Attention

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…

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…

Question: BELOVED OSHO WHY AM I SUCH A BEGGAR FOR ATTENTION? WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT IT? Prem Kabir, it is one of the human weaknesses, one of the deep-rooted frailties, to seek attention. The reason one seeks attention is because one does not know oneself. It is only in other people's eyes one can see his face, in their opinions he can find his personality. What they say matters immensely. If they neglect him, ignore him, he feels lost. If you pass by and nobody takes any attention, you will start losing what you have put together -- your personality. It is something that you have put together. You have not discovered it, it is not natural. It is very artificial and very arbitrary. It is not only you who is a beggar for attention; almost everybody is.

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.…