A Great Difference Between Words and Pictures

All my first films are without sound. I never could find sound for them but the muteness of these films, in fact, I could not accept. They did not seem complete and only sometimes I presented them to people. Working in this way, I could not be successful. Since I met you five years ago, everything has changed. In the last four years, I have worked more and more for German television – but most of the people who work in television are politicians and lawyers. They work only with words. They cannot accept pictures in the program without explanations or commentary. My pictures are coming from my inner silence. You have said words are containers. What is in the meaning of pictures? Please Osho, speak about the difference between words and pictures.

There is a great difference between words and pictures.

First, pictures are older. The child dreams, although he cannot speak. He can see, although he cannot say what it is. And the pictures in his mind are more alive, more vibrant, more radiant, more innocent.

It happened in a small school…. The teacher had been explaining to the students the Christian idea of the trinity. Her whole emphasis was on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

After speaking for almost one hour, she asked the students a simple question: “Who is the greatest man on the earth?” It was an international school.

An American boy stood up and said, “Abraham Lincoln.”

The teacher was shocked. After hammering for one hour on Jesus Christ, this boy had not heard a single word. But she said to the boy; “It is not absolutely right, although you are very close to the right answer.”

An English boy said, “Winston Churchill,” and so on and so forth it went. And then a very small boy who never used to raise his hand or stand up or answer on his own initiative, suddenly started waving his hand, almost madly. He was afraid somebody else might say the right answer.

The teacher said, “You look really in a hurry, so you stand up.”

When he stood, he said, “There is no question. Jesus Christ is obviously the greatest man in the world.”

This was even more shocking because the boy was a Jew. All the Christians had missed – somebody was with Abraham Lincoln, somebody was with Albert Einstein, somebody was with Winston Churchill, somebody was with Karl Marx, somebody was with Sigmund Freud – strange, that a small Jew was the only one who would stand for Jesus Christ. He won the prize – there was a prize for answering this question.

After the class was over, the teacher caught hold of the boy outside in the corridor and asked him, “Are you not a Jew?”

He said, “Certainly, I am a Jew.”

She said, “Then, why did you say Jesus is the greatest man?”

The boy laughed. He said, “In my heart of my hearts, I know that Moses is the greatest man the earth has produced or will ever produce, but then business is business!”

Now, Jesus Christ is only business to this boy. And he is innocent and honest and true.

Man as such is covered with many prejudices. He thinks he thinks – that’s a fallacy. He only repeats prejudices handed over to him by others.

Primitive people
still think in pictures.
Hence, they have
a certain authority,
a certain being,
a certain centeredness.
The modern man,
compared to them,
is uprooted.

Unless a mind is completely vacated, unoccupied by all kinds of prejudices, you cannot understand anything of real, authentic value. Mind can understand only that which is mundane. But in a state of having an empty mind – fully alert and aflame but with no thoughts, no desires, no imaginations – you can see the reality as it is, because the word is no longer distorting your vision.

A picture comes from the object to you. If you are clean and clear, mirror-like, reflecting, your reflection can come very close to truth, to beauty, to bliss, to God. But the mind is so full of words, full of so many interpretations, so many explanations, that whatever you see is not seen exactly as it is.

A picture comes to you from the object; a word does not come to you from anywhere. A word is a human creation. It is a soap bubble: while it is there, it may shine in the sun like a rainbow, but it is not there for long.

Primitive people still think in pictures. Hence, they have a certain authority, a certain being, a certain centeredness. The modern man, compared to them, is uprooted.

Children think in pictures. Thinking in pictures you bring with yourself; thinking in words is a social arrangement. Words and language are our manufactured commodities, and we have manufactured them for convenience, not for truth.

There are a few languages – for example, Chinese, Japanese and other far Eastern languages – which are pictorial. Because they are pictorial, they have more authenticity, more vitality, more resonance – but the language is very difficult to learn. Chinese needs at least thirty years to learn because it has no alphabet, it has only pictures – pictures for everything in the world. Now to remember those picture-grams… you need at least a million words, a million pictures to be a scholar. Just learning a few words will not do.

Other languages, which are no longer pictorial, which have found a new way, are alphabetical. Learning those languages is simple – twenty-six letters and the whole language is finished. All the words will be combinations of the same twenty-six letters. But in Chinese, there is no limitation. They have millions of picture-grams, and every day new things are happening, new discoveries are being made. China and Japan have to find new pictures for them.

It is closer to the heart, but certainly anything that is closer to the heart becomes automatically incapable of searching into the objective world. The heart cannot be just a bystander and go on watching the scientific experiment without interfering, without coming in.

And when a great country,
the greatest power
in the world,
starts using such
third-rate strategies,
then it seems there is
no hope for humanity.

For almost seven years, the Senate of America has been denying the fact that they have been supplying millions of dollars worth of weapons to the terrorists. Only just this week, they have been forced, simply by the facts, to admit that they had been supplying millions of dollars worth weapons to the terrorists.

The question might not have arisen except that President Ronald Reagan asked that two-hundred million dollars immediately be sent to a country, to the terrorists there, because the country has become communist. So now the society has to be destroyed, order has to be turned into chaos. And it is none of America’s business.

If somebody wants to be a communist, if some country chooses to be communist, it does not matter whether you agree with it or not. Your agreement is simply not the question. I may agree, I may not agree but on this point, I am absolutely certain: they should be given the opportunity to be, whatsoever they want to be. I can show my disagreement, I can place all the evidence against them, all the arguments against them – but terrorism is not an argument, it is a defeat.

And when a great country, the greatest power in the world, starts using such third-rate strategies, then it seems there is no hope for humanity.

The day the German parliament passed an order that I could not enter Germany, they allowed on the same day…. And the reason given to the parliament was “because this man is dangerous.” A man who has not even a paper knife is dangerous…. And in the same week, they allowed terrorists from around the whole world to have a world conference in Munich. It seems that just out of fear, they could not say no to the terrorists. And they are not dangerous!

One night I was denied a six-hour stay at the airport’s first-class lounge in England — which is made for that. There is no opening from the lounge into the city; it is completely closed, you cannot get out of it. It is for passengers who have to change planes, for their rest. They did not allow me, and for the same reason. The officer had a file from the parliament saying that “this man is dangerous and he should not be allowed in England.”

I said, “You are not allowing me in England, but six hours’ rest outside England – this is an international airport.”

He said, “I cannot argue with you. Perhaps you are logically right, but the problem is that the orders come from above – I have to follow them.”

And the same English government, the next week allowed Ronald Reagan a base to bomb Libya – the base was in England. America bombing an innocent country, a poor country, and completely out of a misunderstanding. Is this not dangerous – is this something very cultured, civilized, something without which we cannot evolve?

People go on thinking in words, and then they become heartless because the words have no connection with the heart. Then they can do strange things.

In the last week, America has also admitted one great crime – and I simply cannot believe that the whole world simply remains silent. They were not admitting it for two years. And we never say to our politicians and leaders and priests that “You are continuously lying – how long we can trust you? You are demanding something inhuman and impossible. Your behaviour does not allow anybody to trust you.”

For two years they were saying that nothing like this has happened. How can it happen in a democracy? The problem was, there were rumours that the American Senate had given permission that on two hundred patients first, and then on five hundred more patients, a certain experiment could be done. It is part of the preparation for the coming atomic war. Seven hundred persons, without their permission – and this is democracy! – had their brains operated on! And all seven hundred patients died.

The government continued to deny that they had anything to do with it, but finally it has come to the light. And now, without any shame, they accept that yes, they have done it, because it is a question of saving the whole of humanity. Men have to be used as guinea pigs. This is the first time that any government has said that, and has already killed seven hundred people – without their permission. And the whole world goes on!

Nobody raises a hand to say that “This is not democracy, and this is not even human!”

And if the government can do this, the government can do anything – every child’s brain can be fixed with an electrode. He will never know, but because of that electrode, the government can know what is going on in his mind. The government can change gears, it can change the thinking that is going on in his mind. Government becomes all-powerful. Man is reduced to below the level of machines. And the whole thing has happened because we have been living for thousands of years in the head.

The head cannot think in pictures.

The heart cannot understand words.

Both are needed – but the heart should be in power and the head should be in service, because love is the ultimate law. No law can be above it.

Osho, Sermons in Stone, Ch 19, Q 1