Things only feel long or short, heavy or light, good or bad when you compare them to something else.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
What is the theory of relativity?
I am not a physicist, I am not a scientist. But I can tell you two stories that will show what the theory of relativity is: I am a story-teller. I have heard that when Hitler came to inspect one of the concentration camps and the inmates were standing at attention, he was interested to get an idea of their weight. He picked out three, and scales were brought. The first turned out to be five kilos, the second seven kilos and the last eleven kilos, upon which Hitler responded, "There's a chubby one!" This is what the theory of relativity is. No statement in itself has any meaning; it has meaning only in context and contrast with some other statement. The theory of relativity is a very complicated thing. It is said that while Albert Einstein was alive, only twelve persons in the world were able to understand it.…
Osho, doesn’t that which is absolute also become relative in relation to the relative?
It does not. It does not, because—what does “relative” mean? That which is other than the absolute. No, no! Here is the real difficulty: not “other than the absolute.” The relative does not mean separate from the absolute. Relative means that for its experience a second is needed. Understand this clearly: for its experience, the other is required. It cannot be experienced on its own; it can only ever be a relative experience. For example, I say, “This water is hot.” The word “hot” can never be absolute, because without “cold” it has no existence. It could even happen that I warm up one hand and cool the other on ice; then I put both hands into the same water, and to one hand the water feels hot, to the other it feels cold. That is the relative. The same water, the same vessel, one hand warm and one cold—when…
Beloved Osho, I've been here with you now for two weeks, and find myself not thinking or talking about the place and the people I was with before. If feels as if I have been here for three months or more, so many things have happened. How come that time loses all its meaning when we are with you?
Time is a relative phenomenon. It is nothing absolute, so in different contexts it will have different meanings. You are in pain -- time will look longer. Your tooth is hurting -- seconds will look like minutes, minutes will look like hours. It depends how much the tooth is hurting! In pain you want to finish it, finish this pain, somehow to get rid of it. You don't want to prolong it, so time seems to be long. Christians have never been able to explain why their hell is eternal, and they cannot explain it because the grounds on which they have made it eternal are foolish. If it is punishment, then it is absolutely impossible to prove that somebody has committed so many sins that his punishment is going to be eternal. Bertrand Russell, one of the genius minds of our times, wrote a book, WHY I AM NOT…
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…
Subhuti was one of buddha's disciples. He was able to understand the potency of emptiness -- the viewpoint that nothing exists except in its relationship of subjectivity and objectivity. One day, when subhuti was sitting under a tree in a mood of sublime emptiness, flowers began to fall around him. 'we are praising you for your discourse on emptiness,' the gods whispered to him. 'but I have not spoken of emptiness,' said subhuti. 'you have not spoken of emptiness, we have not heard emptiness,' responded the gods. 'this is true emptiness.' and blossoms showered upon subhuti like rain.
Ego has never felt powerful. It only dreams of power, it thinks of power, it contemplates on power -- but those are simply dreams and nothing else. And dreams are there just to hide the impotence that is within you. But dreams cannot hide the reality. Whatsoever you do, from here or from there, from a loophole, again the reality comes in and shatters all dreams. Ego is the most impotent thing in the world. But nobody realizes it, because it goes on asking for more, it never gives you a space to look at the situation. Before you become aware, it pushes you further and further somewhere. Always the goal is somewhere near the horizon. And it is so near you think, By the evening I will reach. The evening never comes; the horizon remains always at the same distance. The horizon is an illusion; all the goals of…