I am NOT an Orator

I am NOT an Orator

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Osho on His Speaking

MY BELOVED MASTER,

I REALIZED THAT IT IS EASIER TO BECOME SILENT WHILE LISTENING TO YOU THAN IN ANY OTHER MEDITATION. WHEN YOU STOP TALKING EVERYTHING SEEMS TO STOP FOR A MOMENT AND I GET A GLIMPSE OF WHAT MEDITATION CAN BE! THESE ARE THE MOST PRECIOUS MOMENTS FOR ME! OSHO, WHY IS IT EASIER TO BECOME SILENT IN YOUR PRESENCE?

Dhyan Sandesh, the question you have raised is significant not only to you, but to many more who are not fortunate enough to be in my presence, but who will be reading these words or listening or seeing this on the video screen all over the world.

The question arises almost for everyone, that the way I talk is a little strange. No speaker in the world talks like me – technically it is wrong; it takes almost double the time! But those speakers have a different purpose – my purpose is absolutely different from theirs. They speak because they are prepared for it; they are simply repeating something that they have rehearsed. Secondly, they are speaking to impose a certain ideology, a certain idea on you. Thirdly, to them speaking is an art – they go on refining it.

As far as I am concerned, I am not what they call a speaker or an orator. It is not an art to me or a technique; technically I go on becoming worse every day! But our purposes are totally different. I don’t want to impress you in order to manipulate you. I don’t speak for any goal to be achieved through convincing you. I don’t speak to convert you into a Christian, into a Hindu or a Mohammedan, into a theist or an atheist – these are not my concerns. My speaking is really one of my devices for meditation. Speaking has never been used this way: I speak not to give you a message, but to stop your mind functioning.

I speak nothing prepared – I don’t know myself what is going to be the next word; hence I never commit any mistake. One commits a mistake if one is prepared. I never forget anything, because one forgets if one has been remembering it. So, I speak with a freedom that perhaps nobody has ever spoken with. I am not concerned whether I am consistent, because that is not the purpose. A man who wants to convince you and manipulate you through his speaking has to be consistent, has to be logical, has to be rational, to overpower your reason. He wants to dominate through words.

One of the very famous books of Dale Carnegie is about speaking and influencing people as an art – it has been sold second only to THE HOLY BIBLE – but I will fail his examinations. He used to run a course in America to train missionaries, to train professors, and to train orators. I will fail on all counts. First, I have no motivation to convert you; I have no desire anywhere to impress you. And I don’t remember what I have said yesterday, so I cannot bother about being consistent – that is too much worry. I can easily contradict myself, because I am not trying to have a communication with your intellectual, rational mind.

My purpose is so unique – I am using words just to create silent gaps. The words are not important so I can say anything contradictory, anything absurd, anything unrelated, because my purpose is just to create gaps. The words are secondary; the silences between those words are primary. This is simply a device to give you a glimpse of meditation. And once you know that it is possible for you, you have travelled far in the direction of your own being.

Most of the people in the world don’t think that it is possible for the mind to be silent. Because they don’t think it is possible, they don’t try. How to give people a taste of meditation was my basic reason to speak, so I can go on speaking eternally – it does not matter what I am saying. All that matters is that I give you a few chances to be silent, which you find difficult on your own in the beginning.

I cannot force you to be silent, but I can create a device in which spontaneously you are bound to be silent. I am speaking, and in the middle of a sentence, when you were expecting another word to follow, nothing follows but a silent gap. And your mind was looking to listen, and waiting for something to follow, and does not want to miss it –naturally it becomes silent. What can the poor mind do? If it was well known at what points I will be silent, if it was declared to you that on such and such points I will be silent, then you could manage to think – you would not be silent. Then you know: “This is the point where he is going to be silent, now I can have a little chit-chat with myself.” But because it comes absolutely suddenly…. I don’t know myself why at certain points I stop.

Anything like this, in any orator in the world, will be condemned, because an orator stopping again and again means he is not well prepared, he has not done the homework. It means that his memory is not reliable, that he cannot find, sometimes, what word to use. But because it is not oratory, I am not concerned about the people who will be condemning me – I am concerned with you.

And it is not only here, but far away… anywhere in the world where people will be listening to the video or to the audio, they will come to the same silence. My success is not to convince you, my success is to give you a real taste so that you can become confident that meditation is not a fiction, that the state of no-mind is not just a philosophical idea, that it is a reality; that you are capable of it, and that it does not need any special qualifications.

Source:

Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.

Discourse series: The Invitation Chapter #14

Chapter title: Silence is the right soil

28 August 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

References:

Osho has spoken on ‘silence, no mind, meditation’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

  1. A Bird on the Wing
  2. The Great Zen Master Ta Hui
  3. Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing
  4. Tao: The Three Treasures
  5. The Tantra Vision
  6. The Ultimate Alchemy
  7. Vigyan Bhairav Tantra
  8. Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega

2 Comments


  1. June 16, 2023 - 8:38 am

    Great content looking forward to listen to more


  2. June 16, 2023 - 8:41 am

    Meditations are helpful. Explanations are a little bit hard

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