No word has a meaning of itself; meanings are given, they are arbitrary.
Otherwise every word is just a sound, meaningless. But we can give meaning
to any sound, and the sound becomes a word when we give a meaning to it.
Sometimes the meaning is very relevant and sometimes it is not relevant.
Most of the time it is not relevant ? it is arbitrary, useful; utilitarian
but not existential.

Hence, languages don't consist of existential words. For example om has no
meaning, it is not part of any alphabet, but it has some existential
purpose: it provokes in you the sound of the eternal. It is something
similar to the sound of existence itself ? not exactly the same, a faraway
echo, but still very representative.

In the same way is the word 'Yaa-Hoo!' Hoo is an ancient practice of the
Sufis. They have discovered that rather than repeating the mantra Allah,
Allah-hoo helps you to go deeper into yourself. And somebody found on the
way that there is no need even to say "Allah-hoo" ? just "Hoo" serves the
purpose, because the sound "Hoo" hits at the very center of your being. Just
by repeating "Hoo" again and again ? you will be surprised ? you have left
your mind far away, your thoughts have ceased, time has disappeared and you
have come into a space which is yours, but you have never been aware of it.

With "Hoo," I have joined "Yaa" also, because in my feeling "Hoo" works,
certainly, but it is serious. It makes you centered, but in your center
there is no laughter, no dance. Certainly the flower blossoms, but there is
no fragrance. The sound "Yaa" does the work; it makes the word "Hoo"
complete and total. "Yaa-Hoo!" not only hits your center, your very being,
it also brings in you a tremendous feeling of joy, a laughter, a dance. It
is celebration.

Just repeating Yaa-Hoo! you will be surprised ? you are not becoming sad and
serious as the saints are supposed to be, but a totally new dimension is
opening up: the laughing saint, the dancing god. Yaa-Hoo! is only a
representative expression of a laughing and dancing being.





I have chosen Leela, one of my therapists, to create a new meditative
therapy.


The first part will be Yaa-Hoo! ? for three hours, people simply laugh for
no reason at all. And whenever their laughter starts dying they again say,
"Yaa-Hoo!" and it will come back. Digging for three hours you will be
surprised how many layers of dust have gathered upon your being. It will cut
them like a sword, in one blow. For seven days continuously, three hours
every day...you cannot conceive how much transformation can come to your
being.

And then the second part is "Yaa-Boo." The first part removes everything
that hinders your laughter ? all the inhibitions of past humanity, all the
repressions. It cuts them away. It brings a new space within you, but still
you have to go a few steps more to reach the temple of your being, because
you have suppressed so much sadness, so much despair, so much anxiety, so
many tears ? they are all there, covering you and destroying your beauty,
your grace, your joy.

In old Mongolia they had an ancient idea that every life, whatever pain is
suppressed...and pain is suppressed, because nobody wants it. You don't want
to be painful so you suppress it, you avoid, you look somewhere else. But it
remains.

And the Mongolian idea was ? and I agree with it ? that life after life it
goes on accumulating in you; it becomes almost a hard shell of pain. That's
why all the saints and the sages have been telling you, shouting ? "Go into
yourself!" You listen to them, but you don't go. There is a reason why you
don't go: you know that going in, you have to encounter pain; going in, you
have to encounter misery, suffering, agony. It is better to remain outside ?
engaged, busy. Never be alone, because in your aloneness you may
unconsciously start moving inwards. Being alone, having nothing else to do
you may start looking inwards.

People have invented all kinds of things to escape from themselves: they may
smoke cigarettes.... Not that they need them. I have never felt any need for
cigarettes, so I cannot conceive that there is any necessity for anybody to
be so stupid. When pure air is available, he is making his breathing full of
poison, and he is paying for it! But there must be some reason. Why do
millions of people go on smoking? The reason is, it keeps you occupied. Even
if you are alone, it does not leave you unoccupied.

These are devices of your mind. There are people who are chewing gum. Now
what a nonsense thing to do! ? chewing gum? Are you sane or insane? Can't
you chew anything else? No sane person can do this unnecessary exercise of
chewing gum. But it keeps you occupied, so millions of people are chewing
gum.

All your conversations, your so-called busy-ness is almost without any
purpose, without any business. But it helps just one thing: you don't come
across yourself. There is too much pain.

So you can listen to the sages, to the awakened ones, and you can nod ? "You
are right, but my time has not come yet. Please forgive me; I have still to
chew gum, I have still to smoke cigarettes. You are great, you can drop
these things; we are small people, how can we drop cigarettes and chewing
gum?"

Just see the stupidity of it all. But behind the stupidity there must be
some psychology and the psychology is: anything that helps you to avoid
yourself becomes useful. Football match, volleyball, boxing...somebody else
is doing it, you are just looking, but that looking takes you away from your
own inside.





If you go in you will find both, laughter and tears.


That's why sometimes it happens that by laughing, suddenly you find tears
also start coming together with it ? very confusing, because ordinarily we
think they are contrary. When you are full of tears it is not a time to
laugh, or when you are laughing it is not the right season for tears. But
existence does not believe in your concepts, ideologies; existence
transcends all your concepts, which are dualistic, which are based on
duality. Day and night, laughter and tears, pain and blissfulness, they both
come together.

When a man reaches into his innermost being he will find the first layer is
of laughter and the second layer is of agony, tears.

So for seven days you have to allow yourself to weep, cry, for no reason at
all ? just the tears are ready to come. You have been preventing them. Just
don't prevent, and whenever you feel they are not coming, just say,
"Yaa-Boo!"

These are pure sounds, used as a technique to bring all your laughter and
all your tears and clean you completely, so that you can become an innocent
child.

This is absolutely my meditation.

Leela will be in charge of it and you will be surprised that no meditation
can give you so much as this small strategy. This is my experience of many
meditations, that what has to be done is to break two layers in you. Your
laughter has been repressed; you have been told, "Don't laugh, it is a
serious matter." You are not allowed to laugh in a church, or in a
university class....

So the first layer is of laughter, but once laughter is over you will
suddenly find yourself flooded with tears, agony. But that too will be a
great unburdening phenomenon. Many lives of pain and suffering will
disappear. If you can get rid of these two layers you have found yourself.

There is no meaning in the words, "Yaa-Hoo" or "Yaa-Boo." These are simply
techniques, sounds which can be used for a certain purpose to enter into
your own being.

And you may have felt it ? when you shout, "Yaa-Hoo!" you may have felt a
sudden breeze of freshness and joy.

I don't want so many people to cry here; that's why I have not used the
other part. That is to be used in special groups.





I have invented many meditations, but perhaps this will be the most
essential and fundamental one.


It can take over the whole world. Already from every country news cuttings
are coming to me: "What is this Yaa-Hoo!?" People are making up meanings of
their own, but it has taken over around the world. Now the second thing is
Yaa-Boo! And the whole process of Yaa-Hoo and Yaa-Boo, the couple,
married...arranged marriage!

Every society has done so much harm by preventing your joys and your tears.
If an old man starts crying you will say, "What are you doing? You should
feel ashamed; you are not a child, that somebody has taken your banana and
you are crying. Have another banana, but don't cry."

Just see ? stand on the street and start crying and a crowd will gather to
console you: "Don't cry! Whatever has happened forget all about it, it has
happened." Nobody knows what has happened, nobody can help you, but
everybody will try.... "Don't cry!" And the reason is that if you go on
crying, then they will start crying, because they are also flooded with....

Those tears are very close to the eyes.

And it is a healthy thing to cry, to weep, to laugh. Now scientists are
discovering that crying, weeping, laughter, are immensely healthful; not
only physically but also psychologically, they are very much capable of
keeping you sane. The whole of humanity has gone a little cuckoo, for the
simple reason that nobody laughs fully because all around there are people
who will say, "What are you doing? Are you a child? ? at this age? What will
your children think? Keep quiet!"

If you cry and weep without any reason, just as an exercise, a
meditation...nobody will believe it. Tears have never been accepted as
meditation. And I tell you, they are not only a meditation, they are a
medicine also. You will have better eyesight and you will have better inner
vision.

I am giving you a very fundamental technique, fresh and unused. And it is
going to become worldwide, without any doubt, because its effects will show
anybody that the person has become younger, the person has become more
loving, the person has become graceful. The person has become more flexible,
less fanatic; the person has become more joyful, more a celebrant.





All that this world needs is a good cleansing of the heart of all the
inhibitions of the past.


Laughter and tears can do both. Tears will take out all the agony that is
hidden inside you and laughter will take all that is preventing your
ecstasy. Once you have learned the art you will be immensely surprised: why
has this not been told up to now? There is a reason: nobody has wanted
humanity to have the freshness of a rose flower and the fragrance and the
beauty.

I have called this series of lectures "The Mystic Rose." "Yaa-Hoo!" is the
mantra to bring the mystic rose in your very center, to open your center and
release your fragrance. Your life becomes for the first time significant,
not just useful. Right now it is only useful ? you are a father, useful.
Without you what will your children do? You are a mother, useful; you are a
wife, useful ? without you what will your husband do? He may go astray.

He is already going astray, so you have to hang around! If the husband is
too joyous the wife cannot believe that he is joyful because of her. There
must be some other woman: "Just tell us, what is her name? Who is the other
woman? Why are you laughing?"

The husband cannot cry, because the wife will say, "What is the matter? I
have been telling you continually, these love affairs won't do. Has the
woman gone, leaving you behind crying and weeping?"

Two old people appeared in the court, husband and wife ? the husband was
ninety-five years old, the wife ninety years old, and they wanted a divorce.
The magistrate could not believe it. He said, "My god, at this age! For
what? How long have you been married?"
They said, "Who remembers? Maybe sixty years, seventy years, but we cannot
give you a certain date. It was long before."
The magistrate said, "If you have lived together so long that you cannot
even remember when you started living together, then why are you divorcing
now? If life was not good, and things were not going well, you should have
appeared before the court long ago!"
The old man said, "We wanted to come, but the children.... Now all the
children are dead, so we decided there is no point in torturing each other.
Now we should get a divorce: you torture somebody else if you can find
anybody; I will torture somebody else if I can find. Otherwise we can be
alone far better than we are together. Together we become so sad that 'this
woman destroyed my life' or, 'this man destroyed my life.'"

People marry not because of love ? love knows no marriage, because love will
not create any contract. It is not business. Love knows no marriage because
it is not business, it is not law. It won't reduce the freedom of the other.
If anything, it will increase and enhance the freedom of the other.

Love cannot cut the wings of the other. It will give you more wings, more
skies, vast spaces to fly and to be.

But that does not happen. Marriage is a utility. It is a need, it is not a
celebration.

Everything in life has become so mundane, so burdensome, but you don't know
what else to do, where to go. Everybody is suffering his own suffering. You
cannot change places. Even if it were possible to change places you would
not change, because our own misery is at least ours and we are well
acquainted.

At a party one man was asked by his wife, "I hear that the woman sitting
over there is your mistress?"
The man did not want to create a fuss in the party, so he whispered; he
said, "Yes, everybody has mistresses here, so don't make any trouble." She
said, "Then tell me who is whose mistress?"
So he told her: "This man has that mistress, and his wife is somebody else's
mistress. It is a bit of a puzzle...."

He told her about everybody. The same women, the same men, but all have
mistresses, all have wives.
The woman looked at all of them and finally said, "But ours is the best."

Her husband's mistress! It was an agony, but ours...! "Others are being more
idiotic ? these horrible women.... I know all of them."

Even the agony, the pain becomes by and by an acquaintance, old and
familiar. You cannot part with it, you will miss it.

I have seen people missing their wives, just after two or three days when
the wife has gone to her parents. For two or three days they are so joyful,
but the fourth day they start missing the wife. And I have said to my
friends, "You always wanted to get rid of your wife. It is good that she is
prolonging her holiday ? enjoy!"

And what have I heard from my friends? "Yes, it is true, when she is here I
feel like killing her. But when she goes somewhere else I feel so alone,
that I go on writing letters and sending telegrams and every day a phone
call ? 'Come back soon; without you, life is not life!'"

Strange people! And when she comes then they want to kill her. They don't
kill, just because they know it is very risky. If there were rewards for
killing wives, I don't think you would find anybody who would not
participate in the competition. Afterwards they will cry and weep and they
will remember the golden days, but right now it is a nightmare.

The whole of life has become just a utility: either you are an inspector, or
you are a police commissioner, or you are a minister, or you are a teacher ?
just a function which any robot can do.





The only thing that the robot cannot do is meditation.


In other words, I am saying that those who are not in meditation are being
robots, without being aware that they are just utilities, functions, they
are needed.

But a man of meditation for the first time realizes that it does not matter
whether he is needed or not ? he himself is a joy unto himself. He himself
is bliss, he does not depend on anybody to make him blissful. That is the
only freedom possible in the world. Otherwise everybody is a slave.

I want my people to understand it absolutely that unless you become blissful
on your own accord, unless your rose opens within your own being, you are
just a commodity, just a thing, an object. Meditation reveals your
subjectivity. Subjectivity is your consciousness, and your consciousness and
its experience makes your life significant, meaningful, eternal, immortal,
without any beginning and without any end. A celebration, moment-to-moment a
dance.

And unless you have transformed your life into a moment-to-moment dance you
have missed the opportunity that existence gives you.


Could you speak to us on laughter, its meditative powers, its chemistry on
the brain, its power of transformation and healing.. Its relation to
silence, the gap, clarity, vision....
Its contagiousness, its relation to different emotions.... On Homo ridens ?
the essential human condition ? on how to recognize true, authentic laughter
from hysterical, exhibitionist, or hypocritical laughter, on how to be a
channel of pure joy?


I have just been talking about laughter, its meditative powers and its
medicinal powers. It certainly changes your very chemistry; it changes your
brain waves, it changes your intelligence ? you become more intelligent. The
parts of your mind that have been asleep suddenly wake up. The laughter
reaches to the innermost part of your brain, to your heart.

A man of laughter cannot have a heart attack. A man of laughter cannot
commit suicide. A man of laughter automatically comes to know the world of
silence, because when laughter ceases suddenly there is silence. And each
time laughter becomes deeper it is followed by deeper silence.

It certainly clarifies you ? from the traditions, from the garbage of the
past. It gives you a new vision of life. It makes you more alive and
radiant, more creative. If you are a singer, your song becomes more
celestial; if you are a musician your music starts going beyond sound,
starts reaching silences. If you are a sculptor, then your sculpture will
not be what Gurdjieff calls objective..

Ordinarily a painter or architect or any other dimension of creativity is
only your projection, your imagination. But there is another kind of art,
which is not your imagination but your insight.

For example, sitting in silence near the Taj Mahal in the full-moon night
you will find yourself falling into silence without any effort.

The Taj Mahal was created by Sufi mystics. History tells only about the man
who for thirty years paid thousands of artists, but the history has no idea
that the people who were the architects were Sufi mystics. And it was not an
imaginative thing; it was something so that if somebody sits silently
looking at it, it will create the same feeling, the same vibration in which
the architect was living.

The Taj Mahal is a scripture, it is a message, it is not just a beautiful
building. It is not just for the tourists to come and take photographs, it
is for meditators to sit and just watch: the very form of the architecture
creates something in you. The people who made the building were aware that
they were making a device for meditation.

You know about the pyramids in Egypt ? when for the first time, in the
beginning of this century, the pyramids were opened...the biggest pyramid
was opened first. They had remained closed for three thousand years. And the
scientists were surprised to find a cat, dead, inside the pyramid ? but not
deteriorated, no sign of deterioration, no sign that it has been dead for
three thousand years. When the pyramid was being closed somehow the cat must
have remained inside and must have died. But there were no signs. It looked
as if it had just died, and they could not figure out ? what is the matter?
Finally they decided that it was because of the shape of the pyramid.

If you sit in any structure in the shape of a pyramid, you will fall into
deep silence and meditation without difficulty. And a dead body can be
preserved in a pyramid-shaped grave; it will not in any way start stinking.
It will remain fresh, as if it has just died this very moment.

Now pyramids are being used...small pyramids are being sold in the market;
you sit underneath them, and they are health-giving. They don't do anything,
just their shape reflects the rays of the sun in such a way that you get
only the health-giving rays, and the other rays which are not health-giving
are reflected back. The very shape is the cause.

People were wondering for centuries why these pyramids were made in such a
shape. And the oldest pyramid is three thousand years old. It shows that the
people of those times were aware that certain shapes ? of clothes, of
buildings ? are healthful; some other shapes are not healthful.

Now we don't bother about it, we don't think about it. When you are making a
house you don't think whether this house is going to give you health or
sickness, long life, or is going to cut your life short.

As mind disappears and leaves behind a silence, a space of meditation, your
vision about everything that you do is completely different. If you are a
painter you will paint something not with the mind, but with the clarity
that your painting will give health, insight, peace, silence, to anyone who
will just look at it.

In this sense we are more primitive than people like Mozart or Beethoven.
Our music is very poor, because our music is simply clumsy; it does not
create any spiritual peace, it does not give any meditative silence; more
often it is sexual. It functions on your sex center. It makes you closer to
the animal rather than closer to the buddha.

Classical music takes you very high, beyond your reach; perhaps you would
not have been able to reach alone. Just listening to that music and you have
gone for a new journey, far away from your thoughts, far away from your
emotions, into spaces of eternity.

And you are asking: how to distinguish true, authentic laughter from
hysterical, exhibitionist, or hypocritical laughter.

Two things to be remembered: one, you should not bother about others. You
should not judge. There is no way to judge from outside whether the person's
laughter is authentic or not, healthy or hysterical; exhibitionist,
hypocritical, or real, coming from the very deepest sources of his being.

So first thing, don't be bothered about the other person. It is uncivilized.
Just think about yourself, that's enough, and then the distinction it not
difficult.

The authentic laughter is not about anything. It is simply arising in you as
a flower blossoms in a tree. It has no reason, no rational explanation. It
is mysterious; hence the mystic rose.

The hysterical laughter is sick. It is about somebody else; it is not
healthy and it is not going to give you all the benefits I have talked
about. It is insane.

The exhibitionist is one who is laughing just to show others, but the
laughter is not coming from his being. It is just superficial, social. If
everybody else is laughing and you are not laughing you are being a little
unsocial.

They say that if you tell a joke to an Englishman he laughs twice: once just
to be social, just to say that, "Yes, I understand." And the second time in
the middle of the night when he understands it.

If you tell a joke to a German he laughs only once, just to be social. The
second time to laugh never comes. He never understands a joke.

And never tell a joke to a Jew, because he will stop you in the middle. He
will say, "It is all rotten, an old joke, and anyway you are telling it all
wrong." It is useless to tell a joke to a Jew ? he will not laugh. He will
even make you sad ? why did you talk to this man?

Different nations will behave differently. But one point you can understand
yourself: whether you are laughing just to be in tune with others...then
laughter is only exhibition. You have not understood the joke and you are
laughing ? it is hypocritical.

But always remember not to judge others. That is very primitive,
uncivilized, inhuman. Only look at yourself.

A patient in the hospital accidentally has a bowel movement in his bed. Not
wanting the nurses to find out, he bundles up the sheet and throws it out of
the window.
It lands on Kowalski, who is walking in the street below. After a fierce
struggle Kowalski disentangles himself from the sheet and goes into a bar to
calm his nerves.
"My god," says the bartender, "you stink!"
"You would too," replies Kowalski, "if you had just beaten the shit out of a
ghost."

In a remote part of the countryside, a young farmer and his wife are
delighted when a Martian couple land their spaceship nearby.
The young farmer invites the Martians to stay over dinner. They all become
so friendly that they decide to exchange partners for the night. The
farmer's wife and the male Martian are getting ready for bed when she
notices that he has a very small prick.
"What do you think you are going to do with that?" she giggles.
"Watch," he says, twisting his right ear. Immediately the prick grows to
twelve inches long, but as thin as a pencil. Then he twists his left ear and
the prick becomes as fat as a sausage. They enjoy a wonderful night
together.
The next morning after saying goodbye the Martians take off. The farmer
turns to his wife, "So, how was it?" he asks.
"It was fantastic, really out of this world," she says. "How about you?"
"Nothing special," admits the farmer, "A bit weird, in fact. All night long
she kept playing with my ears."

A man has his prick amputated in a car accident. As an experiment the
doctors graft on a baby elephant's trunk instead.
Some time later he goes out to dinner at a French restaurant. He is sitting
there with his date, when all of a sudden the baby elephant's trunk sneaks
out of his pants, scoots across the table and grasps a bread roll and then
disappears again.
The girl does not believe what she has just seen and says nothing. But a few
minutes later, while they are talking, out pops the baby elephant's trunk,
scoots across the table, grabs another bread roll and vanishes.
"My god," cries the girl, "what was that?"
The man is extremely embarrassed but finally manages to explain the whole
story.
"That is great!" exclaims the girl enthusiastically. "Can you make it to do
it again?"
"I would," says the man, "but I don't think I can fit another bread roll
into my ass."

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Now, two minutes of silence, close your eyes and no movements; just be
absolutely still, as if you are frozen.

Now, relax...let go.(At which point every lies down in a relaxed let-go.)

...Okay, come back.

Osho, YAA-HOO! The Mystic Rose, Number 30


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