According to Osho, he is widely misunderstood because anyone who challenges deep-rooted traditions and power structures provokes fear and resistance; negativity shouts while love stays silent, creating the illusion of majority. He sees this misunderstanding as a compliment and a sign of impact, trusts that if his words are true they will prevail with time, and if false they will fall away.
When you speak uncomfortable truth, loud critics drown out many silent supporters, but real truth wins slowly.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHY ARE YOU SO WIDELY MISUNDERSTOOD? It is the way of human progress. Whenever there is someone who says something against the tradition, against the establishment -- political or religious -- he is bound to be misunderstood. But that is not something new. You can look as far back as possible and you will always find a few people being misunderstood. But those are the few people who have brought you to civilization, to culture; you owe all your consciousness and growth to that small group of people. Socrates was misunderstood. We do not know the people who misunderstood him. We do not know the judges who pronounced his death sentence; they have all been forgotten. But Socrates' name will remain till the last human being remains on the earth, for the simple reason he stood against the whole mob, the whole old traditional, superstitious mind, single-handed.
Osho, Why is it that the public always misunderstands you?
The next day the son did exactly as his father had instructed. Sons are obedient—‘the tradition of the Raghu lineage has always been to obey the father.’ Even King Rama followed his father’s word, though his father was speaking pure nonsense. If he had used even a little intelligence, he would have refused: this is not fit to be obeyed. But Rama went, and this is only Nasruddin’s poor boy; he said, “All right.” He cheated. The next day he came first. He was very happy, walking home. He hadn’t fought, his clothes were neat and clean, and he was bringing a certificate that he had stood first in class. But without a word, Nasruddin beat him again! The boy burst out, “Now this is really messed up. Why are you beating me? My clothes aren’t torn, I didn’t get into a fight, and today I stood first!” Nasruddin said,…
Question: , WHY ARE PEOPLE SO MUCH AGAINST YOU? Look at the stupidity of the world! You don't send a journalist to report about a surgeon if he does not know anything about surgery -- or do you? If there is going to be a conference of surgeons, you send somebody who is well acquainted with the world of surgery; only he can report. If physicists are meeting, papers are read and discussed and you send somebody, you have to send an expert who knows what physics is. And modern physics is a very very evolved phenomenon; it needs years of studies. One has to be a physicist. You can't depend on a general journalist who goes on reporting about mediocre politicians and their stupid speeches.
It is present in many ways. It is present in the population. The growing population is growing death. It is present in the nuclear weapons in the world, the growing nuclear weapons mean there is not much hope if man does not change. They have already so much nuclear weapons that they can kill humanity seven hundred times. And in the West, in America, in Africa, a new disease AIDS is spreading which has no cure. It is spreading fast, like wildfire. It is out of homosexuality and sexual perversions. You can get it so easily -- it is not that you need a sexual contact, just kissing somebody the saliva is a carrier of it. Just wiping a tear of somebody, the tear is a carrier of it. And even children are born with the disease.
Why is there so much misunderstanding in the world?
Now the same sentence takes a new meaning, just the contrary to the first. The meaning is that man is free. That man can be whatsoever he chooses to be. That man is a kind of god. That nobody decides for man, man has to decide for himself. That man's decision has to come from his own soul. What he is going to write on the tabula rasa is his own writing, there will be his own signature. Man has individuality. No mango tree has any individuality. No peacock has any individuality -- all peacocks are alike, and all mango trees. But man has uniqueness, individuality. There is great hope. Now see? The meaning has turned just to the opposite polarity. I have come across a third interpretation too. For others it means: Everything is permissible to man. And with that they abandon all restraint, they become licentious. They say,…