Doubt

 

 

In fact freedom is the door to truth. So give freedom to children and create respect for freedom in their minds. Make them cautious and aware of all types of slaveries of consciousness and mind. Real education in religion can only be this.

 

But the teaching of religions is not such; it is just the opposite. It is only a training in slavery, because it is supportive of belief and not thinking. It is in favor of blindness, rather than eyes. It is based on following others and not on one's own consciousness.

 

Why are religions so afraid of thinking? Certainly the fear is not without any reason. The most important and solid reason is this, that if the thinking is conscious and active, many religions cannot last for too long. Religiousness will be there but the existence of religions will certainly be in danger, because the natural flow of thinking is towards universal truth. Just as the rivers flow towards the ocean, all thinking flows towards universality. Only the truth that abides after impartial investigation finally remains. And truth cannot be more than one, it is always one.

 

Because science followed right thinking, the arithmetic of Hindus and Christians is not separate. On the basis of belief it would not be possible that arithmetic be one. The pools of belief do not flow; they are closed unto themselves. Since they cannot flow towards the ocean, they can never reach to that which is one. Their very confinement in themselves makes them many.

 

Thinking is a flow - belief is stagnation.

Thinking is a constant transcendence of oneself.

 

Belief is to be imprisoned in oneself.

 

So from wheresoever thinking begins, in the end it leads to the central and ultimate truth. Belief prevents one from reaching that far.

 

I have heard that there existed a geography of the Jainas. Such funny things happen with religions! Can geography also be separate? Yes, if belief is the basis, it can be. Where there is no thinking, there is only fantasy, following and blind faith. And these can be separate for every individual. Truth is one, but the dreams of every person can be different. Even if two persons want to, they cannot have the same dream together.

 

Truth is always the same for all because it is residing in one's self. It is not imagination, a dream or an inference of any individual. One must deserve first to know the truth. To be able to see it, one must have healthy and open eyes. Such eyes are obtained only in perfect thinking and in the light of intelligence.

 

That is why I am repeatedly saying that if you want to give truth to children, give them the capacity to think. Make them free from just belief and give them intelligence. The awakened energy of thinking will make them capable of seeing and it will become their seeing. That alone will lead them to the ocean of truth, which is one and nondual.

 

Do you know that a person like Aristotle has written that women have fewer teeth than men? How could he write this? Did he not have a woman available to enable him to count her teeth? There is no dearth of women. But he just accepted a current belief, so there remained no question of any investigation. He himself had not one but two wives; he could have asked one of them to open her mouth for him to count her teeth. But no, when he did not doubt the current belief, how could he think? He just agreed to the blind belief of males that women have fewer teeth than men. In fact the male ego is never ready to accept that women can be equal to men in anything whatsoever, even if the matter is just of teeth! If a person of the stature of Aristotle did not doubt, who else can? -- though doubt is in fact the beginning of all search.

 

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.

 

Truth is a continuous search. It is an investigation with extreme awareness. Truth cannot be transferred by one to the other, it has to be searched for by one's own self. Truth cannot be borrowed; it is the fruition of one's own efforts. Education in religion is a preparation for such a search.

 

So as long as religion is related to belief, there can be no education in religion. It may be called education in religion but it will be only Hindu, Mohammedan or Christian. Such education is not religious, because people educated like this become narrow-minded. That way heartfulness cannot arise. Such people are full of prejudices. Their intelligence does not become free, but it dies. Such people become old in the mind, whereas for any search the mind must be fresh and young.

 

Only those who are impartial are young. Only those are young who have not allowed their consciousness to be imprisoned in conditioning. The conditioned mind becomes old, and the more conditioned it is, the more idiotic. Conditioning is not religion. Only the consciousness which is free of all conditioning can enter into religion.

 

-Osho, “Revolution in Education, #5”