OSHO
EVERY TIME WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME, “WHAT IS OSHO IN YOUR LIFE?”
I ANSWER THAT YOU ARE MY MASTER.
BUT THE PEOPLE DON’T UNDERSTAND, EVEN IF I TRY TO EXPLAIN. WHAT IS THE REASON FOR IT? WHY CAN’T I EXPLAIN IT WITH SUCCESS?
Life is beautiful because there is so much which cannot be explained.
It would have been a disaster if life consisted only of things which can be explained.
Just think for a moment: if everything could be explained, then there would be no mystery, then there would be no poetry, then there would be no secret. Then everything would be utterly flat and boring.
Life is not a boredom because there are dimensions in it that you can go on exploring, yet you can never come to explanations. You can experience much, yet even that which you have experienced cannot be translated into words.
You fall in love. Since the very first man, millions of people must have fallen in love; yet love is still a mystery, you cannot reduce it to knowledge. The moment you try to reduce to knowledge, it slips out of your hands. And it is good that it is so miraculous that generation after generation, millions of people go through the experience; they know what it is, yet they cannot say what it is.
All that can be experienced is not necessarily explainable, and all that can be explained is not necessarily experienceable.
Mathematics can be explained easily, but there is no corresponding experience. Science can be explained easily, but even the greatest scientist is not transformed by his knowledge. But an anonymous poet not only gives birth to poetry, he also goes through a deep revolution, a rebirth. His poetry is not just a composition of words; it is the juice of his very life.
The greatest poets have not been able to explain their own poetry.
People ask you what the relationship is between you and me. Just to say that I am your master neither satisfies them nor satisfies you. How can it satisfy them when it does not satisfy even you? — because it is not just a relationship like somebody is your father and somebody is your mother and somebody is your brother. Once you have said that somebody is your father, everything is explained. Nobody bothers you anymore, that `What do you mean by father?’ and….
The relationship with the master is not of the same category as all other relationships. It is intrinsically different.
It is love, but not only love.
It is love with a center of trust.
Love alone is unexplainable, and now it has joined hands with an even greater mystery. Trust is absolutely something of another world.
In this world, there is distrust in everybody. Even in people who love each other, there is no trust. There are friends who can, if there is need, die for each other — but there is no trust.
When love is joined with trust, it becomes even more difficult to explain it. It becomes more mysterious.
And thirdly, as love and trust grow to their optimum, something comes which can only be called `surrender’. It is not a good word, but there is no other word as a substitute.
Surrender makes the whole thing absolutely not of this world. You cannot give any reason, you cannot give any explanation. The only way is: whoever asks, tell him that it is something like a thirsty man finding water in the desert. His every fiber is just thirst, and the water quenches all thirst. A great peace descends.
The master is not a person.
The master is only a presence.
If you are thirsty enough for the unknown, you can drink out of this presence and be quenched.
Anybody who asks you the question, tell him, “Come with me. There are a few things which cannot be explained, but I can take you to the place where perhaps you may also experience them. Your question itself shows that there is some interest in you — perhaps a deep, hidden desire. Who knows? — it may become aflame in the presence of the master. Who knows? — surrounded by disciples and their love and their trust and their surrender, and the presence of the master, something may transpire in you. One thing is certain: if something transpires in you, you will become dumb the way I am dumb.”
Accept your dumbness, but create a quest in the person who is asking only for a verbal answer. Use that situation. A verbal answer is of no use. You just say, “I have experienced something, which is untranslatable into any language, but I can take you to the river. You yourself can drink. Your experience will be the only explanation.”
And I repeat again: Life is beautiful because there are so many unexplainable dimensions to it. That is its richness. If everything is explained, all juice will be lost; you will be fed up, bored to death with a life which is explained.
What transpires between a master and a disciple is one of the peaks of unexplainable experiences. Don’t destroy it with any explanation.
It is a crime to destroy the unexplainable by bringing it to the level of explanations, because you have killed. It is almost like a bird on the wing in the sky… it is so beautiful in its freedom; the whole sky belongs to him, all the stars belong to him… no limits, no barriers. You can catch hold of the bird; you can make a beautiful golden cage and you can put the bird in the cage. But remember, it is not the same bird that was flying in freedom in the sky under the stars. Factually it is the same bird, but spiritually no — because where is the freedom and where are the stars? Where is the sky? Your golden cage cannot replace what you have taken away from the bird. It has lost its soul.
The same happens when you try to explain something which is unexplainable. You bring it into the cage of language, of words — beautiful words, but the soul has disappeared.
Don’t do it. I know it feels a little awkward when somebody asks and you cannot answer — you feel embarrassed.
It is better to feel embarrassed. But don’t commit a crime against the mysteries of life. Tell the person, “I am feeling embarrassed because I cannot say it. Not that I don’t want to say it — I would have loved to say it to you but I cannot, because saying it means killing it. I can take you to the window from where you can see the open sky, I can take you to the man. Perhaps your heart will start dancing in the same way my heart dances within me. And in deep silence, you will understand what it means to me.
But only when it starts to mean something to you.”
People will be asking you many questions. Use their questions to invite them towards the same light, towards the same bliss, towards the same truth.
Don’t answer — because you cannot answer, and whatever you say will fall flat.
Resist the temptation of being knowledgeable. Accept your inarticulateness. But invite the person.
Perhaps out of ten, one may turn up. And one never knows — by coming here, he may turn on!
OSHO