According to Osho, keval-jnana (perfect knowing) does not automatically flower into perfect expression. Realization is solitary; expression engages the other's language, experience, and countless personality types. Hence many attain keval-jnana, but very few become Tirthankaras—those who can transmit it to all beings. Expression demands further sadhana, sensitivity, and disciplined communication; without this, a knower may remain inarticulate.
Knowing everything inside doesn’t mean you can explain it to everyone; teaching needs extra practice and care.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Does the keval-jnani (one with perfect knowledge) lack expression? If he masters expression, he too becomes a teacher. If he does not, then realization does happen—he is accomplished—but he closes off; he cannot spread on all sides what he has known, cannot speak it out.
The completeness of realization happened to Mahavira in his previous birth; for the completeness of expression he had to do sadhana in this life. And I say that the perfection of realization is not as difficult a thing as the perfection of expression is. It is very difficult indeed. Because in realization I am alone; whatever I have to do, I have to do with myself. In expression, the other is involved. Therefore one must know the other, understand the other, reach the other; there is the other’s language, the other’s experience, the other’s personality. There are millions upon millions of kinds of personalities; life is distributed across countless forms of birth (yonis). For the resonance to be possible in all of them, for the news to reach all of them—so that even a stone may hear and a god may hear—cultivating the care and discipline for all that is…
Osho, does it happen that on attaining perfection people fall silent—as you said about Makkhali Goshal, that he said nothing? Is it also possible that someone may simply not speak at all, having no urge to say anything?
Many people. Many people. Many people. In truth, to tell is one thing, and to know is an altogether different thing. Someone asked Buddha—ten thousand bhikkhus walked with him. Someone asked Buddha: You have been teaching for thirty years; these ten thousand monks listen—have any among them become like you or not? Buddha said: Many. He said: But one hears nothing of them. Buddha replied: They are silent; I speak. And this is exactly the difference in Jainism between a Tirthankara and a Kevali. A Tirthankara is also a Kevali, but a Tirthankara is a teacher as well. A Kevali is simply a Kevali; he does not speak, he is not a teacher. That is the only difference. Many like Mahavira have been, but Mahavira is a Tirthankara.
Osho, the other day you spoke of “ekant” in relation to Lord Mahavira. Was Mahavira’s realization also ekant—one-sided? Was it not complete? This is my question.
What news we bring back are drishtis, thoughts. What we actually knew and lived was darshan. In that darshan, Srinagar was one. There, night-day were joined, mountain-lake were joined, good-bad were joined—everything was together. But the moment we speak, we choose; we sift; we stand somewhere and select a viewpoint. The moment anything is spoken, a drishti is formed. This has been the great danger: mistaking drishti for darshan. Hence, the Hindus have a drishti, not darshan; the Jains have a drishti, not darshan; the Muslims have a drishti, not darshan. If we speak of darshan, then Hindu, Muslim, Jain all disappear—only the One remains; there is no drishti, no ideology. Mahavira’s experience is total; expression cannot be. Whenever we try to say it, we cannot say the total. The experience of the divine is a far greater matter—even a small, simple experience cannot be expressed in its wholeness. You…
And someone has asked: Osho, who is it that thinks when one is witnessing?
As it is now, whenever we know, three things are present: the one who knows—the knower; that which is known—the known; and the relationship between the two—knowledge. Knowledge is bound and burdened by the knower and the known. Keval-gyan means the known dissolves—the object disappears. And when the known dissolves, where will the knower be? He was bound to the known. When the known dissolves, the knower dissolves. What remains then? Only knowledge remains. In that moment of pure knowing there is the sense of liberation and of freedom. So keval-gyan means to experience pure knowledge. What I have called samadhi is the experience of pure knowing. These are different names in different traditions: what Patanjali called samadhi, the Jains called keval-gyan, and Buddha called prajna. Keval-gyan does not mean telling what is going on in your head. That is very easy—a simple thing. That is ordinary telepathy, thought-reading; it…
The second and last question: Osho, after realizing God, why can one not express that experience?
But Krishnanand, why worry now? For now, worry about attaining. We are very strange people! We raise strange questions. You have not attained yet, and you are anxious about why, after attaining God, that experience cannot be expressed? This is a hypothetical question. It has no value. First attain, then you will know why it cannot be made known! You yourself will smile, you yourself will laugh. The question will not arise at all. It arises only because as yet you have no taste of the vastness within yourself. But even in life, if you explore a little, you will find experiences that cannot be told. You wake at dawn and watch the sun rise—the beauty of it. Can you convey it to someone? Yes, if you wish you can take a photograph, you can paint a picture of sunrise. But is a picture of the sunrise the sunrise? If…