Osho on Journalists, Why is it that the Journalists never seem to understand you?

Osho on Journalists

Question - Beloved Master, Why is it that the Journalists never seem to understand you?

Osho - Kavyo, it has nothing to do with me. They have never understood Jesus, Socrates, Buddha, Kabir. They cannot understand; it is against their investment. The journalist lives on creating sensations. Any news is news only when it is sensation. They live on rumors and they have to make rumors very spicy. They have no interest in truth, because truth is never news. Truth is so ancient, truth is always the same. I am saying the same truth. Buddha said it, Christ said it, and all those who have known. It is nothing new -- how it can be news?

And they come here in search of news. They have to invent -- and it is really interesting how inventive people can be.
Just a few days ago I was reading a report in a Punjabi magazine about this commune, this ashram. The man says, the journalist says, that he has been here for fifteen days, stayed in the commune, and whatsoever he is writing is based on his own experience. Because he introduced his article in this way I became interested: what has he seen? So I went through it. Ordinarily I don't read what journalists go on writing, it is impossible. We have a big press department for that, at least thirty persons continuously reading and collecting, because it is happening all over the world, in all the languages. So much is being published that it is impossible for me to keep any track of it. But because this man said that, "I have been in the ashram for fifteen days," I looked into the article. I was amazed!

He says that the ashram is spread over fifteen square miles! Now, I think even Poona is not spread over fifteen square miles. He says the moment you enter the gate the first thing that you see is a big white marble statue of a naked woman! Because I very rarely go to the gate, I asked Laxmi, "What has happened? Where is this statue?"

He says that there are artificial lakes, artificial waterfalls, thousands of sannyasins swim naked in the lake. There are underground air-conditioned halls where ten thousand people can sit together. Each morning I deliver a discourse in an underground hall. You are sitting in an underground hall, air-conditioned, and not only that -- all the disciples have to sit in absolute nudity! Feel your clothes -- if you think you are wearing clothes you are deceived. You are all naked.

Now these people have a great investment in creating rumors. That's how the magazines, the newspapers sell. They have nothing to do with truth. This man has never been here.

They cannot understand for two reasons. First: if they understand, they will not be able to write anything. That has happened to a few journalists. Those who have understood, they have become sannyasins; they have forgotten all about writing. They had come to write; now they have decided not to go again back, they have decided to be here.

Not only journalists... here are detectives from many countries. And a few detectives even have become sannyasins! And they have confessed to me that they had come as spies, but now they have understood what is happening here and they would like to become part of the commune.

If a journalist goes and reports exactly what he has seen, nobody is going to believe him. That's what happened with Satyananda. He had come from a famous German magazine, STERN, to report; then he became a sannyasin. His becoming a sannyasin created a trouble. His own people with whom he had worked for years -- the chief editor, the editors and others -- they thought that he had been hypnotized. He tried hard for months to convince them that he had not been hypnotized, but they wouldn't listen. They were not even ready to publish what he had written. They said, "You are too much influenced, you are not in your senses." And even when they agreed after months of argument to publish it, they cut the whole article into half in such a way that it lost all context, it lost all its wholeness, it became fragmentary.

In the first place, the journalist lives on rumors. He is not here to understand me, he is here to MISunderstand me; that is his investment. Secondly: the people who become journalists -- not all the people but almost ninety-nine point nine percent of the people who become journalists -- are very uncreative people. In fact those who can create, they create; those who cannot create, they criticize. Uncreative people become great critics. It is easy to criticize poetry, it is difficult to write poetry. It is very easy to criticize painting -- you can criticize Picasso, but you cannot paint like Picasso. It is easy to criticize anything.

Turgenev has written a story, THE FOOL. In a certain town there was a man who was known as the greatest idiot in these parts. He was very much worried because wherever he would go people would laugh at him, whatsoever he would say people would ridicule him. Even if he was saying something right, people would laugh at him because nobody could believe that the idiot could say anything right. It was assumed that he was a perfect idiot.

A Sufi mystic was passing through the village. The idiot went to him and he said, "My whole life is wasted -- everybody thinks I am an idiot. Can you help me?"

He said, "It is so easy! You just start doing one thing -- you start criticizing, and after seven days you come to me. I will remain here for seven days just for you; within seven days everything will be changed. But you criticize! If somebody quotes Shakespeare, immediately say, 'What is there in it? It is all nonsense, rubbish!' If somebody says, 'The moon is beautiful, look!' -- just say, 'What is it? I don't see any beauty. Prove what beauty is there!' Nobody can prove it, because beauty cannot be proved. If somebody says, 'What a beautiful morning!' -- immediately jump upon it and start criticizing. You do only one thing for seven days: go around the town and criticize everybody."

Within seven days the man came back -- not alone, followed by hundreds of people, and they all said, "You have done a miracle! The greatest idiot has become the greatest wise man. Nobody can argue with him."

It is easier to criticize, very easy to criticize. It is very difficult to create. And what I am creating is something invisible. Unless you have very sympathetic eyes you will not be able to see it. Unless you fall in rapport with me you will not be able to understand it.

Father Murphy was a priest in a very poor parish. He asked for some suggestions as to how he could raise money and was told that a racehorse owner always had money. He went to a horse auction, but instead of buying a horse he got a donkey. However, he thought he would enter it in the race and the donkey came in third. The next day the headlines in the paper read, "Father Murphy's ass showed." The archbishop saw the headlines and was displeased.

The next day the donkey came in first and the headlines read, "Father Murphy's ass out in front." The archbishop was up in arms and figured something had to be done. Father Murphy had entered the donkey once again and the donkey came in second.
The headlines read, "Father Murphy's ass back in place." The archbishop thought this too much, and forbade the priest to enter the donkey in the next race.
The next day the headlines read, "Archbishop scratches Father Murphy's ass."

The archbishop ordered Father Murphy to get rid of the donkey. He was unable to sell it, so he gave it to Sister Agatha for a pet. When the archbishop heard this he ordered Sister Agatha to dispose of the animal at once. Since she could not give it away, she sold it for ten dollars.
The next day the headlines read, "Sister Agatha peddles her ass for ten dollars."
They buried the archbishop three days later.

Journalists live on such stupid things. Their whole investment is wrong, their priorities are wrong. And they know perfectly well how to report about politicians because that is their business. The politician understands them, they understand the politician; they speak the same language. But when they come across a person like me, the distance is so vast. They speak one language, I speak totally another. They can't understand what I am saying: they go on misunderstanding it, they go on putting their own interpretations on it.

And the journalists think themselves very clever, they think themselves very knowledgeable, they think themselves very intellectual. A great misunderstanding prevails that they are part of the intelligentsia -- they are not! Intelligence is always creative; it is only nonintelligence which is critical. Criticism is not of much value; hence I don't pay any attention to what they go on saying. And you need not be worried about them -- leave them to themselves.

Source - Osho Book "The Dhammapada, Vol 3"

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