| What do you see as "the simple things of life"?
Things that touch my heart. There's a little zoo in the neighborhood, and I walk around with Gabi. We cross our little pinkies together, and I feel at that moment life is so simple. Gabi rattles the crackers we've brought and all the goats come running. A little kid looks on, and I give him a cracker. He opens his eyes wide and feeds it to a goat, who gobbles it right up – and the kid looks so happy!
I love looking at the sunset; I'm so amazed at how nature provides these incredible, beautiful happenings. Walking to the beach, I just let my mind wander and get lost in watching the waves. I like walking around at night, looking at the stars and feeling so tiny in comparison to the universe. I say to myself, "I am a part of all this." Waking up in the morning and being grateful that I'm alive, appreciating the challenge of another day. These aren't big events, just small moments that create a Wow in my heart.
Then suddenly life is not complicated. I can see infinity in my mind. Because I'm alive, I'm aware; I have the privilege to experience what an amazing existence it is.
Often I'm running around but when I stop and look, I'm touched. If you really look at a rose, it is simply perfect. Nature is amazing. The rose looks simple but it's immensely complicated, radiant and alive. Sex, Drugs & Rock 'n Roll is an exciting lifestyle and often an unhealthy one. How can you appreciate the simple things of life without getting totally bored?
My life is so exciting, I don't remember the last time I was bored! If you're bored, it means that you're so caught up with your own personal trip that you can't see what's going on outside of you. I'm excited about living! When it's time to party, it's time to party. When it's time to go in and meditate, it's time to meditate.
If you look at what boring is, somebody's frustrated. They're not getting what they want. It's a reaction. Behind frustration is, "I don't like it! I want to change it." People who are bored have to wake up and appreciate everything that's around them. Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll: that's part of life. You don't like it? Fine. There's so much else going on. How can you be bored in this life? If anything, you should be overwhelmed by existence and everything it's giving you! Life at the Osho Humaniversity is very active and intense. Do you also enjoy doing nothing?
Now we're in the last week of the WOW. For the first three weeks people went through an amazing therapeutic process, creating change in themselves in order to become the most loving human beings possible.
If they felt they were lovable they could see their world is to be appreciated, and not create problems. Life is really very simple: everybody needs love. But to convince people of that is quite a process!
I am sitting in the middle of this cyclone, "doing nothing," watching all the madness and excitement going on around me and thinking, "Wow, I've just created this, a room where everyone is screaming their lungs out and getting rid of all their negativity so they can appreciate love!"
The Humaniversity is a yang place; I want it that way. Lots of activities going on, lots of action – and in-between brief moments when there's a little silence, little gaps where a Wow factor comes in. I guess appreciating the Wows of your life is doing nothing. I sit there and say, "Wow, wow! People are very beautiful; my friends are amazing. I feel so much love in my heart."
I don't see doing nothing as an inactive state. I hug someone, and for a moment I disappear. I'm appreciating the silent space – but there's an activity going on. I can enjoy doing no activity, but I enjoy more participating in my life, living the moment. Osho said "Sitting silently, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself!" You say "Standing, shouting, doing everything, spring never comes, and we force the grass to grow!" Can you explain?
Most of humanity is sitting on a boiling volcano because they have all these judgments, conditioning, past history, traumas and unexpressed feelings, their whole life experience. Can you image what happens when they "sit silently, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself"?
It's very easy to pretend that these things aren't there. We call it pouring syrup on shit. On the surface it looks good, but underneath people are a mess; they can't be silent inside. I'm in favor of silence, but my experience has shown me that people can only appreciate their silence after they've really expressed all their madness.
I know that the trend today is to sit in satsang in front of a so-called master, sitting silently, doing nothing and drinking in his loving vibrations. I see that appealing to people who are full of garbage! They don't want to deal with anything, they just want instant enlightenment. It takes a lot of courage to clean yourself out and say, "This is who I am too."
My approach is that everybody has to do a little work. You can't just read a book or hear a statement and say, "That's it!" It's not an idea: it has to be your own experience. Is there anything you would like to add?
Complication is the opposite of simplicity. The perfect balance is then to appreciate both sides. When you say yes to life, life becomes simple. When you say no to life, life becomes complicated.
The innocence of children makes me aware how complicated I make things in my life. They're just totally in the moment: appreciating a toy, you can see in their eyes that life is a wonder. I love that.
I was sitting at the table eating, and my son Rishi was way on the other side of the room. I pointed my spoon in his direction and made the motion of feeding him, and he just opened his mouth like he expected the spoon to come to him. He doesn't see that he's seven meters away, he just sees that I'm trying to feed him; he wants the food and opens his mouth! That's simplicity. He's not caught up with physics and distance. Children just enjoy themselves.
Our teenagers, the Tan-Jus have that simplicity. They give simple feedback. Just: "Change! You're in the big group, I'm in the small group. You stay over there instead of being over here…." Simple, clear communication. I love that. The most complicated things can also create simplicity in me. The opposite of simplicity is that you're caught up in your own mind and problems. Simplicity has to do with bringing it back to reality, to this moment.
I see somebody really complicating their life with so many problems, and I can see that love is the answer. Love is what life is about. But you have to put love into practice, live it – then it's simple! Until you're there you have to be honest and clean yourself up.
For people to let themselves love and receive love is difficult. The more you are at ease with yourself, the easier it is to love and to let love happen. A lot of what I do is reassuring people that, "It's not so complicated; You're okay, you're lovable." I've always wanted therapy to be in simple terms, clear and easy to read, not professional language that people cannot understand. If you can't explain it to a child, then I question its value. I always appreciate it when a therapist expresses himself simply.
Osho used to say, "I'm just an ordinary man." He was so basic, the way he moved, the way he talked; he was so extraordinarily simple and yet so vast! It's the principle of Zen. Being totally there when you do the simple things of life. You get up, take a shower, make your bed, cook, clean your house, talk with your friends and just enjoy everything around you. | 
