Does truth really require so many words?

Osho, in so many ways, in so many manners, you keep saying the same things over and over! Does truth really require so many words?

Truth requires not even a single word. Truth never reveals itself through words; it is beyond words. That is precisely why there is an attempt to say it with so many words. If you don’t understand from this angle, perhaps you will understand from that one. If not from this direction, maybe from another. If not by this pretext, then by some other. Sometimes by the pretext of Sahajo, sometimes of Daya, sometimes Mahavira, sometimes Buddha, sometimes Christ—by any pretext at all I am trying to make you understand. If you miss this time, I will find another pretext. I have to say what cannot be said; I have to tell what has no way of being told. But if I remain silent, you will never be able to understand. Truth does not fit into words, but if the blow of words keeps striking continuously, something within you begins to…

Question: First question: Osho, truth cannot be spoken—then why do saints speak? Words make you a student. For another kind of knowing, another kind of hearing—deeper than words—you must become a disciple. Then merely being curious will not do; you must become a yearning one for liberation. Soon you will find that even yearning is not enough; you must become a practitioner. Then you will descend, slowly, into depth. But the journey begins with words. You have come to me; for no other reason. A word called you. The first letter reached you through a word. There are people here who have come from unknown far-off lands. A book fell into their hands; somewhere a word reached them. That word stirred something within; a nectar welled up. Then they traced that word to its source and came—journeying from afar. Now further bonds can be forged.

Beloved Osho, what is truth? And whatever it is, why are most people not interested in it?

"Love God" -- I don't know how you are going to love God. You don't know what God looks like. You don't know from where to approach Him, which side is His face. The Indian god has three faces; from all the three sides you can approach him. The Hindu god has thousands of hands; you can hold any. But where are you going to meet these gods with thousands of hands, three heads ...? Just all junk. Nobody knows .... A small child was making a drawing. His father asked him, "What are you doing, so absorbed?" He said, "I am drawing a picture of God." The father said, "A picture of God? But nobody has seen Him, nobody knows how He looks. How can you make a picture of God?" The child said, "Just wait. Let me finish the picture and everybody will know how He looks." All…

Why is truth inexpressible? Why can't it be told?

All words are small. All human efforts are limited. And then, it cannot be told straight. It can be communicated straight, but it cannot be told straight -- and that is the difference between a thinker and a meditator. The thinker goes roundabout because he has to go through thought. He searches for the sky through the clouds and gets lost in the clouds, may never reach the sky. The thinker gets lost in thoughts. The meditator starts by dropping thoughts. He starts by dropping thinking itself, and a moment comes when there is no thought: then there is immediacy. Then there is nothing between you and that which is. Then there is nothing at all -- you are bridged with reality. But that is an experience. Whenever you would like to tell that experience to somebody else you will have to use words, out of necessity, and words cannot…

Beloved Osho, probably no enlightened master has spoken so many millions of words about the truth as you have. Lao tzu says, "the truth that can be spoken is not the truth." beloved master, what do you say?

Lao Tzu is right. The truth that can be spoken is no longer true, because the mechanism of language distorts the experience -- which happens beyond mind, beyond words. To pull it down to the darker valleys of language is certainly distorting it. On the one hand it is true that the truth cannot be spoken; on the other hand, because the truth cannot be spoken it has to be spoken in thousands of ways. The problem is not that the truth will reach to you through thousands of ways, but you may become infected with the search. If a man speaks about the truth he may not be able to say it... but you can get a glimpse from his eyes, you can get something from his gestures -- something not from the words but the way the words are spoken, the emphasis, the gaps. The presence of such…