Life is fresh but you are stale, and you become stale because you go on carrying the yesterdays. The past functions as a barrier between you and life. Die every moment to the past and then life can be felt and lived as fresh as it is. Life is never old; each moment it renews itself, rejuvenates itself, reorients itself. It is eternally fresh. But the mind cannot be fresh. The very mechanism of the mind does not allow it to be fresh. It has to be old, it has to be dead.
The moment you know something; it is already past. Knowledge is already dead. A bird sings on the tree. The moment your mind says “beautiful,” it is already old. It is no longer in the present, it has already passed. The moment you say to someone “I love you,” it is already past. The moment the mind catches anything, it immediately dies. To be fresh means to be without mind. Listen to the birds without the mind interfering. See the trees without the mind interfering. You will have to learn how to remain without verbalization. This is the root of all disease. Look at life and don’t allow words to interfere. Look without words. Look without thinking—and suddenly everything is fresh, suddenly everything is as new as it can be.
This has to be learnt. Every child knows it. It is a capacity which comes with your birth, it is something inborn. But then the society takes over and starts teaching, forcing the child to learn. What the society is trying is nothing but creating a pattern of verbalization inside. And by and by, layer upon layer will gather there and the child will miss life.
Look into the eyes of children; such infinite silence and yet not dead—vibrant with life. Look at children; so resilient, so flexible, so responsive. As they grow, they start taking a mode, a fixed mode, a fixed structure. Then they function only through that structure.
Just become a child again—unlearn whatsoever you have learned. Drop verbalization. Listen to these birds with no word arising in you. Suddenly a wave of freshness passes through you; an energy arises in you which is not old.
Life is fresh. Mind can never be fresh. If you understand this, then look at life without the mind.
Osho is known for his revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation, with an approach to meditation that acknowledges the accelerated pace of contemporary life.
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