The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 9. MEANS AND ENDS
clear-cut distinction, that the word is not the real. The word only symbolizes, indicates; it is not the
real. Once you are trapped into believing that the word is the real, then when someone says, ”I love
you,” you will be frustrated. Because he says he loves you, you believe he loves you – for you the
word is the real.
If you cannot see the wordless reality you will be frustrated in all your paths in life, everywhere you
will be frustrated because you will take the word for reality.
Many people come to me and say, ”This girl loved me, she said it herself.” ”This man loved me and
now the love has disappeared.” They were both deceived by words.
Dale Carnegie suggests that even if you have been married for twenty years, don’t forget to keep
using the same words you used when you were courting your wife – continue. Every morning say the
same as you did when you were courting. Don’t drop those words. Every day say, ”Nobody exists
like you. You are the most beautiful person in the world, and I will die without you.” Dale Carnegie
says that even if you don’t feel it, go on saying it, because words are realities. And the wife will be
deceived and the husband will be deceived, because we live by words alone.
You don’t know anything else, you don’t know anything real. How can you be in contact with reality?
When someone says, ”I love you” – finished! When someone says, ”I hate you” – finished! Put aside
the words and look at the person. When someone says, ”I love you,” don’t get entangled with the
words, put them aside. Look at the person, at his or her totality. Then nobody can deceive you. Love
is such a fire you will be able to see it, you will be able to touch it, you will be able to know whether
it is there or not.
Love cannot be hidden. If it is there, really, words are not needed. When somebody really loves you,
he will not say, ”I love you.” It is not needed. Love is enough unto itself – it needs no salesmanship.
It doesn’t need anybody to persuade, to convince; it is enough, it is a fire. Nothing is more fiery than
love, it is a flame. And when there is a flame in the dark you need not say anything about it. It is
there. No advertisement is needed, no propaganda is needed.
Try to separate words from reality. In your day-to-day life when someone says, ”I hate you,” don’t
believe the word. This may be just a momentary thing, it may be just a phase. Don’t go for the word,
otherwise you will make an enemy for life. As you have made friends because of words so you have
made enemies because of words. Don’t go for the words, look into the person, look into the eyes,
feel the whole – it may be just a momentary reaction. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it will be
just a momentary thing. He feels hurt by something, he reacts and says, ”I hate you.” Wait, don’t
decide, don’t say, ”This is an enemy.” If you say that, you are not only deceived by others’ words,
you are also deceived by your own. If you say, ”This is an enemy,” now this word will cling. And even
if he changes tomorrow, you will not be so ready or so willing to change, you will carry it within you.
And then through your insistence you will create an enemy. Your enemies are false, your friends are
false, because words are not reality.
Words can do only one thing: if you go on repeating them they give you the appearance of reality.
Says Adolf Hitler in his autobiography, Mein Kampf: I know only one difference between the truth
and the lie – that is, a lie repeated many times becomes true. And he knows by experience, he says
that he did it – he continuously repeated lies, and went on and on repeating them.
The Empty Boat 159 Osho