Osho will go into Silence



Osho will go into Silence
You say: Your talk seems to get more and more crazy from day to day. That's my feeling. Is the day coming closer when you will not talk at all?
It is absolutely impossible for me to predict the future. Who knows? Everything is possible! You see...? Any moment! But one thing can be said: before I stop talking completely I will start talking more and more in a crazy way. That is what I call heart-to-heart talk! zzzzz08
Can silence be heard and understood?
Only silence can be heard and understood. Words can be heard but only superficially, and can be understood--but only intellectually. Silence is heard existentially and is understood from your innermost being. It is a total understanding.
I can see why you have asked the question, because ordinarily we understand only words. We are prepared to understand only words, not silence. We are educated to understand language and all its complexities. Nobody helps us to go beyond language, to go beyond words, to reach the wordless space within us.
The society is against it, because if you can hear silence you will not be a part of the crowd mind, of the collective mind. You will become an individual immediately. And an individual is a danger to the state, to the church, to the society. An individual is always dangerous, because an individual is nothing but rebellion. His very presence is a risk for all the vested interests, for the establishment. The establishment wants you to be obedient: he wants you to understand the orders. The establishment wants you to be slaves, servants--efficient, of course, but not too intelligent; just intellectual, not intelligent.
Silence is the explosion of intelligence. Silence means: inside you, you are just spaciousness, uncluttered spaciousness. Silence means you have put aside the whole furniture of the mind--the thoughts, the desires, the memories, the fantasies, the dreams, you have all pushed aside. You are just looking into existence directly, immediately. You are in contact with existence without anything in between you and existence. That is silence.
And to be in tune with existence even for a single moment--is enough to make you aware of many things. One is that you, are deathless, and the person who is deathless cannot be forced to be a slave. He would rather like to die than to become a slave. He would rather like to risk everything than to risk his freedom because death means nothing to him....
The moment you understand that you are eternal, all fear disappears. And the society exists through exploiting your fear; hence, it teaches you from the school to the university, it devotes almost one-third of your life in learning words, language, logic. It is not concerned at all that you should understand silence. That's the function of a Master: to undo all that the society has done to you, to help you to go beyond words.
And you can experience it happening here--you can hear the silence. And when you hear it, there is immediate understanding. Understanding comes like a shadow following silence.
To understand words and to hear words is very simple. Anybody can do it; just a little education about language is needed, nothing much. But a tremendous transformation is needed to hear silence and to understand silence.... Silence is the basic requirement of understanding God, the basic requirement to know truth....
Silence can be profane too. Silence can be sacred too. Silence has as many nuances, as many dimensions as your being has. It is multidimensional, and it is tremendously pregnant.
Being here with me, being a sannyasin, can be defined very simply as learning to be silent--sitting in silence with me. I am using so many words for the simple reason so that words can give you the gaps. I can simply sit here...one day I am going to do that, when I will be just sitting with you.
It is really a torture for me to talk. I would like as quickly as possible just to sit silently with you. But if you are not ready to understand it, you will fall asleep: you will start dreaming, you will start dozing away. You will not be able to understand it.
My words keep you awake, and just between the words I give you gaps. And those are the real, essential things. Waiting for another word, you have to listen to silence. I tell you one joke, that wakes you up, then just searching for another joke.... Not that I have to search for it--I know where it is. And it does not matter much, any joke will do, I can manage--but just searching for another joke, you are awaiting breathlessly, utterly silent...even though sometimes Monkeyjibhai Desai comes with his colleagues on the roof and they start doing their thing.* But you are not distracted; in fact, those monkeys help you to become more silent, more alert, so that you cannot miss any word that I am going to say to you.
All this situation is being used to hand over to you few pieces of silence. It will look very strange to the newcomers that I am talking just to make you able to hear silence and to understand silence. But that has been always the way of the Buddhas.
The day you are ready...and slowly slowly many people are getting ready. The day is not far away when I will have enough people ready; a certain quantity is needed. Just as at a certain temperature, a hundred degrees, water evaporates, there is a certain quantity which is needed for silence. And when so many people are here, then anybody who wants to fall asleep when I am sitting silent will not be able to fall asleep either. The silence all around will go on goading him to keep alert. The silence all around will not in any way allow him to fall asleep. Silence has its own tremendous force, its own power.
So I am waiting for the right quantity--and people are coming. The moment I see that my commune has enough silent people and I can sit silently, and the newcomers will be transformed by the silent people--just sitting amongst them will be enough for them to have a taste, they will be drowned in your silence--then there will be no need for me to talk at all.
Few people have fallen asleep...for them:... (jokes) wildgs09
*Note: a group of monkeys sometimes make a noise on the roof of Buddha Hall during discourse 
Osho's Last Words before going into Silence
On 20th March 1981, Osho gives his last English discourse, and on 24th his last Hindi discourse, before going into silence. On 23rd March 1981, Osho gives his last darshan in English; his last words are:
meditation means
becoming detached from the mind
becoming a witness of the mind
looking at the mind as separate from you
that's what actually it is
you can see thoughts passing by
you can see desires passing by
you can see the whole traffic
that goes on in the mind
the memories, the fantasies, the past, the future
all kinds of things are passing
you can just stand by the side of the road
and you can see the whole traffic--you are not it
you are the watcher, you are the witness
and the witness is beyond
the seer is never the seen
the observer is never the observed
this very experience is transcendence
and once you know that you are not the mind
the fear of death simply disappears
as if it has never been there in the first place
suddenly you are in the world
of the deathless, the eternal
there is no anxiety any more
one is at ease with existence
in a deep let-go
a tremendous relaxation
that relaxation is the ultimate goal of sannyas
to know it is to know all
to miss it is to miss all clapp23
The Ultimate Stage: Silence
On 10th April there is an announcement that Osho is entering the ultimate stage of his work and that from this date he will speak only through silence. He continues to meet with his secretary.
On 11th April, darshan is held with Teertha, and Satya Vedant initiating sannyasins.
Later, a journalist asks: On April 11, 1981, it was announced in Poona that beginning May 1, 1981 you would speak only through silence and that a new phase of your work would begin. This is correct?
Osho: This is correct. One month in Poona while I was there. I was simply sitting and people were sitting by my side. Seven thousand sannyasins were living with me there. This was only one hour every day in the morning. Here also, once or twice, we have sat together. Slowly slowly, it will come again, everything, every day...it is kind of a prayer in silent communion.
This was your decision to go into this silent stage?
My decision.
Okay, how long will this silent stage continue?
It will continue.
Until when?
Until I feel again to speak. I have spoken so much that I felt I was speaking to the walls. It is almost futile.
Then you would not be able to give me a specific date in the future that you would resume speaking?
I cannot even say anything about tomorrow....
Was the silent phase of your work, so to speak, in any way connected with your medical condition?
No, not at all. I had been telling it for years, that one day I'm going to stop speaking and just communicate through silence. silent02
Why did You enter Your long stretch of silence?
I have never lived with any plan in my life. It has been something spontaneous, moment to moment. As I feel, I do it. I felt to be silent, I went into silence. I may have remained my whole life silent. There is no way to say why I started speaking again. The same spontaneity. Three and a half years silence and suddenly one day I felt that much has remained to say. I have not yet said that for which I am here. So better say it now, because who knows about tomorrow?
But it is all spontaneous. There is no reason of going into silence or coming out of silence. But those three and half years created a beautiful gap.
I was speaking for thirty years continuously. I think I deserve at least three years silence after thirty years continuously speaking....
These three and half years silence has given me another opportunity that is just a byproduct. The silence was not meant for it.
There were many people who were just hanging around me because of their intellects were convinced. My arguments were important to them although I was insisting that truth cannot be found by arguments. But they became addicted with my words, with my explanations. These three and half years, by and by they left, seeing that now I am not going to speak and silence they could not understand.
Only those remained for whom it did not matter at all whether I speak or I am silent. Just my presence, and something transpires between my being and their being. It is a wordless communion. last404
Silent Satsangs
On 1st May, Satsangs, heart to heart silent communion with Osho begin. At the beginning and end the gauchchamis are chanted; there is a period of silent meditation; the satsang ends with music singing and dancing; Osho makes a namaste on arriving and leaving.
In the tradition of Buddha there are three famous shelters: Buddham sharanam gachchhami: I go to the feet of the buddha, I surrender myself to the buddha. Sangham sharanam gachchhami: I go to the feet of the commune, I surrender myself to the buddhafield. Dhammam sharanam gachchhami: I surrender myself to the ultimate law which is personified by the buddha and is searched for by the commune, which has become actual in the buddha and is an inquiry in the commune. These three are the most important things for a seeker: the master, the commune, and the dhamma, Tao, logos, the ultimate law.
Unless you are in contact with one who has already realized, it is almost impossible for you to grow. The hindrances are millions, the pitfalls many, the false doors many, the temptations are many; there is every possibility of going astray. Unless you are in the company of someone who knows the way, who has traveled the way, who has arrived, it is almost impossible for you to reach. Unless your hands are in the hands of someone whom you can trust and to whom you can surrender, you are bound to go astray. The mind creates so many temptations--so alluring they are, so magnetic is their power--that unless you are in the power-field of someone whose magnetism is far more powerful than any other kind of temptation, it is impossible to reach. That is the meaning of disciplehood.
Buddham sharanam gachchhami: I surrender to the master.
The master is such a magnetic force that your surrender to the master becomes your protection; hence it is called the shelter. Then you are secure, then you are guarded, then you are protected. Then your hand is in those hands which know where to take you, what direction to give to you.
The second thing is the commune. Each buddha creates a commune, because without a commune a buddha cannot function. A commune means his energy field, a commune means the people who have become joined with him, a commune means an alternate society to the ordinary mundane society which goes after spurious comforts--it is there available to everybody.
A small oasis in the desert of the world is what is meant by a commune created by a buddha--a small oasis in which life is lived with a totally different gestalt, with a totally different vision, with a totally different goal; where life is lived with purpose, meaning, where life is lived with method--even though to the outsiders it may look like madness, but that madness has a method in it--where life is lived prayerfully, alert, aware, awake; where life is not just accidental, where life starts becoming more and more a growth in a certain direction, towards a certain destination; where life is no more like driftwood.
And the third is the dhamma. Dhamma means truth. Buddha represents the dhamma in two ways: one, through his communication, verbal, and second, through his presence, through his silence, through his communion: nonverbal. The verbal communication is only an introduction for the nonverbal. The nonverbal is an energy communication. The verbal is only preparatory; it simply prepares you so you can allow the master to communicate with you energywise, because energywise it is really moving into the unknown. Energywise it needs great trust, because you will be completely unaware where you are going--aware that you are going somewhere, aware that you are being led somewhere, aware that something is happening of tremendous import; but what exactly it is you don't yet have the language for, you don't have any experience to recognize. You will be moving into the uncharted.
The buddha represents dhamma, truth, in two ways. Verbally he communicates with the students; nonverbally, through silence, through energy, he communicates with the disciples. And then there comes the ultimate unity where neither communication nor communion is needed, but oneness has been achieved--where the master and the disciple become one, when the disciple is just a shadow, when there is no separation. These are the three stages of growth: student, disciple, devotee. wisdom17.
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