What is the nature of truth in teachings?

Why are you not consistent in your statements?

I cannot be. The purpose of my statements is totally different than that of ordinary statements. I am not telling the truth, because truth cannot be told. Then what am I doing here? If you take my statements as true or untrue, you will miss the whole point. I am using the statements to awaken you. They are neither true nor untrue. They are either useful or useless, but they have nothing to do with truth. They have a certain utility. It is just as if you are fast asleep, and I start ringing a bell; there is nothing of truth or untruth in ringing the bell. To ask the question would be utterly irrelevant. But there is something useful in it: if it helps you wake up, it has been useful. Buddha is reported to have said, "Truth is that which has utility." Truth is a device. It does…

Osho, awakened ones, considering place, time, circumstance, and the era-appropriate psychology of people, have expressed the same truth in very different forms. To the point that they appear mutually quite disputatious and even contradictory. Is an absolute expression of the ultimate truths of life and existence not possible? Will the limits of the age and the condition of the people always continue to be imposed upon truth?

Expression will always be limited. Expression will always be relative. The speaker and the listener—both create the boundaries of expression. I will say only what can be said. You will understand only what can be understood. Truth is vast. If I go to see the ocean and you say to me, “On your way back, bring a little of the ocean,” I will not be able to bring the whole ocean. I may bring a little water from it. But in that water much will be missing. There will be no storm of the ocean, no waves. And that was the real ocean: that tumultuous roar and fierce thunder! Waves crashing against cliffs! Those surges rising and spreading for miles! That swell! None of that will be there. I will bring a vessel filled with a little ocean water. Still, there will be something! If you taste it, it will…

Osho, There is a very popular verse in the Manusmriti: Satyam bruyat priyam bruyat na bruyat satyam apriyam; priyam cha nanritam bruyad esha dharmah sanatanah. Meaning: A person should speak the truth, should speak what is pleasant; one should not speak an unpleasant truth, nor should one speak a pleasant untruth. This is eternal dharma. Osho, please say something about this.

Inside, he was boiling with anger. But the wife pleaded: It’s his last hour. Please look once more—maybe there is something more to be done. So that it won’t remain on my mind that we didn’t call the physician at the end. One request: what you just said—that there’s no hope—don’t say it in front of Mulla. It will sadden him. Let him depart in quiet and peace. The doctor said: All right. He went in, took the pulse, the temperature, and smiling said: Ah, Nasruddin! At noon I feared you might not make it, but now you’re absolutely fine. In a day or two you’ll be up and about. A miracle seems to have happened. Everything is as it should be; the medicine has worked. You are fortunate—your time to go has not yet come. You’ll live ten, fifty more years. Just then the wife opened the door. A…

Osho, what is the definition of God?

Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…

Osho, the witness, the seer, consciousness is always separate—virginal and unbound. And the whole play of life is nothing but the movement of the gunas within themselves. In such a situation, if a person’s qualities of sattva, rajas, and tamas are calmed in a scientific or chemical way, or if a person is made sattvic, will he then attain that ever-free witness? If the witness is forever free and present, then by chemically altering the three gunas will it not be revealed? Would the person not then become religious? What is the fundamental difference between solving the problem arising from the

Sadhana means we are dissolving the current itself, not breaking the bulb. There is no point in breaking the bulb. In fact, the bulb is useful; it tells you whether the current is flowing or not, whether there is current or not. Your anger within tells you you are still sunk in ignorance. Lust tells you your life energies have not yet become aware. If we remove these elements, anger will stop manifesting and you will also stop knowing that you are in deep ignorance. It is as if a man is sick and we snatch away the symptoms of his disease so that he doesn’t even come to know he is ill. And keep in mind, anger is an opportunity. Only the unwise say anger is simply bad; I do not say so. Anger is an opportunity; you can use it badly or well. Anger is a chance. In…