Meher Baba

Osho says about him,

Just here in this city, a few years before, there was a very beautiful man, Meher Baba. He had remained silent for perhaps more than fifty years. He had taken the vow of silence for only three years in the beginning, but then he enjoyed the silence so much that he continued for three more years. But after three years, if you continue to be silent… three years is the limit. After three years, if you continue, then your vocal chords start dying. Unused, any machine, any mechanism becomes just junk.

And then he became world famous, and people began asking him to start speaking. He would promise, “From the coming birthday, I am going to speak.” This he declared almost twenty times; and each year, when the day came to speak, he didn’t speak. And people wondered, what is the reason, why has he not fulfilled his promise? – a man of truth. But nobody thought of a simple thing…

When I used to go around the country, his private secretary, Adi Irani, used to come to see me while I was visiting Ahmed Nagar. That is where Meher Baba used to live most of the time. He had a place here also, but most of the time he was in Ahmed Nagar. Whenever I used to go to Ahmed Nagar, Adi Irani would tell me many things about Meher Baba and asked many questions. He asked me why he was not speaking – there was so much contemplation going on amongst the disciples.

I said, “It is nothing to contemplate, he has remained too long in silence. He tries, he makes an effort – that’s why he goes on promising – but the mechanism has failed. And I can say to you,” I told Adi Irani, “that he will never speak. Not that he is lying – he is trying hard; he will try up to his last breath to manage to speak. But how can you speak if your mechanism of speaking is non-functioning?”

Adi Irani said, “This is strange, none of us has ever thought about it. But perhaps you are right.” And that’s what happened… he never spoke, and until his death he continued to promise, but he could not do anything.

Osho, The Rebel, Ch 34, Q 1