Science of the Rishis: A Daily Rhythm

Part III: Overflowing Energy: Courage, Passion, and the Spirit of Playfulness

You ask me: CAN YOU DRAW ME A ROAD-MAP TO YOUR LAND OF LEELA? HAVE I A DEFECTIVE GENE?

No — nobody has a defective gene. And a defective gene does not create the problem: the problem comes from the ego. And the ego has nothing to do with the body; the ego is a mind attitude.

You have a mind and that is your defect. I will not say that you have a defective mind — mind is the defect. You will have to drop the mind. And dropping it, suddenly you will find you have always been in the land of leela; not for a single moment had you left it — nobody can leave it. We can just forget about it. We can become serious and we can forget about it.

You are still the children playing on the sea beach. You are still the children searching for sea-shells on the beach. You are still the children collecting wild flowers. You are still the children trying to catch hold of a butterfly. That purity of childhood is still there; it has not been taken away from you — it has only been superimposed by seriousness, ego, mind. It is there! The rock is blocking the fountain, but the fountain has not disappeared. Remove the rock and the fountain flows again in all its splendour.

You say: I CANNOT FIND MY LAUGHTER OR LIGHT-HEARTEDNESS.

Seeking, you will never find it. Finding, or the effort to find it, is a serious thing. IT IS HERE! — you need not find it. Start enjoying it! Start being cheerful this very moment! Don’t try to find it, because if you try to find it you will remain serious. How can a seeker be non-serious?

You are searching for happiness and laughter and joy — you have to be serious, otherwise how will you search? Meanwhile you will remain serious, and the seriousness is getting stronger every moment. Tomorrow again you will search; but one day has passed — twenty-four hours’ more conditioning of seriousness is on you. You will find less laughter tomorrow; the day after tomorrow it will become even more difficult… and so on and so forth. And you will always be searching and seeking and trying to find.

Just be cheerful THIS moment! Just see the point of it! Don’t postpone it — these are tricks of postponing, Sarjana. You don’t WANT to be happy; you still want to remain unhappy. You still want some new excuse to be unhappy. Now this is the excuse: “I am searching for happiness, I am searching for joy. Right now I am unhappy. I will be happy when I have found — but how can I be happy right now? I will have to find, and the journey is long and the path is arduous, an uphill task.” So you can be happy with your unhappiness right now, and tomorrow we will see… and tomorrow never comes.

Don’t try to postpone — these are tricks the mind goes on playing upon you. Be happy! Have a good laugh! Have a good dance!

In the beginning it may look a little awkward, because you have not laughed for so long. The lips may have lost their elasticity. But it will come… just give a little opportunity for the lips to learn it again. They cannot lose it. Maybe forgotten — it will be revived again.

One can never forget how to laugh. It is like swimming: you cannot forget it. Once you have known it, you cannot forget. You may not go to the river for fifty years; after fifty years, suddenly, you can swim. You will not even need to remember it.

And you have been laughing when you were a child. Every child is born laughing, and there are very very few fortunate people who die laughing. One who can die laughing has arrived. But if you want to die laughing, you will have to live laughing.

Once an old Parsi came to see me and he said, “Do you know? We have a beautiful story about Zarathustra — that he was born laughing.”

I said, “That is nothing special — every child is born laughing.”

Zarathustra is simply a symbol. Every child is born alive, full of joy! great energy, great love for life, great curiosity, infinite wonder, awe for small things. Every child is born an adventurer, an explorer. And every child is born with great courage to go into the unknown. We cripple him. We stop him. We prevent him. We start cultivating — and whatsoever we call cultivation is nothing but destroying all the possibilities, allowing only small holes for him to live in, taking his whole sky away and giving him a very small corner in the world.

He was born as all men, all women, all animals, all trees, all rivers, all mountains are. And what do we do with the child? We take all that he has brought away from him; we make him a doctor, an engineer, a businessman, a soldier, a politician — we confine him. He was born as all, as infinity; all the alternatives were open. We close all the alternatives and leave only one alternative open. We have killed him! We allow only a minute part of him to live.

Just think of a businessman: he simply lives as a businessman. Morning, afternoon, evening, night, he lives as a businessman. He dreams of business, he talks of business, he reads of business — his whole life has become business. What have you done to this man? What misfortune has happened to this man? He cannot be anything else! He does not know how to relax. He does not know how to slip out small hole in which he has started living — he calls it businessman, doctor, engineer, professor.

A man should be liquid; he should be able to be all. You should not live only as you — you should live as all humanity, past, future, present. You should live as a totality; multi-dimensional you should live, not one-dimensional, not linear. To live like a line is to live a very poor life.

There is no need! But we have all become focussed in small corners, tethered in small corners we call our minds, egos, this and that. And we are so much obsessed with those small places, caves — -dirty and dark, dismal and sad. But we have become accustomed to those places and we are afraid of the open air and we are afraid of the open sky and the sun and the sand, and we never go out of those small spaces. Hence, laughter has disappeared.

Life has disappeared! — how can laughter live without life? Your spirit is dead. And this is a miracle, that your so-called spiritual people are the MOST spiritless people — and you call them spiritual. My definition of the word ‘spiritual’ is: one who is spirited, one who lives a passionate life, with intensity; who lives at the maximum, not at the minimum; who does not live a lukewarm life.

Be courageous! and laughter will follow. Be courageous and live intensely! and you will not need to ask how to be playful. Out of the maximum, playfulness happens of its own accord — because when you live at the maximum you start overflowing. That overflowing of energies is what playfulness is — there is no map to it, there is no technique to it. Just understanding.

Theory: Stop Seeking Happiness, Start Living It

Mindful Workplace (Sattva): Lead with Prana (High Vitality & Courage)

• Workplace Practice: Bring intensity, passion, and vitality to your work daily rather than living a lukewarm, transactional corporate life. Live at your maximum energy level, inspiring team members through authentic enthusiasm and courage.