Why does everyone understand teachings in their own way?

Osho, why does everyone here understand you in his own way?

Leeladhar, IT IS JUST NATURAL -- TATHATA. How can it be otherwise? Everybody has to understand me in his own way, because everybody has a mind -- and right now the understanding is happening through the mind. When mind disappears then of course everybody will understand in my way. Then there will be no problem, then there will be no question. Then there will be no need for me to say anything -- I will be sitting in silence, you will be sitting in silence, and we will enjoy silence; there will be communion, a heart-to-heart communion. But right now you have minds and there is no other way for me to communicate with you. And one has to accept this: that when you are communicating with minds you have to accept that they will understand differently, they will understand in their own way. Each mind is different. And here…

Why do I misunderstand you, Osho, continuously?

THAT IS NATURAL. Understanding will be a surprise -- misunderstanding is not a surprise. You are bound to misunderstand me because you ARE. You will understand me only when you are not. That 'I' is the cause of all misunderstanding. [t remains between me and you. It do- i not allow me to say what I am saying -- it interprets, it colours it, it distorts, it chooses, it adds, it deletes -- it docs a thousand and one things, and only then does it allow it to go in. And by the time it reaches you it is something totally different. It is not what was said to you: it is something that your mind has made out of it. You will have to disappear if you want to understand me. Less than that won't do. Lorenzo was extolling the virtues of his newly adopted homeland. "This is-a great-a…

Osho, this Zen master is echoing the words of Master Jesus. When Jesus spoke, the first thing he would say to his disciples was: “If you have ears, then hear; if you have eyes, then see; if you have understanding, then understand.” Or he would say, “Let those who have eyes, see; and those who have ears, hear.” Everyone who came to listen had ears. Everyone sitting before him had eyes. What could Jesus have meant?

Magidh said, “All that is in the scriptures is no more than the alphabet; everything is contained in it. And when I had recited it fully, I said to God, ‘Now You put it in order. You know my prayer. Here is the alphabet; You arrange it.’ And He arranged it—the prayer was complete.” If the heart is present, the alphabet becomes the Vedas. Without heart, even the Vedas are no more than the alphabet. If the mind is without thought, there is no need of mantras. In a thoughtless mind, even A, B, C becomes mantra. In a mind full of thought, no mantra is of use. Chant Om as much as you like—on the surface you repeat Om, but inside your desires are racing. Your desires warp your Om. Their smoke is so dense that the lamp of Om cannot burn there. This master rightly tells his disciples:…

Why can't one religion understand an other religion's approach to reality? Why is there so much conflict and misunderstanding?

Language conveys and yet does not convey. What to say about the other reality -- which nobody knows, and about which those who know keep silent? Those who know go on saying that nothing can be said about it. But for the people who have not known, some maps have to be drawn, some words have to he created, some structures have to be made, some guidelines have to be given. Those guidelines are what Hinduism is, Islam is, Christianity is. Different people have drawn them in different ways. For example, if five persons are sent into a forest to describe the forest and they come back, do you think they will bring the same message and the same picture from the same forest? No, the painter will bring a painting, and the poet will bring a song. And the biologist will bring something else, the chemist something else again,…

Osho, why do all the buddhas say the same thing?

TRUTH IS ONE. Even if it is said differently, it is the same truth. Languages may differ, metaphors may differ parables may differ, but if you really look a little deep, then al parables, all languages, all metaphors, culminate in one truth. TRUTH is one -- what can Buddhas do? Although each Buddha speaks in his own way, and his expression has HIS signature on it. His expression is just his and nobody else's. But still those who can see will always find that it is the same diamond -- maybe we have been shown only one aspect of it by Krishna, another aspect by Christ, still another by Mohammed, but those are aspects of the same diamond. The diamond is one, this universe is one -- and all the Buddhas have been saying the same thing, in different languages, in different ways. Those differences come from their individualities, not…