Osho,
Theosophists have talked about different groups of masters existing physically, or even non-physically. How many of these groups exist today? What are these esoteric groups, and how do they influence seekers and the world’s activity? Please tell us about your relationship with these esoteric groups of masters.

Spiritual knowledge has many difficulties in order to exist. The first difficulty is that it cannot be expressed adequately. So whenever someone comes to know, he is not able to express exactly what has been known. It cannot be easily transferred. Someone knows something, there are seekers who want to know it – but it cannot be communicated. Just because you want to know it, and just because someone is capable of telling you, does not mean that communication is possible. The very nature of spiritual knowledge is such, that the moment you go to express it you feel that it cannot be expressed. So, esoteric groups are needed to express it and communicate it.

An esoteric group means: a group specially trained to receive a particular knowledge. We may take an analogy: Einstein said many times: “There are not more than half a dozen people in the world with whom I can communicate.” He was talking about mathematical knowledge not spiritual knowledge. But it was a fact. Not even half a dozen persons existed with whom Einstein could talk easily – because Einstein had reached to such peaks in mathematics that they could not be communicated in ordinary mathematical symbols.

Even if Einstein tries to convey his knowledge, you will hear it but not understand it – because just “hearing” is not understanding. And when you do not understand it, there is every possibility you will misunderstand it – because in understanding and non-understanding there is an in-between phenomenon: that of misunderstanding. No one is ready to accept that he has not understood. So when there is no understanding, it does not mean “no understanding.” In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, it means “misunderstanding” – because no one is ready to say that he does not understand. Everyone will say that he understands – and then misunderstanding follows.

So, if in mathematics, which is not an esoteric knowledge…in mathematics, which is not concerned with the ineffable…. If in this twentieth-century world in which mathematics has existed for five thousand years continuously…. Thousands and thousands of minds are trained in mathematics: every university all over the world teaches it, every primary school teaches it. With so much training, so much knowledge, so many departments in so many universities teaching it, and Einstein says: “Only six persons exist to whom I can communicate what I know.” Then you can understand the difficulty of communicating spiritual experience.