I am a fallible, ordinary man

You must be crazy! Why should it disturb you if it does not disturb me? It is true I have no respect for facts, for the simple reason that the fact is not the truth. The fact is our opinion about the truth. And what opinion can you have? – unconscious, blind, conditioned by centuries of rubbish. Why should I pay any respect to all this nonsense?

Something was a fact yesterday, today it is not. It was a fact for Jesus, Moses, Abraham, that the sun goes around the earth. It is no longer a fact, it is just the opposite: the earth goes around the sun. So why should you be disturbed? As man progresses and becomes more intelligent, has more scientific methods to probe into reality, facts go on changing every day.

I have immense respect for truth, because truth is not man’s opinion. Truth is a revelation. You are not, when the truth is there.

You cannot make an opinion about the truth. You can experience it, you can taste it, you can be it, but you cannot have an opinion about it, because the moment truth faces you, you are no more. The ego that used to make opinions simply disappears, just as when you bring light into a dark room the darkness disappears. In fact it was never there; it was only the absence of light. The moment the light is present, how can the light and the darkness exist together?

And your opinion is simply a barrier in finding the truth. You somehow have got the idea that fact and truth are synonymous; they are not. Sometimes the fiction is more true than the fact. Just look at the three hundred years’ growth of science. Everything has changed. Aristotle’s logic was a great discovery, accepted by all for almost thousand years. Now it is just garbage. Non-Aristotelian logic has taken its place; someday it will also be in the garbage.

Man’s truth – what he calls fact – has no validity. It is the blind man’s idea of light. Why should I have any respect for it? And the most amazing part is: why are you disturbed? The psychology of it is very clear. When I don’t pay any respect to the so-called facts, your knowledgeable mind gets disturbed. You want me to be infallible, you want me to be the greatest master in the world. Not that you are interested in me, your interest is in being the disciple of the greatest master in the world. Your desire is to belong to a master who is always respectful of facts.

Remember, in many different contexts this will happen to you. I have said again and again, I am a fallible, ordinary man. And to be a disciple of a fallible, ordinary man is disturbing. But that simply shows your ego and its longing. You would like to make me a god, because then you become also god’s disciple. Then there is a direct communication line between god and you.

Forgive me, I am not god, and there is no one who is, no one who has ever been. It is your psychology that has created the prophets, the messiahs, the avataras. They fulfilled your desire. And naturally, it was good business: they became messiahs, and you became the special apostles of the messiah. Unless man drops this stupid psychology, it is very difficult to get rid of messiahs, prophets, great masters, because you are so insistent on being a great disciple. How can you be a great disciple if the master is fallible?

I am trying in every way to destroy your psychology, which has dominated humanity for centuries. It has made you almost unintelligent, but the balloon of your ego goes on becoming bigger and bigger. You, your individuality, your consciousness, go on diminishing in the same proportion.

What do you want? Should I say things which satisfy you? Or should I say things as they are, whether they satisfy you or hurt you? It is your responsibility, it is not my concern. Listening to your question, I said, “Aha! Back to zero again!” Are you ever going to grow or not?

The geometric philosophy of Euclid dominated for centuries; no one ever objected. Just within a hundred years the whole Euclidean geometry has become a fiction; a non-Euclidean geometry has taken its place. I say to you, the non-Euclidean geometry is also a fiction. It is not going to remain there forever as a fact.

Nothing that man creates out of his sleep can become the eternal truth. To know the eternal truth, man has to disappear completely. He is the hindrance.

I am going to continue hammering your psychological slavery. I am not concerned about facts, I am concerned with your freedom. You have to be freed from all that is not your experience. And remember, your experience is not yours, it is only experiencing. I have immense respect for experiencing. The facts, at the most, may be useful in the ordinary world of objects, but they have no basis in reality.

Experiencing may not be of any use in the outside world – perhaps it may create trouble for you, but flowers will start showering on you, your being will be contented. You will feel an absolute certainty that you have come home.

Osho, From the False to the Truth, Ch 15, Q 1