Words

 

 

Words are important. Sometimes a change of a small word, just replacing it by another word can change your whole life... because Words are not just words. They have moods, climates of their own. When a word settles inside you, it brings a different climate to your mind, a different approach, a different vision. Call the same thing a different name and see: something is immediately different.

 

So one of the most important things to remember is, if it is possible, live an experience and don’t fix it by any word, because that will make it narrow. You are sitting... it is a silent evening. The sun has gone and the stars have started appearing. Just be. Don’t even say, ‘This is beautiful,’ because the moment you say that it is beautiful, it is no longer the same. By saying ‘beautiful’ you are bringing in the past, and all the experiences that you have said were beautiful have colored the word. Your word beautiful contains many experiences of beauty – but this is totally new! It has never been so, and it will never be so again. Why bring in the past?

 

The present is so vast, and the past is so narrow. Why look through a hole in the wall when you can come out and look at the whole sky? So try not to use words – but if you have to, then be very choosy about them because each word has a nuance of its own. Be very poetic about it. Use it with taste, love, feeling.

 

There are feeling words and there are intellectual words. Drop intellectual words more and more. Use more and more feeling words. There are political words and there are religious words. Drop political words. There are words which immediately create conflict. The moment you utter them, argument arises. So never use logical, argumentative language. Use the language of affection, of caring, of love, so that no argument arises.

 

If one starts feeling this way, one sees a tremendous change arising. If one is a little alert in life, many miseries can be avoided. A single word uttered in unconsciousness can create a long chain of misery. A slight difference, just a very small turning and it makes a lot of change. One should become very, very careful and use words when absolutely necessary. Avoid contaminated words. Use fresh words, noncontroversial, which are not arguments but which are just expressions of your feelings.

 

If one can become a connoisseur of words, one’s whole life will be totally different. Your relationships will be totally different. Your relationships will be totally different because ninety-nine percent of a relationship is through words, gestures – and those are also words. The same word has created so many troubles for you and again you blurt it out. If a word brings misery, anger, conflict, argument, drop it. What is the point of carrying it? Replace it by something better. The best is silence. Next best is singing, poetry, love.

 

-Osho, “A Rose is a Rose is a Rose, #10”

 

 

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"I use words, but I am not a man of words. It is just out of sheer necessity: it is because of you that I have to use words, because you won't understand the wordless. I am waiting eagerly for the day when I will be able to drop words. I am utterly tired… because words can’t convey that which I am and I have to go on trying to do something which is not possible. Get ready soon so that we can sit in silence and listen to the birds or to the wind in the trees.

 

Just Sitting silently, doing nothing,

Spring comes and the grass grows by itself

 

That is going to be my ultimate message and my final work on the earth."

-Osho, "Ah, This!, #4"

 

 

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"What I am saying is not important at all. What I am being here is important. So don't be lost in my words: they are just toys to play with. Liste to my being, to my presence.“

 

-Osho, "The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 4, #10"

 

 

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"When you are part of the universal mind your individual mind functions as a beautiful servant. It has recognized the master, and it brings news from the universal mind to those who are still chained by the individual mind.

 

When I am speaking to you, it is in fact the universe using me. My words are not my words; they belong to the universal truth. That is their power, that is their charisma, that is their magic."

 

- Osho, “Satyam Shivam Sundram, #7”