A man who has forgotten words, he is worth talking to, because he has the innermost reality, the center of being within him. He has the message. His silence is pregnant. Your talking is impotent.

 

What are you doing when you talk? You are not saying anything in particular. You have got no message, nothing is to be delivered. Your words are empty, they don’t contain anything, they don’t carry anything. They are just symbols. And when you are talking you are simply throwing out your rubbish. It may be a good catharsis for you, but it can be dangerous for the other. And how can you talk with a person who is filled with words? Impossible. The words don’t leave room. The words don’t give a door, an opening. The words are too much, you cannot penetrate.

 

To talk with a man who is filled with words is almost impossible. He cannot listen, because for listening one should be silent, for listening one should be receptive. Words don’t allow that – words are aggressive, they are never receptive. You can talk but you cannot listen, and if you cannot listen, your talk is the talk of a madman. You are talking not knowing why, you are talking not knowing what. You go on talking because it gives you a sort of release.

 

You feel good after having a good chitchat. You feel good because you are relieved: your talking is part of your tensions. It is not coming from you, it is just a disturbance; it is not a song, it has no beauty of its own. That is why whenever you talk you simply bore the other. But why is he listening? He is not listening, he is just waiting to bore you, just waiting for the right moment when he can take the reins in his hands.

 

I have heard, it happened once that a great politician, a leader, was speaking, and he spoke and spoke and it was getting near midnight. By and by the audience left until only one person was left in the hall. The leader thanked him and said, ”You seem to be the only lover of truth, the only authentic follower. I feel grateful. When everyone else has left, you are still here.”

 

The man said, ”Don’t be deceived, I am the next speaker.”

 

When you listen, you are listening because you are the next speaker. You can tolerate the man – this is a bargain. If you want to bore others you have to allow them to bore you. Really, when you say that a certain person is a bore, you mean that the person will not give you any opportunity to be the next speaker. He goes on and on and you cannot find a gap from where you can enter to start boring. That person looks like a bore to you, but every mind filled with words is a bore.

 

When will you realize this? Why is a person bored? – because there are only words, no fish in them, only traps…useless, meaningless, there is no content. It is like a rattling of something, a noise; no meaning is carried. Whenever there is meaning it is beautiful; whenever there is meaning you grow through it; whenever there is meaning, when you encounter a man who has meaning, it gives you a new upsurge of energy. It is not a wastage, it is a learning, it is an experience. Rare and difficult it is to find a man who is silent.

 

If you can find a man who is silent and persuade him to talk to you, you will gain much – because when the mind is not filled with words, the heart speaks to the heart. When everything comes out of silence, when a word is born out of silence, it is beautiful, it is alive, it shares something with you. When a word comes only out of the crowd of words, it is mad, it can madden you.

 

A small boy of five was asked by his teacher, ”Has your younger sister learned to talk yet?”

 

The boy said, ”Yes, she has learned to talk – and now we are teaching her to be quiet.”

 

This is the misery. You have to teach words, it is part of life, and then you have to learn how to be silent, and how to be wordless. Universities, parents, teachers, they teach you words, and then you have to find a master who can teach you how to keep quiet.

 

A German scholar came to Ramana Maharshi and said, ”I have come from very far away to learn something from you.”

 

Ramana laughed and said, ”Then you have come to the wrong place. Go to some university, some scholar, some great pundit; there you will be able to learn. If you come to me then be aware that learning is not possible here, we teach only unlearning. I can teach you how to unlearn, how to throw words away, to create space within you. And that space is divine, that space is God.”

 

Where are you seeking? In words, in scriptures? Then one day or other you will become an atheist. A pundit, a scholar, cannot remain a theist for long. Remember, howsoever he knows, whatsoever he knows about The Bible and the Gita and the Koran, a scholar is bound to become an atheist one day because that is the logical consequence of gathering words. Sooner or later he will ask: Where is God? No Bible can reply, no Gita can supply the answer.

 

Rather, Bibles and Gitas and Korans, when they are too much on your mind, will make you miss the divine because the whole of your mind space is filled…there is too much furniture in you. God cannot move. God may not be able to make any contact with you if the mind is too wordy. Then it is impossible to listen, and if you cannot listen, how can you pray? It is impossible to wait, words are too impatient, they are knocking from within to get out.

 

- Osho, “The Empty Boat, #9”