The first question:

Osho,
Why are you being continuously misunderstood and misinterpreted by people?

It is absolutely inevitable, it is unavoidable. It has to be so. It is part of the destiny of those who speak the truth. They are bound to be misunderstood, misinterpreted. If they were not misunderstood, not misinterpreted, that would be a miracle. It has not happened up to now and there is no hope that it is ever going to happen.

Buddhas have always been misunderstood for the simple reason that they speak from a totally different vision which is not available to the masses. They speak from a totally different experience. Their experience is such that it cannot be expressed through words, yet they try to express it through words – they try to do the impossible. Saying it through words creates trouble. They use words in their own way, they give the words their own color, but when those words reach you they have lost all the meaning that was given by the awakened ones. Immediately you interpret them, you translate them into your experience.

Buddhas speak from sunlit peaks and you live in dark valleys. They talk about light and you have never seen light. They talk about eyes and you have not even dreamed about eyes. They talk about eternity and all that you know is time; all that you know is temporary and they talk of that which never changes, which is always the same, which abides. It is unbridgeable, the gap. Unless you become also conscious it remains unbridgeable.

Hence only a few disciples, slowly, slowly attain to the meaning of the masters. Very slowly a few people become awakened, they come out of their sleep. It is arduous, too, because all that you know about your life is your sleep and your dreams. Leaving your dreams and your life behind is hard. It is demolishing your whole past. It is entering into such an unknown territory and without maps – one feels scared.

Only disciples can understand; the masses cannot understand. The masses have every investment in not understanding. Even if there is some possibility of understanding they will avoid that possibility. They will not come close to the buddhas. They will try in every possible way to create more and more barriers. They will create rumors, all kinds of rumors. They will surround the buddhas with so much smoke of their own creation that the buddhas become almost invisible to them. They don’t want to listen – it hurts. Their whole life is rooted in lies and the truth hurts, it shatters.