What happens when I share the truth with others who do not understand it?

Osho, what we see in you others do not see. Why is it so? Must one accumulate something over many lives for this?

Each person has a different journey, a different bent, a different vision. To some, music is beloved; to others, it is only noise. Some have the capacity to experience beauty; others have nothing in their hearts but stone. One overflows with love’s spring; another is dry. No two people are the same—nor can they be. Yet, unconsciously, we keep trying to have everyone feel the same, perceive the same. That is impossible. And the higher the experience, the more impossible it becomes. On the lower plane there may be some agreement—on the marketplace level, perhaps a consensus. But in the heights of the sky, our privacy and each person’s unique capacity manifest fully. So what you see in me need not be seen by another. Surely, you have earned something over many lives, polished your eyes, guarded your recognition; hence today you see. Even in thick darkness you can recognize…

Osho, you say one thing and people understand something else. Why?

Narottam! If it were otherwise, that would be the surprise. You speak; the listener carries his past, his memory, his vested interests. The words are yours, but the meanings will be his. You cannot claim ownership over the meanings. Say what you have to say, but he will hear what he wants to hear—and even from that hearing, he will extract only the meaning he wants to extract. So don’t be annoyed. Present your point; then let him understand whatever he understands. What will you do? What can you do? If you say something more, he will take that too to mean something else. There is no end to it. Often it happens that you want to say something—with goodwill, with love, with compassion—and when you see the other has understood it all wrong, it hurts deeply. It feels as if he is being dishonest knowingly, as if he is…

Beloved Osho, you said to us this week that we should not concern ourselves with others. But most of us from the west have friends and relatives with whom we would like to share what we've found. What should we tell them about sannyas? What should we tell them about you? How can we explain the unexplainable?

But sannyas cannot be categorized. It is not a category. It is such an altogether different quality of being, there exists no category for it. It cannot be analyzed, it cannot be broken into fragments. It is not a mechanism; you cannot break it, take the pieces apart and put them together again. No, it is an organic unity. If you analyze it, it is no longer there, and you can never put it back together again. It is impossible. Sannyas is a live force -- organic, just like a flower. Analyze the flower, take each petal away, break it, look inside it, be satisfied that you have inquired, then try to put it back together. By that time, the flower is gone, the petals are dead and they can never be put back again in the same way, because it was an organic unity, it was not a mechanism.…

Osho, why are the common masses against you, when what you say appears to us the very truth?

The king simply slipped away, took his fastest horse and rushed as fast as it was possible, away from the palace where the dream had happened. By the evening he had gone hundreds of miles, and he was very happy that he had come so far away: "Now it will be difficult for death to find me at the place, at the fixed time." The sun was setting. He had reached the outskirts of the city of Damishk. Just to rest... because the whole day he had not eaten, he had not even taken a cup of water. Time was so precious! Thirst is not going to kill you just in one day, hunger is not going to kill you just in one day. He was going to rest in a garden just outside of the city. He went into the garden and was tying the horse to a tree,…

Osho, you say one thing, and people understand something else. How will this stop?

A very meaningful story—the story of man. When Socrates was sentenced, the judges of Athens decided: either accept death, or stop saying what you say. Choose one of the two. If you stop speaking as you do, you may live. If you continue, there is no way but death. What was Socrates saying? He was speaking of the sea—to the people of the well. And the well-dwellers are angered by talk of the sea. Socrates seemed dangerous. The court declared his crime to be this: “You corrupt people.” Socrates corrupts people! Such pure expression of truth has seldom happened as in Socrates. “You corrupt people”—that was the court’s verdict. And that court was made of Athens’ most intelligent men, its most gifted. Unanimously they judged: “You corrupt people—especially the young; the old won’t fall for your talk, they are too experienced for you to deceive.” “Old”—those who have been in…