Number of words – 275

Remember, the first thing a child has to do when he is born is to breath in and last thing a man does when he dies is to breath out. Life begins with breathing in and death begins with breathing out. Each moment when your breathe in you are reborn; each moment when you breath out you are dead. Because breath is life that’s why Hindus have called it Prana: Prana means life. Breath is life. The simple logic, the simple arithmetic: there is not much trouble if you can get more breath in and don’t breath out. Then you will never die. If you breath out you will have to die and if you do it too much you will you will die soon. Simple arithmetic. It seems so obvious. So what is a logician supposed to do? All logicians will only breath in, never breath out. Love is breathing in. Death is breathing out. So what to do? Life is easy if you don’t decide because they then you know breathing in and breathing out or not two opposite things. They are two parts of one process. Those two parts are organically connected. You cannot divide them and if you don’t breathe out…? The logic is wrong you will not be alive you will be simply immediately dead. Try it just breathe in and don’t breathe out. You will understand you will become very tense. Your whole being would like to breathe out because this is leading to death. If you choose you will be in difficulty, if you don’t choose everything is easy.

Excerpted from ‘Zen: It’s History & Teaching’ by Osho