Why

 

 

'Why?' is a wrong question to ask. Things simply are. There is no why to them. The question why, once accepted, will lead you farther and farther into philosophy, and philosophy is a wasteland. You will not find any oasis there, it is desert. Ask the question 'why?' and you have started moving in a wrong direction; you will never come home.

 

Existence is, there is no why to it. That's what we mean when we say it is a mystery, because there is no why to it. In fact it should not be there and it is. There seems to be no need for it to be there,, no reason for it to be there, and it is there. 'Why' is a mind question.

 

And now you can be in a very great puzzle, because the mind is asking a question about itself: "Why is the mind?" The question comes from the mind, the answers will come from the mind, and the mind is capable of turning each answer into a new question. You will be moving in a vicious circle. To ask the question 'why?' is to fall into the trap of the mind. You will have to see to it. The question 'why?' has to be dropped; that's the meaning of trust.

 

Mind is. We can try to see WHAT it is, how it is, but we cannot know the why. To know the why we will have to go to the very beginning of existence, and there has never been a beginning. To know the why we will have to go to the very bottom of it, and there is no bottom. To know the why we will have to move to the foundation, but there is no foundation. That's the difference between a philosophic inquiry and a religious search. Philosophy asks why and gets lost more and more in the mire of the question 'why?' Religion is not concerned with why, science is not concerned with why.

 

The approach of science and religion is pragmatic. It is practical, utterly practical. Ask the question "What is mind?" because then there is a possibility. Because the mind is there, you are there, you can look into it, you can observe it, you can watch it and you can know what it is. Awareness can reveal its secret. To know why you will have to move backwards, into the beginning of things. That is not possible. Ask "What is mind?" and soon you will be able to see the reality of it.

 

Mind is nothing but the process of thinking, the traffic of thought. There exists not some faculty called mind. It is like a mirror. A mirror can be in two states: one is when the mirror is reflecting something -- people are passing and the mirror reflects, pictures arise and disappear. This is the state of the mind: consciousness is reflecting outside reality. Then the other state of the mirror is when nothing is reflected, nothing is passing by. The mirror is utterly silent, no picture arises. This is meditation.

 

Mind is a state of consciousness when the outer world is reflected in, and meditation is a state of the same consciousness when the outer world is not reflected in. Mind and meditation are two aspects of the same reality called consciousness. Mind is burdened with the outside. Meditation is a state of unburdened consciousness, nothing is reflected, consciousness is in its purity. There is no foreign matter moving inside it. Mind is nothing but consciousness reacting to reality, and meditation is nothing but consciousness simply there, not reflecting anything.

 

There is no need to fight with the mind; just understanding, awareness, observation, and mind starts dissolving.

 

You ask, "WHY IS THE MIND? IT SEEMS TO BE A VERY REAL PART OF OUR BEING."

 

"I WOULD DIG TO FUNCTION WITHOUT IT, BUT WHY, WHY IS IT THERE?"

 

It's being there cannot prevent you from knowing the other state. In fact both states are of the same energy, phases of the same energy. Mind makes it possible for you to have the other state. Without mind you would not be able to meditate, without mind you would not know anything of meditation. That's why animals don't know anything of meditation. Buddhas are not born there. Why? -- the mind is not born yet. If the mind is not born yet, how can you know the state of no-mind? The mind has to be there; only then sometimes can you put the mind aside and see into reality without any mind. Mind is a must!

 

And when we say you have to transcend mind it doesn't mean that we are against mind.We are simply giving you a message: Don't be finished with the mind. Mind is only the beginning of meditation. Make it a jumping board, use it. A man who has not attained to meditation remains with the seed, thinking that this is all. The seed has to be dropped into the soil so that it disappears. The seed has to be transcended by the tree, then only is it fulfilled. This is very paradoxical: the seed is fulfilled only in its death. Mind is fulfilled only in meditation, and meditation is mind's death. But that's its function -- it simply clears the way for meditation.

 

So mind is not the enemy of meditation. You can make it the enemy; that depends on you. If you become very antagonistic to mind, then you are turning a friend into an enemy. Then you are turning a stepping-stone into an obstacle. Remember it always: nothing is unnecessary, everything has its own place in. the ultimate harmony of things. Mind is a must!

 

When Adam left the Garden of Eden what did he do? He started creating mind. Hence, the symbolic Tree of Knowledge. He had been prohibited from eating of the Tree of Knowledge. Why had he been prohibited? -- because that was the only way to seduce him into eating it. It is not that Adam had disobeyed God. In disobeying God, Adam had fulfilled God's desire. God wanted him to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, hence the denial, hence the commandment: "Don't eat from it!"

 

The Garden of Eden was a big garden. The whole existence is the Garden of Eden -- millions and millions of trees. If Adam had been left on his own he might not yet have found the Tree of Knowledge. It was almost impossible to find it, it was not probable to find that one tree amongst millions and millions of trees. But God made it clear, saying, "Don't eat from this tree." He created the desire in Adam.

 

It was not the serpent who had seduced Adam, it was God Himself.

 

Why this seduction? -- because mind has to be created. Otherwise Adam would have lived like an animal, happy but unaware. And what is happiness if you are not aware? You may be the king of the whole world and if you are not aware what does it mean? Animals live in a kind of happiness, but unaware, not knowing that they are happy. Without knowing that you are happy, happiness means nothing. It is better to be miserable, but knowing is a must.

 

Socrates is reported to have said, "Even if I am going to be miserable, I would like to be a Socrates rather than a satisfied pig. An unsatisfied Socrates I would like to be, but not a satisfied pig." What is he saying? He is saying awareness is more valuable than any happiness, because only in awareness does happiness become bliss. Adam HAS to disobey.

 

God planned it beautifully, very psychologically -- He made certain that Adam would go astray, that he would eat from the Tree of Knowledge and would create mind. Because without mind, Adam would have never known what meditation is. Without going astray, Adam would never have become Jesus and come back home. To come back home one has to go astray. To become a saint one has to go into the dark realms of sin; there is no other way.

 

If a tree wants to grow high in the sky, it has to grow deep roots into the darker soil.

 

Nietzsche has said, "If a tree wants to touch heaven then it will have to send its roots to hell." Without sending your roots to hell, you will not be able to bloom in heaven. Adam has to go to hell, he has to disobey, because only through disobedience can you learn the beauty of obedience. He has to doubt, because only through doubt, one day, are the mysteries of trust revealed. He HAD to become a mind. Only after you have become a mind, crystallized as an ego, is there a possibility of surrender, is there a possibility of transcending mind.

 

So when I say to you that mind has to be transcended, never for a single moment think that I am against mind. I am not. How can I be against mind? Without mind, how will you transcend it, how will you go beyond it? Mind is a must, a friend on the Way, but going only so far. And one has to go beyond it too. And its function is to take you so far, so that you can go beyond.

-Osho, "The Wisdom of the Sands, Vol 2, #2, Q2“