A child never thinks of the past. Really, he has no past to think about. A child is not worried about the future; he has no time consciousness. He lives totally unworried. He moves in the moment; he never carries any hangover. If he is angry then he is angry and in his anger he will say to his mother, "I hate you." And this is not just words, this is a reality. Really, in that moment he is in total hate. The next moment he will come out of it and he will be laughing and he will give a kiss to his mother and he will say, "I love you." There is no contradiction. These are two different moments. He was total hate and now he is total love. He moves just like a river goes on moving, zigzag. But wherever he is - wherever the river is - he is total, flowing.

For these days be like a child - total. If you hate, hate; if you love, love; if you are angry, then be angry; and if you are festive, then be festive and dance. Do not carry anything over from the past. Remain true to the moment; do not hanker for the future. For these eight days drop out of time. Drop out of time!

That is why I say do not be serious: because the more serious you are, the more time conscious you are. A child lives in eternity; there is no time for him. He is not even aware of it. These seven days will be real meditation if you drop out of time. Live the moment and be true to it.

Be playful. It will be difficult, because you are so much structured. You have an armor around you and it is so difficult to loosen it, to relax it. You cannot dance, you cannot sing, you cannot just jump, you cannot just scream and laugh and smile. Even if you want to laugh you first want something there to be laughed at. You cannot simply laugh. There must be some cause: only then can you laugh. There must be some cause: only then can you cry and weep.

Put aside knowledge, put aside seriousness; be absolutely playful for eight days. You have nothing to lose. If you do not gain anything, you will not lose anything either. What can you lose in being playful? But I say to you: you will never be the same again.

My insistence on being playful is because of this: I want you to go back to the very point from where you stopped growing. There has been a point in your childhood when you stopped growing and when you started being false. You may have been angry, a small child in a tantrum, angry, and your father or your mother said, "Don't be angry! This is not good!" You were natural but a division was created and a choice was there for you. If you were to remain natural then you would not have got the love of your parents.

In these days I want to throw you back to the point where you started being 'good' as against being natural. Be playful so your childhood is regained. It will be difficult because you will have to put aside your masks, your faces; you will have to put aside your personality. But remember, the essence can assert itself only when your personality is not there, because your personality has become an imprisonment. Put it aside. It will be painful, but it is worth it because you are going to be reborn out of it. And no rebirth is possible without pain. If you are really determined to be reborn, then take the risk. From Osho: Meditation: The First and Last Freedom