Question 1:

Why do i ask so many foolish questions?

 

 

BECAUSE there are no wise questions, and there cannot be. A wise question exists not. Questioning as such is foolish. I am not condemning it, I am not saying don't ask. But remember, the questioning mind is a confused mind, and out of the confusion comes the question; whatsoever answer is given to it will enter into the confused mind again. That answer will be distorted. The confused mind will start playing on it and will create many more questions out of it. It is a vicious spiral.

 

No answer is going to help unless you understand that questioning in itself is futile, unless the understanding grows deep that questioning is meaningless.

 

There is nobody to answer your question. Existence is there without any explanations - and it is absolutely silent. You go on asking, it does not respond.

 

By and by you will understand that questions are meaningless - then they disappear.

 

The day questions disappear is a great day. On that very day the answer becomes available. The answer never comes through questioning, it comes when the questioning has disappeared. In fact, to say it comes is not right: when the questioning has disappeared you suddenly find that you are the answer, your very being is the answer. That is what you had been seeking and seeking for.

 

All questions are foolish; they have to be. And all answers are lies; they have to be - because you cannot answer a foolish question with truth. There will be no meeting between them. You ask a question, the Master goes on answering it - in the hope that by and by your questioning will disappear. That's the difference between a Master and a teacher.

 

A teacher believes that he can answer your question. He is also a fool, just like you. The Master knows there is no answer, but he goes on answering you in the hope that by and by you will start looking deeper. Your understanding will grow, and one day suddenly your questions will disappear. You will look inside and you will not find any questions. That very moment you become the answer...

 

you are the answer.

 

Meanwhile, continue to question. It is an unburdening process: only by questioning will you come to see that questions are futile. And one has to say whatsoever is.

 

I have heard....

 

A man rushed into a church, a Catholic church, went into the confessional booth and said, "Father, I have made love to a woman since the morning up to now, twenty-five times!"

 

Even the Father was surprised: he had listened to many confessions, his whole life had been just listening to confessions, but this was something new - twenty- five times since the morning?

 

He asked, "Are you married?"

 

The man said, "Yes, Father, to the same woman." So the Father relaxed and he said, "There is no problem; it is your wife, you can make love."

 

He said, "I know. And moreover, I'm not a Christian, nor am I a Catholic: I am a Jew. But I had to tell somebody!"

 

If something is burdening you, overburdening you, you have to tell somebody.

 

You can ask me; let them be foolish.

 

So when I say that all questions are foolish, I am not saying to stop asking.

 

Otherwise, old Paritosh would be in trouble - he has to bring questions. You continue asking....

 

And by not asking you will not be able to understand that questions are foolish, but by asking, and by my constant answering and yet not answering them. This is the whole process of awareness. You ask the question; when you ask a a question you think it is very serious, you ask a question and you think it is very profound, and then I answer it and I answer it with a joke. The whole profundity, the seriousness is gone; you start laughing. A great possibility is there that you will start laughing at your question, at the ridiculousness of it.

 

Life is there to be lived. Life has no question-mark; it is a mystery, there is no explanation. And it is good that there is none: it would be a great misfortune if there were an explanation. If there were an answer that could satisfy you, just think how flat things would become, how boring, how monotonous - because no answer can answer your questions. Life remains an adventure, it remains a constant search.

 

Searching, one day you come to a point where you understand that you are wasting your energies in searching. The same energies can be put to celebration.

 

You can enjoy.

 

These are two approaches towards life: the approach of the questioner, the seeker, the thinker, the philosopher; and the approach of the religious person, the mystic, the poet, the painter, the man of the heart. When a thinker enters into a garden he starts asking questions: "Why are trees green? Why are roses red?"

 

When a poet enters he starts singing a song about the red roses and the green trees. When a painter comes, he paints. When a mystic comes, he simply stands there in tremendous awe. His breathing stops, time stops; it is so ecstatic. The question does not arise at all.

 

The philosopher goes on asking. The artist goes on painting, creating the same beauty again and again. The mystic does neither: neither does he ask nor does he create the flower. He is simply there, standing in deep meditation, enjoying. The mystic knows the way of joy.

 

Learn the way of joy, learn the way of dance, at least learn the way of poetry; and unlearn the ways of the thinker, unlearn the ways that create questions in you.

 

But it will happen by and by. You will have to ask many questions.

 

A convict sits in his cell awaiting a murder trial. In walks a well-dressed lawyer.

 

The lawyer says, "I am the very best. You have nothing to worry about. I am going to prove that you are completely insane, or were in Europe at the time of the murder. Also, the witnesses are paid off and my uncle is the judge for your case. Meanwhile, try to escape."

 

There is no answer to any question. There is nobody to answer them, they have never been answered, they cannot be answered - by the very nature of things.

 

Meanwhile, go on asking. Because if you don't ask you will not move from the state where you are, and one should be moving.

 

That is one of the great secrets of life, that life is a movement. And if you are stuck somewhere you lose contact with life. Then you are fogged and clouded; then you are lost, and you don't know who are, and where you are going, and what is happening. You miss all the clues.

 

Go on moving. Wherever you are, one thing has to be remembered: don't get stuck. If your questioning helps you to move. good. A little movement from wherever you are is good; from that place you have to find another place - because you are in contact with life only when you are dynamic, moving. Life is a flux, life is a flow. Whenever you are stagnant you lose contact.

 

In the English language there is a beautiful word: 'affluence'. It has lost its original meaning. It has nothing to do with richness, it has nothing to do with luxuries, technological gadgets, a big palace and a big car and a great bank balance - it has nothing to do with these. You may be a millionaire and you may not be affluent.

 

'Affluence' means: one who is in the flow, one who is flowing. To be with the flow is to be affluent. The original meaning of the word is: to be in the flow, moving, flowing, not stuck. If you are flowing, moving with life, you are rich - and that is the only richness there is. All other richness is a false substitute.

 

So if your questions help you to move - I am not saying they will help you to find the answer, because there is none - but if your questioning helps you to move just a step further, good. It is time you should be moving.

 

Branihan was driving down the road. By the way the car weaved in and out of traffic, you could tell that Branihan was pickled to the gills.

 

"Where do you think you are going?" asked the motorcycle cop who finally stopped him.

 

"I'm coming home - hic - from a New Year's Eve party."

 

"Are you kidding?" asked the cop. "New Year's was three weeks ago!"

 

"I know," said Branihan. "That's why I figure I better be getting home."

 

You have been away from your home long enough. You should be getting home by now.

 

Anything that moves is good. A question, if real, helps you to move. Again, let me repeat: it is not going to help you to find the answer, because there is none.

 

But an authentic question that arises from your being is meaningful to you - it may be foolish to m e but is relevant to you; it may be irrelevant in the ultimate understanding of things, but if it is relevant to you let it be foolish, let it be absurd - you ask it. And my answer will just give you a push. You will be moving.

 

Keep moving. One thing has to be remembered: keep moving. Then you will be alive. That's why a question is more important than a belief. I say all questions are foolish, but they are nothing compared to beliefs. Beliefs are ABSOLUTELY stupid. Questions are only foolish. To be a fool can be fun. but to be stupid is ugly, to be idiotic is to be ill.

 

Beliefs are idiotic. Somebody says."I am a Hindu," somebody says, "I am a Christian," somebody says, "I am a Jaina," somebody says."I am a Buddh.st" - these are idiots, because belief means they have come to the answer. A questioner is at least moving; he has not come to the answer. He thinks he can come by questioning; that is why he is foolish. But still, he has not come to the answer. The man of belief who says "I am a Christian" has arrived. He thinks he has found the answer. Now, he is absolutely an idiot. He is stuck, his flow is completely gone. That's why you never see so-called religious people joyous.

 

You will never see them streaming with life, flowering.

 

The word 'flower' too MUST come from flow. I don't know exactly whether it comes from 'flow' or not, but it should come. Etymologically, linguistically, it may not come - I don't bother, I don't care a little bit. But it SHOULD come.

 

Flower - flow. And look at a flower; that's what flow is. The whole tree has come to a peak of its flowering. From the roots to the flower there is a continuous flow of life, energy, sap. And in the flower the tree has bloomed; that flow has come to sing a song. There is a dance, the tree has bloomed.

 

When all your questions disappear - not giving you any belief; all beliefs gone, all questions gone - then all stupidity, all foolishness will be gone. Then there is a flowering, a blooming, and that blooming is the answer. That answers all the questions. Suddenly you are in the know. There is no knowledge, but you are in the know. Suddenly you are at home. Then you are not struggling with life and enquiring about what it is. Now you know, from your deepest core of being, what it is. You have become it, you have allowed it to flow through you. Now you are no more separate from it.

 

The English word 'religion' is beautiful: it means to be together, to be married, to be tied together, to be in union. It means exactly what the Sanskrit word 'yoga' means - to be one. When your small flow is one with the flow of the whole, you are religious. When your small river falls into the great Ganges, and you start flowing with the Ganges and you lose your boundaries, you are religious.

 

'Religion' is as beautiful a word as 'yoga'. It means: you have now come to an ultimate marriage with the whole. Right now when you are stuck you are in a state of divorce, separation at least. You are moving like a small stream - not even moving; you have become a pool: stagnant, dying, stinking. Get out of it.

 

If your questions help you to move, go on asking. It is better to be questioning than to be believing, because a believer has stopped asking questions. His movement has stopped.

 

What do you mean when you say "I am a Christian". or "I am a Hindu", or "I am a Mohammedan"? What do you mean? - you mean, "Now there is no questioning in me. I'm TIRED of questioning; I have started believing." Then your whole life has shrunk. Then you are no longer expanding, then you are no longer exploring, then you are no longer enquiring.

 

To be a Mohammedan, to be a Hindu, to be a Christian, is worse than to be a questioner and an agnostic. It is better to be an agnostic and go on questioning - because if you go on questioning, and if you are courageous enough to go on questioning to the very end, one day it comes: you remain and the question disappears. Not that a belief is given to you; the question simply disappears and a trust arises, a trust in life. Not trust in the BIBLE, not trust in the VEDAS, not trust in the KORAN - but a trust in life from where all VEDAS and all KORANS, and all BIBLES come and disappear. That trust is the answer.

 

Become a flow. And go on using anything that helps. Go on questioning. I am not going to give you any answers. I am not a teacher. That's why many times you feel a little worried. You start thinking, "Why does he go on avoiding?" If you watch, directly I never answer your question, I answer something else. I just push you onward. I answer you in such a way that you can ask many more questions. This pushing of your energy towards the ultimate will bring a climax where the questioning mind explodes. And when the question is not, and the belief is not, suddenly mind itself has disappeared. In that state of no-mind you are at home. You have come home.

 

- Osho, “The Discipline of Transcendence Volume 4, #6”