Why is God said to be indescribable?

Why is god said to be indescribable?

Those who know talk about methods how god can be known. Those who don't know try to prove god, they offer proofs saying, "Here, this is the proof. God exists this way. He has one thousand hands or four hands or three heads." All these are foolish statements. His hands cannot be measured in a thousand hands. Three heads will not be enough because all heads are his, and all hands are his. And not only hands that exist today. Hands that do not yet exist are also his. Those that exist today are his, and those that exist in the infinite future are also his. How can it be expressed in a thousand hands? And not only man's hands are his, the hands of birds and animals are his too. Branches of trees, these hands of trees are also his. Everything is his. How can this vastness fit in…

Question: First question: Osho, why is the divine called ineffable? Everything in life is ineffable. The divine is the totality of life. When every single thing in life is ineffable, then the sum of all will be supremely ineffable. Can you define love? Someone may ask, “What is love?” And it is not that you have not known love. Perhaps the monsoon hasn’t poured, but a drizzle has surely touched you. In some way, by some door, a little taste of love has been felt. You must have known a friend’s love, a husband’s, a wife’s, a son’s, a mother’s, a father’s. From somewhere or other a ray of love must have descended, for without a ray of love no one can live. There has been a recognition, a small window has opened. But if someone asks, “What is love?” you will be struck dumb. What will you say?

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…

We cannot define even such little things. And we ask what God is! We cannot define the color yellow, or the good, or beauty; we ask, what is God? All these indefinables—the totality of all indefinables—is God. The sum of all that cannot be defined is God. Hence when Buddha entered a village, a disciple went ahead ringing a bell announcing: the Buddha has set aside eleven questions—do not ask them. Don’t ask “What is God?” All the indefinables were included in those eleven. Ask anything else, he would say—just not these. Many asked him: but these seem the very questions worth asking, and you forbid them! Then what is left? Don’t ask about God, about soul, about liberation—he removed all your philosophical questions. Then what should we ask? Buddha said: better you ask how God can be realized. Ask how God can be known.

Osho, why can the Supreme Beloved not be defined? If something can be experienced, why can it not be expressed?

We could conduct this experiment with a child: the child is born and we remove all the fibers that sense sweetness—plastic surgery, excise them, peel the tongue. Then tell him, “The sugar drop is sweet.” He will say, “Say something more; this doesn’t help. What do you mean by sweet? What does ‘sweet’ mean?” You too would be baffled: what is there to explain about “sweet”? “Sweet is sweet!” He will say, “That solves nothing—that’s mere repetition. ‘Sweet is sweet’—what did that clarify? Please explain.” How will you explain? No; there are experiences, and yet they cannot be defined. And those experiences that can be defined only mean this much: they are common experiences—everyone shares them. But the experience of the divine is supremely uncommon. It happens, once in a great while, to a rare individual. Understand the plight of that rare one. He has known—now how to tell you?…