‘If only we are brave enough to be it’

When day comes we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraidThe new dawn blooms as we free itFor there is always light,if only we’re enough to see itIf only we’re brave enough to be it.This is how Amanda Gorman ended her beautiful poem so elegantly delivered at the recent US presidential inauguration in Washington. In a touching follow-up interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN, she explained how she had struggled with articulation of certain letters, words from an early age. It turns out Anderson Cooper also had a speech problem as a child, stuttering, just like Joe Biden. She explained, “I am proud to be in the speech difficulty club with you and President Biden.”There are 70 million people in the world who stutter. Osho’s answer to this questioner may be helpful to some.■ Osho: As far as your stuttering is concerned, what is wrong with it? Stuttering comes in a state of stress, tension.When I was a student in the university, my neighbour was a young, beautiful man, healthy in every way. I had never seen him stutter. Once his father visited him, and he immediately started stuttering in front of his father. The moment the father left he was perfectly okay. I asked him about it. He said, “This is a problem. When I go back home, I cannot avoid stuttering in front of my father and mother. Even when my father’s letter comes, I cannot read it without stuttering. Otherwise I am perfectly okay.”I said to him, “So it is not a question of stuttering; there is some stress, some tension. Your father is heavy to you, and you regress back to your childhood, back to your old fears, and those fears start overcoming your intelligence. Do one thing: next time your father comes, try to stutter with every word. Give it a try.”The father came, and I was there, and he tried it — and he could not stutter!There are a few things which happen only if you are trying; there are a few things which happen only if you don’t try. The very effort comes out of fear and if fear is the cause then the effort cannot help. Hypnotherapists call it ‘the law of reverse effect’.My suggestion is stutter, and don’t be a miser. Fill the whole place with stuttering. You may be surprised that once you relax, once you start enjoying, stuttering may disappear. If it disappears, good; if it does not disappear there is no harm in it. It is innocent!Take life easy. Don’t make unnecessary problems for yourself, so that your whole energy can be focussed on the essential problem, that is: know thyself. ■The author was Osho’s personal physician