Experimentation 

 

 

Always decide something by experimentation. Never decide anything a priori. Do the experiment and if it is not useful, you are finished forever with it. But still, think about it. I think Encounter will be very good. It is a very soft group... it will not disturb you too much. Then if you feel certain that you don't need groups, very good. Then there is no question, no problem.

 

[The visitor replies: Well, I think that in day-to-day living I can express my feelings very much. I wonder if I can experience emotions stronger in the group than I do in daily life.]

 

I also wonder, but we have to see that through experimentation; there is no other way. Maybe you are right -- and it will be good if you are right. If I am wrong it will be good! But there is no way to decide it beforehand. First do the camp. The camp may bring a feeling to you to do something.

 

My suggestion always is never to lose an opportunity which can give you something unfamiliar. Never cling to the past and always remain open and experimentative... always ready to walk on a path which you have never walked before. Who knows? -- even if it proves useless, it will be an experience.

 

Edison was working on a certain experiment for almost three years continuously and he failed seven hundred times. All his colleagues, his students, became completely frustrated. He would come every morning happy and bubbling with joy, and ready to start again. It was too much: seven hundred times and three years wasted! Everybody was almost certain that nothing was going to come out of it. The whole thing seemed to be useless... just a whim.

 

They all gathered together and said, 'We will become mad! This man goes on being happy and every day he comes and starts again as if he has completely forgotten that three years have been completely wasted.'

 

They talked to Edison and told him, 'We have failed seven hundred times. Now it is a complete failure. We have not achieved anything. We have to stop.'

 

Edison laughed uproariously. He said, 'What are you talking about? Failed? We have succeeded in knowing that seven hundred methods won't be of any help. If there are one thousand possibilities, we have closed seven hundred. Now there are only three hundred there. We are coming closer and closer to truth every day! Who has told you that we have failed? We have knocked on seven hundred doors and they were not the right doors, but we have learned one thing. There was no other way to learn that they were not the right doors. If we had not knocked, we had no way of knowing. We may have been standing on the first door continuously thinking that this is the right door, but now we are certain that seven hundred doors are false. This is a great achievement!'

 

This is the basic scientific attitude: if you can decide that something is false, you are coming closer to the truth. Truth is not available in the market so that you can go directly and order it. It is not ready-made, available. You have to experiment.

 

So what I suggest is, always remain experimentative. And never become smug. Never think that whatsoever you are doing is perfect. It is never perfect. It is always possible to improve upon it; it is always possible to make it more perfect.

 

-Osho, "Beloved of My Heart, #4“