According to Osho, yes—so-called madmen can, and often do, speak the truth. Free of social pretense, they are innocent, sensitive, and fearless, while the 'sane' commonly excel at hypocrisy. History's seers—Jesus, Socrates—were called mad for insisting on truth. So listen beyond labels, help authenticity flower, and note some only act mad; definitions of madness are unreliable.
Yes: people called 'mad' may tell real truth because they don't play pretend, while many 'normal' people hide behind polite lies.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved master, my husband is mad, but sometimes what he says is true. Is it possible for a madman to do that? 8
Just help your husband. Maybe it is just because of you that he is pretending to be mad! Neelam, women are dangerous! You should see Aseema.... Aseema is a beautiful sannyasin. I have seen her two ex-husbands -- both have gone crazy! Then I started thinking, what is the matter? And both are beautiful people -- you know both. One is Sarvesh, the ventriloquist. He was perfectly okay before he met Aseema. Now this beautiful sannyasin has driven him mad! Another is Nikunj; Nikunj is mad. The whole credit goes to Aseema! Now, if anybody else is thinking to fall in love with Aseema, think twice! And then stop yourself! A woman goes to a palm reader. "Your husband will die a violent death," she is told. "One more question," she asks. "Will I be acquitted?" A group of hikers passing a hillbilly's cabin smiled as they saw the owner…
A friend has asked: Osho, is the samadhi attained when consciousness is lost a state of swoon? Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa would lie for days as if near death!
In the West they have invented new ways: even blows are not enough; so they set up many lights, rapidly changing, deafening sound, assorted dances and songs; a completely deranged atmosphere is created. After an hour in that derangement one feels: ah, there is some life, some experience of living! We have died so much that unless the blow is enormous, there is no experience of life. Soft tones we cannot hear at all. Yet the natural tones of life are all soft. We cannot hear the night’s silence, nor the heart’s own beat. Have you ever heard the sound of your blood’s flow? It is very soft; you cannot hear it; but there is a sound. Buckminster Fuller wrote that for the first time he went into a building—a scientific laboratory—completely soundproof, where no sound from outside could enter. Inside he began hearing two kinds of sounds. He asked…
Please say something about madness. I have seen that psychiatrists know nothing about it in spite of all their efforts. There seem to be two types of madness. You spoke of madness as a step towards enlightenment, and you also called psychosis a severe form of cowardice in facing the reality of life. Not every madman who claims to be jesus christ seems to have had an experience of god.
The conviction had gone so deep that he was only lying just to convince people, to get rid of these foolish people. He said, "No, I am not," but he knew he was. Madness has a consistency, a togetherness. There is no doubt in it; it is utter belief. And the same is the case with the other madness. A man goes above reason, beyond reason, becomes utterly conscious, superconscious. In the first madness, the one part that was conscious becomes dissolved into the nine parts that were unconscious. In this other madness, the nine parts that were not conscious start moving upwards and all come to the light, above the surface. The whole mind becomes conscious. That is the meaning of the word "Buddha", becoming absolutely conscious. Now this man will also look mad, because he will be consistent, utterly consistent. He will be together, more together than any…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS MADNESS? There are two possibilities: Madness literally means going out of the mind; hence the two possibilities. You can go out of the mind either below the mind or above the mind. Ordinarily, people go below the mind because it needs no effort, you don't have to do anything. Any shock can shatter the stability of your mind: somebody you loved died, your business has gone bankrupt -- the shock is so much that you cannot keep your normality. You fall below the mind, your behavior becomes irrational. But you go beyond the misery -- if you had remained in the normal mind the shock would have created immense misery. It is a natural way to avoid the shock. It simply pulls you down; now you don't know what has happened.
Osho, when a person goes mad, what is his state?
Yes—when a person goes mad, only memory is left of the man. He has no awareness of his own self at all; only memory remains. You will be surprised: from the day he becomes mad, he retains no memory of anything after that day. All the memories from before remain. If a person went mad this morning, whatever he talks about will be from before this morning; he will say nothing of after this morning. No memory of what happens after this morning is being formed. Now only the memories from before this morning are there; he will keep repeating them. He will speak them, babble them, go on with the same things. He has completely lost awareness. And from the very moment he lost awareness, the memories up to that moment will go on repeating. That is why he appears mad to us: he will always be incongruent, out…