What is the relationship between truth and words?

Question: First question: Osho, truth cannot be spoken—then why do saints speak? Words make you a student. For another kind of knowing, another kind of hearing—deeper than words—you must become a disciple. Then merely being curious will not do; you must become a yearning one for liberation. Soon you will find that even yearning is not enough; you must become a practitioner. Then you will descend, slowly, into depth. But the journey begins with words. You have come to me; for no other reason. A word called you. The first letter reached you through a word. There are people here who have come from unknown far-off lands. A book fell into their hands; somewhere a word reached them. That word stirred something within; a nectar welled up. Then they traced that word to its source and came—journeying from afar. Now further bonds can be forged.

A friend has asked: I say that truth cannot be found through words, cannot be found through scriptures, cannot be found through gurus—then why do I myself speak?

Words will never be able to. If that beloved were to set the box upon her head and start dancing, we would say, “She is mad.” But if, seeing the box, she understands that an attempt was made to send something which could not reach; if she kicks the box away and runs toward the ocean, then one day she will arrive—at that very shore where sunrays dance, where cool morning breezes blow, where the waves of the sea are in dance. But this can happen only when she kicks the box away and runs toward the place from which someone tried to bring it in a box—but could not. Only then can that beloved reach the seashore. Those who throw away the scriptures and run in the direction from which the scriptures come—they arrive at the shore where truth’s edge is, where truth’s ocean is. But we are like…

Our consciousness is a small lake, a mirror. All that is needed is not a search for truth -- because truth is everywhere, confronting you from all sides; all that is needed is to drop this constant disturbance inside, this constant inner talk, these waves upon waves of thought, this continuous traffic in the mind. When the traffic disappears and the road is empty6, suddenly one knows what truth is. It has always been there, it was just that we were not able to reflect it. In the beginning only moments of no-mind happen, just small intervals. For a second all stops and you can have a glimpse of the truth. But even those glimpses are so enriching, even those glimpses are so transforming; even those glimpses give you a mutation. You start living differently, you start living on a different plane.

Beloved Osho, what is truth? And whatever it is, why are most people not interested in it?

"Love God" -- I don't know how you are going to love God. You don't know what God looks like. You don't know from where to approach Him, which side is His face. The Indian god has three faces; from all the three sides you can approach him. The Hindu god has thousands of hands; you can hold any. But where are you going to meet these gods with thousands of hands, three heads ...? Just all junk. Nobody knows .... A small child was making a drawing. His father asked him, "What are you doing, so absorbed?" He said, "I am drawing a picture of God." The father said, "A picture of God? But nobody has seen Him, nobody knows how He looks. How can you make a picture of God?" The child said, "Just wait. Let me finish the picture and everybody will know how He looks." All…

Osho, in so many ways, in so many manners, you keep saying the same things over and over! Does truth really require so many words?

Truth requires not even a single word. Truth never reveals itself through words; it is beyond words. That is precisely why there is an attempt to say it with so many words. If you don’t understand from this angle, perhaps you will understand from that one. If not from this direction, maybe from another. If not by this pretext, then by some other. Sometimes by the pretext of Sahajo, sometimes of Daya, sometimes Mahavira, sometimes Buddha, sometimes Christ—by any pretext at all I am trying to make you understand. If you miss this time, I will find another pretext. I have to say what cannot be said; I have to tell what has no way of being told. But if I remain silent, you will never be able to understand. Truth does not fit into words, but if the blow of words keeps striking continuously, something within you begins to…