5. Get up and dance!

BE SPONTANEOUS

GET UP AND DANCE!

BE SPONTANEOUS

The famous Zen master Bankei, wandering in Japan, arrives in a new town.

(My stories are most often drawn from Zen, because no other religion has taken to life so beautifully, has met life with such reverence and courage and humour.

Zen is a love affair with life!)

When people hear that the Zen master is in their town, they come to see him, and say,

Beloved master, we have heard so much about you! We hear that simply by being in your presence, people feel immensely joyful. They get healed of diseases miraculously. They feel their wishes are coming true! What is the special meditation you practice to attain these powers?

The master replies simply, When I'm hungry, I eat. When I'm sleepy, I sleep. That is my meditation.

Zen masters usually talk like this! And just as you are confused right now, the people who hear him are also confused. What could possibly be easier than eating and sleeping? All their lives, they have been eating and sleeping! And here was this great master, calling it a powerful meditation technique!

So they beg for an explanation.

And the master asks them, Do you really eat when you're hungry? Do you sleep when you're sleepy?

Do we?

When do we usually eat?

When lunch is ready; when we have the time; when the clock says so. Without even realizing it, we live our life within a set behavioural pattern. Even for such personal acts as eating and sleeping, we depend on a schedule that we've built up for ourselves! This pattern that controls our life is nothing but what we call habits.

There are so many people who simply can't start their day without a cup of tea or coffee! If they can't get their tea first thing in the morning, they develop a headache, they can't get through the day. All of us have our pet habits. We call them 'our habits', and think that we are in charge of them, but actually they are the ones in charge of us!

Carried to an insane extreme, an obsession with habit can ruin our lives. In psychiatry, this is known as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). People who suffer from this disorder tend to continuously repeat the same act. It might be a simple act like washing their hands, or checking to see if a door has been properly locked, but they will do it again and again as if their life depended on it. Autistic people can become gravely disturbed if anything in their environment is even slightly changed; even if the furniture has been rearranged in a room, it is enough to set them off.

Don't laugh off this behaviour as madness!

Be very clear: between the so-called normal and disturbed people, it is only a difference of degree and a small one, at that!

Habits numb you to the changing reality of life. To act out of habit is to miss out on all the opportunities for change that life creates for us every moment.

Even at the most challenging moments of our life, we tend to function out of habit!

A small story:

A pickpocket died and went to Heaven. St. Peter, guarding the pearly gates, stopped him. He reminded the man that he'd been cheating people all his life, and deserved to go to Hell instead. But the pickpocket begged forgiveness and promised to transform himself into a new person.

At last St.Peter took pity on him. Alright, he told the man wearily, Go on in. But first, would you mind returning my purse?

---

In our 'civilized' society, we place a ridiculous value on consistency.

Usually, people are so proud of being consistent! They boast about having woken up at the same time for the past 30 years; they boast about how they have been communists or atheists or whatever, since their school days.

Consistent people are the most boring people! When someone is always consistent, it can mean only one of two things:

(a) He was born perfect, and doesn't need to change a single thing about himself throughout his life, or (b) He is clinging to his old ideas, out of pride or fear.

I don't think that anyone can claim to be already perfect? So the only other reason would be, the fear of change.

Habits represent the familiar, the accepted patterns of life. Habits symbolize security. That's why we cling to our habits for dear life! It requires great courage to live without habits, without beliefs. It means that you don't need an idea to tell you what is right, or what to do. But we are so afraid of making mistakes, that we destroy our spontaneity.

I ask you, even a baby is not afraid of taking new steps, so why are you? The joy of living is to open yourself to the ebb and flow of life. Life is insecurity! Learn to enjoy the insecurity of life, and you will never feel fear.

As we grow older, we tend to resist change more and more. We feel threatened by change, because it goes against our solid ideas of right and wrong, or what works and what doesn't work for us.

We forget that Life is essentially non-paradoxical. We find it paradoxical only when we compare today to what we learnt yesterday, or to what we plan for tomorrow. It is only when we try to confine a situation to our own expectations that we see contradictions.

A small story:

In a village, there lived two sadhus (holy men). One of them was very proud of his knowledge of the scriptures and logic. He was forever spouting philosophy. The other was a simple, happy man who mingled with the villagers and lived a life of peace.

One day, the two met on the road leading to the market.

Where are you headed? asked the first sadhu, hoping to start a philosophical debate.

Where my feet lead me! replied the other joyfully.

The first sadhu was stumped. What did he mean by that? Was he presenting him with a philosophical riddle? How to answer him? He went home and spent the whole day pondering the meaning of the sadhu's statement. With great trouble, he crafted an equally intelligent counter-statement.

The next day, he triumphantly approached the other sadhu on the same road.

Where are you headed? he repeated.

Where the wind takes me! replied the other sweetly.

This was too much! The first sadhu was dismayed. He had such a perfectly planned counter-argument, and now the other had changed his statement! So he went back home and prepared himself to face this new challenge.

The third day, he waylaid the other sadhu and repeated the question,

Where are you headed?

Oh, just to the market, to get some vegetables!, replied the other sadhu, laughing.

Such is life!

In life, the answers change everyday. When change is the only reality of life, how can you plan ahead?

In Chinese Taoism, life is symbolically represented by the yin-yang. Yin and yang represent the opposing principles of life - negative and positive, darkness and light, contraction and expansion. But the beautiful thing about the yin-yang is that the two aspects are continuously flowing into each other, changing every moment. There's always a little yin in yang, and vice-versa; just like life, which is always fluid, always changing.

In an experiment conducted by a behavioral psychologist, two groups of people were asked to listen to the same piece of music and respond in whatever way they felt like - by dancing, singing along, laughing, waving their arms about or just sitting. The only difference was, in the second group, all the people were blindfolded.

Needless to say, less than a fifth of the participants in the first group responded to the music in a truly spontaneous manner, while almost everybody in the second group let themselves go.

We have grown so afraid of looking foolish or out of place, of going against the current, that we have simply lost the capacity to respond to the moment without fear or prejudice.

The funny thing is, these days a lot of people are waking up to the importance of being spontaneous but by now we have forgotten how to 'do it'!

Everywhere you find teenagers wearing T-shirts saying Do your own thing, but in truth they are terrified of not doing the accepted thing, of not fitting in.

I tell you, you don't have to learn to be spontaneous! We were all born with an innate ability to enjoy life, moment to moment. Somewhere along the way, between personal habits and the rules of society, we lost that ability. And every generation does this to the next.

We have a great capacity for destroying the spontaneity of our children.

Don't sing now, papa is sleeping! Who asked you to draw on the wall? Go to bed RIGHT NOW! Is this the time to be playing outdoors?

We have no idea what a dangerous thing we are doing to them! Be very clear: to be spontaneous is not to live lawlessly. It is not the liberty to disrupt the basic laws of social living. Spontaneity is not anarchy, or self-indulgence. To be spontaneous is simply to drop your habits. Drop your prejudices. Drop your yesterday and your tomorrow. See today with a clear eye, with an unburdened mind. Respond to the rich unfolding of life, moment to moment. Embrace change - and life will embrace you!

KEEP QUIET AND LISTEN LEARNING TO LISTEN BETTER

KEEP QUIET AND LISTEN LEARNING TO LISTEN BETTER

Take a good look at your life. How many hours a day do you spend talking? And how many hours do you spend listening?

Most of the day, we are either talking or trying to talk! Have you noticed, whenever people are in a group, every person feels an intense need to monopolize the conversation.

Talking is a way of controlling the environment. Most people use talking as a way of showing their power. Not just by what they say, but how they say it, how long they talk - and how much they can control others' talking! No wonder, 'Shut up' is seen as the most humiliating term of abuse! If you are not allowed to talk, you feel as if you have been deprived of something very important, because everybody is competing to vomit his ideas and opinions on everyone else! We have all built up a whole storehouse of borrowed opinions from books and media but rarely do we get someone who is willing to listen to them!

When you eat, but cannot digest the food what happens?

You have to vomit it out!

In the same way, if you have read someone else's philosophies and ideas, but they have not become your personal experience, you haven't digested them, you end up vomiting them out.

Talking is not just to other people. When you are not talking to someone else, you are talking to yourself and that's even more dangerous. Talking

to ourselves is what we all do, practically every minute of our waking time. All our plans and worries are nothing but - talking to ourselves! Talking to yourself is nothing but the inner chatter, the flow of thoughts that keeps playing in your mind, continuously disturbing you. At least with outer conversations, there is a break sometimes. But this inner chatter is continuous. It can drive you mad! Actually, many times, speaking to others is just a way of escaping from your own being, from your own inner chatter. That is why so much talking is going on in the world!

Today, there is an acute shortage of listening in the world!

More than a century ago, Bertrand Russel predicted that listening will become the highest paid profession of our time. And it has happened! Today, practically every person especially in the West has a personal listener. People pay huge sums to the 'shrink' or counselor, not for solving their problems but simply for listening to them. Because who else is there to listen? Today, no one has the time to listen, to give attention to the other.

Your attention is your energy!

When you are so low on energy that you don't even have enough for yourself, how are you going to give energy to others?

Most of the time, you don't even hear when others are talking to you! All the time, there is so much being spoken around you if only you can listen!

Talking is not always through words.

In fact, the most important part of our communication with one another is nonverbal.

When your wife brings you coffee in the morning, listen to her.

Not just to her words, even to her actions.

Does she put the cup down with a bang? What is she trying to tell you? Is your child throwing a loud tantrum every time you have guests? Don't listen to his tantrum; listen to him. He's trying to tell you that he needs more of your time, your attention. Tantrums are the only way he can get attention right now. Is there something you can do about it?

There is a famous Zen koan (riddle) which says:

If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a noise?

Recently a harassed young mother who attended one of my programs came and asked me jokingly: Swamiji, if a child falls in a forest and there is no one to hear him, does he make a noise?!

We are also no different from children! All our noise, all our talking is nothing but a way of asking for attention. If everybody learns to listen, there will be no need to talk!

Never mind listening to others - are you listening to yourself? For instance, do you listen to your own body anymore? When you go to a party and overeat or drink too much, you can hear your body screaming at you to stop. When you sit up late watching television, your body is crying, Enough, I need rest! In fact, all diseases are nothing but your body's way of asking for your attention, for your concern.

But do you listen?

When you get home from work, you hear yourself slamming the door hard. Do you do the same when you get home after a movie? That slamming noise speaks volumes about how you feel about your job. How can you change that?

And unless you listen, how will you even know that something is wrong?

We have forgotten the gentle art of listening.

Listening is not just about listening to someone else or yourself talk.

Listening is also about listening to the silence that is in us, around us. All our talking is just waves upon an ocean of beautiful silence. Have you ever heard that silence?

Create space and time in your life for listening to silence.

Make a practice of spending some time everyday doing this.

Welcome natural sounds into your silence.

Don't listen for the sake of hearing anything, for the sake of getting some information.

Just be aware; be open to the silence.

It is in silence that you learn the most. Only in silence can you truly understand life, poetry, nature.

The Zen master Basho says in a haiku:

Sitting silent, doing nothing, and the grass grows by itself.

This silence is not a passive silence. It is a positive, listening silence. It is the silence of deep communion.

There is a big difference between communication and communion. Communication is what we are getting better and better at these days! Communication is the science of conveying information in words and actions. Communion is the pure transfer of energy it is beyond words. Nowadays we have mastered complex communication through telephones, mobile networks, internet but we don't know the simple ways of being in communion with each other!

Communion is the gift of the master.

It does not need words.

In fact, the master can give you more with his spells of silence than with his words if you know how to listen.

When you listen to the master, listen as you would listen to the birds or the wind. When you listen to the birds, do you believe or disbelieve? Do you agree or disagree? Neither! You simply allow. It is not an intellectual process. Simply listen with openness, with receptivity and you will automatically enter into deep communion with the master.

There is a verse in the Dakshinamurti Stotram about the communion between a young master and his disciples:

Chitram vadataror mooley

Vriddhah shishyaa gurur yuvah

Gurostu maunam vyaakhyaanam

Shishyaastu chinnah samshayah

(Beneath the banyan tree they sit

the disciples old men, the guru a mere youth!

The guru speaks through Silence alone

But lo! The disciples' questions dissolve on their own!)

This is true communion.

When your listening is total, there is no longer any need for words. Where there is communion, words drop away naturally.

When the great Buddhist master Bodhidharma was on his deathbed, he called four of his disciples to find out who had listened best, who had learnt the most from the master. He put a common question to them: What is truth? The first disciple said, Truth is that which is beyond affirmation and negation. You have my skin, said the master to the disciple. The second disciple said, Truth is that which once seen, is forever seen. You have my flesh, said the master. Truth is no-thing, said the third disciple. You have my bones, said the master to him. The fourth disciple said nothing. In deep gratitude for the learning he had received, he simply bowed before the master and stood in communion with him. After a while, the master spoke. You have my marrow, he told the disciple.

Silence is a beautiful way of entering into meditation. In fact, silence itself is a great meditation technique. It is a great healing and rejuvenating power.

In silence, you achieve what Jesus calls the peace that passeth understanding.

As they say, sweet words are silver, but silence is golden.

So the next time you open your mouth to talk, first ask yourself whether it improves upon the silence!

LAUGH YOUR WAY

TO GOD!

THE INCREDIBLE POWER OF LAUGHTER

LAUGH YOUR WAY TO GOD! THE INCREDIBLE POWER OF LAUGHTER

When was the last time you had a really good laugh? A big, rumbling laugh that rose right up from your belly, and left you shaking uncontrollably with mirth?

These days, we have forgotten how to laugh.

Our laughter is only an extended smile - a social necessity. Even when we laugh, we are usually laughing at someone, or simply fulfilling a duty. Laughter has been replaced by giggles and sniggers.

In an office, the boss tells a joke. The whole team starts roaring with laughter, except one young lady who just sits there looking bored.

What's the matter? Why aren't you laughing? asks the boss in surprise.

I don't have to, replies the lady casually. I'm quitting next week!

Jokes apart, laughter has tremendous potential that we have forgotten how to use.

It is an excellent way of connecting to people!

Look around you. The smartest marketing experts, the best orators, the most effective advertisements use humour to get their message across. When a leader joins his team in laughter, he easily breaks the barriers that exist between himself and them.

The truth is, even the most radical ideas, when presented in a humorous manner, are more easily accepted by people.

As the saying goes, if you want to fill an extra handful of rice in an already full rice-sack, you'll need to shake it up a bit. In much the same way, when people are already overwhelmed with heavy philosophies (like all of us are!), a little laughter can provide that 'shaking up', it can open their minds so that fresh ideas can settle more easily.

In earlier times, kings and learned men were well aware of the importance of laughter. No wonder every great king had in his court a popular court-jester - who was often the sharpest and wisest of the king's advisors. The 'royal fools' of Shakespearean plays, and our Indian jesters, Tenali Raman and Birbal, all had the art of presenting profound truths with charming and compassionate humour.

Not everyone has the wonderful capacity to laugh, and to create laughter around themselves. Most of us are afraid to laugh, especially when we are with strangers - because laughter exposes you.

Laughter exposes the innocent, vulnerable You hidden inside you.

Those who find it difficult to laugh have no idea what a gift they've lost. Believe me, there is no business more serious than the business of laughter - it is seriously important to be able to laugh!

As the joke goes, Learn to laugh at your problems. At least you'll always have something to laugh about!

People who don't mind laughing at themselves are truly blessed, because they have found a way to go beyond the ego. Laughter is no more than an overflowing of health, of abundant energy. Laughter blossoms as a natural result of being at ease with yourself and your surroundings. That's why happy, smiling people are usually the most creative and spontaneous.

I'm reminded of a street play I once watched in my childhood. In our Indian villages, street plays are almost always drawn from the ancient epics.

One of the most popular episodes from the Mahabharata is the Draupadi Vastraharana, where the villain Dushassana tries to disrobe Queen Draupadi in full view of the royal court. Having lost their wife to the villain in a treacherous game of dice, Draupadi's five husbands are forced to look on helplessly. Ultimately Draupadi appeals to Lord Krishna, and he blesses her by making her saree endless in length, so that no matter how much of it the villain unwinds, still more cloth remains to protect her modesty. Thus it is that the villains are defeated by the grace of God.

During one rendition of this enormously popular scene, it so happened that the regular Krishna was absent and a stand-in Krishna had to be roped in at the last minute.

In villages, both male and female roles are traditionally performed by men, and Draupadi was a young man who was, naturally, wearing a pair of pants beneath his fancy sarees.

When the villains swung into action, the visiting Krishna panicked and forgot to dole out the 'miraculous' additional lengths of cloth from backstage. As a result, in ten seconds flat, Queen Draupadi was standing before an astonished village audience in an embroidered blouse and a pair of well-worn pants!

But Draupadi was a seasoned actor with a great sense of humour. Even before the audience could react, he fell on his knees and cried out, Hail Krishna, Protector of the Weak! Refuge of the Wronged! You have preserved my modesty by transforming me into a man! Thank you, thank you!

Needless to say, never had the Draupadi Vastraharana scene received the thunderous applause it got that day!

---

Seriousness is truly a disease.

Have you ever seen a serious child? Children have a great ability to find something funny in every situation - especially when you have guests at home! And we adults, who can't see what is so funny, try to force them to stop laughing.

This is where the problem begins! Suppression of laughter is the beginning of disease.

Just a few weeks ago, a man approached me in my ashram with his teenaged son. His son was suffering from severe depression. At the age of fifteen, the boy had already tried to commit suicide three times.

Depression is the special gift of our century! In no other time and age would you find healthy young men and women getting so tired of life that they want to kill themselves. Anyway, the boy's father had tried every possible treatment, with no results. He appealed to me to heal the boy.

I asked the father to leave the boy in the ashram with me for a few days. During that period, I spent time with the boy every day - sharing jokes! I gave him joke books to read; I asked him to go around the ashram and interact with the ashramites. Every day, we would meet and have an informal 'jokes session'. In ten days' time, the boy was completely cured of his depression. This actually happened!

Laughter has great therapeutic value. Today, the healing effects of laughter are being acknowledged by doctors and psychiatrists worldwide. The number of Laughter Clubs that have mushroomed worldwide will testify to that!

The deep, chaotic breathing induced by laughter produces positive vibrations in our body, relaxes the belly and improves digestion. Laughing also cleanses out the manipuraka chakra, the subtle energy center in our navel area, which is also the seat of worry and depression. The simple act of laughing has the power to unlock deep-rooted psychological suppressions. Laughter is a natural healing power that Nature has gifted to us.

But laughing has more than just health benefits. Laughter is also a proven meditation technique.

In fact, in Zen monasteries, it is compulsory for all the monks to spend some time every day laughing.

A small story:

Once there was a conference of Buddhist monks on the meaning of true spirituality. Each monk went up on stage and made long speeches, practically putting all the others to sleep. Finally, it was the turn of a particular Zen monk to speak.

What do you think he did?

He simply started laughing!

Laughing, laughing with all his Being.

The laughter just rose up from his belly. He started shaking uncontrollably with laughter.

And his laughter was so infectious, soon all the others in the room started laughing, without even knowing why.

Without their even being aware of it, the common laughter of all the monks produced a huge wave of positive energy in the room. The monks reached a state of tremendous elevation. In the course of the laughter, they experienced a moment of no-mind. The Zen monk declared, This is true spirituality.

Laughter is the highest spiritual quality. It can lead you to enlightenment! In fact, laughter is called the royal route to enlightenment. Because laughter is the easiest and most powerful way we have of connecting with the prapancha shakti, the boundless energy of all Existence.

So keep laughing always!

NOTHING COMPARES TO YOU! SAY NO TO JEALOUSY

NOTHING COMPARES TO YOU! SAY NO TO JEALOUSY

Q. Swamiji, how can I stop comparing myself to others and being miserable?

At least you have realized that comparison only brings misery - that is a good beginning!

Let me answer you with a story:

A man came to a spiritual master with a question very similar to yours.

The wise man took him out into the garden, where a rose bush and a thorny plant were growing side by side. He told him,

These are your teachers. They can teach you what you need to learn.

The man was astonished.

What do you mean, Master? he asked.

The Master said,

For five years, this rose-bush and this thorny plant have existed side by side. But not once have I heard the rose-bush complaining that it wanted to become a thorny plant, or the thorny plant wanting to become like the rose-bush. Each has accepted its own reality without complaint, without comparison.

Accept yourself as you are.

Only then can you be whole, you will be complete.

When you see yourself as unique and complete, the need to compare will drop automatically.

Buddha makes a statement of tremendous significance. He says: nothing exists except in relationship. Everything is relative, and draws its meaning only from its relationship with something else.

What are the words you use to compare yourself to others? Beautiful, poor, clever, unlucky, young, weak and so on.

Now, imagine yourself on some new planet, where nobody lived but you. Would you then be beautiful or ugly? Tall or short? Rich or poor? Without comparison, these words naturally lose their meaning. Because they are only concepts formulated by the mind, they have no real existence.

Try this: close your eyes for a few moments. Imagine yourself all alone in the world. Do you feel ugly or beautiful inside? Foolish or wise? Where are all these concepts then? Only the fact that you exist remains because that is the only truth. To compare yourself with someone else is foolishness, because you can never be anyone else - and no one else can be you!

The funny thing is, we never compare ourselves to flowers or birds or mountains; so why do we compare ourselves to other people? I have yet to come across a singer who felt jealous of a koel, or a dancer who wished she were a peacock! When we can truly welcome and enjoy all else in nature that is beautiful, how come we can't enjoy the unique loveliness of each other? Why do we feel so intensely threatened by another's beauty or wealth or talent?

This is nothing but simple social conditioning. Brought up in a competitive world, we tend to imagine that the more someone else has of something, the less there is for us!

The Dalai Lama observes beautifully: most people behave as if there is a limited quantity of happiness available in the world! If someone else is happy, we feel as if our personal share of happiness is being depleted! So we go about with a long face, feeling miserable about ourselves. On the contrary, if we were to experience joy each time another person attained something, our own happiness would be multiplied millions of times by the entire population of the world!

Comparison can be of two kinds: constructive comparison and destructive comparison.

Constructive comparison is essential and desirable.

In a practical sense, it gives you a yardstick against which to measure yourself. It provides the spur, the stimulus to improve. Without comparing, how can you have a realistic appreciation of yourself?

Destructive comparison results from the inability to accept reality. In this big wide world, someone is sure to be better than you at whatever you do. 99.99% chances are that you're not the world's best mathematician, the fastest runner or the most talented painter. Does that mean that you enjoy these things any less?

To focus only on what you're lacking simply means that you're on your way to a massive inferiority complex. And who needs it?

Look around you. Do you know anyone else who is exactly the same as you? Don't you see how special you are? If you are comparing yourself to others and feeling miserable, it simply means that you aren't appreciating yourself enough!

A small story:

One Zen master had a disciple who was intelligent, diligent and sincere. His only problem was that he had no patience with the long and arduous techniques for attaining enlightenment.

Every day he would approach the master and ask him,

Just tell me master, when will I become like Buddha?

The master would simply smile and offer no answer.

Working day and night, practising every technique according to the master's instructions, and still finding no answer, the disciple became crazed with the thirst for enlightenment.

Finally, one day he decided that the quest was simply not worth it. He went to the master and demanded,

Tell me one thing before I leave. Am I ever going to become like Buddha or not?

In answer, the master slapped the disciple furiously across the face.

In that instant, the disciple awakened to his true nature!

What did the master mean by that slap?

Was he angry with the disciple for hoping for too much?

NO. The master simply had to jolt the disciple into the awareness that he was already a Buddha! How can you want to become something you already are?

You are so out of touch with your inner being that you have forgotten how extraordinary you really are.

Once you realise this, the need to compare dies naturally.

Even if you wanted to compare, each person is so different - where is a common point of reference?

So drop the attitude of comparison.

Remember, you are truly unique - just like everyone else!