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ABC of Enlightenment Introduction
Words are not just words. They have moods, climates of their own. When a word settles inside you, it brings a different climate to your mind, a different approach, a different vision. Call the same thing a different name and see: something is immediately different.
So one of the most important things to remember is: if it is possible, live an experience and don't fix it by any word because that will make it narrow. You are sitting... it is a silent evening. The sun has gone and the stars have started appearing. Just be. Don't even say, 'This is beautiful,' because the moment you say that it is beautiful, it is no more the same. By saying 'beautiful' you are bringing in the past and all the experiences that you said were beautiful have colored the word. Your word 'beautiful' contains many experiences of beauty. But this is totally new. It has never been so. It will never be so again.
Why bring in the past? The present is so vast -- the past is so narrow. Why look from a hole in the wall when you can come out and look at the whole sky? So try not to use words, but if you have to, then be very choosy about them because each word has a nuance of its own. Be very poetic about it. Use it with taste, love, feeling.
There are feeling words and there are intellectual words. Drop intellectual words more and more. Use more and more feeling words. There are political words and there are religious words. Drop political words. There are words which immediately create conflict. The moment you utter them, argument arises. So never use logical, argumentative language. Use the language of affection, of caring, of love, so that no argument arises.
If one starts feeling this way, one sees a tremendous change arising. If one is a little alert in life, many miseries can be avoided. A single word uttered in unconsciousness can create a long chain of misery. A slight difference, just a very small turning and it makes a lot of change. One should become very very careful and use words when absolutely necessary. Avoid contaminated words. Use fresh words, non-controversial, which are not arguments but which are just expressions of your feelings.
If one can become a connoisseur of words, one's whole life will be totally different. Your relationships will be totally different because ninety-nine percent of a relationship is through words, gestures -- and those are also words. The same word has created so many troubles for you and again you blurt it out. If a word brings misery, anger, conflict, argument, drop it. What is the point in carrying it? Replace it by something better. The best is silence. Next best is singing, poetry, love.
Sample text:
Acceptance
Just for twenty-four hours, try it -- total acceptance, whatsoever happens. Someone insults you, accept it, don't react, and see what happens. Suddenly you will feel an energy flowing in you that you have not felt before. Somebody insults you: you feel weak, you feel disturbed, you start thinking of how to get your revenge. That man has hooked you, and now you will move round and round. For days, nights, months, even years, you will not be able to sleep, you will have bad dreams. People can waste a whole life over a small thing, just because someone insulted them.
Just look back into your past and you will remember a few things. You were a small child and the teacher in the class called you an idiot, and you still remember it and you feel resentment. Your father said something -- your parents have forgotten, and even if you remind them they will not be able to remember it. Your mother looked at you in a certain way and since then the wound has been there. And it is still open, fresh; if anybody touches it, you will explode. Don't help this wound to grow. Don't make this wound your soul. Go to the roots, be with the whole. For twenty-four hours -- just twenty-four hours -- try not to react, not to reject, whatsoever happens.
If someone pushes you and you fall to the ground -- fall! Then get up and go home. Don't do anything about it. If somebody hits you, bow down your head and accept it with gratitude. Go home, don't do anything, just for twenty-four hours, and you will know a new upsurge of energy that you have never known before, a new vitality arising from the roots. And once you know it, once you have tasted it, your life will be different. Then you will laugh at all the foolish things you have been doing, at all the resentments, reactions, revenges, with which you have been destroying yourself.
Nobody else can destroy you except you; nobody else can save you except you. You are the Judas and you are the Jesus.
Happiness
Always look at things so that you can find something good to be happy about. Life is short, and happiness is very difficult, so don‘t miss any opportunity to be happy.
Ordinarily we go on doing the opposite: we don‘t miss any opportunity to be unhappy.
To be happy is a great talent. Great intelligence, great awareness—almost a genius is needed to be happy. To be unhappy is nothing. Even stupid people are unhappy. It is nothing.
And it is very easy to be unhappy because the whole mind lives through unhappiness. If you remain happy for a longer time the mind starts disappearing, because there is no connection between happiness and the mind. Happiness is something of the beyond. That‘s why the mind will create some problems sooner or later. Even when there is no problem, the mind will create them—fantasy problems, out of the blue, to make you unhappy. Once you are unhappy, the mind is happy. You are back on earth then and things start moving in the rut.
The mind is the root cause of unhappiness and whenever you are happy you are mindless. Watch a moment of tremendous happiness. Suddenly there are no thoughts. You are simply happy; not even the thought of unhappiness is there.
Harmony
God is the harmony of all that is, and you can watch—everything is harmonious. The trees are swaying with the wind; there is harmony. They are not fighting the wind, they are dancing with the wind. The stars are moving in tremendous harmony. This vast existence is a great orchestra: all is tuned with everything else. There is no conflict, no division, no disharmony.
Only man can believe that he is separate. because he has consciousness, and consciousness gives you the alternative. Either you can think yourself separate—then you fall in misery and hell—or you can try to understand the oneness and suddenly there is bliss. To be one with the whole is bliss: to be separate with the whole is misery.
