What is the difference between fact and truth?

Osho, what is the first experience of samadhi like?

You will know only when it happens. It cannot be said; at most a few hints can be given. It is as if, in the dark, a lamp is suddenly lit. Or as if a dying patient, right at the edge of death, suddenly finds a medicine that works; life’s wave, life’s thrill spreads again—so it is. As if a corpse becomes alive—such is the first experience of samadhi. It is the taste of nectar. The experience of the ultimate music. But it will be only when it happens; and only then will you understand. You will not understand by my saying it. It is as with love. How can anyone explain it? To someone who has never loved, never known love, no matter how many explanations you offer—he will hear it all and still ask, “I haven’t understood; please explain a little more.” It is like explaining light to…

There is a knife, a blade. Boys play with it; we warn them, "Hey, you'll get hurt." When they do get hurt, from their experience we too understand that if you fool around with a knife you get cut. So that counts as truth, doesn't it? From their experience I have learned that this is what happens when you play with a knife.

That is not Truth; it is only a fact. A fact, not Truth. It is merely a fact that if a knife strikes you, you are wounded. That is a fact. When a knife and a hand collide, pain begins—that is a fact. In some situations, the collision of knife and hand can also remove pain. If there is a boil, cutting with a knife can relieve the pain—that is another fact. The meaning of Truth… let me tell you an incident; it will make it clear. In the last world war, in France, a prisoner was injured in his leg. The pain was so intense that they kept him unconscious. At night they operated and amputated the entire leg. In the morning, when he regained consciousness, he started saying again, “My big toe is hurting terribly.” There was no toe. The doctors were very puzzled: how can there be…

Because I am only a beginner in the search for reality, could you define for me the four terms: truth, god, spiritual, fact.

Ken Jones, if you are only a beginner in the search, please come back, don't go ahead. Don't become more of an expert in the spiritual search, because the experts are the losers. Don't become more knowledgeable, become more innocent. Drop all that you know, forget all that you know. Remain wondering, but don't transform your wondering into questions, because once the wonder is changed into a question, sooner or later the question will bring knowledge. And knowledge is a false coin. From the state of wonder, there are two paths. One is of questioning -- the wrong path -- it leads you into more and more knowledge. The other is not of questioning but enjoying. Enjoy the wonder, the wonder that life is, the wonder that existence is, the wonder of the sun and the sunlight and the trees bathed in its golden rays. Experience it. Don't put in…

When the self as consciousness, which is truth, knowledge, infinity, and bliss, devoid of all its attributes, shines like pure gold freed from all its forms such as a bangle and a crown, it is called twam or thou.the brahman is truth, infinity and knowledge. That which is indestructible is truth. And that which does not perish even after the destruction of space, time, et cetera, is called the avinashi, the imperishable.

There is a dialogue, a deep dialogue between my existence and existence itself, a constant dialogue, a continuity every moment: the incoming breath, the outgoing breath. I am constantly linked with the universe, with existence. If we take two points, between these two points the dialogue continues. One point is "I," and the other point -- the total -- is "thou." A non-religious mind, a material mind, will say that the dialogue is not between "I" and "thou," the dialogue is between "I" and "that," because the world is just a thing; it is not a person. And really, if the world is just a thing and it is not a person, then there can be no dialogue, there can be no intimacy. But if the whole world is just a thing, then myself -- I myself cannot be a person; this "I" is also a thing. This is what…

Beloved Osho, you spoke the other night about honest truth. Mystics have often spoken of the "ultimate truth." can the truth be anything other than ultimate?

Mahavira says that truth itself is relative: he has no ultimate truth. Buddha has no ultimate truth. Again the difficulty is that Mahavira and Buddha can be misunderstood when they say that there is no ultimate truth but that every truth is relative: it can be one thing in one situation, it can be another thing in another situation, and because it is related to situations it cannot have any ultimacy. This goes against all the great mystics. Only Mahavira and Buddha, two people... But I know both, and I understand both better than their own followers, because none of their followers have been able to make any sense out of it: either all the mystics are wrong, or Buddha and Mahavira are wrong! I say nobody is wrong. What Mahavira says is that truth has seven aspects, and Buddha says that truth has four aspects. They are really referring…