Education

 

 

No child reaches to the ultimate peak of awakening, to pure intelligence, to pure consciousness, because we go on cutting the roots. There are subtle ways: before the child starts asking questions we start giving him answers. Even before he has asked the question we go on stuffing him with answers -- an borrowed, all ugly. Borrowed means ugly; howsoever beautiful the words may be, if they are borrowed they are ugly, if they are borrowed they are not true. Truth has to be discovered by oneself, it cannot be given by anybody else: it is not transferable. But parents, priests go on forcing beliefs on the child. He becomes a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian, a Jew, but he misses becoming a human being.

 

And he becomes unintelligent because he is told to imitate: 'Become like a Buddha.' That's what Buddhism is: 'Become like a Buddha.' Why? Why should anybody become like a Buddha? One Buddha is enough, one Buddha is beautiful, but filling the whole world with Buddhas will make it monotonous, boring. Just think of a world where everybody is a Buddha sitting under a tree meditating. Even the trees will become bored! And life will disappear from this planet, immediately life will disappear.

 

Or just think: all the people become Jesus Christs -- everybody carrying their crosses on their shoulders... Then the problem will arise: who will make the crosses? And why go on carrying them? Who is going to crucify you? They are carrying their crosses. That's what Christianity is: carrying your cross. It is 'crossianity', it is not Christianity.

 

Each child is told to imitate. No child is told to be himself, he is told to be somebody else. Just think: if you start teaching the roses to be marigolds and the marigolds to be lotuses and the lotuses to be roses... Fortunately, they don't understand your language. Fortunately, they won't bother about you. You can go on lecturing and they will go on swaying in the wind. They won't listen at all.

 

But just think: if some way could be found... And now scientists are trying to find ways, and they say, 'Yes, there is a possibility that some communication can happen between the trees and man, because trees have their own intelligence. We just have to learn their language and we have to translate our language.' Sooner or later devices will be available which can translate. You will feed the device, you will tell the rose, 'Become a marigold,' and the device will transmit your language into sensations, vibes. And immediately you will destroy the intelligence of the rose, because once the idea gets into the rose that he has to become a marigold, the rose will be finished -- because he cannot become a marigold; that is not inbuilt into his programme. And his effort will be to be a marigold; he will look with greedy eyes at all the marigolds flowering all around and he will become disrespectful about himself, condemnatory: 'I am not a marigold. Why am I not a marigold?' And he will start trying in every possible way to become a marigold. Only one thing will happen: he will not be able to grow roses in all this worry, in all this frustration, depression. He will lose juice, he will lose the zest, the zap, the zing -- he will lose everything. He will never become a marigold. Only one thing is possible: he will not become a rose either. He will be without flowers.

 

That's why millions of people in the world are without flowers, without intelligence, without freedom, without individuality. They have all been told to become like Rama, like Krishna, like Buddha, like Mahavira, like Christ, like Mohammed. That's what all these religions are.

 

It is perfectly beautiful that somebody was a Buddha and somebody was a Confucius and somebody was a Zarathustra, but there is no need to imitate them. Imitation is a way of crippling people, paralysing people, cutting their roots. And each child is told to repeat the beliefs of his parents. And of course, if his mind is programmed to repeat the beliefs he will repeat them.

 

From the kindergarten to the university that's what we are doing. We call it education. It is not education at all, it is just the opposite of education. The very word 'education' means drawing something out that is inside the person, bringing his centre to the surface, to the circumference, bringing his being into a form of manifestation -- it is latent, unmanifest, it is dormant -- making it active, dynamic. That's what education is.

 

But this is not happening in the name of education. In the name of education just the opposite is happening: they are stuffing everybody with ideas. Nothing is being drawn out of the well; the waters of the well are not being drawn, instead rocks are being thrown into the well. Soon the waters will disappear; the well will be full of rocks. And that's who you call a scholar, a pundit, a professor. They are nothing but stuffed tomatoes, stuffed potatoes -- nothing else, just stuffed people, stuffed with all kinds of bullshit

 

-Osho, "Zen: Zest, Zip, Zap and Zing, #1"