The Voice of Silence

by Osho

For Osho, all change is individual. There is no "society" to change – it can only happen to each one of us, one at a time.

You have to come inwardly too.

Even wrong paths can reach to the right destination; what is needed is the right traveler. It all depends on the traveler. It is not the path that takes the traveler to the destination, it is the traveler who reaches.

The first thing: the first thing for you to understand about yourself is that you don't know anything.

you are able to catch hold of even one ray of sunlight, then the whole path which reaches to the sun has opened up because by catching that ray you can reach to its original source, the sun.

If you know even a little bit of life, then there is no need to ask anyone anything. With the help of that little bit that you...

There is no need to light up the whole thousand miles. Even if you have a small lamp in your hand, even then, the journey along the longest of long, dark roads can be completed. Two steps are enough.

If you can understand that you don't know anything, then that is the first ray of wisdom. Now you have become honest. Now you have at least accepted one truth: that you don't know anything. You have put your scriptures aside and you have left your words behind. You have become honest. You have become authentic with yourself in seeing that you don't know anything about your soul or about salvation; you don't know what life is all about. This acceptance of your ignorance is the first step of wisdom.

is not yet the case. Understand this rightly, that right now your search is for bliss.

Without sacrifice you cannot take even one step. If your hands are full of mud, pebbles, stones, and you want diamonds, you will have to let go of the stones. To grasp the desired object, your hands at least should be empty; you will have to let go of the useless things. So what do you have?

In this world, even the richest man is a pauper. Nobody has any wealth.

The tightness of their grip is the same,

But you will only come to know who was holding on and who was being held when you let go.

I say to you that suffering is not holding onto you, you are holding onto suffering.

are unhappy and rejoices when you are joyful. Existence has no wish for you to be unhappy: that would be suicidal for existence itself.

because only children can be taught something, only children can be changed. A revolution can occur only in the lives of children.

Understand one more thing: you have taken your pain into you from the outside; please return it to the outside. Pain is not inside. All your pain is brought in from the outside.

Bliss is within. No one gives it to you from the outside. It doesn't come from the outside; it is your nature, it is you. It is hidden within, it is your soul.

that if you repress pain, it grows. If pain is repressed it grows; if you express it, it diminishes. With bliss it is totally the opposite: if you repress bliss it diminishes, if you express bliss it increases.

bliss...because the more you express bliss, the more it grows inside. Fresh layers of it will begin to unfold.

So keep it in mind that whether it was Christ, Mohammed or Buddha, whenever they were in pain they went into solitude. Pain had to be released – and it was the right thing to do, to release it alone so that no one else knew about it.

And when they were filled with bliss they returned to the world, because now sharing had become a joy – and the more bliss is shared the better it is.

What does it mean to be a disciple? A disciple is someone who is willing to bow down, who understands wisdom to be more valuable than his own ego; someone who says, "I shall bow down my head, I will put my head on the earth if I can have even one ray of light. I am willing to lose everything, I am willing even to give myself up."

To be a disciple means bowing down so that the heart becomes a receptive bowl.

If you have it, and I also have it, then too, the matter is over. What is there to exchange? And if both of us have nothing, then what will we exchange? If one of the two of us has it,

But the reason why Mahavira and Buddha did not meet is different – there was no sense in meeting, there was no purpose.

There is no sense in the meeting of two ignorant people and similarly there is no sense in two wise people meeting either.

You take the meaning that you want to take.

This is very cunning, because in this way you put the responsibility onto the master, and at the same time you also fulfill your own purpose.

We commit great violence with our speech, and if we want to, we can even do it with silence.

in fact I was not even given a chance to speak! He would talk and I would listen. But as he left he would always say to me, "All that you said was of immense value."

The words which come from the master's side bring the master and disciple closer, and the words which come from the disciple's side create a distance.

Speak with caution and thoughtfulness. Consider every word before you speak. Then you will be able to see how your mind is occupied with violence.

What is ambition? It is the desire to be something. It is the desire to be somebody – to become a president, to become a prime minister, to be a Rockefeller, to be an Einstein or a Buddha or a Mahavira – the desire to be someone, the madness to be somebody.

Kill out ambition.

yourself, will be an avoidance of yourself. Think of it like this: a rose wants to be a lotus flower. It cannot become one, but it can live in the illusion and thereby destroy itself.

So you have not been born in order to become a Rama, a Krishna or a Buddha. You were born so that you could come to be that which only you can be, and no one else;

And don't copy anyone else, don't try to become like someone else. This effort to be like someone else is ambition.

One is the ambition to be like someone else, the second is the ambition to get ahead of others.

Someone or other is always ahead of you in one way or another. There are a thousand ways to be ahead in life, and no one can ever be ahead of everyone in everything. This pain is always there.

am completely fulfilled where I am – there is no question of getting ahead. I should become totally what I am; the question of comparing myself with anyone doesn't arise. Whatever I am should not be left incomplete; my flower should bloom fully, whatever kind it is. No matter if it is a simple grass-flower, it should bloom fully. Whatever way God has made me, I should become complete in that."

But these two never ask anything of each other, nor do they compare themselves with each other.

In comparison lies unhappiness, jealousy and violence – so drop comparison! Don't assess yourself in relation to anybody. There is no meaning in it, and there is also no way to become the other. Become accepting of whatsoever you are. You should concern yourself with only one thing – how to manifest whatever you are totally.

Kill out desire of life. Why? So that you may have life.

The moment you desire, you have left the present. You have removed yourself to tomorrow, to the coming day; your mind has run away.

So the meaning of "desire of life" is also that you are searching for life in the future. But life is here and now, life is you. You are standing in the middle of it, but your eyes are on tomorrow.

when those desires remain unfulfilled, then

Experiment with this a little. During these days that you are here with me, don't nourish any desire for happiness, and then see how your heart becomes filled with happiness. Don't have any desire for peace, and see how the turmoil within you vanishes. Don't beg for contentment

Work as those work who are ambitious. Let go of ambition, but work hard like those people who are ambitious.

When you sit for meditation, you sit down with the attitude, "Okay, if it happens it happens, and if it doesn't happen it doesn't happen." But when you run after money, you don't say to yourself, "If it happens it happens, and if it doesn't happen it doesn't happen." Instead you stake your life on it, you stake everything that you have.