Thinking

 

 

Truth is not something which can be found by philosophizing, it is not a conclusion of thought; on the contrary it is a realization of no-thought. Philosophy is a distraction: one has to stop philosophizing.

 

Just today I was reading one of Rudolf Steiner's statements that "If a German comes to a crossroad and one sign says 'heaven' and the other says 'lecture about heaven', the German always goes to the lecture about heaven." Philosophy is that kind of thing; a lecture about the truth.

 

Be less a thinker and more an experiencer. That's my fundamental message, be existential. Intellect can go on round and round but it never reaches the real thing. It cannot, it's not possible for it. Truth has to be found in a state of no-mind, so the whole work here consists in putting the mind aside, in living beyond mind, in just living and rejoicing in living without thinking about it.

 

And it is not only true about Germans, it is true about almost everybody in the world; particularly about the educated people. And unfortunately now almost everybody, more or less, is educated. For one hundred years universal education has been the slogan of the social reformers and the missionaries and the servants of the people and they have almost educated everybody. Now everybody is thinking and nobody is living.

 

D.H. Lawrence has a good suggestion that if we could close all the schools and all the universities for one hundred years then there would be hope for humanity. I agree perfectly with him; it would be a tremendously beautiful experiment. For a hundred years all Oxfords and Cambridges and all schools and colleges from Kindergarten to the university, would be closed -- a one-hundred-year holiday! And in those one hundred years man would regain his primitiveness, his authenticity, his existential status. And I don't think that man will open those schools and colleges again -- ever!

 

Truth is within you, just be silent and know it. It is a question of being silent and knowing. Thinking keeps you occupied, so much so that you cannot know that truth is already inside you, it is already the case.

 

-Osho, "Is the Grass Really Greener...?, #22“

 

 

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Remember this: you can go on thinking about God, about soul, about the other world, and you may make believe that you know something about God just by thinking `about'. That will be false. You cannot know anything about God -- the word `about' is absurd. You can know God, but you cannot know `about' -- that `about' creates philosophy.

 

How can you know about God? Or, for example, how can you know about love? You can know love, you cannot about love, because `about' means someone else knows and you believe in his knowledge. You collect and gather opinions. You say, `I know something about God.' All knowledge which is `about' is false, dangerous, because you can be deluded by it.

 

You can know God, you can know love, you can know yourself, but forget that `about'. That `about' is philosophy. The Upanishads say something, the Vedas say something, the Bible says something, the Koran says something, but for you, all that will become `about'. Unless it becomes your experience it is futile, wasted.

 

This point must go deep within you, because you can go on thinking, and the mind is such that you can start thinking about meditation. You can make anything an object for meditation, for thinking. Even about meditation you can think, and you can go on thinking about it -- nothing will happen.

 

I am talking about so many methods. There is a danger: you may start thinking about these methods, you may become knowledgeable. That won't do, that is of no use. Not only is it of no use, it is dangerous -- because meditation is experience, knowing `about' is worthless.

 

Remember this word `experience'. Life's problems, all the problems of life, are existential, they are not speculative. You cannot solve them by thinking; you can solve them only by living them. Through living the future opens. Through thinking the future never opens. On the contrary, even the present closes.

 

You may not have observed: whenever you think, what happen? Whenever you think, you are closed. All that is present drops. You move on a dream-path in your mind. One word creates another, one thought creates another, and you go on moving. The more you move in thinking, the further away you go from existence. Thinking is a way to go away. It is a dream-way; it is dreaming in concepts. Come back to the earth. Religion is very earthly in this sense; not worldly but very earthly, substantial. Come back to existence.

 

Life's problems can be solved only when you become deeply rooted in existence. Flying in thoughts you move away from the roots, and the further away you are, the less is the possibility of solving anything. Rather, you will confuse everything, and everything will become more entangled. And the more entangled, the more you will think, and the further away you will move. Beware of thinking!

 

-Osho, "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2, #11“