Osho,
I realized that it is easier to become silent while listening to you than in any other meditation. When you stop talking everything seems to stop for a moment and I get a glimpse of what meditation can be! These are the most precious moments for me! Osho, why is it easier to become silent in your presence?
“The question you have raised is significant not only to you, but to many more who are not fortunate enough to be in my presence, but who will be reading these words or listening or seeing this on the video screen all over the world.
“The question arises almost for everyone, that the way I talk is a little strange. No speaker in the world talks like me – technically it is wrong; it takes almost double the time! But those speakers have a different purpose – my purpose is absolutely different from theirs. They speak because they are prepared for it; they are simply repeating something that they have rehearsed.
“Secondly, they are speaking to impose a certain ideology, a certain idea on you.
“Thirdly, to them speaking is an art – they go on refining it.
“As far as I am concerned, I am not what they call a speaker or an orator. It is not an art to me or a technique; technically I go on becoming worse every day!
“But our purposes are totally different. I don’t want to impress you in order to manipulate you. I don’t speak for any goal to be achieved through convincing you. I don’t speak to convert you into a Christian, into a Hindu or a Mohammedan, into a theist or an atheist – these are not my concerns.
My speaking is really one of my devices for meditation. Speaking has never been used this way: I speak not to give you a message, but to stop your mind functioning.
“I speak nothing prepared – I don’t know myself what is going to be the next word; hence I never commit any mistake. One commits a mistake if one is prepared. I never forget anything, because one forgets if one has been remembering it. So I speak with a freedom that perhaps nobody has ever spoken with.
“I am not concerned whether I am consistent, because that is not the purpose. A man who wants to convince you and manipulate you through his speaking has to be consistent, has to be logical, has to be rational, to overpower your reason. He wants to dominate through words….
“I will fail on all counts. First, I have no motivation to convert you; I have no desire anywhere to impress you. And I don’t remember what I have said yesterday, so I cannot bother about being consistent – that is too much worry. I can easily contradict myself, because I am not trying to have a communication with your intellectual, rational mind.
My purpose is so unique – I am using words just to create silent gaps. The words are not important so I can say anything contradictory, anything absurd, anything unrelated, because my purpose is just to create gaps.
“The words are secondary; the silences between those words are primary. This is simply a device to give you a glimpse of meditation. And once you know that it is possible for you, you have traveled far in the direction of your own being.
“Most of the people in the world don’t think that it is possible for mind to be silent. Because they don’t think it is possible, they don’t try.
“How to give people a taste of meditation was my basic reason to speak, so I can go on speaking eternally – it does not matter what I am saying. All that matters is that I give you a few chances to be silent, which you find difficult on your own in the beginning.
I cannot force you to be silent, but I can create a device in which spontaneously you are bound to be silent.
“I am speaking, and in the middle of a sentence, when you were expecting another word to follow, nothing follows but a silent gap. And your mind was looking to listen, and waiting for something to follow, and does not want to miss it – naturally it becomes silent.
“What can the poor mind do? If it was well known at what points I will be silent, if it was declared to you that on such and such points I will be silent, then you could manage to think – you would not be silent. Then you know: ‘This is the point where he is going to be silent, now I can have a little chit-chat with myself.’ But because it comes absolutely suddenly… I don’t know myself why at certain points I stop.
“Anything like this, in any orator in the world, will be condemned, because an orator stopping again and again means he is not well prepared, he has not done the homework. It means that his memory is not reliable, that he cannot find, sometimes, what word to use.
“But because it is not oratory, I am not concerned about the people who will be condemning me – I am concerned with you.
“And it is not only here, but far away…anywhere in the world where people will be listening to the video or to the audio, they will come to the same silence.
My success is not to convince you, my success is to give you a real taste so that you can become confident that meditation is not a fiction, that the state of no-mind is not just a philosophical idea, that it is a reality; that you are capable of it, and that it does not need any special qualifications.
“You may be a sinner, you may be a saint – it does not matter. If the sinner can become silent, he will attain to the same consciousness as the saint….
“Enlightenment is the only thing, the only experience where everybody is equal – equally capable. And it does not depend on your acts, it does not depend on your prayers, it does not depend on whether you believe in God or not. It depends only on one thing and that is a little taste, and suddenly you become confident that you are capable of it. My speaking is just to give you confidence. So I can tell a story, I can tell a joke – absolutely unrelated!
Every intellectual will condemn me, saying, ‘What kind of speech is this?’ But he has not understood my purpose; it is not a speech, it is not a lecture.
“It is simply a device to bring confidence to you and to your heart that you can be silent. The more you become confident, the more you will be able. Without my speaking you will start finding devices yourself.
“For example, you can go on listening to the birds, and they suddenly stop, and they suddenly start. Listen…there is no reason why this crow should make noises and then stop – it is just giving you a chance…. You can find them, once you know – even in the marketplace where there is so much noise, everything is going on, crazy….
“Your question is, ‘I realize that it is easier to become silent while listening to you.’ The reason is that you are attentive; your mind is still because you want to listen to me. When I stop, your mind cannot start quickly, and before it starts, I start again! I am watching you! I give you only this much gap, so you cannot start your taxi again; otherwise you will run against the red light, and create more chaos.
“So my speaking is not oratory; it is not a doctrine that I am preaching to you.
“It is simply an arbitrary device to give you a taste of what silence is, and to make you confident that it is not a talent – that it does not belong to any specially-qualified people, that it does not belong to long austerities, that it does not belong to those who call themselves virtuous. It belongs to all, without any conditions; you just have to become aware of it. And that’s my whole purpose in speaking to you.
Once you are certain that you can be silent, then your whole focus will change….
“And it was a surprise to me that as you become silent, as you become conscious, more alert, your actions start changing – but not vice versa. You can change your actions, but that will not make you more conscious.
“You become more conscious, and your actions will change – that’s absolutely simple and scientific. You were doing something stupid; as you become more alert and more conscious, you cannot do it….
I say only, simply be alert and conscious and silent and blissful, and everything else will follow. Alone, it will take a little time for you. As your confidence becomes more and more solid, then alone also you will be able to be silent.
“With me, to be silent is easier because of one other reason – I am silent; even while I am speaking I am silent. My innermost being is not involved at all. What I am saying to you is not a disturbance or a burden or a tension to me; I am as relaxed as one can be. Speaking or not speaking does not make any difference to me.
“Naturally, this kind of state is infectious. Seeing me, being here in my presence, looking into my eyes…even watching my hands, you can feel that they are the gestures of a silent man. Slowly, slowly you become infected, contagious; moreover, around a silent man there is a certain energy field created….”
END
Excerpted and abridged from Osho, The Invitation, Talk #14 — Silence Is The Right Soil
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