If you talk about truth the mediocre mind understands it intellectually but does not understand it totally.
He says: Yes, I can understand what you are saying but still I miss something. What do you mean? The word is heard, but the meaning is lost. He finds that he can understand intellectually, he is an educated man, he may be a graduate, a Ph.D. even. He understands whatsoever you are saying because he understands language, but he feels that something is being lost.
He understands the word, but the word is not the message. The message is something subtle: it can come with the word, but it is not the word.
The word is like a flower and the meaning is like a fragrance that surrounds it. If your nose is not functioning well I can give you a flower but I cannot give you the fragrance.
If your mind is not functioning totally I can give you the word but I cannot give you the meaning, because the meaning has to be detected by you, decoded by you. I can give you the flower because that is not a problem, but how can I give you the fragrance? If your nose is not functioning, if your nose is dead, insensitive, then nothing can be done — I can give you a thousand and one flowers but the fragrance will not happen.
The mediocre man understands the word but misses the meaning. He goes on listening to Tao — if there is a man of Tao he has a certain attraction towards him, he feels that there is something. A little aware, he suspects that there is something but he cannot be certain. He understands and yet he understands not.
Many people come to me and say: Whatsoever you say, we understand, but nothing happens. We have understood everything you have said, we have read your books many, many times, we have underlined almost every line — but nothing is happening.
I can give you the flower, but how can I give you the fragrance? You have to cleanse your nose, you have to become more sensitive. And that is where meditation can be helpful, it makes you more sensitive, more alert. And by and by you start feeling — not only understanding, you start feeling.
When I say something about love, you understand the word, you understand what I am saying, but your heart doesn't respond. How can you understand something about love if your heart doesn't respond? A feeling is needed. I don't mean that you should become sentimental, no. Sentimentality is not feeling; sentimentality is a false coin.
There are people who can weep and cry for nothing and they think they are the feeling types. They are not. They are sentimental. Sentimentality is not feeling. Feeling is a very mature quality; sentimentality is a very immature quality.
A man of feeling will do something; a man of sentimentality will create even more trouble. For example, if somebody is ill, or somebody is dying, the man of feeling will rush to the hospital, and will try to help the man who is dying. The man of sentimentality will start crying and weeping. He will create more trouble for the dying man — he will not even allow him to die in silence.
Sentimentality is a chaos; feeling is a very, very substantial growth. When I talk about love, if you have feeling, then not only your head understands but your heart starts throbbing in a different way. Then the fragrance reaches you.
Meditations can help you — they will throw out all the dust and dirt that you have collected within you, that is stopping your sensitivity.
OSHO
