Language

 

 

Truth cannot be transferred, truth cannot be handed over to you by somebody else, because it is not a commodity. It is not a thing, it is an experience. In fact, the word experience is not exactly the right word. It will be truer to say that it is an experiencing; this is the first thing to be understood.

 

I have to use language which is already there, created by the centuries, with all kinds of fallacies in it -- obviously. Language is created for day-to-day use, language is created for the mundane world; as far as it goes, it is good. It is perfectly adequate for the marketplace, but as you start moving into deeper waters it becomes more and more inadequate -- not only inadequate, it starts becoming utterly wrong.

 

For example, think of these two words, experience and experiencing. When you use the word experience it gives you a sense of completion, as if something has come to a completion, as if the full stop has arrived. In life there are no full stops. Life knows nothing of full stops; it is an ongoing process, an eternal river. The goal never arrives; it is always arriving, but it never arrives. Hence the word experience is not right. It gives a false notion of completion, perfection; it makes you feel as if now you have arrived. ExperiencING is far more true.

 

In reference to true life all nouns are wrong, only verbs are true. When you say, "This is a tree," you are making a wrong statement existentially. Not linguistically, not grammatically, but existentially you are making a wrong statement, because the tree is not a static thing, it is growing. It is never in a state of is-ness, it is always becoming. In fact to call it a tree is not right: it is tree-ing. A river is rivering.

 

If you look deeply into life, nouns start disappearing, and there are only verbs. But that will create trouble in the marketplace. You cannot say to people, "I went to the rivering," or, "This morning I saw a beautiful treeing." They will think you have gone mad. Nothing is static in life, nothing is at rest.

 

A great scientist, Eddington, is reported to have said that the word rest has no corresponding reality to it, because nothing is ever at rest, everything is moving. It is all movement.

 

So let me say that truth is an experience in the sense of experiencing. You can never declare, you can never claim "I have it." You can only be humble about it -- "It is happening" -- and then you will not be deceived. The deception comes because you start claiming "I have it." Then the ego arises saying, "I have the truth. Only I have the truth, nobody else does. I have arrived." And the ego raises its head.

 

Truth is an experiencing. You cannot claim it, it is very mercurial. If you want to grab it, it will disappear from your fist. You can have it only with an open hand, not with a fist. When you make a noun out of it, you are trying to grab it in a fist; it will disappear. Let it remain a verb. Don't say, "I have arrived." Simply say, "The pilgrimage has started. I am a pilgrim, I am moving."

 

-Osho, "The Book of Wisdom, #7, Q3"