The person who wants to say yes says yes unconditionally. Even if sometimes he does not like a thing, knowing perfectly well that there is dislike, he still says yes in spite of it, because he trusts in the wisdom of the whole.
One needs a great yeah-saying heart. And the yes has to be so total that it can contain the no in itself. The light has to be so total that darkness becomes just a part in it. Life has to be so total that death becomes just an episode in it. And when one can say the great yes to all that is – to the darkness, to the light, to the agonies of life and to the ecstasies of life, to the body and to the soul, to the earth and to the sky – when one can say yes to all that is, it becomes a sacred yes.
The whole western philosophy is contained in no-saying, and the person who was very skilful in no-saying. He was just a kind of masochist, he was neurotic, but because of the philosophy of no, neurotics became saints; they were worshipped. They were slowly poisoning themselves, because when you say no you poison yourself.
Yes is life-giving. And yes has not to be partial; it has to be total. Yes has not to be something against the no, otherwise it will be partial. Yes has to be so huge that it contains the no in itself.
And when the yes is so huge, so enormous, so infinite, that it is capable of containing its opposite, then it becomes a sacred yes.
The mind exists as a no, the heart exists as a yes. That’s the difference between the mind and the heart. The whole climate of the mind consists of nos and nos. It cannot say yes, it is impotent in saying yes. If sometimes it has to say it then it is only reluctantly, out of compulsion. If it is cornered into saying yes and it finds no other way to get out of that comer, it says yes. But that does not come in deep acceptance, it does not come as a celebration; it cannot welcome it. It is only arbitrary, it is provisional, tentative. And whenever the opportunity arises it will immediately say no again. That yes was just a strategy to protect oneself. It was just a defense measure, armour. But behind the yes was the no, so whenever the right time is there and the mind can have its say, it will drop the yes and will say no.
No is natural to the mind. And in the same way yes is natural to the heart, it lives in the dim; of yes; the flower of yes grows in the heart. No is almost impossible for the heart to say. And even if it has to say it sometimes then it is reluctantly; then it is arbitrary; it is not natural. And as the moment arrives it will immediately change into yes.
Man can live in three ways.
One is: man can live only as the mind. Then he lives as a nihilist – negative, anarchic, destructive.
Or man can live as a yes in the heart, but then man lives as gullible, ready to be exploited, deceived, manipulated, vulnerable, defenseless.
Both ways are half-half, and to live half is to live wrongly.
The third way is the right way: to live as a totality. Use the no when it is needed, but remember it has to come from the head; it should not be imposed on the heart. And use the yes when it is needed, but it should not come from the head, otherwise it will be phony. And this is a great balance.
The moment you say yes you open up. The very climate of yes and your flower starts blooming, as if it has been waiting for it, and waiting for long, maybe for many lives. Yes is spring to the flower of the soul.
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