Is it natural for thoughts or breathing to change when I become aware of them, or is it a habit of not accepting what is?

When I become aware of my thoughts or my breathing, they immediately change. Is this natural, or an ingrained habit of subtly not accepting what is?

It is natural. Whenever you become aware of anything you bring a new quality to it, it changes. If you become aware of your breathing, the breathing will change its rhythm. You don't try to change it, there is no need to make any effort; you simply become alert that you are breathing in and out and there will be a change felt, the rhythm will not be the same, because now you are consciously breathing. First you were unconsciously breathing, now something new has come into it -- consciousness. You walk; ordinarily you walk unconsciously, there is no need, the body is like a mechanism; but then you walk consciously, bring consciousness to it -- suddenly you will see that your walk has taken a different quality: it is more graceful, more aesthetic, more beautiful, and you are not dragging -- rather, deep down you have started dancing. When…

It has been asked: It has been asked, Osho, you tell us to think—yet what will come from thinking alone? As I keep thinking, I get drowned in thoughts themselves, and my conduct does not change. My conduct remains exactly the same. So please tell me, how is conduct to be changed?

Commonly it is said, “What value is there in thought? The real value is in conduct.” This is utterly false and futile. It is false and futile because conduct, deep down, is nothing but the expression of thought. Where there is no seed of thought, there can be no plant of conduct. Yes, it is possible to throw a false conduct over oneself from the outside. But false conduct has no value whatsoever, except that it deceives others and destroys one’s own life. The question asked is: “What will happen by thought alone?” This is why I ask, and why the question arises—if I were to pray to you, I would say: as yet no thought has been born in you. You are taking others’ thoughts to be your own. Hence the problem of trying to bring thought and conduct into harmony. If the thought were truly yours, it would…

Just look in crowded trains, a local train -- so many people standing. Just watch people's faces... everybody will look like a closed thing. Even if a person is standing just by the side of someone else, even if the bodies are touching, they are not touching. The touch is not even human... no warmth. But soon we will have a big place where people can have enough space around them, mm? [A sannyasin says: In Arica they taught us a certain way of breathing which requires concentration, so I kept losing my natural rhythm of breathing, because the conditioning from Arica training was pretty heavy. So I started concentrating on the breath going in and out here (indicating nostrils) and then it went better.] That will be good -- so remember it.

Osho, as you have said—to awaken awareness on the breath—but even then the attention does not stay on the breath; it wanders here and there. Should we let it go, or...?

No, no—don’t worry about that at all. Positively concern yourself with being on the breath. It goes here and there; if you start tracking it, you’ll go even farther away. Don’t bother about it. Just keep two things in view: is it on the breath, or not? If not, bring it back to the breath; if it is, all is fine. Don’t be anxious about going along with it. And don’t try to fight it either. Positively keep only this much in mind: with the breath that is moving—are you there, or not? In between it will slip; let it slip. Then return—come back again. It will slip, and it will slip a lot. It will stay for a second or two, and then slip. Because that is its habit of lifetimes. Its habit is doing; it has never been in the present. And now you are putting it into…

Beloved Osho, when we start watching our bodies, and then our minds and emotions, there remains an element, although subtle, of concentration. Initially, for example, watching my breathing, I would watch it to the exclusion of everything else -- here there was an element of focus. On other occasions, when silence is just there, the breathing may be all there is to watch. This seems to be nearer, but still I feel that more soft focusing of the awareness would take me further and further back, as if relaxing enough to let the watcher move far enough away so that all is seen, rather than any one

It is true. Relaxation helps the most. No part of concentration should be in your watchfulness. Concentration is sabotaging the whole process of watchfulness, because concentration is an act of the mind, and watchfulness is something that comes from above, from beyond. If there is any concentration... I can understand, if you start watching your breathing -- in the name of watching, you are concentrating on the breathing, you are excluding everything else. Don't exclude. Watch your breathing inclusive of all. Watching your breathing... a temple bell starts ringing, a car passes by, a child starts crying -- all that should be included. Your watchfulness should be open. Watching the breathing is simply to begin with. It is not the end. It is just learning how to watch. But there is a difficulty -- you can start thinking that concentration is watching. Concentration is not watching. Concentration is narrow, narrowing…