According to Osho, when devotion deepens, words fall silent and prayer becomes a wordless, all-pervading feeling. In that stillness—the void—his presence appears; something not 'yours' is heard, arising from the very breath of existence. The meeting of these two silences dissolves separateness, and the experience is transformative, bringing direct communion beyond mind and language.
Your mind goes quiet, your heart fills up, and you feel a bigger loving presence without any words.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, when I sit in prayer I simply fall silent. What should I say to the Lord, what should I not say? Nothing at all comes to mind. Then I wonder, what kind of prayer is this! Please show me the way.
Doolandas said only a few days ago that God is not deaf! There is no need to shout. The truth is, before the feeling arises in your heart, it has already reached him. Before the prayer is uttered, it is heard. There is no method of saying—before you can say it, it has arrived. The thing must be there: a dense feeling in the heart, drenched in love! Be absorbed in feeling and fall into silence—prayer has happened. In that very silence, the petition will be made. That silence itself is the petition. In that silence, what cannot be said, what has never been said, what will never be said—will be said. Call me close just once, then I won’t ask again— I speak the truth. I was asleep—why did you wake me from my sleep? Why, tinting me with vermilion dreams, did you show me a golden world? What…
“Grant me your vision, O God—my eyes are thirsty.” For three or four days, ever since my eyes met yours, there had been an unbroken humming within. Yesterday evening, the moment I fell at your feet, the tune departed; words became wordless. What kind of call is this?
Chitranjan! The call of words is not a deep call. Only the call of the wordless is deep. As long as prayer is filled with words, it remains shallow, superficial. Only when prayer becomes wordless does it attain depth. A prayer that can be spoken is merely a wave of the mind. A prayer that cannot be spoken is the heart’s own arising. The journey begins with a resonance; it should be completed in the void. “Grant me your vision, O God— my eyes are thirsty.” Good—let it begin from here, from this very longing. But if you cling too tightly to these words, they themselves will make the vision impossible. Their echo will go on, and because of their echo his resonance will not be heard. He is speaking—but his speaking is wordless, it is silence. If you are to understand him, you must understand in wordlessness, in silence.…
Osho, is the experience of the Divine different for each person?
Think of it like this: you go home from this garden, and your children say, “Tell us—what was the garden like?” A painter might tell you by making a painting: “It was like this.” A poet will write a poem—of the trees, of the winds passing through them, of the sun filtering between their leaves. Now a poem and a painting differ greatly. Or perhaps someone is a musician; he will not even write a poem—he will lift his vina. Why write? The winds passed through the trees and there was sound and resonance—he will reproduce that resonance on the vina. The colors in the trees he will translate into tones. The sun and shade he will pour into music. He will play the garden on his vina. Another will write a poem; another will render it on paper. The three expressions will differ. And if you look only at…
Osho, what is the relationship between meditation and patience?
If you sit to meditate to remove mental restlessness, you will keep looking back again and again: “Has it gone yet?” And the irony is that when you begin to meditate, restlessness will increase. Because what has been repressed will start surfacing; catharsis will begin. The rubbish you have kept hidden within and never allowed to express—meditation will break open those doors too. It will clean the house. Dust piled up for years, for births, will rise again; there will be gusts and storms. For a while even the little peace you had will be lost. Then you will panic: “I came for peace, and even what I had is gone.” Without patience, you could even become unhinged, because meditation brings such a great storm. The disease is not from a day or two; it’s from lifetimes. Meditation will break through all the layers to reach your innermost core. In…
Osho, in devotion the remembrance of the Name is greatly praised. In this context there is a popular couplet: “Keep chanting the name of Ram as long as there is breath in the body. Someday the Compassionate One will catch the hint in his ear.” Why doesn’t the Compassionate One listen quickly?
A mother is talking to her son. A new baby is due; nine months are complete. The mother is preparing the boy for the new guest in the house—this is necessary. The little boy… she tells him: You should be very happy. Your new brother is coming. From God’s house, your new brother is coming! But the child looks a little sad and a bit upset. The mother asks: What is it? Why are you upset and sad? Aren’t you happy that your new brother is coming? He says, No—because every day I pray to God that this time I should not get a brother. Send a little horse. It seems my prayer was not heard. Now no brother and such—I don’t want that. I want a horse. And he says to his mother, If it’s not too much trouble for you, then a horse… even now if something can…