The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 9. MEANS AND ENDS
I WOULD LIKE TO TALK TO.
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.
The Empty Boat 154 Osho