Wisdom is rare, knowledge is cheap. Knowledge is available everywhere; you can gather it from the books, from the schools, from the teachers. It is a simple process: it is just feeding your biocomputer, your brain, with information, and the brain goes on accumulating it. The brain is really a very sophisticated complex instrument, the most sophisticated. Man has not been able to make any computers so complicated yet.

 

A single man's brain cells can contain all the information available in all the libraries in the whole world. But you remain the same. Your memory goes on growing but your being remains a cipher.

 

Wisdom means the growth of the being; knowledge means the growth of memory....

 

Forget knowledge and get deeper and deeper into wisdom. Obviously nobody can teach it to you. You have to open your heart to the wind, to the rain, to the sun, to the whole of existence, in deep trust. And in that very opening wisdom arises. In that very opening, in that very surrender to the whole, one starts seeing, one is no more blind.

 

David means beloved of god. It comes from a Hebrew word dodavehu. Dodavehu means beloved of Jehovah. It is one of the most important things to remember, and to remember constantly: god loves you. One tends to forget.

 

There are problems in life and there are agonies to be encountered and to be surpassed. Life is not just a bed of roses; hence many times one tends to forget that god loves you. In fact great doubt arises: “How can there be a god if I am in such suffering? How can god allow such suffering? If he is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, then why does suffering exist at all? He can see that it is there because he is omniscient, he can feel that it is there because he is omnipresent, and he can change it immediately because he is omnipotent. Then why does the world go on living in suffering?”

 

There is every reason to disbelieve in god and there is no reason to believe in god. The mind can supply a thousand and one reasons why god cannot be, but the mind cannot supply even a single reason for god’s existence. In fact, from mind there is no way towards god. Mind is just the opposite of god: it is keeping your back towards god — and if you keep your back towards god how can you see? Hence the importance of constantly remembering that god loves you, that if there is suffering then there must be meaning in suffering, otherwise there would be no suffering. And there is meaning in suffering. It is through suffering that one becomes integrated.

 

Suffering is a challenge. It is not a disease to be destroyed, it is a challenge to be accepted, it is an adventure. In the very effort to transcend suffering one arrives at one’s real being. It has a purpose: without it there will be no evolution of consciousness. Pain is not without purpose; hence whatsoever the world is, it is as it should be. It is the most perfect world there can be. It cannot be improved upon.

 

But I can understand — it is very human to forget that god loves you. When you are in misery how can you remember it? But those are the moments to remember that god loves you. And if misery has come to you, then it is because he has sent it. It has to be accepted with gratitude.

 

At the last moment on the cross Jesus said “Why? Why have you forsaken me?” Even Jesus questioned. In a way I love his questioning. It shows his humanity, it shows that he was just part of us, one of us. He asked god “Why? Why have you forsaken me? Why am I going through such suffering? What is the purpose of it? What wrong have I done? For what am I being punished?”

 

But immediately he remembers — immediately, instantly, he remembers. Only for a moment does the agony, the suffering, possess him; again he transcends it and he says, “Let thy kingdom come, let thy will be done.” He has remembered that god loves, that if the cross has happened, if he is crucified, then it is god’s will; then there must be something hidden behind it, then it must be a blessing in disguise. He has become surrendered. Just a moment before, the last part of the human mind was still trying to struggle; now he has dropped that too. He dies enlightened, he dies a Buddha, he dies a Christ.

 

So go on remembering. You may not be crucified, but the whole of life is a cross and every moment there is suffering and there are problems, there is anguish, anxiety. In fact to suffer crucifixion is easier because it is only a question of minutes or, at the most, hours. In Jesus’ time it was a question of a few hours, because the Hebrew way of crucifying a person was very ugly. The person would remain hanging for hours: six hours, eight hours, twelve hours. Now there are electric chairs. We have found better ways: you can simply relax in a chair and you are gone! Not even for a single moment will you be able to say “Why? Why have you forsaken me?”

 

But the whole of life is a crucifixion. Each moment, at each step, there is suffering, there is agony.

 

Remember: god loves you, and all that happens has to be accepted with gratefulness. That’s what sannyas is all about.

 

God is always new, never old, always young. Truth is always fresh -- as fresh as the dewdrops in the early morning sun, as fresh as the newly opened bud of a rose. Truth is not a tradition, because tradition means the old. Truth cannot be contained by any scripture because all scriptures are old. Truth has no past and no future; truth has only one tense, the present. And to know the truth you also have to be as fresh as truth, only then is there the possibility of communion.

 

So drop the past, forget the past, and don't brood about the future. That which is no more is no more, and that which is not yet is not yet. Live in the moment. In that very living one penetrates into the very core of existence. One comes to know God and one comes to know what liberation is.

 

They say, "You reap as you sow." If we are miserable that simply means that we have ben sowing misery. Nobody else creates misery for you. Of course there is a gap between sowing and reaping, and because of that gap we think that somebody else is responsible. The gap deceives us...

 

Take the whole responsibility for your life. If it is ugly feel responsible for it. If it is nothing but anguish take responsibility for it. In the beginning it is hard to accept that "I am the cause of my own hell"... but only in the beginning. Soon it starts opening doors of transformation, because if I am responsible for my hell, then I can create my heaven too. If I have created so much anguish for myself I can create so much ecstasy too. Responsibility brings freedom and responsibility brings creativity..

 

The moment you see that whatsoever you are is your own creation, you are freed from all outer causes and circumstances. Now it is up to you: you can sing a beautiful song, you can dance a beautiful dance, you can live a life of celebration, your life can be a constant festival; nobody can disturb it. This is human dignity. God is a great respector of individuals, and a person becomes an individual only when he takes the whole responsibility for himself upon himself.

 

It is only through bliss that one can be really noble. It is only through bliss that one can have a really noble birth. Physically al births are the same: you may be born a king or to a beggar, it doesn't matter. Physiologically nobody is noble or ignoble, nobility is something spiritual. It is not given to you with birth, it has to be earned, it has to be created. One has to work for it. It is an arduous journey, an uphill task. One has to rise above many things.

 

It is easy to fall; it is difficult to rise, because when you fall nature helps you, gravitation helps you. It is like a rolling stone from the hill: gravitation is enough. But when you are rising towards the peaks you are moving against gravitation. Although there is another nature, a higher nature, which will help you, you will become aware of it only later on. The initial work has to be done first, then you will become aware of another law -- the law of grace -- which pulls you upwards just as gravitation pulls your downwards. But for that one has to be utterly pure. One has to learn how to trust, how to love, how to surrender. Then a moment comes in life when falling upwards is really falling -- although it is falling upwards. There is no effort needed: you simply relax and some grace starts taking you, starts pulling you up. You are given wings.

 

Sannyas is the initial work to purify you, to help you learn how to be available to the beyond so that grace can possess you. Sannyas is a new birth; one becomes noble, in the real sense of the word.

 

So let this be a second birth. Jesus says 'Unless you are born again you shall not enter into my kingdom of god. What does he mean by 'Unless you are born again'? He is indicating the birth of initiation. He is talking about sannyas in his own way.

 

So now the real journey starts. Up to now you have lived only in sleep -- now there is a possibility of waking up. And without waking up one never becomes aware of the meaning of existence, of the great poetry of life, of the great ecstasy of existence. It is tremendously beautiful, but we are fast asleep and we go on missing it. God goes on knocking on the door but we are snoring inside.

 

So now let sannyas become a real effort, real work to be born again.

 

- Osho, “Scriptures in Silence and Sermons in Stones, #21”