Excitement is the very nature of life. One has to learn how to be excited and yet remain harmonious, silent, at ease, at rest. Excited and yet at rest: that is the highest harmony that has to be achieved. But it cannot be achieved by destroying excitement; that's what people have done. They try to remain at ease, and their method is to destroy excitement. Then you are at ease — but you are dead too!
So I am all for excitement and yet I will insist that one go on remaining silent at the same time. There is excitement all around; and at the centre, at the centre of the cyclone, everything is calm and quiet and collected and nothing disturbs it. When this silence goes together with all the sound and the fury and the noise and the dance of excitement, when they are together, balancing each other, then there is beauty. It is beatific.
So don't stop the excitement: let it go, let it go to the very end. Let it be to the very excess, yet remain more and more alert, see what is happening; watch it as if you are standing outside it. That is the very meaning of the word 'excite': it means it is outside you. It is not inside you, it cannot be; the innermost core is never involved.
A zen master was passing across a river, a small river, and his disciple was asking a few questions. When they were crossing the river the disciple asked a question, saying 'Master, what is the way to cross the river?'
And the master said 'Cross it in such a way that the water does not touch your feet'.
The disciple was very surprised because he looked down and even the master's feet were wet! So he said 'Sir, excuse me, but I see that even your feet are wet.'
And the master said 'I am not: it is only on the surface. Deep inside I am as dry as ever; the water has not touched me.'
Now, there are two ways to remain untouched by the water: one is, never to enter into any river — but that will be suicidal because the whole life is the river; then you are hung-up on the bank. That's what happens to your so-called saints in the monasteries and to monks and people — catholics and hindus and jainas. They are just dead, just hanging on the bank, always afraid that if they get into the river they will get wet. That is not the way… that is what is called 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'. You have thrown your life also just because of the fear that you will get wet.
Get into the river, go in as deep as possible, and become a lotus. Cross all kinds of rivers and enjoy all kinds of experiences. East and west, here and there and everywhere, meet all kinds of people, fall in all kinds of love, enter all kinds of madnesses, have. a taste of everything that is available in life… and yet remain a lotus. Be watchful so that inside remains always alone, far away, a watcher on the hills. It will happen; it will start happening by and by….
OSHO
