Osho on Doubt

 

 

Trust has to be deserved, belief is a very cheap substitute. Belief means you are afraid of doubt, because doubt creates trouble, and doubt keeps you in a state of confusion. And you are not courageous enough to live in confusion, not courageous enough to live in a state of chaos, in anarchy -- and doubt creates that. So you immediately repress the doubt, and the way to repress is to believe.

 

The way to trust is DOUBT, and doubt to the very end. Go the whole way! Don't repress your doubt at any point, otherwise you will miss trust. Trust arises out of doubt, not by repressing but by experiencing doubt to its ultimate extreme.

 

When you go on doubting and doubting and doubting, a moment comes when all beliefs are destroyed by doubt, all faith evaporates in the heat of doubt, and all that is left is your being. Now there is nothing to doubt because you have doubted all and everything. When there is nothing to doubt, doubt dies, commits suicide, because there is nothing to keep it going on, nothing to nourish it any more.

 

That has been my way. I have not arrived through belief, I have arrived through doubt. It is better to begin as a great doubter than as a believer, because the believer will remain always pseudo; he will always remain superficial, shallow. Belief can never be more than skin-deep: scratch it a little bit and immediately the doubt is there. Trust needs a continuous hammering; doubt has to be used as a hammer. Until you reach to the rock bottom of it all... [....]

 

One has to go on and on doubting - until-a you sing-a it right!

 

Doubt is a sword: it cuts all beliefs, but it is a dangerous path. The path to truth is bound to be dangerous because truth is the ultimate peak. The higher you move towards Everest, the more you are entering into a dangerous arena. A single wrong step and you will be lost forever.

 

Truth liberates, but to reach truth you have to go through a very narrow passage, climbing towards the heights. It is dangerous. Hence millions of people decide to live in their dark valleys and they believe that "Everest exists and it is sunlit and there is tremendous beauty, because Jesus has reached there, Buddha has reached there.

 

We can believe in them. What need is there for us to go there? We can live in our dark valleys comfortably. There is no need to take any risk."

 

But without risk there is no truth, without risk there is no life. You have to learn to gamble, you have to be a gambler.

 

If you doubt and go on doubting, a moment comes when all that you have ever believed disappears, evaporates. It is almost a state of madness. One can fall any moment into the abyss that surrounds you. If one falls, it is a breakdown. If one keeps alert and aware, watchful, cautious, then it is a breakthrough.

 

Trust is the ultimate breakthrough: it helps you to know the truth on your own. And truth liberates only when it is YOURS; somebody else's truth cannot liberate anybody. It creates bondage and nothing else.

 

-Osho, “Guida Spirituale, #10, Q2”

 

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“The very first step to be taught in the search for truth is right doubt. A good beginning of religious education should be that. The real foundation of religion is doubt, not trust.

 

Doubt is the beginning, trust is the end.

Doubt is the search, trust is the achievement.

 

So whosoever begins with doubt, sometime or other does reach trust. But one who begins from trust reaches nowhere. There is no question of his reaching, because he has attached the bullocks behind the cart. Beginning is possible only with that which is the beginning. How can an end be the beginning? Where there is no doubt, there is no thinking. Where there is no thinking, there is no intelligence. Where there is no intelligence, there is no truth.

 

Religions have taught belief - neither doubt nor search.

 

Religion will teach one to doubt, to think and to search. Only whatsoever is obtained by one's own search is self-transforming, and is the truth.“

 

- Osho, "Revolution in Education, #4"

 

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“Doubt – because doubt is not a sin, it is the sign of your intelligence. Doubt and go on enquiring until you find. One thing I can say: whosoever enquires, finds. It is absolutely certain; it has never been otherwise. Nobody has come empty-handed from an authentic enquiry.”  

 

- Osho, "From Ignorance to Innocence, #11"

 

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“Science begins with doubt; meditation also begins with doubt. The method of science is observation of objects, the objective world; and the method of meditation is to observe the inside world. Science experiments with objects; meditation is the experience of your interiority, your subjectivity.  

 

In fact science has two wings: one, moving into the outside universe; the other, moving into the inside consciousness.  

 

Meditation should be absolutely necessary in every educational system, because meditation is not Hindu, not Christian, not Buddhist. Meditation has nothing to do with any religion. It has nothing to do with any belief. Meditation does not require you to believe in God first, heaven and hell, Jesus Christ as the only begotten son. It needs no belief of any kind.  

 

Meditation is an inquiry, a search, a pilgrimage towards your own center. And the person who knows himself cannot do anything wrong. That is an impossibility. The person who realizes himself needs no morality. Morality is needed by blind people.“  

 

- Osho, "From Death to Deathlessness, #28"

 

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“Accumulation of others' thoughts brings idiocy. By accumulation of thoughts, thinking and intelligence are not born. Too much emphasis on mechanical memory in the birth of thinking and intelligence, is fatal. Enough opportunities for thinking and use of intelligence should be made available if they are to grow. Doubt instead of belief is to be taught if thinking and intelligence are to grow.  

 

Belief and trust bind you, whereas doubt liberates. But by doubt I do not mean distrust. Distrust is only the negative form of trust or belief. Neither trust nor distrust but doubt is required. Trust and distrust are both the death of doubt. And where there is no liberating intensity of doubt, there is neither any search for the truth nor its attainment.  

 

The intensity of doubt becomes the search. Doubt is thirst, doubt is longing. It is in the fire of doubt that the life force is stirred and thinking is born. The pain of doubt is the birth pain of thinking. One who escapes that pain is deprived of the birth of thinking.  

 

Do we doubt? Do we doubt the fundamental meanings and values of life? If not, then certainly our education has been wrong somewhere. There can be no other base for right education except right doubt. If there is no doubt, how can there be any search? If there is no doubt, how will there be any discontentment? If there is no doubt, how will your being long for knowing and attaining the truth? That is why we have all become shallow puddles of contentment, and our souls have not remained rivers constantly running in search of the ocean.“  

 

- Osho, "Revolution in Education, #2"

 

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Question 1

How is one who has been trained all his life to analyze and question and doubt to bridge the gap between doubt and trust?

 

Doubt is beautifulOUBT IS BEAUTIFUL in itself. The problem arises when you are stuck in it. Then doubt becomes
death. Analysis is perfect if you remain seperate and aloof from it. If you become identified, then the problem arises. Then analysis becomes a paralysis. If you feel that you have become trained to analyze, question and doubt, don't get miserable. Doubt, analyze, question, but remain seperate. You are not the doubt. Use it as a methodology, a method. If analysis is a method, then synthesis is also a method.

Analysis in itself is half. Unless it is complemented by synthesis it will never be the whole. And you are neither analysis nor synthesis -- you are just a transcendental awareness. To question is good, but a question is obviously only half; the answer will be the other half. Doubt is good, but one part; trust is the other part. Remain aloof. When I say remain aloof, I say remain aloof not only from doubt but from trust also. That too is a method; one has to use it. One should not allow oneself to be used by it -- then a tyrrany arises. A tyrrany can either be of doubt or of trust. The tyrrany of doubt will cripple you; you will never be able to move a single step because doubt will be everywhere. How can you do anything while doubt is there? It will cripple you. And if trust becomes a tyrrany...? And it can become one; it has become a tyrrany for millions. The churches, the temples, the mosques are full of those people for whom trust has become a tyrrany. Then it does not give you eyes, it blinds you. Then religion becomes a superstition.

If trust is not a method and you are identified with it, then religion becomes superstition and science becomes technology. Then the purity of science is lost and the purity of religion is also lost. Remember this: doubt and trust are like two wings. Use both of them. But, you are neither.

A man of discretion, a man who is wise, will use doubt if his search is concerned with matter. If his
inquiry is about the outside, the other, he will use doubt as the method. If his search is towards the inner, towards himself, then he will use trust. Science and religion are two wings.

In India we have tried one foolishness. Now the West is committing another. In India we have tried to live only by trust; hence the poverty, the starvation, the misery. The whole country is like a wound, continuously suffering. And the suffering has been so long that people have even become accustomed to it, they have accepted it so deeply that they have become insensitive to it. They are almost dead: they drift, they are not alive.

This happened because of the tyranny of trust. How can a bird fly with one wing?

Now in the West, another tyranny is happening: the tyranny of doubt. It works perfectly well as far as Objective inquiry is concerned: you think about matter, doubt is needed; it is a scientific method. But when you start moving within-wards it simply doesn't work; it doesn't fit. There, trust is needed.
The perfect man is a man who has a deep harmony between doubt and trust. A perfect man will look inconsistent to you, but he is not inconsistent. He is simply harmonious -- contradictions dissolve in him. He uses everything.

If you have doubt, use it for scientific inquiry. And look at great scientists: by the time they reach their age of understanding and wisdom, by the time their youthful enthusiasm is gone and wisdom settles, they are always very deep in trust. Eddington, Einstein, Lodge -- I'm not talking about mediocre scientists, they are not scientists at all -- but all the great pinnacles in science are very religious. They trust because they have known doubt, they have used doubt, and they have come to understand that doubt has its limitations.

It is just like: my eyes can see and my ears can hear. If I try to hear from my eyes then it is going to be impossible, and if I try to see by my ears then it is going to be impossible. The eye has its own limitation, the ear has its own limitation. They are experts, and every expert has a limitation.

The eye can see -- and it is good that it can only see because if the eye could do many things then it would not be so efficient in seeing. In the eye the whole energy becomes sight, and the whole energy in the ear becomes hearing.

Doubt is an expert. It works if you are inquiring about the world. But when you start inquiring about God through the same method, then you are using a wrong method. The method was perfectly suited to the world, to the world of law, but it is not suited to the world of love. For the world of love, trust is needed.

Nothing is wrong in doubt, don't be worried about it. Use it well, use it in the right way. If you use it in the right way and use it well, you will come to an understanding: you will come to a doubt of doubt itself. You will see -- you will become doubtful of doubt. You will see where it works and where it doesn't work. When you come to that understanding, the door of trust opens.

If you are trained for analysis -- good. But don't be caught in it, don't allow it to become a bondage. Remain free to synthesize also, because if you go on analyzing and analyzing and you never synthesize, you will come to the minutest part but you will never come to the whole.

God is the ultimate synthesis; the atom, the ultimate analysis. Science reaches to the atom: it goes on analyzing, dividing, until finally it comes to the minutest part which cannot be divided any more. And religion comes to God: it goes on adding, synthesizing. God is the ultimate synthesis; more cannot be added to it. It is already the whole. Nothing exists beyond it. Science is atomic; religion is 'wholly'. Use both.

I am always in favor of using everything that you have. Even if you have some poison I will say, "Preserve it, don't throw it." In some circumstance it can become medicinal -- it depends on you. You can commit suicide by the same poison, and by the same poison you can be saved from dying. The poison is the same; the difference is right use.

Everything depends on right use. So when you go to the lab, use doubt; when you come to the temple, use trust. Be loose and free so that when you go from the lab to the temple you don't carry the lab around with you. Then you can enter the temple totally free of the lab -- you can pray, dance, sing. And when you move towards the lab again, leave the temple behind, because dancing in the lab will be very absurd -- you may destroy things.

Bringing the serious face that you use in the lab to the temple won't be appropriate. A temple is a
celebration; a lab is a search. Search has to be serious; a celebration is a play. You delight in it, you become children again. A temple is a place to become children again and again, so you never lose touch with your original source. In the lab you are an adult; in the temple you are a child. And Jesus says, "The kingdom of God is for those who are like children."

Remember always not to throw away anything that God has given to you -- not even doubt. It must be He who has given it to you, and there must be a reason behind it, because nothing is given without reason. There must be a use for it.

Don't discard any stone, because many times it has happened that the stone that was discarded by the builders became the very cornerstone of the building in the end.

 

-Osho, "Come Follow To You, Vol 1, #8, Q1"

 

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Question 2
Yesterday you referred about a western thinker who started doubting everything that can be doubted, but could not doubt himself. you said that this is a great achievement in opening towards divine. how?

 

The opening toward higher consciousness means you must have something indubitable with you; that's what trust means. You have at least one point which you trust, which you cannot doubt even if you want to. That's why I said Descartes came to a point through his logical investigation that, "We cannot doubt ourselves. I cannot doubt that I am, because even to say that 'I doubt,' I have to be there. The very assertion that 'I doubt' proves that I am."

You must have heard the famous dictum of Descartes, cogito, ergo sum -- "I think, therefore I am." Doubting is thinking: I doubt, therefore, I am. But this is just an opening, and Descartes never, never went beyond this opening. He turned again back. You can come back from the very door. He was happy that he has found a center, indubitable center, and then he started to work out his philosophy. So all that he had denied before he pulled in from the back door: "Because I am there must be a creator who has created me." And then he went -- then, heaven and hell, then God and sin and the whole Christian theology came in from the back door.

He used this as a philosophical inquiry. He was not a yogi; he was not really in search of his being, he was in search of a theory. But you can use that as an opening. An opening means you have to transcend it; you have to go beyond; you have to pass it over; you have to go through it. You are not to cling to it. If you cling, then any opening will become closed.

This is good to realize that at least "I cannot doubt myself." Then the right step will be this: "If I cannot doubt myself, if I feel I am, then I must know who I am." Then it becomes a right inquiry. Then you move into religion, because when you ask "Who am I?" you have asked a fundamental question. Not philosophical -- existential. Nobody else can answer who you are; nobody else can give you a ready-made answer. You will have to search yourself; you will have to dig it within yourself.

Just this logical certainty that "I am", is of not much use if you don't go ahead and ask, "Who am I?" And this is not a question, this is going to be a quest. A question may lead you into philosophy, a quest leads you into religion. So if you feel that you don't know yourself, then don't go to anybody to ask "Who am I?" Nobody can answer you. You are there inside, hidden. You have to penetrate to that dimension where you are, encounter yourself.

This is a different type of journey, the inner. All our journeys are outer: we are making bridges to reach someone else. This quest means you have to break all the bridges to others. All that you have done without has to be dropped, and something new has to be started within. It will be difficult, just because you have become so fixed with the without. You always think of others; you never think of yourself.

This is strange, but no one thinks about himself -- he thinks about others. If sometimes you think about yourself, it is also in relation to others. It is never pure. It is not simply just about you. Then when you think just about you, thinking will have to be dropped, because what you can think? About others you can think; thinking means "about". What you can think about yourself? You will have to drop thinking and you will have to look inside -- not thinking, but looking, seeing, observing, witnessing. The whole process will change. One has to look for oneself.

Doubt is good. If you doubt, and if you continuously doubt, there is only one rock-like phenomenon which cannot be doubted, which is your existence. Then a new quest will arise, and that is not a question. You will have to ask, "Who am I?"

Ramana Maharshi, his whole life, was giving only one technique to his disciples. He will say, "Just sit down, close your eyes, and go on asking 'Who am I? Who am I?' Use it as a mantra." But it is not a mantra. You have not to use it as dead words. It must become an inner penetration.

Go on asking it. Your mind will answer many times that you are a soul, you are a self, you are divine-but don't listen to these things, these are all borrowed; you have heard these things. Put them aside unless you come to know who you are. And if you go on continuously putting the mind aside, one day there is an explosion. The mind explodes, and all the borrowed knowledge disappears from you. And for the first time you are face to face with yourself, looking within yourself. This is the opening. And this is the way and this is the quest.

Ask who you are and don't cling to cheap answers. All answers that are given by others are cheap. The real answer can only come out of you. It is just like a real flower can only come out of the tree itself; you cannot put it from the outside. You can, but that will be a dead flower. It may deceive others, but it cannot deceive the tree itself. The tree knows that "This is just a dead flower hanging on my branch. And this is just a weight. This is not a happiness, this is just a burden." The tree cannot celebrate it; the tree cannot welcome it.

The tree can welcome only something which comes from the very roots, from its inner being, innermost core. And when it comes from its innermost core, the flower becomes its soul. And through the flower the tree expresses its dance, its song. Its whole life becomes meaningful. Just like that, the answer will come out of you, out of your roots. Then you will dance it. Then your whole life will become meaningful.

If the answer is given from without, it will be just a sign, a dead sign. If it comes from within, it will not be a sign, it will be a significance. Remember these two words -- "sign" and "significance". Sign can be given from without; significance can only flower from within. Philosophy works with signs, concepts, words. Religion works with significance. It is not concerned with words and signs and symbols.

But that is going to be an arduous journey for yourself because nobody can help really, and all the helpers are, in a way, hindrances. If somebody is too much patronizing and gives you the answer, he is your enemy. Patanjali is not going to give you the answer, he is only going to indicate you the path, the way from where your own answer will arise, from where you will encounter the answer.

The great Masters have given only methods, they have not given the answer. Philosophers have given answers, but Patanjali, Jesus or Buddha, they have not given answers. You ask for answers and they give you methods, they give you techniques. You have to work your answer out yourself, through your effort, through your suffering, through your penetration, through your TAPASCHARYA. Only the answer can come, and it can become a significance. Your fulfillment is through it.

-Osho, "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 1, #7"

 

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Question 2

You talked of moving from faith to trust. how can we use the mind that swings from doubt to belief to go beyond these two polarities?

Doubt and belief are not different -- two aspects of the same coin. This has to be understood first, because people think that when they believe, they have gone beyond doubt. Belief is the same as doubt because both are mind concern Your mind argues, says no, finds no proof to say yes; you doubt. Then your mind finds arguments to say yes, proofs to say yes, you believe. But in both the cases you believe in reason; in both the cases, you believe in arguments. The difference is just on the surface; deep down you believe in the reasoning, and trust is dropping out of reasoning. It is mad! It is irrational! It is absurd!

And I say trust is not faith; trust is a personal encounter. Faith again is given and borrowed. It is a conditioning. Faith is a conditioning parents, culture, society give you. You don't bother about it; you don't make it a personal concern. It is a given thing, and which is given and which has not been a personal growth, is just a facade, a false face, a Sunday face.

On six days you are different; you enter church and you put on a mask. See how people behave in church; so gently, so humanly -- the same people! Even a murderer comes to church and prays, see the face -- it looks so beautiful and innocent, and this man has killed. In church you have a proper face to use, and you know how to use it. It has been a conditioning. From the very childhood it has been given to you.

Faith is given; trust is a growth. You encounter reality, you face reality, you live reality, and by and by you come to an understanding that doubt leads to hell, misery. The more you doubt, the more miserable you become. If you can doubt completely, you will be in a perfect misery. If you are not in a perfect misery, that is because you cannot doubt completely: You still trust. Even an atheist, he also trusts. Even a man who doubts whether the world exists or not, he also trusts; otherwise he cannot live, life will become impossible.

If doubt becomes total, you cannot live a single moment. How can you breathe in if you doubt? If you really doubt, who knows the breath is not poisonous! Who knows millions of germs are not being carried into! Who knows cancer is not coming through the breath! If you really doubt, you cannot even breathe. You cannot live a single moment; you will die immediately. Doubt is suicide. But you never doubt perfectly, so you linger on. You linger on; you somehow drag on. But your life is not total. Just think: if total doubt is suicide, then total trust will be the absolute life possible.

That's what happens to a man of trust: he trusts, and the more he trusts, the more he becomes capable to trust. The more he becomes capable of trust, the more life opens. He feels more, he lives more, he lives intensely. Life becomes an authentic bliss. Now he can trust more. Not that he is not deceived, because if you trust, that doesn't mean that nobody is going to deceive you. In fact, more people will deceive you because you become vulnerable. If you trust, more people will deceive you, but nobody can make you miserable; that's the point to understand. They can deceive, they can steal things from you, they can borrow money and they will never return -- but nobody can make you miserable -- that becomes impossible. Even if they kill you, they cannot make you miserable.

You trust, and trust makes you vulnerable -- but absolutely victorious also, because nobody can defeat you. They can deceive, they can steal, you may become a beggar, but still you will be an emperor. Trust makes emperors out of beggars and doubt makes beggars out of emperors. Look at an emperor, who cannot trust; he is always afraid. He cannot trust his own wife, he cannot trust his own children, because a king possesses so much that the son will kill him, the wife will poison him. He cannot trust anybody. He lives in such a distrust, he is already in hell. Even if he sleeps, he cannot relax. Who knows what's going to happen!

Trust makes you more and more open. Of course, when you are open, many things will become possible. When you are open, friends will reach to your heart; of course, enemies can also reach to your heart -- the door is open. So there are two possibilities. If you want to be secure, you close the door completely. Bolt it, lock it and hide within. Now no enemy can enter, but no friend can enter also. Even if God comes, he cannot enter. Now nobody can deceive you, but what is the point? You are in a grave. You are already dead. Nobody can kill you, but you are already dead; you cannot come out. You live in security, of course, but what type of life is this? You don't live at all. Then you open the door.

Doubt is closing the door; trust is opening the door. When you open the door, all the alternatives become possible. Friend may enter, foe may enter. Wind will come; it will bring the perfume of the flowers; it will also bring the germs of diseases. Now everything is possible -- the good and bad. Love will come; hate will also come. Now God can come, devil can also come This is the fear that something may go wrong, so close the door. But then everything goes wrong. Open the door -- something is possible to go wrong, but for you, nothing, if your trust is total. Even in the enemy you will find the friend and even in the devil you will find God. Trust is such a transformation that you cannot find the bad because your whole outlook has changed.

That is the meaning of Jesus' saying, "Love your enemies." How can you love your enemies? It has been a problem to be solved -- an enigma for Christian theologians. How can you love your enemy? But a man of trust can do, because a man of trust knows no enemies. A man of trust knows only the friend. In whatsoever form he comes makes no difference. If he. comes to steal he is the friend; if he comes to take he is the friend, if he comes to give he is the friend: in whatsoever form he comes.

It happened that Al-Hillaj Mansoor, a great mystic, a great Sufi, was murdered, killed, crucified. The last of his words were -- he looked at the sky -- and he said, "But you cannot deceive me." Many people were there, and Al-Hillaj was smiling, and he said towards the sky "Look, you cannot deceive me." So somebody asked "What do you mean? To whom you are talking?" He said, "I am talking to my God: in whatsoever form you come you cannot deceive me. I know you well. Now you have come as death. You cannot deceive me."

A man of trust cannot be deceived. In whatsoever form, whosoever comes, it is always the divine coming to him because trust makes everything holy. Trust is an alchemy. It transforms not only you; it transforms for you the whole world. Wherever you look you find him: in the friend, in the foe; in the night, in the day. Yes, Heraclitus is right. God is summer and winter, day and night, God is satiety and hunger. This is trust. Patanjali makes trust the base -- the base of all growth.

YOU TALKED OF MOVING FROM FAITH TO TRUST...

Faith is that which is given; trust is that which is found. Faith is given by your parents; trust has to be found by you. Faith is given by the society; trust you have to search and seek and inquire Trust is personal, intimate; faith is like a commodity. You can purchase it in the market.

You can purchase it in the market -- when I say it, I say it with a very considered mind. You can go and become a Mohammedan; you can go and become a Hindu. Go in an Arya temple and you can be converted to be a Hindu. There is no difficulty. Faith can be purchased in the market. From Mohammedan you can become Hindu, from Hindu you can become Jain. It is so simple that any foolish priest can do it. But trust -- it is not a commodity. You cannot go and find it in the market, you cannot purchase it. You have to pass through many experiences. By and by it arises; by and by it changes you. A new quality, a new flame comes to your being.

When you see that doubt is misery, then comes trust. When you see faith is dead, then comes trust. You are a Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan; have you ever observed that you are completely dead? What type of Christian you are? If you are really a Christian, you will be a Christ -- nothing less than that. Trust will make you Christ, faith will make you a Christian -- a very poor substitute. What type of Christian you are? Because you go to the church, because you read the Bible? Your faith is not a knowing. It is an ignorance.

It happened in a Rotary Club somewhere: a great economist came to talk. He talked in the jargon of the economics. The priest of the town was also present to listen to him. After the talk, he came to him and said, "It was a beautiful talk you gave, but to be frank, I couldn't follow a single word." The economist said, "In that case, I would say to you what you say to your listeners: have

When you cannot understand, when you are ignorant, the whole society says, "Have faith." I will say to you: it is better to doubt than to have a false faith. It is better to doubt, because doubt will create misery. Faith is a consolation; doubt will create misery. And it there is misery, you will have to seek trust. This is the problem the dilemma that has happened in the world. Because of faith, you have forgotten how to seek trust. Because of faith you have become trustless. Because of faith you carry corpses: you are Christians Hindus, Mohammedans, and you miss the whole point. Because of faith you think you are religious. Then the inquiry stops.

Honest doubt is better than dishonest faith. If your faith is false -- and all faith is false if you have not grown into it, if it is not your feeling and your being and your experience -- all faith is false! Be honest. Doubt! Suffer! Only suffering will bring you to understanding. If you suffer truly one day or other you will understand that it is doubt that is making me suffer. And then the transformation becomes possible.

You ask me, HOW CAN WE USE THE MIND THAT SWINGS FROM DOUBT TO BELIEF TO GO BEYOND THESE TWO POLARITIES?

You cannot use it, because you have never been an honest doubter. Your faith is false: doubt is deep down hidden. Just on the surface a whitewash of faith is there. Deep down you are doubtful -- but you are afraid to know that you are doubtful, so you go on clinging with faith, you go on making gestures of faith. You can make gestures, but through gestures you cannot attain to reality. You can go and bow down in a shrine; you are making the gesture of a man who trusts. But you will not grow, because deep down there is no trust, only doubt. Faith is just superimposed.

It is just like kissing a person you don't love. From the outside everything is the same, you are making the gesture of kissing. No scientist can find any difference. If you kiss a person, the photograph, the physiological phenomenon, the transfer of millions of germs from one lip to another, everything, exactly is the same whether you love or not. If a scientist watches and observes, what will be the difference? No difference -- not even a single iota of difference He will say both are kisses and exactly the same.

But you know when you love a person then something of the invisible passes which cannot be detected by any instrument. When you don't love a person, then you can give the kiss, but nothing passes. No energy communication, no communion happens. The same is with faith and trust. Trust is a kiss with love, with a deeply loving heart, and faith is a kiss without any love.

So from where to begin? The first thing is to inquire into the doubt. Throw the false faith. Become an honest doubter -- sincere. Your sincerity will help, because if you are honest how can you miss the point that doubt creates suffering? If you are sincere, you are bound to know. Sooner or later you will come to realize that doubt has been creating more misery -- the more you go into doubt, the more misery. And only through misery one grows.

And when you come to a point where misery becomes impossible to tolerate, intolerable, you drop it. Not that really you drop it; the very intolerability becomes the drop. And once there is not doubt and you have suffered through it, you start moving towards trust.

Trust is transformation -- shraddha; and, says Patanjali, that shraddha -- trust -- is the base of all samadhi, of all ultimate experience of the divine.

-Osho, "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 2, #2"

 

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Question 6

You said that krishna happens to be arjuna's friend, not his master, and therefore he bears with him so patiently and clears his numerous doubts. but in the same geeta krishna says, "sanshayatma vinashyati -- a doubting mind perishes. " he says so looking at the doubting mind of arjuna himself. but the irony is that arjuna does not perish, the kauravas perish instead. please explain.

 

When Krishna says "SANSHAYATMA VINASHYATI," he is speaking a great truth. But most people make a mistake in translating the word sanshaya. The Sanskrit word sanshaya does not mean doubt, it means indecisiveness, a state of conflict and indecision.

 

Doubt is a state of decision, not of indecision. Doubt is decisive; trust is also decisive. While doubt is a negative decision, trust is a positive one. One person says, "God is. I trust in him." This is a decision on his part. And this is a positive decision. Another person says, "There is no God. I doubt his existence." This is also a decision, a negative one. A third person says, "Maybe God is, maybe God is not." This is a state of sanshaya, indecisiveness. And indecisiveness is destructive, because it leaves one hanging in the balance.

 

In the GEETA Krishna tells Arjuna, "Don't be uncertain, indecisive. Be certain and decisive. Use your decisive intelligence and know for certain who you are, what you are. Don't be indecisive as to whether you are a kshatriya or a brahmin, whether you are going to fight or you are going to renounce the world and take sannyas. You have to be clear and decisive about your basic role in life. Indecision splits one into fragments, and fragmentation leads to confusion and conflict, to grief and disintegration. Then you will disintegrate, you will perish."

 

The word sanshaya in the GEETA has been taken to mean doubt, and therein lies the whole confusion and mistake. I am in support of doubt, but I don't support indecision. I say it is good to doubt, that skepticism is necessary. And Krishna, too, would not deny skepticism. He stands by skepticism, and that is why he asks Arjuna to put his questions again and again. To raise a question means to raise one's doubts. But at the same time Krishna warns him against indecision. He tells Arjuna not to be indecisive, not to remain in conflict and confusion. He should not be incapable of deciding what he should do and what he should not do. He should not get bogged down in the quagmire of either-or, either to be or not to be.

 

Soren Kierkegaard was an important thinker of the last century. He wrote a book with the title, "Either-Or". Not only did he write a book with this title, his whole life was the embodiment of this phrase, either-or. People in Copenhagen, his birthplace, forgot his real name and called him only "Either-Or". When he passed through the streets of his town they said to one another, "Here goes Either-Or." He would stand a long while at a crossroad, thinking whether he should turn to the right or to the left. After inserting a key in the lock he took long to decide which way to turn it.

 

Soren Kierkegaard was in deep love with a woman named Regina. When Regina proposed to him, for his whole life he could not decide whether to marry her or not to marry her.

 

This is indecisiveness, not doubt.

 

Krishna admonishes Arjuna not to fall prey to indecisiveness, because it will destroy him. Whosoever becomes a prisoner of indecision inevitably falls to pieces, because indecision divides one into contradictory fragments, a sure way to disintegration and ruin. Integration is health, and it comes with decisiveness. If you have ever taken a clear decision in your life you must have immediately become integrated in that moment. The bigger the decision, the greater the integration. And if one comes to a total decision in life, he has a will of his own, he becomes one, he attains to a togetherness, to yoga, to unio mystica.

 

All of Krishna's effort is directed toward eradicating indecisiveness, it has nothing to do with doubt. He says, "Doubt fully, but never remain indecisive." I am fully in favor of doubt. Doubt you must. Go on using the chisel of doubt until the statue of trust becomes manifest. Keep chiseling from the rock, with the hammer of doubt, the foreign elements that have entered your nature, until you eliminate the last of them and nothing remains to be eliminated. Then the statue of trust will appear in its full splendor.

 

But remember, if you continue to use the hammer of doubt even after the statue has manifested, you will injure the statue, you will hurt your own being.

 

Trust is the ultimate product of doubt, and insanity is the ultimate result of indecision. An indecisive person will end up insane; he will disintegrate and perish.

 

If you understand it in this light, you will understand what Krishna means to say.

-Osho, "Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy, #4"

 

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Question 16
What you say is possible only in a state of enlightenment, and we find everything of that enlightenment in you. you are utterly humble, but when you come out as a relentless critic, we are assailed by doubt and confusion.

 

I am not going to do anything to destroy your doubt and confusion. A person who imposes humility on himself, who cultivates and practices humility, will always seem to be humble. But the humility that comes naturally, that is not imposed, cultivated, can be bold enough to be impolite if need be. Only a humble person can have the courage to be utterly impolite; only a man of love can afford to be hard-hitting if need be.

 

It is always possible that I will appear to be contradictory in many ways. That is what I have been telling you about Krishna -- that he is a bundle of contradictions. There are any number of contradictions in me, and you will encounter them often. I accept the whole of life, and that is my humility. If sometimes I feel like being harsh, I don't suppress it, I become harsh. I am not; there is no one to suppress anything. Similarly when I am humble, I am just humble. I don't come in the way of anything. I allow whatever is there to be and to express itself as it is. There is no effort on my part to become anything -- humble or arrogant. Therefore you will continue to be in confusion regarding me; it is not going to end.

 

Who, as you conceive it, is enlightened? Will you not accept Krishna as enlightened? But Krishna confuses you as much as I do. At times he seems to be departing from his enlightenment. When he takes up arms to fight in the battle of Kurkshetra, it seems he has lost his steadiness, his wisdom. But what is our concept of enlightenment, of wisdom that is unshakeable? Does it mean that an enlightened person acts the way we think to be the right way? Does it mean that his wisdom has been steadied in the way we think it should be?

 

No, steadfast wisdom does not mean wisdom that is inert and dead. It only means that one who has become enlightened, who has attained to the highest intelligence and wisdom allows this wisdom to act as it chooses. He is just a vehicle; he does not do a thing on his own. Such a person owns nothing, neither merit or demerit, neither virtue nor vice, neither respect nor disrespect. He does not say that what he does is right or wrong; he neither brags nor repents; now he does not look back on the past. He dies to every passing moment, and he lives in the moment at hand. He is not a doer; he just allows that which is, to happen. There is no one about him to oversee his spontaneity, to come in its way or decide for it. Now he is utterly choiceless.

 

So it is possible that sometimes I may appear to you to be harsh; I cannot help it. When I am harsh I am harsh, and when I am soft I am so. I have altogether ceased to be anything on my own; I don't insist any more that I should be this, that I should not be that.

 

This is what I call steady wisdom

-Osho, "Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy, #10"