Don’t worry about remembering; just listen deeply, and the important part will sink into your heart and change how you live.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, ever since I have been with you listening, listening, I was never able to remember anything you said. As so often before, you are speaking from my own heart, but the moment the words are heard, they are forgotten too. Can you please say something? Am I not really listening?
It is perfectly good. It is as it should be, because this is not a kindergarten school where you have to remember every word spoken by me. Here the emphasis is not on remembering; the emphasis is on listening. If you have listened in silence, then whatever is significant will be absorbed by the heart. You may forget the words.... Words are only containers, not the content. The content will be absorbed in the heart, and the containers have to be thrown away. You cannot carry all the containers always. Listen perfectly. Never bother about remembering -- because that is a disturbance. Doing the two things together, then one starts taking notes -- if not visibly, then inside in the mind. No, don't create disturbance; just listen. If something is true, your heart will simply absorb it. And the heart has no memory system. The memory system is in the…
Osho, I go on forgetting your words. What should I do?
Who has told you to remember my words? That's how it should be, exactly, precisely. You have to forget my words; you have to remember the essence, not the words. And the essence need not be remembered, it has only to be understood. If you are listening to me rightly you need not remember what I have said. In fact, if you try to remember it you will miss the whole point. Then the words will be there and the essence will be missing. Go on forgetting the words otherwise you will be burdened by them, and you will lose track. You just try to understand. When I say 'try to understand' I mean just be silently, passively, alertly listening. Don't judge and don't argue and don't decide whether I am saying something which is right or wrong. Just listen silently. If you become too worried whether I am saying…
Beloved Osho, during your beautiful talks I find myself listening to you with a sharp mind and an open heart at the same time. I feel an understanding coming up of what you are saying, but in the next moment -- when another question is asked -- I notice that my mind, which had been so sharp before, forgets all that you have just said. However a feeling as if I have been touched very deeply remains with me. I wonder about this. Would you please help me to understand what is happening?
There is no need to remember what I say because I am not giving you a doctrine that you have to remember. What is important is that the feeling left in your heart that you were touched remains with you. That is significant -- not what I say. I say so many things just to give you that feeling that your heart is touched. That's why I always say my talking is totally different from anybody else's in the whole history of man. They were talking to say something; I am talking to do something. They were talking to impart knowledge; I am talking to transform your heart. So there is no need to remember; otherwise you will go crazy. If you remember all these things that I am saying to you, you will certainly go crazy. Can't you see me? I have gone crazy! And I don't remember anything…
Beloved Osho, when I listen to your discourses, you take me on an indescribable journey. If afterwards someone asks me about what you have said, I hardly remember. But when people ask me personal questions, answers are coming out of my mouth which astonish me the most. Osho, am I becoming a parrot of your words?
Listening to me is less like listening and more like drinking. Although it is a verbal communication, that is only the superficial part of it. Hidden beneath it is the real communion where meanings are absorbed and words are forgotten. You cannot become my parrot -- at least while I am alive. It is impossible to become my parrot. You will go crazy! My words are so full of contradictions that the poor parrot will be crushed under those contradictions. And it is a sure signal that you are not becoming a parrot because you don't remember my words. The parrot only remembers words, but whatever is being communicated to you is absorbed. It has to become part of your blood, your bones, your marrow -- not part of your memory. Unless it becomes your blood, your bones and your marrow, it cannot transform you. And the transformation is happening.…
Why, when I try to listen to your lectures with total attention, can I afterwards not remember what you have said?
There is no need. If you have listened to me with total attention there is no need to remember what I have said. It becomes part of you. You eat something do you remember what you have eaten? What is the use? It becomes part of you -- it becomes your blood; it becomes your bones. It becomes you. Once you eat something, you forget about it. You digest it, not that you remember it. If you listen totally, I am converting into your blood, I am converting into your bones, I am converting into your being. You are digesting me. There is no need. Whenever there will be a situation, you will respond; and in that response all that you have heard and listened to in totality will be there -- but not as remembered... but as lived. And this difference has to be remembered. Whatsoever I am trying…