On Truth

1. To be total is a basic thing for any seeker, for anyone in search of silence and truth.
2. Truth cannot be said, cannot be written, cannot be indicated in any way. If it can be said, you will attain to truth just by hearing it; if it can be written, you will attain to truth just by reading it; if it can be indicated, you will attain to truth by mere indication. This is not possible, there is no way to transfer truth to you; there exists no bridge. It cannot be given, it cannot be communicated.
3. Truth cannot be delivered, there is no way to deliver it. Once delivered it is dead, it has already become untrue.
4. The words of a buddha may not be able to communicate the truth, but they can communicate the music, the music that exists in one who is enlightened. They carry the melody, something of the source, a tiny part, a very tiny part, but something of the source. It should be so, because when a word comes out of a buddha it carries something of the buddha. It has to be so. The word has been vibrating in his being, it has been in touch with buddha’s heartbeat, it has passed through the buddha’s silence, it has been in the womb, the womb of the buddha. It carries the scent, the fragrance.
5. They may not tell the truth but they can become a help, a step towards the truth.
6. The truth cannot be conveyed, but the thirst can be given.
7. ZEN BELIEVES that truth cannot be expressed by words, but it can be expressed by gestures, action. Something can be done about it. You cannot say it, but you can show it.
8. Mind, and mind’s hold on you, is the imprisonment. Get rid of the mind. The question is not how to know truth; the question is how to get rid of the mind, how to get rid of this constant ignoring, this ignorance; how to be just here naked, throbbing, streaming, flowing, overflowing, and meeting the truth that has already been there, that has always been there.
9. Truth is immediate, radiant, herenow. It is not that truth has to be discovered — only you have to become aware. Truth is already here.
10. You can come to truth only when you are absolutely nude; when you have discarded all clothes, all philosophies, all theologies, all religions; when you have dropped all that has been given to you; when you come empty-handed, not knowing in any way. When you come with knowledge you come already corrupted. When you come in innocence, knowing that you don’t know, then the doors are open — then you will be able to know. Only that person who has no knowledge is capable of knowing.
11. Let your knowing be there, but don’t allow it to become knowledge or character. The moment it is turning into knowledge, drop it, empty your hands. Forget all about it. Move ahead! again like a child. Difficult, I know. Easy to say; difficult to be that way — but that is the only way you can attain to satchitanand — you can attain to truth, you can attain to consciousness, you can attain to bliss.
12. Here you disappear and there everything is ready, everything that you ever sought, everything that you were seeking, every inquiry fulfilled. Here you dissolve and all answers disappear and all queries dissolve. Suddenly the truth is there. Your dissolution is the truth. Your ‘not being there’ is the Way. Your absence is the presence of God.
13. The falsity of life is the first step towards truth. And ego is the most falsifying agent.
14. That’s what spirituality is really all about: to live death intensely, to live life intensely; to live both so passionately that nothing is left behind unlived, not even death. If you live life and death totally, you transcend. In that tremendous passion and intensity of life and death, you transcend duality, you transcend the dichotomy, you come to the One. That One is really the truth. You can call it God, you can call it life, you can call it truth, samadhi, ecstasy, or whatsoever you choose.
15. I cannot give you God, I cannot give you truth, I cannot give you your inner core, but I can take all the rubbish that has been heaped upon you. And once that rubbish is removed, God starts becoming alive in you. Once all the obstacles are removed, the spring of your life starts flowing, the innocence is regained. Innocence regained is paradise regained; you enter again into the Garden of Eden.