Come Follow To You, Vol 1 - Oshorajneesh.com

Sometimes the word means 'repent'. When I am talking about sin and I use theword 'repent', it means 'repent'. When I am talking about God calling you, thenthe word 'repent' means 'answer', it means 'responsibility'. God has asked -- youanswer. And when I say that the kingdom is at hand, the word means 'return'.All three meanings are there. The word is not one-dimensional; it is threedimensional.All the old languages are three-dimensional. Modern languages areone-dimensional, because our insistence is not on poetry but on prose.Our insistence is not on multi-meaningfulness, but exactness. The word shouldbe exact: it should only mean one thing so that there is no confusion. And that'sgood. If you are writing about science the language has to be exact, otherwiseconfusion is possible.It happened in the Second World War: The American general wrote a letter to theemperor of Japan before Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The letter was in English andthen it was translated into Japanese which is more poetic, more flowery -- andone word means many things.A certain word was translated in a certain way. It could have been translated insome other way also; it depended on the translator. Now they have beeninquiring about it, and they have come to the conclusion that if it had beentranslated in the other way that was also possible, there would have been noHiroshima and no Nagasaki.The American general meant something else, but the way it was translated it wasfelt to be an insult. The Japanese emperor simply declined to answer it; it was tooinsulting. And Nagasaki and Hiroshima happened, the atom bomb had to bethrown.If the emperor had replied to it, then there would have been no need forHiroshima and Nagasaki. Just one word translated in a different way and onelakh people died within minutes, within seconds. Very costly -- just a singleword. Words can be dangerous.In politics, in science, in economics, in history, words should be linear, onedimensional.But if the whole language becomes one-dimensional, then religionwill suffer very much, poetry will suffer very much, romance will suffer verymuch. For poetry a word should be multi-dimensional, it should mean manythings, so that the poetry has a depth and you can go on and on and on.That's the beauty of old books. You can go on reading the Gita every day, youcan go on reading the gospels every day, and every day you can come upon anew and fresh meaning. You may have read the same passage a thousand timesand it never occurred to you before that this can be the meaning. But thismorning it occurred, you were in a different mood. You were happy, flowing -- anew meaning arises. Another day you are not so happy, not so flowing, and themeaning changes. The meaning changes according to you, according to yourmood and climate.You carry an inner climate that goes on changing just like the outer climate. Haveyou watched it? Sometimes you are sad and you look at the moon and the moonCome Follow To You Vol 1Osho