bed, that will be a disturbance, that will create an unbridgeable gap. If the idea is not there then you simply enjoy being with this woman. One day you will go to bed with her, but that will happen. The seagulls will descend on you.
Let life happen, don’t try to force it. Through doing, only worthless things are achieved; through nondoing — all that is beautiful, all that is sacred, all that is divine.