Speak your truth kindly and boldly, try different ways, be patient with pushback, and keep going without worrying about results.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, I want to carry your message from home to home, from heart to heart, but people are completely deaf and blind. What should I do? Having found what I have found, it is not possible not to share it. There is an inevitability to sharing it.
You who hurl a challenge to humanity all eight watches of the day, You who take palaces and treasures as your hereditary right— Tomorrow you will become dust-motes, kicked under people’s feet. Who here is there that has tasted the nectar of immortality? These rainbow dawns are borne on nights black with sorrow; In summer’s scorching flames there are showers of sweetness! This making and unmaking is the tread of deathless Time’s feet; These talk of joys and sorrows are like pictures of shadows here. To stop is not the law of motion—keep on walking, brother; To be extinguished is not the law of life—keep on burning, brother! Like a block of snow—pure, cool, bright—be the heir of glory; It is not the law for tears to freeze—keep on melting, brother! Keep flowing on, flowing on, flowing on, brother! Keep your head held high and bear the cold and heat,…
Osho, I have undoubtedly set out on the path, and the path itself is becoming the destination. But when I sit in discourse, my mind keeps collecting what you say so I can tell it to others. Why is there such eagerness in me to expound it before others—especially before my loved ones?
It is natural. Those whom we love—we want to give them what we have received, that in which we have known joy, in which we have caught a hint of truth. The taste we have savored, we want our loved ones to taste. We want to make them partners in it. Completely natural. Share! Whatever seems right to you, say it. Who knows—someone else may also find it right. Just keep one thing in mind. The eagerness to share is fine; insistence is not. Don’t sit on anyone’s chest saying, “I have accepted it, you must accept it too—because you are my wife; if you don’t agree with me, that’s not okay; or you are my husband.” Do not be insistent—non-insistence! Give full freedom to accept or not. But if a feeling rises in your heart, don’t suppress it either. If you feel joy, if you taste the essence, share…
Osho, whatever you say appears so wholly true and fruitful that an intense urge arises to tell it all to others, to the whole world. As a result the mind inevitably starts gathering your words; it keeps thinking about how to convey them to others. At the same time, I also feel: until I myself have attained something, how can I say anything to others? So what should we do?
Rightly so. This is exactly what I was saying: let meditation and compassion grow together. If meditation is completed and you attain, but in the meantime you have not laid the foundation of compassion, you will be lost. The day your boat is ready, you will simply leave. So do not wait, thinking, “When I am complete, then I will speak.” Because then you will not be able to speak at all. While you are not yet complete, begin to sow the seeds of compassion. This continuous urge rising in you to tell others—this is the feeling of compassion. Because there is nothing to take from others, only to give. You want others to receive what is coming to you—this is a tender, love-soaked state. Do not take it as something wrong. Remember: only if you keep practicing speaking now, will you be able to utter a few words even…
Osho, since becoming sannyasins, the longing arises again and again in our hearts that what we have found be available to all. Is this possible?
Have you ever looked closely at a statue of Buddha or Mahavira? Whoever has truly looked—if he does not fall into meditation even for a moment, he does not know how to look at a statue. He has no eyes; he is blind. The moment you behold the image of Buddha or Mahavira, something in you also comes to rest. Those images embody that art. Over thousands of years, artists who have known have stored the felt essence of meditation into every vein of those statues—have given meditation a shape, a form, embodiment. They are not simply statues of Buddha and Mahavira. That’s why, perhaps, you’ve also felt perplexed: when you go to a Jain temple where the images of the twenty-four Tirthankaras are placed, they all appear the same. Are twenty-four men ever alike? Not even two are alike; how would twenty-four be? And separated by thousands of years…
Osho, there is a confusion; if you understand it rightly, please be gracious enough to clarify it. Bhagwan Buddha and you both say: share the bliss that comes from meditation, share meditation. And on the other hand it is also said that the attainment of meditation should be kept secret, kept hidden.
Certainly both things are said, because both are right. There is no contradiction; if opposition appears, it is only an appearance. When meditation happens, share it. But until it has happened, protect it and keep it hidden. When it is, then you will share! Do not be in a hurry to distribute it. Often, even when it hasn’t happened, the desire to distribute arises. There is great relish in giving sermons. In explaining things to someone you get the taste of being knowledgeable. In telling someone—whether you know or not—for a few moments there is the illusion that you know. That is why so much advice is given in the world, and no one takes it. How many sermons are delivered—who takes them? Preachers roam after you; they catch hold of you and explain. It is hard to get past the preachers; they have blocked every road and path. Wherever…