Philosia

 

 

I had to coin my own word for it: I call it philosia, as against philosophy, because philosophy means to think, and philosia means the love of seeing. Philosophy means the love of thinking – but what can you think? Just to avoid the danger of people going beyond mind, and becoming dangerous to the society, a substitute, a toy has been created. That is philosophy. No philosopher comes to experience anything. No philosopher becomes enlightened or awakened; he remains on the same ground as you are, as unconscious as you are.

 

Darshan – philosia – is a totally different approach. It is by witnessing your mind, not by thinking, but just becoming a watcher of your mind and creating a distance between you and your thoughts. Just seeing them, as if you are on a hill and the whole mind and its traffic is going on down in the valley, a moment comes when thoughts start disappearing because their life is in the identity. Their life is the life of a parasite; they suck your blood.

 

If you are far away and you are not giving any juice to your thoughts, they start shrinking and dying. When there are no thoughts around you but immense silence, tremendous nothingness, just a watcher and nothing to watch – this is the moment you are freed from the fetters of the mind. This is the moment of the beginning of a new life.

 

-Osho, “Beyond Psychology, #39”

 

 

 

 

I am not a philosopher. The philosopher thinks about things. It is a mind approach. My approach is a no-mind approach. It is just the very opposite of philosophizing. It is not thinking about things, ideas, but seeing with a clarity that comes when you put your mind aside, when you see through silence, not through logic. Seeing is not thinking.

 

The sun rises: if you think about it you miss it, because while you are thinking about it, you are going away from it. In thinking you can move miles away, and thoughts go faster than anything possible.

 

If you are seeing the sunrise then one thing has to be certain, that you are not thinking about it. Only then can you see it. Thinking becomes a veil on the eyes. It gives its own color, its own idea to the reality. It does not allow reality to reach you, it imposes itself upon reality; it is a deviation from reality.

 

Hence no philosopher has ever been able to know the truth. All the philosophers have been thinking about the truth. But thinking about the truth is an impossibility. Either you know it, or you don’t. If you know it, there is no need to think about it. If you don’t know it, how can you think about it? A philosopher thinking about truth is just like a blind man thinking about light. If you have eyes, you don’t think about light, you see it.

 

Seeing is a totally different process; it is a byproduct of meditation.

 

Hence I would not like my way of life ever to be called a philosophy, because it has nothing to do with philosophy. You can call it philosia. The word philo means love; sophy means wisdom, knowledge – love for knowledge. In philosia, philo means the same love, and sia means seeing: love, not for knowledge but for being – not for wisdom, but for experiencing.

 

So that is the first thing to be remembered. Nonviolence is a philosophy to Mahatma Gandhi; it is not a philosophy to me, it is a philosia. That’s where I have been constantly struggling with Gandhian philosophers, thinkers.

 

-Osho, “From Ignorance to Innocence, #2, Q1”

 

 

 

 

Philosophy tries to know, but never does. Religion never tries to know, but knows. Philosophy is an exercise in futility, of futility. Yes, it talks about great things – freedom, love, God, meditation – but it only talks about them. The philosopher never meditates. He talks about meditation, he spins and weaves theories, hypotheses, inferences about meditation, but he never tastes anything of meditation, never meditates.

 

Hegel and Kant, Plato and Aristotle – they are philosophers. Buddha and Kabir – they are not. But Heraclitus and Plotinus are also not philosophers, even though in the philosophy books they are called philosophers. They are not. To use the word philosopher for them is not right, unless you change the whole meaning of the word. Aristotle and Heraclitus cannot both be called philosophers in the same sense. If Aristotle is a philosopher, then Heraclitus is not; if Heraclitus is a philosopher, then Aristotle is not.

 

I use a totally different word, philosia, instead of philosophy. Philosophy means, literally, linguistically, “love of knowledge.” Philosia means love of seeing, not only love of knowledge. Knowledge is not enough for the real inquirer, he wants to see. He does not want to contemplate God, he wants to encounter God. He wants to hold God’s hand in his own, he wants to hug and kiss God. He is not satisfied with the concept of God. How can the concept be of any help?

 

When you are thirsty, you cannot be satisfied by the formula H2O. Howsoever right it is – right or wrong, that is not my concern, that is irrelevant – the formula H2O cannot quench your thirst. You would like water, and whether you know about H2O or not does not matter. For millions of years man has been drinking water without knowing anything about H2O, and it has been perfectly satisfying. Philosophy talks about water, religion drinks.

 

-Osho, “The Guest, #14, Q2”