From Death to Deathlessness

CHAPTER 1

The man of compassion has to lie
2 August 1985 am in Rajneeshmandir

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

YOU SAID THAT YOU LIE OUT OF COMPASSION, AND WE, YOUR SANNYASINS,
CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. BUT CAN THE OUTSIDE WORLD EVER
UNDERSTAND? WON’T IT CREATE MORE MISUNDERSTANDING ABOUT YOU, ABOUT
RAJNEESHISM, ABOUT YOUR SANNYASINS? PLEASE COMMENT.

Compassion knows no conditions. It can do anything, it knows no right and no wrong. Compassion
can lie to help you. In fact, in your sleep you can only understand lies, you cannot understand the
truth.

Many things are involved. First, the experience of enlightenment, awakening, illumination, happens
when there is no mind present. Enlightenment is a no-mind experience. Words are not there,
language is not there. In fact, you are not there either. It is such a silence, so profound and infinite,
it cannot be expressed without lying.

The moment the truth is said, it is no longer true. Just the process of saying it makes it a lie. To
bring the wordless experience into words is to change the very quality of the experience.
So in fact, anything that is great – if it has been experienced at any time, by any individual – out of
sheer necessity that person has to use lies to speak of it. But the lie of the awakened one is far more
true than the truth of the sleeping one.

I am reminded of a small anecdote.... A man went to a nearby big city. His children had asked,
”Bring us this, bring us that,” and he had promised that he would. But by the time he had returned
home, his house was on fire. There was a great crowd around, and they were all concerned about
the children who were inside.

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