Can silence be heard and understood?

Question: OSHO, CAN SILENCE BE HEARD AND UNDERSTOOD? Only silence can be heard and understood. Words can be heard but only superficially, and can be understood -- but only intellectually. Silence is heard existentially and is understood from your innermost being. It is a total understanding. I can see why you have asked the question, because ordinarily we understand only words. We are prepared to understand only words, not silence. We are educated to understand language and all its complexities. Nobody helps us to go beyond language, to go beyond words, to reach the wordless space within us. The society is against it, because if you can hear silence you will not be a part of the crowd mind, of the collective mind. You will become an individual immediately. And an individual is a danger to the state, to the church, to the society.

Beloved Osho, when I sit in your lecture I feel your silence and feel I become part of it. This is a wordless process in melting more and more into silence. At the same time, there are words from you. I hear them, and suddenly a connection happens from the silence to the words, and I feel golden, golden gratefulness about your beloved, wonderful words. The silence and the words are one. Please can you say something about this process -- if it is really possible that words can say the wordless.

Yes, the word can say the wordless but only to the chosen few, only to those who are absolutely silent. The word coming out of silence carries around it the wordless silence. Now the question is at the receiving end -- if it is received by a mind full of words and chattering, then the silence and the wordlessness is destroyed, you only hear the word. But if you are silent, you hear the word and you also hear the wordless; you hear the sound, and you also experience the soundlessness. In Mahavira's life a strange thing is reported. It is very difficult to say that it can be factual, historical. Particularly in the outside world, it will look absolutely absurd and irrational. But here, I can tell you the story. And I can tell you that it may have happened -- because it is happening here, so there is…

And the great gifts of life are only for people who are ready to go totally into something, whether it is silence, freedom, truth -- it does not matter what it is. All the ultimate values require you to be a lover. Sannyas is a love affair with silence. The most unique experience of life is that of silence; otherwise life is very noisy. Outside there is noise, inside there is noise, and both together are enough to drive anybody crazy. They have driven the whole world crazy. One has to stop the inner noise -- the outer noise is beyond our control and there is no need either to stop it. But we can stop the inner noise.

Osho, when you sit silently, that silence doesn’t come within our grasp. But when you begin to speak, a glimpse of silence appears between two sentences, between two words. Yet in becoming so absorbed in understanding the meaning of your speech, that silence keeps slipping away. So please explain: when we listen, how should we listen to you?

It will be so—naturally. When I sit utterly silent, you are not able to sit silent; inside you the stream of thoughts flows, an undercurrent keeps moving—you start talking to yourself. The habit of inner talking has become so deep, so carved in stone, that not even for a moment do you find rest within. If I sit completely silent, you will simply forget me. Your inner stream becomes active, your old habit seizes you, you get absorbed in inner conversation. It’s a monologue—you speak alone, yet you do speak. Then even my silence is hard for you to see, because we can only see that which has its opposite as a background. A psychologist once did an experiment at a university. On a large black blackboard he drew a tiny white dot and asked the students, “What do you see?” Not one of them saw the big blackboard; all…

when you say to somebody hi, how are you you don't mean anything in fact you were not even thinking to say it when you say it you are surprised why are you saying it it is just there like a gramophone record it works autonomously the moment you see some face which seems to be familiar it looks as if you have seen him somewhere the gramophone record simply starts turning on this constant noise inside is the barrier to awakening silence does just the opposite it helps you to be awake hence initiation into sannyas is really initiation into silence sannyas is another name for silence become more and more silent allow more and more silent spaces to yourself and as you will become silent you will see a new kind of awakening happening to you a new awareness arising in you new insight into things, new understandings…