A Buddha is Always Misunderstood

1. It seems that the moment a Buddha speaks he is bound to be misunderstood. If you don’t understand him, that’s okay, but people don’t stop there: they misunderstand him — because people cannot tolerate the idea that they don’t understand. It is better to misunderstand than not to understand; at least you have some kind of understanding. All the Buddhas have been misunderstood, wrongly interpreted. And whatsoever they were standing for has been forgotten as soon as they were gone, and just the opposite was organized.
2. A Buddha is bound to be misunderstood. If a Buddha is not misunderstood then he is not a Buddha at all. Why is it so? — because the Buddha lives in a state which is beyond mind, and we live IN minds. To translate something from the beyond to the mind is the most impossible thing in the world. It can t be done, although every Buddha has tried to do it. That too is inevitable; no Buddha can avoid it.
3. This is one of the great misfortunes of humanity, that even great truths are destined to be misunderstood by people. What Buddha is saying is one thing; what people hear is another.
4. A buddha is bound to be misunderstood. Whatever he will do is so far away from you — he is almost on a sunlit peak of the Himalayas and you are in the dark valleys. Even if what he says reaches you, it is no longer the same. You hear only resounding valleys. Something of it reaches you and you interpret according to your own mind.
5. If you are rightly following the way of the awakened ones — Jesus, Buddha, Mahavira, Mohammed, it does not make any difference — then one sure sign is that you will be joyful for no reason at all. You will be just joyful, naturally. If that thing is missing, remember, you have misunderstood. You have gone onto some wrong track, you have misinterpreted.
6. Unconsciousness understands in its own way. That’s why Buddhas are always misunderstood. That’s a natural fate. It can’t be avoided. It is very difficult to understand a Buddha. It is very easy and natural to misunderstand him. To understand him will require great awareness on your part — because he lives in the world where there are no problems! where there are all solutions and solutions and no problems, all answers and no questions. And you live in a world where there are only questions and questions and no answers. You live so far away… as if you are living on different planets. He goes on shouting from there, but whatsoever reaches to you is totally different. And you can always find rationalizations for whatsoever you understand. You can become very argumentative, defensive too.
7. Buddhas have been misunderstood so much that whatsoever you think about Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Lao Tzu, be very cautious — ninety-nine percent of it is going to be a misunderstanding. If you ask me, “Who are Christians?” I say “The people who have misunderstood Christ.” If you ask me, “Who are Buddhists?” I will say, “The people who have misunderstood Buddha.” Misunderstanding is so easy because if you want to understand a buddha you will have to rise a little higher to see what he is showing. But if you want to misunderstand you need not move anywhere; wherever you are, remain there and you can misunderstand. To misunderstand is so comfortable, so cozy. You can misunderstand without any effort; it requires no change on your part. But it will show in your life.
8. I am widely misunderstood. I don’t think that it is in any way disrespectful to me. This is a compliment. The more widely I am misunderstood, the better. Certainly, Socrates was not so widely misunderstood — he was misunderstood only in Athens. Gautam Buddha was not so widely misunderstood — he was misunderstood only in Bihar. They were not so fortunate as I am. I am misunderstood all over the world! With me starts a new era of the misunderstanding becoming so wide. But with it there is a great hope too. If there are so many people who misunderstand me, there are millions of people who love me too. Those millions who love me, who understand me, may be silent — that’s why you hear only the voices which are against me. This has to be understood; it is part of human psychology. Love is always silent.
9. In fact, a Buddha is bound to be misunderstood, not Adolf Hitler; a Jesus is bound to be misunderstood, but not Joseph Stalin. Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, they speak the language that you understand. They are just people like you; they live in the same kind of sleep. Hence there is a communication between you and them which is missing between you and a Buddha, between you and a Lao Tzu. Buddha stands on the Everest and you live in the dark valleys far below. You don’t look up, you have forgotten how to look up. You crawl in the mud. Those who are crawling by your side can be understood more easily by you. They speak your language, they speak your idiom; they are perfectly in tune with you. They are not different people. But a Buddha, a Krishna, a Mohammed, these are different people. They speak a different language, from a different height, from a different vision — although they use the same words. But they give different meanings to your words, and you are going to miss those meanings.
10. A Zarathustra is a Zarathustra and a Buddha is a Buddha. They don’t belong to any country and they don’t belong to any tradition and they don’t belong to any race, color, religion. T hey simply belong to God. They simply belong to the whole. And whenever such people are there they are bound to be misunderstood, because the tradition that priests create, that scholars create, that politicians support — the tradition which is a conspiracy against man’s freedom — is bound to retaliate, react.
11. One thing is certain: that whenever a man like Buddha or Jesus or Lao Tzu is there, he is bound to be misunderstood, because the crowd belongs to the tradition, to a certain tradition: Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jew, Jaina, Buddhist, and the tradition cannot tolerate any new revelation. And the people are so full of knowledge, so full of prejudice, that they go on understanding in their own way. And because they understand in their own way, it becomes a misunderstanding. It is a very unconscious process. They don’t want to misunderstand; they are not deliberately trying to misunderstand me. They are trying to understand, but they come with conclusions, already arrived at conclusions, a priori conclusions. Hence whatsoever they hear is not what I say: their minds distort it, change it, give it a new color.
12. Unless you are absolutely silent, not even a thought stirring inside, not even a small ripple in the lake of consciousness, you will not be able to hear. And if you cannot hear, then whatsoever you think you hear is going to be wrong. That’s how Jesus was misunderstood, Socrates was misunderstood, Buddha was misunderstood. They were speaking very clearly. It is impossible to improve upon the statements on Socrates; his statements are very clear, almost perfect, as near perfect as language can be. Buddha’s statements are very simple; there is no complexity in them, but still misunderstanding arises. From where does all this misunderstanding come? Why have all the great prophets, TEERTHANKARAS, all the great enlightened Masters been misunderstood down the ages? — for the simple reason that people cannot hear. They have ears, hence they believe they are capable of hearing. They are not deaf, they have the instrument to hear, but behind their ears there is so much noise and their minds are standing behind their ears to interpret what is being said, to compare, to analyze, to argue, to doubt — they get lost in all the processes.
13. Down the ages, words of Buddha, Jesus, Mahavir have been misunderstood, because they have to use your language. And when they use your language it is always inadequate — and they have no other language. And even if they have another language, they cannot speak it to you because you won’t understand.
14. Socrates has always been misunderstood, Buddha has always been misunderstood, Sarmad has always been misunderstood. And I would rather be part of their company than the people who have been understood. The people who have been understood are third rate. They are understood because they are saying the same things that you already believe in. They are not higher than you, they are not bringing something from beyond. You can understand them because they are actually of the same mental age as you are, in the same way retarded as you are.
15. Buddha has been misunderstood by almost everybody. The religious people have not been able to understand him because he does not talk about God. They have not been able to appreciate him because he does not talk about the other world. And all the religions have depended on the other world. They are against THIS world and for some illusory world somewhere there in the future — beyond this life, beyond this body, beyond this moment. Their whole world is a fantasy world. They persuade people to sacrifice the real for the unreal, they persuade people to sacrifice that which is for that which is not yet and may not ever be. They persuade people to sacrifice the present for the future — how can they understand Buddha? Because he does not talk about the other world at all. He is not an other-worldly one.
16. That’s why, when you ask a Buddha: ‘What have you attained?’ — he keeps quiet, he does not answer. Because whatsoever he will say will be misunderstood ‘etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.’ You have your language, a code language. Whatsoever he says will be misunderstood. If he says: ‘I am ecstatic,’ what will you understand? You will understand that he is not in agony. If he says: ‘I am happy,’ you will say: ‘Right. So he is no more unhappy. That’s what I need to be. That’s my greed also, my hope also.’ Your desire will be provoked. And the happiness of a Buddha comes only when you become desireless. Whatsoever a Buddha says is bound to be misunderstood.
17. Buddha, when he became enlightened, for seven days remained silent, wondering whether to say it or not. “Because in every possible way,” he thought, “it will be misunderstood. It is better to be silent.” But a compassionate heart could not be at ease in silence, seeing that “Everybody needs this exploration, this excursion into himself. I know the way, if I remain silent it will be criminal. But if I say anything, then too, I will not be absolutely right in saying it, because that which is beyond the word cannot be brought into the word.” So after seven days, compassion took over, and finally he tried. For forty-two years he went on saying to people, and always making it clear — “What I am saying, don’t take it literally. I want you to experience it. Only then will you understand the meaning of it — not by hearing me, but by experiencing it. Only by tasting it, will you know the sweetness of it.”
18. The mystics have been trying ways, methods, means, to express God. A few have remained silent. If you ask the Buddha, “Is there a God?” he immediately closes his eyes and sits silently; that is his answer. He says, “Be silent, be still, and know.” You can misunderstand, you can think that he is just being rude to you. You have asked a question and he has not answered it, he does not think you worthy enough. Or you can think that he does not know, hence he is silent. Or you can think that he does not believe in God and is not courageous enough to say so. You can misunderstand his silence. Words can be misunderstood, silence can be misunderstood even more, because it is absolutely up to you what to make out of it. But when Buddha keeps silent he is simply saying, “Be silent and you will also know. This is the way to know and this is my way of expressing it.”