Can the outside world understand the concept of lying out of compassion, or will it lead to more misunderstanding about Osho and Rajneeshism?

Beloved Osho, you said that you lie out of compassion, and we, your sannyasins, can understand what you are saying. But can the outside world ever understand? Won't it create more misunderstanding about you, about rajneeshism, about your sannyasins? Please comment.

Compassion knows no conditions. It can do anything, it knows no right and no wrong. Compassion can lie to help you. In fact, in your sleep you can only understand lies, you cannot understand the truth. Many things are involved. First, the experience of enlightenment, awakening, illumination, happens when there is no mind present. Enlightenment is a no-mind experience. Words are not there, language is not there. In fact, you are not there either. It is such a silence, so profound and infinite, it cannot be expressed without lying. The moment the truth is said, it is no longer true. Just the process of saying it makes it a lie. To bring the wordless experience into words is to change the very quality of the experience. So in fact, anything that is great -- if it has been experienced at any time, by any individual -- out of sheer necessity…

Beloved Osho, when the communist party tells a lie, we know it is a lie. When the pope tells a lie, we know it is a lie and we say that he is telling a lie, but when you tell a lie, we always say it is a "device." I would like to know why you tell us so many lies-devices. Whether I connect with you as a master or as a friend, it is still for me a question of trust. Osho, my hand, and my whole being, is trembling as I write you my first question since I have become your sannyasin. Please make it clear for me once again.

Even if I have to tell you things which are not going to happen, if they can lead you towards that which needs to happen... They are lies, but not just lies; they are devices. And they are out of compassion, they are just to help you. So whatever you want, whatever you desire, whatever you long for, I use it because I know that once you have started moving in the right direction, you will stop longing for anything that is a hindrance. In the beginning it may have been a help. As you go closer to the truth, you yourself will see that now it is a hindrance. You will drop it. When Edmund Hilary went to Everest he had a group of at least thirty people and tons of luggage, food, materials, tents, emergency equipment, cameras, all kind of things... but he reached to the top. As…

Beloved Osho, what is the relationship between meditation and witnessing? In what way are mind and ego dissolved by them? Is surrender possible without attaining complete egolessness? To what extent are orange clothes and the mala helpful for meditation and witnessing? Also please explain the difference between witnessing, wakefulness and right remembering.

Then there are some who say doing has no attraction for them, but thoughts come rushing in waves. They are thinkers-they have no juice for doing. They have no interest in the outer, but great waves arise within, a great tempest. And they cannot be inside for a single moment without thoughts. They say, "If we sit silently more thoughts come. When we sit silently more thoughts than usual come. Just mention worship, prayer, meditation, and a great deluge of thoughts -- -armies -- come in wave after wave and drown us. What should we do?" The master says, "Drink meditation mixed in with your thoughts. Don't stop your thoughts, but when thoughts come observe them. Don't get lost in them, stand a little apart, at a distance. Calmly watching your thoughts, you will gradually attain witnessing. Add meditation to your thoughts." Then there are some who say, "We have…

But Osho, I have learned that there are four types of movement: physical movement, intellectual movement, emotional movement, and the fourth is wisdom. Perhaps, in the ultimate state of leisure, what is meaningful is that a person’s intellectual or emotional capacities be stimulated, so that he can shift from one plane and move to another?

This is exactly what I am saying: for human energies to move into higher dimensions, it is essential that one be freed from the lower. So I do not say that the old man’s answer to Confucius was right. I do not agree with the old man—though I have heard that Confucius agreed with him. Gandhi would have agreed with him; I would not. In my view, perhaps the old man saved his son from laziness, but then what? The boy would still die harnessed to the plough like an ox. And if the old man thinks that if the boy uses a tool he will become a machine, has he noticed that by yoking him like a bull he is turning him into a bull? That does not occur to him. Besides, using a machine is not possible for an animal; it is possible only for man. So rather…

Beloved master, the other day you said all masters have had to lie. I don't see the necessity for lies. Isn't it rather that the truth, no matter what the consequences, is the only means of liberating ourselves? Besides, what do we have to lose?

First, you seem to be understanding more than I understand. In fact, you should be here and I should be sitting there. Come on! I am ready to vacate this place and I will be sitting there, and you do the job. Stand up! Now, don't chicken out! All kinds of idiots have entered. Do you understand that there is no way to express truth in words? Not a single enlightened person in the whole history has said that truth can be said. So whatever can be said will be a lie. Lao Tzu, one of the greatest masters, never wrote any book. He continuously avoided his disciples persuading him, asking him, "Soon you will be gone; you are too old, and you have not given us anything written that we can remember, understand." And one day Lao Tzu left. Even the emperor of China was a disciple of Lao…