558

That’s what I am doing every day. That’s the only possible thing to do. All statements are lies; truth remains unstated. Truth cannot be reduced to a statement; it cannot be reduced to a formula. It is vast! How can you reduce it to a statement? The moment you state anything about truth, the very expression becomes a barrier. Words cling around truth like chains.

Truth can only be transferred in silence. Those who really listen to me don’t listen to what I say, they listen to what I am. They listen to the gaps, they listen to the intervals. Words are not important, but there are small gaps between words and the meeting between me and you happens in those gaps. Those gaps are of meditation. Slowly, slowly, words move on the periphery and my meeting, my communion, with you becomes the central phenomenon. Words are there, just distant, on the periphery. Silence starts happening.

If you fall silent listening to me, then you have listened to me. If listening to me your mind stops and there are moments when there are no thoughts, all is still and quiet, then you have been listening to me. Hearing me is one thing; listening to me is quite another. Those who come near to me for the first time, they hear. Those who stay with me for a longer time, slowly, slowly the transformation happens and hearing starts changing into listening.

Listening is non-verbal. Then my presence is listened to; then something is bridged between me and you. My heart and your heart start beating together in one rhythm. Then it is a song, a dance of energies. This is what in the East is called satsang – being in the presence of the master. It is not a verbal communication at all.

Then why do I go on speaking? Why can’t I sit silently here? You will not be able to absorb that much silence. You can absorb it only in homeopathic doses, just once in a while. And my words help. They don’t state the truth, but they help, they indicate; they are fingers pointing to the moon. They are not the moon themselves, just fingers pointing to the moon, arrows. Don’t be obsessed by the fingers, don’t start clinging to the fingers, don’t start worshipping the fingers –because that is how you will miss the moon. Forget the fingers and look at the moon. That moon is silence, utter silence, where not even a single word has ever been uttered.

You have that space inside you. I have become one with it. You are not one with it, but moving with me, flowing with me, hearing my words, listening to my silences, once in a while it happens. And those moments are of grace. In those moments you have the first taste of God. Slowly, slowly, you will become more and more capable. That’s why I go on speaking.

And then, new people are always coming; I have to speak for them. The older ones, slowly, slowly will not be bothered by my words. Hearing will disappear completely. They will listen to my words just as they listen to the sound of a waterfall; they will not search for any meaning in them, they will not search for any truth in them. They will not search even for any coherence in them. They will not be constantly looking into consistency, contradiction, logic, illogic – no, all these things by and by disappear. They will listen to my words as they listen to the songs of the birds, or the wind passing through the pine trees. You don’t ask what the meaning is, you simply listen, and in listening you become that sound passing through the pine trees, you become that wind.

Whatsoever I say is a device, so it is a lie. Truth has never been said, cannot be said. Truth is unutterable. But you can listen to it. It is unutterable, it can’t be said, but it can be listened to. Let me repeat: it cannot be uttered, but it can be listened to. You can catch hold of it – in silence, in love, in communion. I am not able to say it, but you are able to listen to it; hence, this device of talking to you every morning, year in, year out. This is just a waterfall: listen to it, don’t remain just hearing.

I am so contradictory by arrangement. I manage it, because if I am very consistent, you will never be able to listen to me, you will go on hearing me. I am so contradictory that sooner or later you are tired. You say, “What is the point? This man is going to say one thing this morning and tomorrow he is going to contradict it.” Seeing it happening again and again… You will cling to my statement and then tomorrow I contradict it, I have to contradict it. Whenever I see that somebody is clinging somewhere to any of my statements, I have to contradict it immediately to relieve him of the burden, to relieve him of his clinging, to relieve him of the words that he has accumulated inside himself.


So I will go on, zigzag, contradicting myself a thousand and one times. Slowly, slowly, the understanding dawns on you that there is no point in clinging to any words of this man, there is no need to bother about what he says. But by that time, you have fallen in love with me. By that time you are in a totally different kind of relationship with me than you have ever been with anybody else. By that time, you have started enjoying my presence. By that time, you have started imbibing me. By that time you have started feeling the nourishment. Now you don’t care what I say: now you care more that I am. Then listening has started.

And you will understand me only by listening. You will understand me only when you have forgotten all about understanding what I am saying. All statements are lies. What Lao Tzu says is true. He says: Tao cannot be said, and the moment you say it you have betrayed it. He is absolutely true. Truth is so infinite and words are so finite. Only when you have something infinite in you… Silence is infinite, unbounded, it can contain truth. Love is infinite, unbounded, it can contain truth. Trust is infinite, unbounded, it can contain truth.

Be natural, spontaneous, here with me. Be in the moment, as if all time and space has disappeared, as if the whole world has stopped. The mind has stopped, and suddenly there is truth in all its radiance, grandeur, splendor.

It is here, right this moment. If you have ears, hear it. If you have eyes, see it. And if you cannot see it, and if you cannot hear it, then don’t go on clinging here unnecessarily. I am in a hurry – I don’t want any weeds here. I will find every possible means and ways to drop people who are just sitting here like rocks. Either throb with me, or get lost. Either be with me, or don’t be here – because I mean to do business!