Osho,
I was blind. You gave me light for which I am extremely grateful. Until now, I did not ask a single question, but now I cannot hold back. Osho, it seems that some men of truth, after contemplating the consequences of telling the truth, came to observe, “Say the truth, but say the pleasant truth. Don’t say the truth that is unpleasant.” Osho, please say something about it.

Satyadharma, it is a very significant question. There have been men who have been trying not to tell the unpleasant truth and only tell the pleasant truth, but these men do not know what truth is. Once a man knows truth, then he is not concerned about consequences. The concern for consequences is only for the coward, and cowards have never been known to know the truth.

It has to be remembered that truth is almost always going to be unpleasant, for the simple reason that the whole of humanity is living in many lies. The truth itself is not unpleasant, but because people’s lies are exposed, it feels to them as unpleasant. And if you try to make the truth pleasant, you will have to make it a lie. Only a lie can be a pleasant thing for the masses because it fits with their conditionings.

My own experience is just the opposite: The man who has experienced truth will say it in its absolute sharpness, so that he can cut through your layers of lies.

All surgery is unpleasant. And truth is the greatest surgery in existence.

I am reminded of a story about Gautam Buddha. One day early in the morning, a man came. He was an atheist; his belief was that there is no God. Now, atheism is one of the lies. You have not explored the outer space, neither have you explored the inner space, and still you have come to the conclusion that there is no God. You have never meditated, you have never given a chance to yourself to feel the divineness of existence – still you go on carrying your belief that there is no God.

The man asked Gautam Buddha, “What is your opinion? Is there a God or not?” Buddha looked at the man. There was a moment of silence and he said, “There is nothing except God.”

His intimate disciple Ananda was with him. He could not believe it because Buddha never taught about God, and suddenly, to a stranger, he says, “There is nothing but God.”

And in the same day in the afternoon, another man came who was a theist. He believed there is a God; a God who created the world. Now this too is a lie because even if God created the world there cannot be an eye witness. If you accept that there was an eyewitness, that means the world was already there.