Dialogue

Osho, by our asking questions day after day, will a dialogue someday happen? And will that dialogue someday become understanding?

I am giving a few toys to your mind so that the mind gets occupied there and your consciousness becomes still. As we do with small children: they are making a fuss, creating a racket, we hand them a toy. For a little while they sit in a corner absorbed in the toy, and the household gets a little respite. If what I am saying were answers, you could memorize them and the matter would be finished. But they are not answers. No one has ever given answers. The enlightened ones only erase your questions; they do not give answers. They cleanse your questions so that the mind becomes empty. The questions are within you; if now you also start hoarding my answers, the crowd will only grow. You were already quite troubled—harassed by questions; now you will be harassed by answers. Your trouble will continue. No—listen. And when I…

Your second question: "I recall hearing you say recently that dialogue between an enlightened and an unenlightened person is not possible, and between two enlightened people, not necessary. Zen seems to be an existential dialogue -- the ultimate form of communication, whether those on either end of the exchange are enlightened or not. Would you comment?"

Your question is again mixed. Half of it is right: Zen is an existential dialogue, but not between the enlightened and the unenlightened -- that is an impossibility. One who knows and one who does not know cannot have any kind of communication. It is just like you are fast asleep and somebody else is talking to you. Now, between the asleep and the awakened, what kind of dialogue...? But between two awakened, two enlightened persons, dialogue -- although unnecessary -- is possible. Unnecessary, because they have nothing to convey to each other; they both know it. But Zen is a very youthful, joyous approach to reality; they go on playing with each other. Their play is a joy for those who can understand even the playfulness. They may not understand the meaning of it.... Your idea that it happens whether those on either end of the exchange are enlightened…

Osho, questions arise—and for many of them the answers also come. What is all this?

Girls want people to tell them they are beautiful. A handful of fools to say it—that’s all it takes—and you’ll always find such fools loitering on the seafront; no matter what she looks like—even if she resembles Kali of Calcutta, motherly and forbidding—some fool will still exclaim, “Ah, what beauty!” It feels good when someone says, “You are intelligent!” You gather your self-image from others’ borrowed opinions. You ask their questions and paste on their answers. You call this your knowledge. All of it stale and borrowed... No—no one else can give you knowledge. No one else can answer your questions. The one who truly wishes you well, who truly wants you to become a flame of life, will tell you: the answer to every one of your questions is within you. Therefore the way is to sit silently and go inward. And a moment comes, as you keep finding…

Osho, you say the same thing in countless ways. But when I listen to you, it feels as if I am hearing it for the first time. And I feel so much joy that I don’t feel like going back home. What should I do—what can I do—so that I can just keep listening to you!

You will feel as if you have been made to rise out of season, before time—as if you were not yet to go and yet had to go. And if you go in that way, your home will become even more desolate than before. I do not want to make your home desolate; I want to make your home a temple. I want that when you go home, your home’s new form is revealed. I do not want to tear you away from home, from the world, from family life. That is the newness of my sannyas: I do not want to sever you from the world; I want to join you to the world in such a way that your connection with the world becomes a connection with the Divine. Let the world no longer be a barrier between you and the Divine; let it become a means. If…