Because people are unconscious. Because people are fast asleep. Because people are robots. Communication is impossible; you say something, something else will be understood.

There is no way to communicate. The only way to communicate is in love, through silence. But nobody knows how to be in love and nobody knows how to be in silence. Only in love and silence, communication is possible. But we are not in love and we are not silent. We are so full of knowledge, that's why communication is impossible. Language is one of the reasons why there is so much misunderstanding in the world.

There is no misunderstanding in the animals and in the trees and in the birds, because language does not exist. They are fortunate — they don't know anything about language, so they communicate in love, in silence. Their dumbness is a great blessing to them. Man is the only animal who is not dumb, who can speak. And this very phenomenon is a problem.

There is an existential principle: Existence precedes essence. A simple statement that you are born first, that you are born without any intrinsic nature, that you are born tabula rasa. Nothing is written on you, writing comes later on. You are born as pure existence with no essence, with no built-in program, with no destiny. You come into the world not knowing who you are. You are nobody when you come into the world, a pure emptiness. And then by your acts, by your doings, you start defining yourself. Essence comes later on by your own effort.

A simple statement and a beautiful statement. But I have come across many many interpretations of this simple sentence of only three words: Existence precedes essence.

The first interpretation I have come across is, for some people this idea becomes translated into: Nothing is possible for man, because man is empty. And man has no intrinsic nature, so there is no destiny to be fulfilled. That man is accidental, that life has no meaning, that life is utterly hopeless.
A seed has a meaning because it has a built-in program that it has to become a tree — that it has to attain to a certain kind of fruits and flowers, that it has to rise into the sky, that it has to be this and that. The seed has a built-in program — that's why there is hope and there is meaning and the seed can trust that something is going to happen. And the seed is not accidental, because there is a destiny.

This is one interpretation — that man is accidental, has no nature, is a hopeless thing. Sartre says man is a useless passion. There is no possibility of any significance in man's life.

For some others it carries hope, because the idea is translated into: Everything is possible for man because there is no nature, hence no boundaries. And they find in it great hope and freedom. Now the other interpretation goes just the contrary to the first. The other interpretation says: Because there is no intrinsic nature, man is not a slave. The seed is a slave. The mango seed will become a mango tree, there is no freedom. Man can become anything, man can be anything, whatsoever he chooses to be. There is a possibility to choose. The mango tree cannot choose, it is a slave; there is no hope, it is just mechanical. It has to fulfill a certain destiny; everything is predetermined. So how can there be freedom and how can there be joy? And how can there be any hope in it? It is a mechanical repetition. Out of a mango seed will come a mango tree and out of a mango tree will come again mango seeds — and so on, so forth, for eternity it will go on and on. And there will never be anything else. This is a hopeless situation. This repetitiveness is utter boredom.

Now the same sentence takes a new meaning, just the contrary to the first. The meaning is that man is free. That man can be whatsoever he chooses to be. That man is a kind of god. That nobody decides for man, man has to decide for himself. That man's decision has to come from his own soul. What he is going to write on the tabula rasa is his own writing, there will be his own signature. Man has individuality. No mango tree has any individuality. No peacock has any individuality — all peacocks are alike, and all mango trees. But man has uniqueness, individuality. There is great hope. Now see? The meaning has turned just to the opposite polarity.

I have come across a third interpretation too. For others it means: Everything is permissible to man. And with that they abandon all restraint, they become licentious. They say, 'When there is no nature, when there is nothing as a given program for man, then there is no need for any morality, no need for any discipline, no need for anything. Man is a chaos and should remain a chaos.' Then nothing is good and nothing is bad. If there is a built-in program then you can decide what is good and what is bad.

For example, for a mango tree. You can decide what manure is good and what manure is bad, because the mango tree has a built-in program, it has to become a mango tree. You can decide what manure will help and what manure will not help, how much water is needed, how much sun is needed, how much space is needed. You can find a pattern, a discipline, for the tree. The pattern and the discipline will be decided by the intrinsic nature of the tree.

But man has no intrinsic nature, so anything goes. Man is free — that is interpreted as: Man needs no discipline, man is permitted to do whatsoever he wants to do. Adolf Hitler is as good as Gautam Buddha. To kill a man is as good as to be compassionate, to love is as good as to hate. Because how to decide what is good and what is bad? There is no criterion. Man is a tabula rasa, man is an emptiness, there is no way to decide. All is good — murder is good, suicide is good, destruction is good.

Now this is a totally different interpretation. And the sentence is the same: Existence precedes essence. And with this they abandon all restraint. They become licentious, indulgent. And this indulgence is bound to destroy humanity, but this interpretation is possible.

And for still others, there is a fourth meaning: Everything is permissible against man. Man has no nature, so you can bend man this way or that. You can make man a soldier or a saint or a sinner. Man is empty, so you can write anything on man. Everything is permissible against man. So what Adolf Hitler did to millions of people, converting them into robots — those nazi soldiers were robots, they were trained to be machines not men — that's permissible. And Buddha turned thousands of people into sannyasins, brought them out of their mechanicalness into consciousness. Everything is good — Buddha is doing his thing and Adolf Hitler is doing his thing and there is no criterion to judge.

Language seems to be the medium of communication but it is not. You say something and immediately you will be misinterpreted. You say something and you will be surprised that people have taken such altogether far-out meanings; you had not even dreamt about them, you have not even thought about them. Once you say something you are no more the master of it. Then whosoever gets hold of it will have his own meaning, will squeeze his own meaning out of it. And you are helpless, you cannot do anything.

Language is not the right medium to communicate. But people don't know silence, so there is no other way. Even a Buddha has to talk, or a Lao Tzu — he has to use words which are inadequate, dangerous. The day Buddha died, his disciples divided into thirty-six schools. Just the day he died — as if they were just waiting. Thirty-six meanings to each of Buddha's assertations.

On Krishna's Bhagavad Gita there are one thousand commentaries — one thousand meanings to each of Krishna's statements. If Krishna comes back and reads these commentaries he will go mad. He will not be able to conceive what has happened. He was talking to his disciple and to his friend, Arjuna. It was a love dialogue. And one thousand meanings? And ten thousand more are possible.

I was reading Michael Adam's memoirs. He writes: 'As a child I was given twenty-six wooden bricks, each one brightly painted with a letter of the alphabet. A patient teacher taught me to make words, tried moreover to make me see, as adults do, that the four letters B-I-R-D made a bird, that the word was the thing, the real robin, the red-breasted one, brave singer in the snow. It was only pretending. I knew even then that it was only pretending. The bricks could be scattered. Their colors were false. There was no flight and no song...'

But words become things sooner or later. The word 'God' has become God and you have forgotten the real God. The word 'love' has become love and you have forgotten the real love. The word becomes more and more important, people become hypnotized by words. Yes, it is difficult to deceive a child, because he can see the pretension. But how long will he be able to see the pretension? A child is fresh — he looks at those bricks, colored bricks, and you have made a word out of them. And the teacher is saying, 'Now look: b-i-r-d, bird. This is the bird, the real robin.' Mm? To explain to the child, he must be saying these things. 'The redbreaasted one, brave singer in the snow.' And the child is smiling — he knows that this is just tricky. There is no robin there and these colors are false. And this robin cannot sing and cannot fly and these bricks can be scattered. There is nobody behind it, it is just an empty game. But sooner or later he will also become hypnotized by words.

Language is the basic problem. That's why there is so much misunderstanding. If you want to have understanding, you will have to drop language. You will have to learn how to dehypnotize yourself from words. You will have to put aside the word 'rose' and you will have to see the red rose — there on the bush, in the wind, in the rain, in the sun. And while seeing the rose, don't go on repeating 'This is a rose' — otherwise you will carry a curtain on your ears, on your eyes, on your being. You will not be able to hear and see and feel. And don't go on saying that this is a beautiful rose — that 'beautiful' is again a word. Drop that. See what beauty is. Don't go on using the word 'beautiful'; just see, penetrate, encounter, beauty itself. The rose is there — what is the point of using the word? Put the words aside. Clean the passage between you and the rose that is there. And don't compare it with other roses that you have seen before. Otherwise you say 'Yes, this is a beautiful rose. I have seen such roses before. ' Or 'This is more beautiful than the roses of last year. ' Or 'This is more beautiful, or less beautiful, than the roses of the neighbor.' But again you are getting lost in words.

This rose. This robin, this redbreasted bird. You just look, and forget all language. And in that forgetting of language, understanding arises. One has to be non-verbal for understanding to arise. And then start communicating through silence sometimes. Holding the hand of your friend, sit silently. Just looking at the moon, feel the moon, and both feel it silently. And see, there happens a communion — not only communication but a communion. That your hearts start beating in the same rhythm. That you start feeling the same space, that you start feeling the same joy, that you start overlapping each other's being. That there is communion. That you have said without saying anything, and there will be no misunderstanding.

I have to use words. I am helpless. The day you will be able to understand silence there will be no need for me to talk to you every day. We can sit in silence. And that will be a beautiful day — I am preparing you for that. Even though I use words I use them against words — I use them in such a way so that they can commit suicide in you. That's why I have to be contradictory. That's why I say one thing this moment and contradict it immediately — so that no word takes root in you. So slowly slowly you start understanding that words are meaningless, their meaning is a pretension. Then there will be no misunderstanding.

After many years of trying, a man won a big First Dividend on the football pools. His prize money amounted to millions of pounds and naturally he went a little mad in the first week or two, buying an apartment and a country house, two cars and a yacht. Then one day he rushed into the most expensive furriers in Bond Street and ordered several thousand pounds' worth of fur coats and stoles.
'This is quite a large order, sir,' said the clerk.
'Yes,' he replied. 'I've won a First Dividend on the pools and I'm going to smother my wife in furs!'
'Wouldn't it be cheaper to use a pillow?' said the clerk.

Three girls, one American, one English and one French, were applying for the job of air-hostess, and were given initiative tests. One of these involved the capacity for making quick decision, and the three girls were asked the following by their examiner: 'Suppose,' he said, 'that you are flying over the Polynesian islands and your plane has to ditch in the sea. You find yourself alone in a rubber life-raft rowing towards an island. As you get closer you see a crowd of American marines on the shore watching you coming in. What would you do?'
The American girl said, 'I should turn around and row to another island.'
The English girl said, 'I should carry on rowing, and when I reached land I should ask to see the commanding officer and report to him.'
And the French girl said nothing, but looked puzzled.
'Do you understand the question?' asked the examiner.
'Oh yes,' she replied. 'But what is the problem?'

It depends on you.

A benevolent but forgetful old gentleman was entertaining a party of people, some of whom he had not met for a long time. As they were all standing around drinking cocktails before going in to dinner, the host moved from one to the other, making polite conversation. In the course of so doing, he came upon a young man of whom he had not heard for some time. 'I am delighted to see you,' he beamed. 'And how is my dear old friend, your father?'
'I am sorry to have to tell you, sir,' said the young man, 'that my father died some six months ago.'
The host expressed his deep regret and at that moment the butler announced that dinner was served.
After dinner, the host again espied the young man and, having completely forgotten the previous conversation, enquired once more after his dear old friend, the young man's father. 'I am sorry, sir,' was the reply, 'but my father is still dead.'

Language creates almost ninety-nine percent of problems. Philosophy, theology, doctrines, scriptures, political ideologies — they have all created thousands of problems. And man is in a confusion, in a great confusion. All those fighting ideologies are inside you. All the past, the whole past, the maddening past, is trying to possess you. It is not homogeneous. Christianity is in you, Buddhism is in you, communism is in you, fascism is in you — and they are all pulling you apart. It is a miracle how man goes on keeping himself together.

And in this state of confusion, when you hear something, first you don't hear rightly what is being said. Second, you interpret it according to your own past. And everything goes wrong. If you want to avoid misunderstanding, you will have to learn silence. If you learn silence, the first thing will be that you will never misunderstand anybody else. And that's a great joy, not to misunderstand anybody. You will become a good listener, you will know the right kind of listening. And everything will be crystal clear to you. That clarity will not come from logic, from intellect, from analysis; that clarity will come through silence. If in your silence somebody's word falls you cannot misinterpret it, because there is nobody to interfere. Either you understand or you don't understand, but there is no way to misunderstand. Either you say 'Yes, I understand' or you say 'I don't understand.' But there is no way to misunderstand.

What is misunderstanding? Misunderstanding is neither understanding nor non-understanding. It is a mixture, it is a hotch-potch. And it creates more confusion in you — the more knowledgeable a man is, the more confused. The more a man is knowledgeable, the less is the possibility to understand anything.

Learn silence. And at least with your friends, with your lovers, with your family.... And this is your family, the orange family. Here, sit in silence sometimes. Don't go on gossiping, don't go on talking. Stop talking, and not only on the outside — stop the inner talk. Be in an interval. Just sit there, doing nothing, just being presences to each other. And soon you will start finding a new way to communicate. And that is the right way.

It is said about Mahavira — a strange story but beautiful and meaningful — that when he became enlightened he remained silent. It created many problems, because he had attained and it was his duty to share it. When you have attained you have to share it. It is intrinsic to attainment to share. That's why Buddha has spoken, and Christ and Lao Tzu.

Mahavira kept silent, he found another way. Maybe that is why his religion never became a world religion. His followers remain very few — even now there are only thirty lakhs Jainas. That is nothing — after two thousand five hundred years, only thirty thousand. That means if Mahavira had converted only thirty couples, that would have done — that many people would have been Jainas. He could not convert many people. And the reason? He wanted to commune through silence, he remained quiet. And the way that he found was strange but beautiful. It could not prove very effective, because it is very difficult to speak through silence in this mad world. He failed, but the experiment was worth trying.

What did he do? He prepared a few people for silence, to understand him in silence. He would sit silently, and only those few people who had learnt how to listen to his silence would understand what he meant. And they would tell it to people. But then again the problem arose. He would not speak — he was a strange man, he thought it a kind of betrayal to speak. Because whatsoever you say is going to be misunderstood — then you become the cause of misunderstanding. Whatsoever you say will be only half true, because the whole truth cannot be reduced to words. So you will be destroying truth. And he was not the man to do that, he kept quiet. Just a few disciples who had learnt how to commune with him in silence would sit silently there, listen to his silence — would feel what he wants, what he feels, what he knows, and would go to people and tell them.

But that doesn't help. Now these people who told others were misunderstood. So what is the point? He could have told it himself — there would have been less misunderstanding, because the power of Mahavira would have been there. Now, Mahavira gives to other people and those people are not so enlightened, not so conscious. They go to people and they relay and broadcast Mahavira's message. Much more misunderstanding will be there. And of course they could not convert many people, they had their limitations. But he tried — a great experiment.

I would also like to try it — but not only for a few people. I would like to create a great mass of people for silence. And it's that for which I am working slowly slowly. Once you are ready, thousands of people ready for silence, then I can really say that which cannot be said through words.

Buddha gave Mahakashyapa his flower and said, 'I am giving to you that which I could not give to others. I am giving you that which can only be given in silence.' I would like thousands of Mahakashyapas to receive that flower. One is not enough.

So be more and more silent and you will understand why there is so much misunderstanding in the world. And you will understand that now you don't misunderstand; either you understand or you don't understand. Both are good, things are clear. If you don't understand, you can ask again. If you understand then the work is finished, there is no need to ask again. But if you misunderstand you go on thinking you have understood, so you don't ask again. And you have not understood. And that misunderstanding will make your life a corrupted phenomenon. It will be crippling, it will paralyze you.