All words are small. All human efforts are limited. And then, it cannot be told straight. It can be communicated straight, but it cannot be told straight
-- and that is the difference between a thinker and a meditator. The thinker goes roundabout because he has to go through thought. He searches for the sky through the clouds and gets lost in the clouds, may never reach the sky.
The thinker gets lost in thoughts. The meditator starts by dropping thoughts. He starts by dropping thinking itself, and a moment comes when there is no thought: then there is immediacy. Then there is nothing between you and that which is. Then there is nothing at all -- you are bridged with reality. But that is an experience. Whenever you would like to tell that experience to somebody else you will have to use words, out of necessity, and words cannot contain it.
For certain purposes you can say the truth straight -- for certain purposes. 'The cat sat on the mat': either the cat did it, he did sit there, or he did not. But there are other kinds of truths which you cannot catch hold of so easily. This is a fact, not a truth. So remember the difference: if some truth can be said through language, then it is a fact -- 'the cat sat on the mat' Now there is an objective way of knowing whether this is true or not. If it is true it is a fact. If it is untrue it is not a fact, it is a fiction. But there are other kinds of truth which cannot be said so easily. You cannot catch hold of them.
Language is riddled with all kinds of ambiguity. If anyone says God, love or freedom, you need to know exactly what he means when he is saying it. These are big words -- God: now a Hindu means something, a Mohammedan means something else, a Christian means something else. There are three hundred religions in the world, so there are three hundred meanings to the word 'God'. Even those three hundred meanings don't exhaust it because new religions are being created every day, and they will go on being created. There can be as many religions as there are people in the world. Each man can have his own religion.
Then what is the meaning of the word 'God'? It becomes vaguer and vaguer and vaguer. It becomes a chaos. You cannot pinpoint anything about it, and if you try to pinpoint you destroy its beauty -- because you destroy its unlimitedness. If you fix it, you have killed it.
A butterfly on the wing is one thing, and a butterfly killed and pinned down in an album is a totally different thing. It is not the same butterfly. Where is the life? The moment you pin the butterfly down in an album, it is just a corpse.
When Buddha says, "God", it is a butterfly on the wing. You catch hold of the word, you pin it down in a book; you think you know, you think you have understood. All that you have got is just a corpse, the life has flown away.
The life is an experience! Words cannot carry the experience. When I say something... unsaid, when it is throbbing in my heart, it is alive. The moment it has left my lips it is no more the same thing: life is left behind. It goes on throbbing there in my heart, and only the word, dead, corpse-like, moves into the air. Just a sound, a ripple, reaches to you. It is not the same thing as it was unsaid.
And then more complexities arise: the moment the sound reaches your mind you start giving your meaning to it -- and your meaning may be just the opposite of my meaning because it will depend on your experience. If you meditate, then maybe your meaning will come closer and closer to me. If you have come to a point where you can stop all thinking and get in tune so deeply with yourself that there is absolute silence, then you will come closest to the meaning of what has been said to you.
In fact, then there will be no need to even say it. I can just look into your eyes and you will understand. I can just sit by your side and hold your hand and you will understand.
Then understanding is a transfer, a transmission beyond words, beyond scriptures.
The higher up you go, the thicker grows the mystery. The lower kinds of facts can be relayed through words because we have all experienced them. When I say 'a tree' you understand exactly what I mean, but when I say 'nirvana' you only hear the word, you don't understand what I mean -- because as far as the tree is concerned, it is a common experience, my experience, your experience. If I say 'a rock', immediately it is understood, it is a mundane fact. But when I say 'love', it is a little more difficult; and when I say 'nirvana', even more difficult -- because the higher the truth, the fewer are those who will be able to understand it.
Jesus was misunderstood. Out of misunderstanding he was killed. He was talking of the Kingdom of God, and the Roman rulers became suspicious. They started thinking that he was a politician and he wanted to rule the world, he wanted to create his own kingdom. He was talking continuously and saying to people, "I have come to establish the Kingdom of God." He was saying something, the politicians were interpreting something else. He was not talking of the kingdom of this world, he was talking of the kingdom of the other world, the invisible.
He was not concerned with politics at all.
It has always happened: the higher you go, the more dumb you feel. And whatsoever you say, you can IMMEDIATELY see it has been misunderstood.
Lao Tzu has said, "If I say something and people understand it, then I know it was not worth saying. If I say something and people don't understand, then I know that there must have been some truth in it."
We must learn to live with this, this mystery of higher truths. Music is one way of doing it, far better than language. Because music has no words it cannot tell anything, truth, untruth; so it can't tell no-truth or lies. It says nothing, it simply shows -- and that is the beauty of music.
You don't think whether music is true or untrue; that is irrelevant. You simply listen to it. You become overwhelmed by it, you are possessed by it. You fall in tune with it. You are transported to some other realm, to some other vision of reality. You are not in the mundane world. Music takes you to the higher peaks of life and existence. It simply takes your hand and leads you, very politely, very lovingly, into the mysterious.
Music was born as part of religion: music was born in temples, music was born in the mystery schools, in the esoteric schools of seekers of truth. It was born as an effort to convey something which cannot be conveyed through words. Music can bear witness to the mystery, and that is all.
If you love a Master, you start hearing his music, the music of his being. Even through his words you start hearing the wordless message, you start hearing... listening to the gaps between the words. You start reading between the lines. Slowly slowly words become transparent; then they don't hide, they reveal. But for that, trust and love are needed. For that, disciplehood is needed.