What is knowledge? And why are all those who have become awakened deeply against it?
Knowledge is a device to fight with existence. Knowledge is a tool in the hands of the ego. Knowledge is a conflict: the part is trying to conquer the whole by knowing the secrets of the whole. Knowledge is the basic ego trip.
Just as money is, power is, knowledge is also -- but more dangerous than money, more dangerous than power, because knowledge is more subtle. I must tell you the old biblical story OF Adam's expulsion from paradise. That parable has multi dimensional meanings. One of the meanings is Lao Tzuan: God created the world, and he told Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge -- but why particularly the tree of knowledge? In fact it seems absurd. Had he prohibited Adam from murder, we could have understood; had he prohibited Adam from moving in sex, then all the world religions would have understood. But God prohibited neither sex nor violence but knowledge. Knowledge seems to be the original sin.
But why should God prohibit it? Why is knowledge dangerous? Because the very effort to know the secrets is aggression. The deepest aggression. The very effort to unveil mysteries is violence. And the very effort to know means you are getting ready to fight. Otherwise what will you do with knowledge?
Knowledge is a device of aggression, fight and conflict. The part is trying to rebel; the part is trying to have its own centre of being separate from the whole. The part is trying to become the centre of the world itself!
Not that there is a God who prohibited. Yesterday I told you that God loves stories. Now I must tell you that God himself is part of a beautiful story. God is the most beautiful parable. There is nothing like God anywhere. Don't search for him otherwise you will search for him in vain. You will never come across him. God is a parable -- but beautiful! It says many things, and you will miss if you think that God is a person. God is not a person.
It happened, once I heard a great philosophical dialogue. I was sitting in a rich man's house, in his beautiful drawing-room; he was chattering constantly, but then the phone rang in the other room and he had to leave me. It was good that he left otherwise I would have missed this great dialogue.
Just by my side there was a big bowl, and two goldfish were swimming in it. The younger one suddenly stopped and asked the other: Do you believe in God? The younger fish looked very philosophic -- a seeker. The old one said in a guru-like way: Yes, otherwise who do you suppose changes our water every day? If there is no God who do you suppose changes our water every day?
All concepts of God are like this -- Who do you suppose created the world? Who do you suppose goes on controlling the world, managing the world? Just small minds, small concepts. God is not a concept, it is a parable.
So remember when I say 'God prohibited' I don't mean that there is somebody who prohibited. I simply mean that this is a way of saying something. EXISTENCE prohibits knowledge. Existence allows innocence and prohibits knowledge because in innocence the part merges with the whole, remains with the whole, remains one with the whole -- and the moment it starts knowing ego arises, ego crystallizes. The part is no more flowing with the whole now, now it has its own mind -- to do certain things, not to do certain things; now it has its own choices, now it has its own likes and dislikes.
This is the meaning of the story: suddenly Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise.
You must have wondered where that paradise is. It is not a geographical place, it is a psychological state of mind. Innocence is paradise, knowledge is expulsion.
Every child is born as Adam or Eve and remains in paradise. But then we start teaching him, we start conditioning him. All these teachers and people who condition, all these people who try to make a child knowledgeable, are the serpent who convinced Eve that if you eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge you will become like God, you will have your own centre as God has his centre. If you know, you will become something other than you are.
The whole of knowledge is a seduction to become something which you are not. All knowledge is creating future, all knowledge is creating desire to become something which you are not.
Innocence is to enjoy that which you are, knowledge is to make the effort for that which you are not.
That serpent was the first teacher of the world. That serpent created a rift, and the rift was between being and becoming. All knowledge creates this rift between your being and your becoming. It creates a DREAM. It creates an allurement, an illusion that you can become like gods. But -- you are not gods, you can become like gods. Innocence says you ARE, there is no need to become. Otherwise is not possible -- you are part of the whole, you have the same quality as the whole has, you are HOLY. Innocence says you are already that. Nothing is to be done. You have simply to enjoy it and celebrate it and delight in it. Knowledge says: As you are you are condemned, you are nothing; you will have to become like gods. Try! Make effort! Do things! Discipline yourself!
Remember, the day a child starts thinking of the future he loses innocence. Only up to that moment, while he goes on enjoying the present, is he a child, innocent; uncorrupted is his being. Becoming has not entered in, he is still in paradise.
Paradise is nothing, paradise is a capacity to enjoy yourself right here and now.
You are in paradise, but still you have lost it because you cannot enjoy here and now. You are thinking, planning for the future, somewhere when you become like gods, then you will enjoy it.
Knowledge creates future. Knowledge creates desire. Knowledge creates becoming. Knowledge is SANSAR, the wheel. When you are in the wheel you go on round and round and round reaching nowhere.
Knowledge is the world. When Jesus says: My kingdom is not of this world, he means the world of becoming. He does not mean this world of the trees and the birds singing and the rain falling, and the sky and the clouds, no, he does not mean by 'this world', this world that surrounds you, he means the world that surrounds your mind and your being, the world of becoming, desire -- what Buddha calls TANHA. The desire to be something other than you are already.
And that is impossible. You are going to be in a constant hell. You can be only that which you are already, nothing else is possible. You are simply trying to do something impossible.
You cannot be anything else. How can you be? A rose flower trying to become a lotus flower, a lotus flower trying to become something else... but they are not so stupid, they are still part of paradise. The rosebush just by your side is still in paradise but you are not. The child just sitting by your side may be still in paradise but you are not. I am just here before you, and in paradise, but you are not. So paradise is not a question of geography, it is a question of inner space.
Knowledge creates the rift, it corrupts innocence, it makes you old, otherwise you would remain always like children. And when Jesus says, and he says perfectly rightly, that 'unless you become like children you will not enter my kingdom of God,' that is the secret key to open the closed doors of paradise again.
Knowledge expels you, not God. There is no God, that is just a way of saying the same thing. To say it in easier ways we make parables that you can understand. The moment you become knowledgeable you are expelled automatically, nobody expels you. And the moment you drop knowledge and become innocent again you are accepted back, nobody accepts you.
Knowledge is a device to fight with the whole, and how can you fight with the whole? It is just like a drop of ocean fighting with the ocean; it is going to be a miserable, very very miserable, hellish phenomenon. How can the drop fight with the ocean? It can go on fighting, but there is no possibility of it ever conquering the whole. It will be always in defeat, and that is the hell, always defeated, always defeated, always a failure.
And Lao Tzu says: Knowledge is the only sin. And all those who have awakened to their inner innocence say the same.
Drop knowledge, and become innocent, childlike again. Regain your lost childhood, and suddenly you have become a sage, a saint. Nothing is lacking. Except for this desire to become something else nothing is barring your way.
-Osho, “Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 3, #3”