#SILENCE

Remember one thing: you have to be careful about what you take in, and you have to be careful about what you bring out.

Only then can you have a life which is centered.

People are careless: they go on stuffing themselves with whatsoever they find. Anything! They go on stuffing -- in the body, and in the mind too. Be careful.

If your neighbor comes and starts gossiping, you listen very attentively. If the neighbor throws some rubbish in your garden, you will start fighting, but if he throws some rubbish in your head, you are perfectly welcoming of it.

You don't see it: once somebody has been allowed to put rubbish in your head, what will you do with it? Sooner or later it will come through your mouth and enter into somebody else's head.

Don't go on taking anything in, and don't go on throwing anything out on people.

If you are too full of rubbish, go to the riverbank, go to the forest, and just talk to the trees. Nothing will be harmful, because they don't listen. You can talk, you can unburden yourself, you can unwind and come back.

But don't do that to human beings -- they are already too burdened.

Right speech means very sincere speech.

Have you watched it? If you fast for one day, the next day your hunger has a different passion to it.

And the same happens with words. Keep silent, and then say something, and you will see: that something has power in it.

Silence is like a fast: it brings life to your words. And in this world only those people who have kept themselves in deep silence, have been of tremendous import, and their words have been of lasting eternal value.

Buddha was silent for many months, Mahavir was silent for twelve years. Whenever Jesus would feel that he was tired, he would go to the forest and he would say to his disciples, "Leave me. Leave me alone." He would be in silence for forty days, and then he would come back. And then his words would have a value to them: each word would be like a diamond.

If you really want that your words should have value, then learn silence. Keep more and more silent; then one day you will know what right speech is.