on DiscourseText BooksAudio DiscourseVideo DiscourseAsk OshoOsho Jokes

 My answer cannot be your answer. 

 My experience cannot be your experience. 

"The questions about enlightenment and about meditation are not yet your deep search. You are not avoiding anything through them. On the contrary, when you try to write the question about enlightenment or meditation it loses all reality to you because it has no reality for you -- it is a borrowed question. You hear so much about enlightenment here, about meditation; naturally you become curious. But curiosity is not inquiry, and unless a search becomes so authentic that it becomes a question of life and death, the question cannot have reality. You can ask it, but it will remain phony -- to you and to me.

I can see through your questions, because my basic effort is not to answer the question but to answer the questioner. And in an effort to answer the questioner, I have to destroy the question. All my answers are an effort to destroy your question.

I am not giving you the answer. I am simply taking away the question, so you can be more empty, more silent, so that you can find the answer yourself.

My answer cannot be your answer.

My experience cannot be your experience.

The teachers in the schools, in the colleges, in the universities, give you answers relevant to your questions; they are not concerned with the questioner at all. It may be anybody, X, Y, Z. Their answer will remain the same if the question is the same. But my answer will not remain the same if the questioner is different, because no two persons can ask the same question. Their words may be the same, the construction of their questions may be the same, but the meaning cannot be the same -- because the sources out of which those questions are arising are different."

- Osho, “The Golden Future, Chapter #40”

"Ask it -- that's right! No real question can be asked -- only unreal questions can be asked. Real questions have to be lived, so one has to struggle with them, encounter them. And for real questions there are no answers; only life gives the answers and you have to fight for them. Only for unreal questions the answers exist.

An unreal question is such a simple question, any answer will do. But a real question, an authentic question -- which is not really a question but a quest -- there is no way to answer it."

- Osho, “This Is It, #14”

 I don't answer your questions, 

 I answer you. The question is irrelevant 

"I don't answer your questions, I answer you. The question is irrelevant; the questioner is my target, not his question. So it is possible that the same question may be asked by different people and I may answer differently, because the questioner is different. Different people can phrase the question in the same way, in the same words; but different people cannot ask the same question, because those different inpiduals have different states of consciousness. I have to answer their consciousness, not the rubbish that comes out of their minds.

This creates a problem for anybody who wants to work out what my philosophy is. He is soon going to be in an insane asylum, because he will find so many answers for the same question that he is going to go crazy, nuts!  It is not a philosophy; it is not a consistent logical system. It is an intimate, inpidual-to-inpidual transfer of some energy, of some light."

-Osho, “The Great Zen Master Ta Hui, #25“

"It is a problem for me to answer questions because I am answering inpiduals more than questions. But it will be impossible for me to answer each inpidual separately, so this is a device. Just before the questions are asked, I go through the names with the questions -- just a glance at who has asked the question, just to be sure. If it is of the mind then there is no problem, it concerns almost everybody.

If it is of meditation, then I have to indicate the person. Or if there is a certain background, without which my answer will not be understood, then I have to name the person. Otherwise, I simply take the question as it is, anonymous, not asked by anybody special but simply asked by the whole of humanity, the normal mind -- or the normal insanity."

- Osho, “The Osho Upanishad, #12”

"That's what I am doing with your questions. What answer I give is not important -- try to see that I am destroying your question. My answer is not an answer but a strategy to destroy your question. There are people who answer your questions, they give you certain ideas, they fill you with certain ideologies, theories, dogmas, cults -- I am not answering your question that way. If you watch, if you are aware, you will be able to see that I try to destroy your question. Not that you receive the answer, but that you lose the question.

If someday you become questionless, that will be the point of realization. Not that you will have any answer: you will not have any questions, that's all. You can call it the answer, when there is no question.

A Buddha is not a man who has all the answers; a Buddha is a man who has no questions. The questioning has disappeared -- the questioning has become absurd, irrelevant. He is simply there without any question. That's what I mean when I say he is a no-mind. Mind always questions, mind is a questioning. As leaves come out of the trees, questions come out of the mind. Old leaves fall, new leaves come; old questions disappear, new questions come.

I would like to uproot this whole tree. If I am giving you any answer, then many more questions will arise out of it. Your mind will convert that answer into many questions."

- Osho, “Yoga - The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 8, #6”

"All your questions come from the mind, and all the answers that have been given down the ages go into the mind. I repeat again, I am not answering your questions. I love you enough... I am not your enemy and I cannot give you answers. I simply want to take away your questions. Slowly, slowly you forget asking questions, you start just being here, enjoying. Nothing is to be asked. Nothing has to be enquired, but one has just to be. To be or not to be is the only significant decision. Be here and you will find that you are the answer.

Mind is full of questions and full of borrowed answers. You are the authentic answer, but then there is no question -- it is a very strange phenomenon. When you have questions, you don't have the answer. And when you come across the answer you don't have the questions.[....]

There is no question and then suddenly you are the answer. Not that it comes from anywhere else... your answer is covered with your questions. Take away all the questions, and in that state when all questions have fallen down like dry leaves falling from the tree, and you are standing like naked branches against the evening sky, you will know. But it will be more a knowing than knowledge.

Knowledge is the corpse of knowing.

Knowing is alive; knowledge is dead.

In that moment when there is no question around you, there is an innocent opening to all the mystery of existence. Here, my effort is to make you somehow ignorant."

- Osho, “The Great Pilgrimage - From Here to Here, #23”

"All questions are silly and so are all answers. Questions come out of the mind like leaves come out of the trees. Questions are part of the mind that has to be dropped; questions keep the mind nourished.[....]

Remember, reality is never going to come to you in the form of an answer. It has never happened that way, it is not going to happen that way. It CAN'T happen that way, it is not in the nature of things. Reality comes to you when there is no question left; reality comes to an unquestioning state of awareness.

So the first thing to be remembered is: all questions are silly, and all answers are too. Then you will be a little puzzled -- why do I go on answering your questions? If you look deep down into my answers you will see that they are not answers. They don't nourish your mind, they destroy your mind, they shatter you. They are meant to be shocks. The purpose of my answering is to hammer your mind -- it is hammering, it is not answering.

In the beginning, when you come here for the first time and you don't understand me and my purpose, you may think that I am answering you. The longer you are here, the deeper you become attuned with me, the more you know that my answering is not to give you answers. It is not to make you more knowledgeable -- just the opposite. It is to take your knowledge away, to make you unknowledgeable, to make you ignorant -- ignorant again, innocent again -- so that questioning disappears.

And when there is no questioning, there is a totally new quality to your consciousness. That quality is called wonder. Wondering is not questioning, it is feeling mystified by existence. Questioning is an effort to demystify existence; it is an effort not to accept the mystery of life. Hence we reduce every mystery to a question. The question means the mystery is only a problem to be solved, and once solved, there will be no mystery.

My effort in answering you is not to demystify existence but to mystify it more. Hence my contradictions. I cannot be consistent, I am not answering you. I cannot be consistent, because I am not here to make you more knowledgeable. If I am consistent, you will have a body of knowledge -- very satisfying to the mind, nourishing, strengthening, gratifying.

I am deliberately inconsistent, contradictory, so that you cannot make any body of knowledge out of me. So if one day you start gathering something, another day I take it away. I don't allow you to gather anything. Sooner or later, you are bound to be awakened to the fact that something totally different is transpiring here. It is not that I am giving you some dogma to be believed in, some philosophy to be lived by, no, not at all. I am utterly destructive, I am taking everything away from you.

Slowly slowly your mind will stop questioning. What is the point? When no answer answers, then what is the point? And the day you stop questioning is a day of great rejoicing, because then wondering starts. You have moved into a totally new dimension; you are again a child.

Jesus says, "Unless you are like small children you will not enter into my kingdom of God." He means unless you are ignorant again, innocent again, unquestioning and wondering, certainly.

Hence there is a difference between the question of a child and a grown-up person. The difference is of quality. The child asks, not to be answered; he is simply being articulate about his wonder. So if you don't answer the child he forgets about his question and he starts asking another question. His purpose is not to be answered, his purpose is simply that he is talking to himself. He is being articulate about his wonder, he is trying to figure out what it is -- the wonder, the mystery. He is not hankering for an answer, so no answer will satisfy him. If you give him an answer he will ask another question about the answer. His wondering continues.

When a grown-up person -- educated, sophisticated, well-read, informed -- asks a question, he asks it out of his knowledge, to gather more knowledge. The mind always hankers for more and more. If you have money, it hankers for more money; if you have prestige, it hankers for more prestige; if you have knowledge, it hankers for more knowledge. Mind lives in the "more."

And this is the way you go on and on avoiding reality. Reality is a mystery, it is not a question to be asked. It is a mystery to be lived, a mystery to be experienced, a mystery to be loved, a mystery to be dissolved in, to be drowned in.

I am answering you, not to answer but to simply destroy the question. I am not a teacher. The teacher teaches you; the master does not teach you, he helps you unlearn."

- Osho, “The Book of Wisdom, Chapter #2”

"The word `God' is not God. The word `love' is not love. The word `fire' is not fire. So the first thing is to remember: don't get attached too much to words, don't get obsessed too much with words. Words are only symbols, indicative: use them, but don't become burdened too much by them. If the word `god' creates trouble, forget that word. `Allah' will do, `Ram' will do, `X Y Z' -- choose another word if that word has become wrongly associated. But if you start creating a resistance against God himself, against the truth itself only you will be responsible, and only you will be missing something of tremendous value. but this happens. We use language; we become so much obsessed with language that we forget that language is not the reality. In fact, one has to put language aside to see the reality."

- Osho, "pine Melody, #2"

 Right Questioning 

Before you ask something, I must tell you that there are two types of questioning. One type of questioning comes not because you do not know, but because you know something. It comes out of your so-called knowledge. You have the answer already and then you raise the question. It is so stupid!

Whatever you know, you have not really known it. Otherwise there would have been no question.

And secondly, because the question has been raised by a preconceived answer, you are not ready to receive a new answer. Whenever there is such questioning it is absolutely useless. It leads you nowhere.

Never ask because you know something. If you know, it is good. Then there is no need of a king.

And if you do not know, then ask as if you are ignorant, as if you do not know. Unless you feel that you do not know, you are never vulnerable, open, receptive. Receptivity is needed otherwise you raise a question and do not allow the answer to go in.

More or less, all questions are like that. We have the answer already and then there is a search for confirmation. We are not confident because we really do not know; we have simply gathered certain information. Now we want someone to give us conviction, someone to be a witness to our knowledge so that we can feel, "Yes, I am right."

This is very absurd. If you know, then knowledge itself, knowing itself, gives confidence. It is self- evident. If you know something then even if the whole world denies it, it makes no difference. And in the same way, if you do not know a thing and the whole world says, "Yes, this is right," that too makes no difference. Knowing is self-evident and ignorance is also self-revealing.

So do not ask from your knowledge. If you know, it is good. If you do not know, then be conscious that you do not know and ask from your conscious ignorance.

The second type of questioning - which is authentic questioning, sincere, honest - is always from the feeling that you do not know. Your doors are open. Now you are ready to invite the guest.

Otherwise you invite the guest and your house iS completely closed. Then you do not really invite.

If you invite, then make a space for the guest. If you have ready-made answers then you have no space within you to receive the answer.

Questioning is useless if there is no space to receive. See when you are asking a question, if there is any space to receive the answer. First create the space, then ask. Then the question is not merely intellectual, not merely mental. You are totally involved in it; your whole being is at stake, your total being This is what is meant by being existential. Now the question comes from your very existence, from your very being.

The first type of questioning is always conditioned by others. This must be understood very clearly.

Ignorance is yours, and your so-called knowledge is given by others. Ignorance is more existential than so-called knowledge. If you do not know, this not-knowing is yours. But if you say, "I know because I have read the Gita. I know because someone somewhere has said such and such a thing, because Buddha had such knowledge and I have become acquainted with it. Therefore, I know," this knowledge is not yours And remember, even your ignorance is more valuable than others' knowledge. At least it is yours.

Something can be done with it. It is real, existential. Nothing can be done with a fiction. The real can be transformed and changed, but with a fiction you can do nothing, with imagination you can do nothing. Imagined knowledge, based only on information, is fictitious. It is not existential.

So ask a question, inquire about something, through your existential feelings not your accumulated, mental information. If you really ask from your ignorance then your question will be universal in a way and inpidual in a way because when you ask from your ignorance you ask about a problem that is the same for everyone.

If you ask from your knowledge, then the problem differs. A Hindu will never ask a question that a Mohammedan will ask; a Christian will never ask the same question that a Jain will ask. A Mohammedan's knowledge is completely different from a Hindu's knowledge, but there is no such thing as Mohammedan ignorance and no such thing as Hindu ignorance. Ignorance is universal, existential, but knowledge differs. Mohammedan knowledge is different from Hindu knowledge or Jain knowledge, or Christian knowledge.

If your questioning comes out of your knowledge, it is bound to come out of your social conditioning.

Then it is not universal, existential. When a Mohammedan asks something, he himself is not really asking. That which has been forced upon him, imposed upon him, that which has been conditioned that conditioning is asking. The real man is hidden behind the Mohammedan. The imposed Mohammedan (the imposed Hindu) is asking. Then it is superficial, and whatsoever answer is given is not going to benefit you to your depths because the question was never from your depths.

Existential questioning means that you go through all the conditioned layers of your mind and ask - just as a pure, naked existence not as a Mohammedan, Sikh or Jain. Ask as if you have not been given any answers before. Put your answers aside. Then your question will be inpidual in a way, because it has come from you, and it will be simultaneously universal - because whenever someone goes inside himself so deeply, the same question comes.

So be existential in asking and never ask from your knowledge, ask from your ignorance. If you want transformation, mutation, then ask from your ignorance. Be aware of your ignorance. Dig deep and find that questioning which is coming out of your ignorance and not out of your knowledge.

-Osho, "The Eternal Quest, #12"

 To Be Questionless is the Answer 

Question 4

Osho,

Are we really looking for the answer to our numerous questions? it occurs to me there must be, for each of us present here, one question that characterizes us, and which, if we could just pinpoint it, would act like a beacon. then that question would be enough in itself and without the need for an answer.

In fact there is no question which will be an answer to you. The reality is unquestionably here. All your questions are not really in search of answers -- but they can put you in great trouble.

If the man you are asking the question to is a scholar, a pedagogue, then he can give you an answer which will create thousands of questions. You had come only with one question; he has given one answer. Now that answer creates thousands of questions -- and that's how it has been going on in philosophy, in theology. Each question leads to an answer, and that answer leads to many questions. And this goes on growing.

In fact, if the man you are asking knows, then he is not answering your question; he is destroying it. He is trying that you get rid of it. He is not putting an answer in its place, because then that will torture you.

This is the real work of a master, a mystic, that sooner or later the people who are with him start feeling questionless.

To be questionless is the answer.

There is no answer... it is not that when you are questionless all your questions have been demolished. It is not that you come upon a hidden answer.

No, there is nothing hidden.

All the rubbish has been removed. You feel just a clean and clear consciousness. This is the answer... Not the answer to any question, but the state of no question is the answer that we are seeking and searching. Every question is a burden, every question is a wound, every question is a tension. And to be questionless, to be completely free of all questions...

There is a story in the life of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi. He was working with his disciples in the desert, in a small monastery. A few travelers passing by, just out of curiosity stopped and went in. They saw that in the courtyard the students were sitting, the disciples were sitting, and Mevlana -- Mevlana means the beloved master -- Mevlana Rumi was answering them.

They got fed up, because strange questions and strange answers... they went on their way. After years of traveling, they came back, and stopped again to see what was happening. Only Mevlana Rumi was sitting there, and there were no disciples. They were really shocked -- what had happened? They went to Mevlana and they said, "What happened?"

Mevlana laughed. He said, "This is my whole work. I crushed all their questions, and now they have no questions so I have told them, `Go and do the same to others: crush their questions. And if you find somebody you cannot manage, send him here!'"

When all questions are removed, you are again a child, utterly innocent. Then your mind is bound to be silent, and there is no possibility of it getting disturbed. And a great serenity...

This is the answer. There are no words in it, and it is not relevant to any question in particular; it is only a state of silence.

-Osho, "Beyond Psychology, #12, Q4“

 The answer is within you. Nobody can give it to you 

Neither do we know the question, nor do we know the answer -- but the answer is within you. Nobody can give it to you, but somebody can certainly provoke the question, the quest. It is a very strange thing. You have come with questions to me, but my basic work is to create the real question in you. By answering your questions, I am simply eliminating all other questions so the basic question comes up. When there is nothing to be asked, only then are you going to ask about the real question. And the beauty is, that the real question has just to be asked, and the answer surfaces within your consciousness itself.

The answer is already there, only the question is missing. The question is not a cause, it is not producing anything. It is simply removing perhaps a curtain at the most, and making you aware of something which has always been there.

The experience of the infinite is not an ordinary experience, hence it does not come under the category of causality. It is not something that is produced in you. It is not something that has to be brought from somewhere. It is something that is already there, you have just forgotten it. [....]

A master creates devices. All devices are just arbitrary, but they are not causes. They only create a certain situation in which perhaps you can remember yourself.

What I call witnessing is only a device.

What I call meditation is nothing but a device.

It is not going to give you anything that you don't have. It is only going to make you aware of all that you have, and that you have had it always.

Now this is not even under the law of synchronicity, it is a totally different world of mystery which comes under no law.

The world needs saints of that quality who can create such a situation. You have saints who are dull and dead, traditional, orthodox. You worship them because they fulfill your expectations. You have certain expectations of how a saint should be, and they fulfill it.

It is a strange conspiracy against yourself. They fulfill your expectation of being a saint, and then you touch their feet because they are saints. But real saints cannot fulfill your expectations. Real saints will destroy all your expectations.

A real saint is going to be almost an electric shock. That's why the real saint is always misunderstood. People feel annoyed, irritated. You can think of that rich man when his bag is lost. In those moments he cannot believe that this man is a saint. If this man is a saint, then who can be a sinner? But when the saint returns the bag and asks him, "Do you have a little peace of mind?" then he falls at his feet and he thanks him for reminding him about something which has become absolutely certain for him. For a moment he lost that big bag of money. He got it back -- it was the same bag which he had brought himself, but now it brings with it peace of mind.

There are very few real saints in the world. The only definition of the real saint is that he will not fulfill your expectations, that he does not want you to worship him. He wants you to be awakened. He wants you to be in the same state in which he is. He does not want followers, he does not want worshippers. All that is simply nonsense. He wants people to be awakened so that they can remember their real treasure. It is infinite because it has no limits. And the moment you remember it, it is not just yours. It is something universal. [....]

So when you have the experience, it envelops the whole existence. It is cosmic. It is infinite. And the moment you know it, you laugh at yourself that you have been searching for something which you have never lost, that you have been looking for something which has been always with you, which even if you wanted to lose, you could not lose, it is your very nature.

Every person who has become enlightened, his first act is to laugh at himself.

-Osho, "The Sword and the Lotus, #15, Q2“

 The question-answer sessions are concerned 

 with you, your growth, your progress 

Question 2

Osho,

Whilst you were speaking on Kahlil Gibran and Zarathustra, your words seemed to penetrate without my interpretation directly to the center of my being. I experienced an attunement, a communion happening as nectar that was filling my being. Sometimes, without sobbing, tears simply poured from my eyes, and after almost every discourse I felt for a long while in touch with something far beyond what I know of as myself. With questions and answers this does not happen. I still feel that special whatever it is that comes when sitting with you, but not with the depth of intensity I have just described. What is the difference?

Prabodh Nityo, the question you have asked raises many other questions too. I would like to cover all the implications in short, because it is important not only to you but for everyone else here.

The first thing: as far as I am concerned, the question-answer sessions are more significant because they relate to you, they relate to your growth. Certainly you are groping in darkness, trying to find a way. You cannot ask questions of the heights of Zarathustra, of Kahlil Gibran -- and I have to answer your reality.

Listening to Zarathustra and Kahlil Gibran is a good and great entertainment: you may sob and you may have tears and you may feel great, but it is all hot air! You remain the same -- nothing changes in you. I speak sometimes on Buddha, on Chuang Tzu, on Zarathustra, just to give you an insight into the heights people have reached, just to make you aware of those distant stars. They are not so distant as they look -- people like us have reached there. It is within your grasp.

That is the reason why, on Zarathustra and Buddha and Bodhidharma and a thousand others, I have spoken: to create a longing in you. But just the longing is not enough. Then I have to give you the path; then I have to sort out the mess that you are, and put your fragments, which are spread all over the space... to find out where your legs are and where your head is and put them all together, and somehow push you on the path.

The question-answer sessions are concerned with you, your growth, your progress -- the place where you are. And the discourses on Zarathustra or Kahlil Gibran are concerned with the places where you should be -- but you are not yet there.

So I disagree with you. I can understand that you enjoy the dream that is created when one is hearing about Buddha.... You have nothing to do; you are just listening to great poetry, listening to a great song, listening to great music, seeing a great dance. But you are not singing, you are not becoming the poetry, you are not becoming the dance. And I want you to become the dance; I want you to reach to the greatest heights that anybody has ever reached.

So I have to keep a balance, talking about the dreamlands and then talking about the dark caves where you are hiding, very reluctant to come out in the light. You want to hear about light and you enjoy, but you remain hiding in your dark cave. You want to hear about strange lands, beautiful stories and parables, but it is mere entertainment.

You should be more concerned when I am answering the questions, because they can change your reality. I have to do both jobs: create the longing, give a glimpse of the goal, and then clean the path and grease your parts -- because you have never moved in many many lives, you are sitting in a junkyard -- to put you back on the wheels and rolling.

The second job is difficult, and not very juicy either. But it is absolutely necessary. Secondly, I have to remind you of one thing. When I was speaking on Zarathustra... it is a very complicated affair, because I was not speaking directly on Zarathustra; I was speaking on a Zarathustra who is an invention of Friedrich Nietzsche. All the great insights are given by Nietzsche to Zarathustra.

Zarathustra... many times his original books have been brought to me, and they are so ordinary that I have never spoken on them. Nietzsche has used Zarathustra only as a symbolic figure, just as Kahlil Gibran was using Almustafa, which was a completely fictitious name. Nietzsche has used a historical name, but in a very fictitious way. He is putting his insights into the mouth of Zarathustra.

So first you should remember it is Nietzsche's Zarathustra; it has nothing much to do with the original Zarathustra. And secondly, when I am speaking on it, I don't care what Nietzsche means, and I don't even have any way to know what he means; the way he used Zarathustra, I am using him! So it is a very complicated story. It is my Nietzsche, and via Nietzsche it is my Zarathustra. So whatever heights you are flying in have nothing to do with Zarathustra.

I have been speaking on hundreds of mystics, but it is always that I am speaking. And I know perfectly well that if by chance, somewhere, I meet these people, they are going to be very angry. They are going to be really enraged and say, "I never meant that." But my problem is, "How can I know what you had meant?" I can only mean what I mean. So whether it is Zarathustra or Buddha or Jesus or Chuang Tzu, once they pass through me they have my signature on them. You are always listening to me.

When I am answering your questions I am more concerned with your growth, with your actual problems; they are more earthly. So don't be deceived; many people have been deceived. I have been reminding you, but people's memories are not great.

I was speaking on Gautam Buddha in Varanasi and one Buddhist, a very renowned scholar in Buddhism, said to me, "I have been reading the same scriptures. But you have revealed such great depths and heights that I was never aware of; you have confirmed my faith in Gautam Buddha."

I said, "If you don't get angry with me... you should confirm your faith in me."

He said, "What?"

I said, "Yes, because whatever you were reading was perhaps exactly what Buddha meant, and the depths and heights I am talking about are my experiences."

But what to do? There are idiots all over the world. If you want Buddhist idiots to listen to you, you just have to say the name "Buddha" and that's enough; then you can say anything you want. If you want Hindus to listen to you, you have to talk about Krishna.

I am always talking about myself; I cannot talk about anybody else -- how can I? Five thousand years ago, what was Krishna thinking, what was in his mind?... but when they listen to me they think, "My God, we were not aware that Krishna had such depths, such heights." Krishna had nothing. Those heights and those depths are my experiences that I am hanging on anybody; these people function like hooks, I simply hang my idea on them.

And even great scholars... this man was Bhikshu Jagdish Kashyap; he was dean of the faculty of Buddhism in the University of Varanasi, a very learned man. But when I said this to him, he became a permanent enemy. I said, "What happened to the heights and to the depths?"

People are much more concerned with names. If I say to you that "Zarathustra said this," you listen with great attention. The very name Zarathustra looks so ancient, so prophetic, that he must have said something... and trust me, I know him, he is a poor guy. But don't tell this to anybody! This is just a private conversation with you.

Michelangelo was painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He was getting tired of lying on his back, so he rolled over and saw an old woman praying, down in the chapel. He leaned over the edge of the scaffold and shouted, "I'm Jesus Christ! I'm Jesus Christ! Listen to me and I will perform miracles!"

The Italian lady looked up and clasping her rosary answered back, "Shut up-a your mouth. I'm talking to your mother!"

Michelangelo must have been thinking that he was joking with the old woman, but he was at a loss when he heard this. Of course, a mother is a mother, and you should not interfere between two old women talking... just go on and play outside!

So don't be disturbed. If you want I can go on talking about any historical, mythological, fictitious figure; I can create my own fictions. Do you think all the stories that I have told you have happened? They should have happened! -- they are so significant. But if I tell you that I am just making up this story, you will not be very interested; you will not be flying high.

Once in a while I want you to fly high, but it is just an imaginary flight. Really, I want you to be one day actually on those heights but for that, practical work is needed, pragmatic work is needed.

Just for you to fly a little high....

Goldstein, a string merchant from New York, was trying desperately to sell some of his goods in Alabama, but wherever he went he kept encountering anti-semitism. In one department store the manager taunted him, "Alright, Goldstein. I will buy some of your string -- as much as reaches from the top of your nose to the tip of your Jewish prick."

Two weeks later, the manager was startled to receive a shipment containing eight hundred cartons of grade-A string. Attached was a note: "Many thanks for your generous order. Invoice to follow. Signed: Jacob Goldstein, residing in New York, circumcised in Kiev."

-Osho, "The Golden Future, #9, Q2“

 I have not arrived through belief, 

 I have arrived through doubt. 

Trust has to be deserved, belief is a very cheap substitute. Belief means you are afraid of doubt, because doubt creates trouble, and doubt keeps you in a state of confusion. And you are not courageous enough to live in confusion, not courageous enough to live in a state of chaos, in anarchy -- and doubt creates that. So you immediately repress the doubt, and the way to repress is to believe.

The way to trust is DOUBT, and doubt to the very end. Go the whole way! Don't repress your doubt at any point, otherwise you will miss trust. Trust arises out of doubt, not by repressing but by experiencing doubt to its ultimate extreme.

When you go on doubting and doubting and doubting, a moment comes when all beliefs are destroyed by doubt, all faith evaporates in the heat of doubt, and all that is left is your being. Now there is nothing to doubt because you have doubted all and everything. When there is nothing to doubt, doubt dies, commits suicide, because there is nothing to keep it going on, nothing to nourish it any more.

That has been my way. I have not arrived through belief, I have arrived through doubt. It is better to begin as a great doubter than as a believer, because the believer will remain always pseudo; he will always remain superficial, shallow. Belief can never be more than skin-deep: scratch it a little bit and immediately the doubt is there. Trust needs a continuous hammering; doubt has to be used as a hammer. Until you reach to the rock bottom of it all... [....]

One has to go on and on doubting - until-a you sing-a it right!

Doubt is a sword: it cuts all beliefs, but it is a dangerous path. The path to truth is bound to be dangerous because truth is the ultimate peak. The higher you move towards Everest, the more you are entering into a dangerous arena. A single wrong step and you will be lost forever.

Truth liberates, but to reach truth you have to go through a very narrow passage, climbing towards the heights. It is dangerous. Hence millions of people decide to live in their dark valleys and they believe that "Everest exists and it is sunlit and there is tremendous beauty, because Jesus has reached there, Buddha has reached there.

We can believe in them. What need is there for us to go there? We can live in our dark valleys comfortably. There is no need to take any risk."

But without risk there is no truth, without risk there is no life. You have to learn to gamble, you have to be a gambler.

If you doubt and go on doubting, a moment comes when all that you have ever believed disappears, evaporates. It is almost a state of madness. One can fall any moment into the abyss that surrounds you. If one falls, it is a breakdown. If one keeps alert and aware, watchful, cautious, then it is a breakthrough.

Trust is the ultimate breakthrough: it helps you to know the truth on your own. And truth liberates only when it is YOURS; somebody else's truth cannot liberate anybody. It creates bondage and nothing else.

-Osho, “Guida Spirituale, #10, Q2”

 Doubt is not against truth, 

 doubt is a methodology to discover truth 

"Everybody teaches belief, but doubt is natural. Hence the real Masters of the world... for example, Gautam Buddha, says to his disciples, "Don't believe just because I say it is so. Don't believe just because the holy scriptures say it is so. Don't believe because the masses believe in a certain thing. Unless you experience, never believe in anything. Go on doubting -- go on doubting to the very extreme."

Doubt is a natural, intrinsic quality of your being; it is God-given. Use it, because it has tremendous power in it. It is an instrument to discover truth.

I will not suggest that you become deeply convinced of anything, I will suggest that you doubt and doubt totally so that you can discover truth. Doubt is not against truth, doubt is a methodology to discover truth. Doubt is not an enemy of truth but the only friend. Belief is the enemy of truth because it is belief that prevents you from discovering, from inquiring.

So the first thing I would like to suggest;to you is: drop this idea of deep convictions.

Again in the end you say:... a strong faith in you.

Forget this language; this is not the right language -- at least not in this place. In this context I respect doubt, I don't respect belief, because my own experience is that through doubt people have discovered truth, and through belief people have remained ignorant their whole lives, they have never discovered truth.

But priests won't say this to you. Priests are all for belief. And if you are Strongly convinced the priest is very happy because now you can be used as a fanatic fool, now you are available to the priests to be exploited.

I am not a priest, I am just a friend. I am here to explain to you how I have discovered truth. Doubt has been my own process, my own way to reach to truth. And I would like you to become more and more sharp, intelligent. Doubt more scientifically. Just as in science doubt helps you to discover. it also helps in the inward journey.

Drop condemning doubt and praising faith, belief, convictions."

- Osho, "Theologia Mystica, #9"

"Buddha never asks any 'why' questions, but that doesn't mean that he is an atheist. His approach is very different from other atheists Theists require you to believe, to have faith, to trust. Buddha says, 'How can one believe? You are asking the impossible.' Listen to his argument.

He says if somebody is doubtful, how can he believe? If the doubt has arisen already, how can he believe? He may repress the doubt, he may enforce the belief, but deep down like a worm the doubt will go on lurking and eating his heart. Sooner or later the belief is bound to collapse, because it is unfounded; there is no foundation to it. In the foundation there is doubt, and on the foundation of doubt you have raised the whole structure of your belief. Have you watched it? Whenever you believe, deep down there is doubt. What type of belief is this?

Buddha says if there is no doubt then there is no question of belief. Then one simply believes. There is no need for any Krishna to say, 'Surrender, believe' - there is no point. If Arjuna has faith, he has; if he has not, then there is no way to bring it. Then at the most Arjuna can play a game of showing, pretending that he believes. But belief cannot be enforced.

For those whose faith is natural, spontaneous, there is no question of faith - they simply believe. They don't know even what belief is. Small children, they simply believe. But once doubt enters, belief becomes impossible. And doubt has to enter; it is part of growth. Doubt makes one mature.

You remain childish unless doubt has penetrated your soul. Unless the fire of doubt starts burning you, you remain immature, you don't know what life is.

You start knowing life only by doubting, by being sceptical, by raising questions.

Buddha says faith comes, but not against doubt, not as belief. Faith comes by destroying doubt by argument, by destroying doubt by more doubt, by eliminating doubt by doubt itself. A poison can be destroyed only by a poison - that is Buddha's method. He does not say believe. He says go deep into your doubt, go to the very end, unafraid: Don't repress. Travel the whole path of doubt to the very end.

And that very journey will take you beyond it. Because a moment comes when doubt starts doubting itself. That's the ultimate doubt - when doubt doubts doubt itself. That has to come if you go to the very end. You first doubt belief, you doubt this and that. One day when everything has been doubted, suddenly a new, the ultimate doubt arises - you start doubting doubt.

This is tremendously new in the world of religion. And then doubt kills doubt, doubt destroys doubt, and faith is gained. This faith is not against doubt, this faith is beyond doubt. This faith is not opposite to doubt, this faith is absence of doubt.

Buddha says you will have to become children again, but the path has to go through the world, through many jungles of doubts, arguments, reasonings. And when a person comes back home, attains back to his original faith, it is totally different. He is not just a child, he is an old man... mature, experienced, and yet childlike."

- Osho, "The Discipline of Transcendence Volume 1, #1"

 Doubt is a pilgrimage. 

Question 1:

Osho,

Can you say something about doubt and negativity? what is the difference?

The difference between doubt and negativity is great. They look alike; on the surface they have the same color, but deep down the difference is unbridgeable.

First, doubt is not negativity; neither is it positivity.

Doubt is an open mind, without any prejudice.

It is an inquiring approach.

Doubt is not saying anything, it is simply raising a question. That question is to know, to find what the truth is.

Doubt is a pilgrimage.

It is one of the most sacred values of human beings.

Doubt does not mean no. It simply says, "I do not know, and I am prepared to know. I am ready to go as far as possible, but unless I myself come to know, how can I say yes?"

Negativity has already said no. It is not inquiry. It has come to a conclusion, the same way somebody has come to the conclusion to say yes. One man says God is; his statement is positive. The other says there is no God; his statement is negative. But both are sailing in the same boat, they are not different people. They have not inquired. Neither the theist has doubted nor the atheist has doubted; both have accepted borrowed knowledge.

Doubt says that, "I myself would like to know, and unless I know for myself, it is not knowledge. Only my experience is going to be decisive." He is not arrogant, he is not denying anything. He is just open for inquiry.

Doubt is not disbelief - that's how religions have been confusing people. They confuse doubt with disbelief. In fact disbelief and belief are exactly the same. Both accept knowledge from others, from books, from masters. And remember, anything that you do not know, yet you have started believing or disbelieving in it... you have missed a great opportunity for inquiry. You have closed the doors already, by yes or by no. You have not traveled.

It is easier to say yes, it is easier to say no, because there is nothing you have to do.

But to doubt needs guts.

To doubt needs courage to remain in the state of not-knowing, and go on questioning everything till the moment you yourself arrive at the reality. When you come to the reality there is no negativity, no positivity. You simply know - it is your experience. I will not say it is positivity because positivity always has the other pole of negativity. An experience goes beyond both; the whole world of polarities is transcended. That is true wisdom.

Doubt is the way to truth.

No or yes are not ways, they prevent you.

It will look very strange, that yes does the same thing as no. In dictionaries they are opposites, but in reality they are not. They look opposite only, but both have not asked the question. Both have not tried to find out what the case is.

The communist believes, exactly as the catholic believes. The communist believes that there is no God. You can call it disbelief, but it is his belief. He has not inquired, he has not meditated; he has done nothing to find out that there is no God. The theist says there IS God. He has also done nothing. Both have chosen without moving an inch towards truth. That's why a very strange thing happens: the person who is a theist, a believer, can become a disbeliever, an atheist, in a single moment; and vice versa.

Before the revolution in Russia, Russia was one of the most theistic, religious countries of the world.

Millions of people in Russia could have sacrificed their life for God. After the revolution, when the authority changed, when the priest changed, when The Holy Bible was replaced by the holy DAS KAPITAL, within ten years the whole country became atheist.

It was amazing! People who had believed their whole life that there is God started disbelieving. Even communists could not understand that these people are the same people who could have died for God - and now they are ready to die for no-God.

Nobody has analyzed the situation up to now, what happened there. This is the analysis of the fact: negativity and positivity are both belief systems.

Doubt is against both. Doubt is the insistence of the inpidual that he wants to taste, to experience the truth. He is not ready to accept it from anybody else, this way or that.

They are very, very rare people who doubt.

But let me say to you: Blessed are those who doubt, because they shall inherit the kingdom of truth.

It is arduous to doubt, it is risky, it is dangerous.

One is going into the unknown, with no preparation, with no prejudice. He is entering into the dark hole, not even believing that there will be the other end of the tunnel, and he will again come out of darkness.

There is no belief; he simply takes the challenge.

There is only a quest, a question.

He himself becomes a question.

It is very consoling to have the answer, and if it is freely available, as it is.... Jesus says, "Just believe in me and you need not bother: I will take care. I will choose you at the day of judgment. I will recommend you to God: 'These are my people - they should be allowed in paradise.' All that you have to do is believe."

A real shortcut - simple belief. That's why thousands of people around the world have believed, and thousands of others have disbelieved. Their sources are different but the basic approach is the same.

In India there has been a very ancient philosophy, charvaka. That philosophy says there is no God, no heaven, no hell, no punishment for your bad actions and no reward for your good actions. And thousands have believed in it. It is negative, absolutely negative, but very comfortable. You can steal, you can murder, you can do anything you like; after death nothing survives.

In many ways the West has lagged behind the East, particularly as far as religion, philosophy, culture, are concerned. Charvaka is a five-thousand-year-old ideology; Karl Marx just in the last stage of the previous century said there is no God. He was not aware of charvaka, he thought he had come to a great discovery. For five thousand years charvakas have already been saying that; but they had not inquired.

The man who created the philosophy was Brihaspati - must have been a man of charismatic personality. He convinced people that you can do anything you want to because the thief, the murderer, the saint, all fall: dust unto dust. And after death nothing is left; the saint disappears, the sinner disappears. So don't bother at all about afterlife, there is none.

This is not inquiry, because charvakas and their master Brihaspati have never gone beyond death.

According to their philosophy, if they had gone they would have not come back - so on what grounds do they say that there is nothing left? Nobody has visited the land. But it is very easy to believe. His famous statement is worth quoting.

Brihaspati says, RINAM KRITVA GHRITAM PIVET: "Even if you have to borrow money, borrow it, but drink ghee as much as you can" - because after death you are not going to be questioned, punished. The person who had given you money cannot drag you into the court of God; there are no such things. His whole philosophy is simply, "Eat, drink and be merry." You can believe in it - the theists will call it DISbelief.

And that's what Karl Marx did for the communists, he said that there is no soul, no consciousness. It is a by-product of matter, so when the body falls apart, nothing is left. This became a very dangerous attitude, because communists could kill people without thinking twice.

Their belief is that by killing you are not committing any sin. There is nobody inside a person; there is no inside. A man is chemistry, biology, physiology - but there is no soul. Joseph Stalin could kill almost one million people after the revolution without feeling even a slight doubt about what he was doing. [....]

Nobody has encountered God - no Christian, no Hindu, no Mohammedan - but they have all said yes because the crowd in which they were born was the crowd of theists. To say no amongst that crowd would have created difficulties for them. Yes was simply the accepted rule of the game. They have worshipped, they have prayed, not knowing why they were doing it. But everybody else is doing it so it must be right.

When the crowd changed - for example in Russia, the same people who were so certain of God became uncertain. It took ten years to change from one certainty to another certainty... an interval of uncertainty, but uncertainty is not doubt.

Doubt is simply a question, and doubt says, "I want to KNOW."

It has no ideology.

Doubt is absolutely pure quest.

You have asked, "What is the difference between doubt and negativity?"

Negativity and positivity are both the same.

Doubt is different from both.

It does not make you a theist, it does not make you an atheist.

Positivity makes you a religious believer, a theist; negativity makes you an unbeliever, irreligious, an atheist.

Doubt does not make you anything.

It simply makes you an inquirer.

And that is the dignity of man.

I teach you doubt because I know if you can doubt to the very end you will realize the truth of your own being, and simultaneously the truth of the whole existence. And that will be liberation, that will be freedom.

Doubt is neither Christian nor Hindu, nor American nor German. Yes may be Hindu, yes may be Mohammedan, yes may be Christian; no may be communist, no may be fascist - but doubt is simply a quest, an inpidual quest.

Yes and no both belong to the crowd.

Doubt makes you assert your inpiduality.

You start finding your path on your own. You don't accept the maps given you by others. [....]

It is cheap to believe, it is cheap to disbelieve.

But it is really a dangerous journey to know.

I would like my sannyasins neither to be negative nor to be positive, but open, available, with a quest, a question mark, and to go on searching.

Many times your mind will say it is good to believe - because the journey is arduous, and one never knows where one is going, whether one is going to find anything or not. But don't listen to the mind.

Mind has created all these "yes" philosophies, "no" philosophies.

Doubt has never created any philosophy; doubt has created science.

And doubt is going to create religion.

They are exactly the same - the same application of doubt in different fields. About objects, the outside world that spreads to millions of stars, doubt has given tremendous insight just within three hundred years. You are carrying another world within yourself, which is in no way smaller than the world you see outside; perhaps it is bigger.

Why do I say that perhaps it is bigger? I am including the word 'perhaps' so that you should not believe. I know it is bigger, for the simple reason that you know the stars, you know the sun, you know the moon - but the moon does not know you, the sun does not know you. The stars are great, the universe is vast, but you are the only knower. You have something more than the whole universe.

That's why I say inside you are carrying something bigger than the universe, more than the universe.

Just inquire.

One of the most beautiful men of this century was Maharishi Raman. He was a simple man, uneducated, but he did not accept the ideology, the religion in which he was born. When he was only seventeen years of age he left his home in search of truth. He meditated for many years in the hills of Arunachal in south India, and finally realized himself.

After that his whole teaching consisted only of three words, because those three words had revealed to him the whole mystery of existence. His philosophy is the shortest. What are those three words?

Whoever came to him - because as he became slowly slowly known, people started coming to him from all over the world - his whole teaching was to sit silently and ask only one question: "Who am I?" and go on asking that question.

One day the question will disappear, and only you will be there. That is the answer.

Not that you will find the answer written somewhere; you will find yourself. You just go on digging with this question - this question is like digging - but do you see the question? It is a doubt: Who am I? It does not accept the spiritualist who says you are a soul. It does not accept the materialist who says there is nobody, don't waste time; eat, drink and be merry. He doubts. Those three words are followed by a question mark: Who am I?

And he says this is enough. If you can go on and on and on patiently, one day the question suddenly disappears and what is left is your reality. That is the answer.

And the moment you know yourself you have known everything that is worth knowing.

-Osho, "From Death to Deathlessness, #24, Q1"

 on Doubt 

- Doubt is not a sin, it is the sign of your intelligence. -

“The very first step to be taught in the search for truth is right doubt. A good beginning of religious education should be that. The real foundation of religion is doubt, not trust.

Doubt is the beginning, trust is the end.

Doubt is the search, trust is the achievement.

So whosoever begins with doubt, sometime or other does reach trust. But one who begins from trust reaches nowhere. There is no question of his reaching, because he has attached the bullocks behind the cart. Beginning is possible only with that which is the beginning. How can an end be the beginning? Where there is no doubt, there is no thinking. Where there is no thinking, there is no intelligence. Where there is no intelligence, there is no truth.

Religions have taught belief - neither doubt nor search.

Religion will teach one to doubt, to think and to search. Only whatsoever is obtained by one's own search is self-transforming, and is the truth.“

- Osho, "Revolution in Education, #4"

⯎

“Doubt – because doubt is not a sin, it is the sign of your intelligence. Doubt and go on enquiring until you find. One thing I can say: whosoever enquires, finds. It is absolutely certain; it has never been otherwise. Nobody has come empty-handed from an authentic enquiry.”  

- Osho, "From Ignorance to Innocence, #11"

⯎

Doubt sharpens your intelligence. It is a challenge. You are neither saying yes, nor are you saying no. You are saying only one thing, “I am ignorant, and I am not going to trust unless I have experienced, whatsoever the case, unless I arrive at something which is indubitable – howsoever I make the effort to doubt it, my doubt goes on failing.”

Doubt is something of tremendous significance. Only those who have doubted to the very end have found what truth is, what love is, what silence is, what beauty is. Skepticism finds nothing. It is utterly empty, but it makes much noise. Empty drums make much noise. And you cannot argue with a skeptic because he will go on saying no to anything, to any value that you cannot place as an object before him.

But doubt – of course, it is a long way and a hard way – goes on eliminating all that is not true. Ultimately only that which is true remains. And nobody can deny truth when one is facing it, experiencing it. It is not a belief. You have searched, gone into great anxiety, anguish, despair. There were many moments when you wanted to stop, because it looked as if the journey was endless. It is not. There is an end; you just have to keep yourself going.

Doubt is surgical – it goes on cutting all that is absurd. But finally the real remains, unclouded. Doubt removes the clouds.

The skeptic says no to the sun because it is cloudy and he cannot see the sun. He comes immediately to the conclusion that there is no sun, no light. The doubter removes all the clouds, cuts his way through the clouds. Not that he “believes” that there is something behind them – there may be nothing – but he has to know whatever is behind the clouds. And everybody who has gone far has ended with truth. It needs guts.

The skeptic is a poor man, just like the theists, just like all the so-called religious people in the world. Skepticism is a negative side, it is a negative religion. There is no difference between a skeptic and a believer; they both agree that there is no need for search. One believes there is a sun behind the clouds, another believes there is nothing behind the clouds. But nobody is ready to take the long journey, to pass through all kinds of nightmares, and to reach behind the clouds. Few have reached.

I teach you doubt, I don't teach you skepticism. And remember, doubt is not skepticism; it is search, it is seeking.

-Osho, "From the False to the Truth, #12, Q2"

⯎

“Science begins with doubt; meditation also begins with doubt. The method of science is observation of objects, the objective world; and the method of meditation is to observe the inside world. Science experiments with objects; meditation is the experience of your interiority, your subjectivity.  

In fact science has two wings: one, moving into the outside universe; the other, moving into the inside consciousness.  

Meditation should be absolutely necessary in every educational system, because meditation is not Hindu, not Christian, not Buddhist. Meditation has nothing to do with any religion. It has nothing to do with any belief. Meditation does not require you to believe in God first, heaven and hell, Jesus Christ as the only begotten son. It needs no belief of any kind.  

Meditation is an inquiry, a search, a pilgrimage towards your own center. And the person who knows himself cannot do anything wrong. That is an impossibility. The person who realizes himself needs no morality. Morality is needed by blind people.“  

- Osho, "From Death to Deathlessness, #28"

⯎

“Accumulation of others' thoughts brings idiocy. By accumulation of thoughts, thinking and intelligence are not born. Too much emphasis on mechanical memory in the birth of thinking and intelligence, is fatal. Enough opportunities for thinking and use of intelligence should be made available if they are to grow. Doubt instead of belief is to be taught if thinking and intelligence are to grow.  

Belief and trust bind you, whereas doubt liberates. But by doubt I do not mean distrust. Distrust is only the negative form of trust or belief. Neither trust nor distrust but doubt is required. Trust and distrust are both the death of doubt. And where there is no liberating intensity of doubt, there is neither any search for the truth nor its attainment.  

The intensity of doubt becomes the search. Doubt is thirst, doubt is longing. It is in the fire of doubt that the life force is stirred and thinking is born. The pain of doubt is the birth pain of thinking. One who escapes that pain is deprived of the birth of thinking.  

Do we doubt? Do we doubt the fundamental meanings and values of life? If not, then certainly our education has been wrong somewhere. There can be no other base for right education except right doubt. If there is no doubt, how can there be any search? If there is no doubt, how will there be any discontentment? If there is no doubt, how will your being long for knowing and attaining the truth? That is why we have all become shallow puddles of contentment, and our souls have not remained rivers constantly running in search of the ocean.“  

- Osho, "Revolution in Education, #2"

Question 1:

NO QUESTION.......!

Do not ask theoretical questions. Theories solve less and confuse more. If there were no theories, there would be less problems. It is not that theories solve questions or problems. On the contrary, questions arise out of theories.

And do not ask philosophical questions. Philosophical questions only seem to be questions, but they are not. That is why no answer has been possible. If a question is really a question then it is answerable, but if it is false, just a linguistic confusion, then it cannot be answered. Philosophy has gone on answering for centuries and centuries, but the questions still remain the same. However you answer a philosophical question you never answer it, because the question itself is false. It is not meant to be answered at all. The question is such that, intrinsically, no answer is possible.

And do not ask metaphysical questions. For example, if you ask who created the world, it is unanswerable. It is absurd. It is not that metaphysical questions are not real questions, but they cannot be answered. They can be solved, but they cannot be answered.

Ask questions that are personal, intimate, existential. One must be aware of what one is really asking. Is it something that really means something to you? If it is answered, will a new dimension open for you? Will something be added to your existence, will your being in any way be transformed through it? Only such questions are religious.

Religion is concerned with problems, not with questions. A question may just come out of curiosity, but a problem is intimate and personal. You are involved in it; it is you. A question is separate from you; a problem is you. So before asking anything, dig deep inside and ask something that is intimate and personal, something in which you are confused, in which you are involved. Only then can you be helped."

- Osho, "The Psychology of the Esoteric, #11, Q1"

⯎

"Mind is a question-creating mechanism. So the first thing to understand is: drop why. Immediately you become religious. Continue with the why - you remain philosophical. Continue questioning and you remain in the head. Drop questioning - suddenly the energy moves in a new dimension: the dimension of the heart. Heart has no questions, and there hides the answer.

It will appear paradoxical, but still I would like to say to you: When your questioning stops, the answer comes. And if you go on questioning, the answer will become more and more elusive."

- Osho, "The Search, #2, Q1"

 Don't ask foolish things 

Osho,

Are you answering all the questions that are being asked?

No. I must have answered more than twelve thousand questions, but they are not all the questions that are being asked.

There are questions which are merely of the head. Your head is already full of too much garbage. I don't want to be unkind to you, I don't want to burden your mind more. I want to unburden it, so I choose the question which helps your mind to unburden itself.

There are questions which are concerned with your conditionings, beliefs. I am against all beliefs as such. I cannot support any belief, for the simple reason that it is a belief. I want my people not to believe, but to know. And the way to know means you have to drop your beliefs.

There are questions which are only out of curiosity. They don't deserve to be answered. This is a mystery school; people are deeply interested in a quest -- they are not just curious. I cannot waste my people's time for a single person's curiosity. Curiosity is something like an itching in the head. You can scratch your head yourself, I need not bother about it.

In fact, you yourself are not sincere. You have asked just by the way. You are not thirsty; your question is not out of a longing. It does not show any appetite, it shows only childishness -- the way children ask questions, about each and every thing. If you can just be patient, within a minute they forget all about it, they start asking other questions.

I have seen people who ask out of curiosity, and if you answer them, by the time you answer them there are other curiosities coming in their mind. They don't listen even to your answer. You are not even finished with the answer, and a totally new question, which has no relevance to the first, is put before you -- as if they are not in search of anything. But just seeing things, the monkey mind becomes curious.

My people here are not to waste time. Time is very precious for those who are on the quest; each moment may prove of tremendous importance.

There are questions which are not even questions; they are, on the contrary, answers. Now, I don't know how to answer an answer. Those people are full of knowledge. They know the answer already; all that they want is support from me for their answer.

If you know, you know. No support is needed. If you do not know, then accept it; then you can be helped. But I cannot play this stupid game in which you go on bragging that you know, and still you are asking. What is the point of asking, if you know?

I never asked anybody any question after I arrived at my very being. Since then I only have answers; all questions have disappeared. I have not even asked for anybody's support. Authentic experience needs no evidence, no support, no argument, no witnesses. It is borrowed knowledge -- from the scriptures, from the priests -- that you are carrying, thinking that you know. You want me to support it so that it becomes more certain.

But remember one thing: knowing is absolutely certain, there is no greater certainty than that. And not knowing -- you may gather the whole world's affidavit for it, but it will still remain not knowing. It will not help that the whole world supports it, you will know that you are ignorant.

There are questions which are so stupid that I don't want to expose the stupidity of somebody who is present here. I respect you, I have immense love for you -- and when I see a stupid question, I simply feel it is better not to talk about it, because I will have to hammer your stupidity.

Just a few days ago, one man asked, "Next time you ask the sannyasins to raise their hands for something to show their trust, their love, I am going to stand against you."

Now, what the hell are you doing here? If this is your mind, that you want to stand against me -- not even knowing about what, but you are certain that you will be against it, and you will stand against it -- then certainly you are in a wrong place. You should not be here.

Should I answer such questions? Are they questions? They don't show even intelligence. In the first place, what will be the situation in the future in which I will ask your support? He is not concerned about the subject on which the support will be asked; he is more interested in standing against me. So why don't you stand, without me asking? Just stand up! Where is that idiot? You don't need any subject, you simply want to stand against me. So just stand up, and remain standing the whole discourse, to your heart's content.

But I wonder what you are doing here if you are so much against me. Don't you know the county road? Just pack your luggage and be on the county road; it goes directly to hell. I don't want such people to be here, part of the commune. I am trying to create a synchronicity, a great energy of love that surrounds the whole commune. But this type of person will be a hindrance. And he has no courage either!

So many questions of this kind -- do you want me to answer them? They just go where they belong -- down the drain.

There are questions which are esoteric. Esoteric means bullshit. Now, I am not interested in bulls, and I don't answer that kind of question. I am a very realistic person; I don't want to give you any illusions, hallucinations of spirituality. But there are people who cannot live without hallucinations. They need some illusions; reality is difficult for them.

Illusions create a kind of buffer between them and the real. The reality will shatter their egos; these buffers save their egos, their ideologies, theologies. And it feels great that you are in contact with mediums who are directly connected to God. Soon you will become a medium; it is just a question of apprenticeship.

So people ask me about mediums -- whether they are true or not. There is no God, so how can mediums be true? They are just exploiting gullible people. But you are fifty percent responsible for the whole thing. If they are exploiting, you are willing to be exploited. In fact, if nobody is ready to exploit you, you start feeling uneasy. You need some parasites.

So there are mediums, there are people who have direct relationship with spirits. There are people in whom spirits descend, and they answer your questions. And all this goes on around the earth, and this has nothing to do with spirituality. Spirituality is a very real science. These people are preventing many from reaching to the real, because they are giving substitutes for the real.

I have heard of a small boy who was going with his grandmother to a spiritual session where a few old women used to sit in darkness, and then the spirit would descend on one of them. The boy was very interested, because he wanted his grandfather's spirit to descend. So he asked beforehand, "Please let there be no misunderstanding: everybody should ask for my grandfather who has been dead for two years; ask that his spirit should descend."

Lights were put off. Those old ladies were sitting in silence.... One old lady, who was the leader of the group, started swaying, and the grandmother of the child nudged the child and said, "Your grandfather has come -- you can ask any question."

He asked, "Grandpa, are you there?" and a voice came, "Yes."

The boy laughed, he said, "So, after all, you are not dead yet? And we all have been thinking that you have been dead for two years. But I will not be convinced unless you tell me something which only I and you know."

Now, this was a difficult question for the old lady. She had no idea what this boy and his grandfather knew and nobody else knew. Suddenly, the swaying stopped, and she said, "The spirit has gone."

The boy said, "But this is strange. We have so many secrets between us -- he loved me so much, I loved him so much. He could have mentioned anything that only I and he knew. I cannot believe that this was my grandfather. You can deceive my grandmother but you cannot deceive me; just swaying does not mean anything."

Even a small child, if he is intelligent, can see this is all a hocus-pocus game that goes on in the names of mediums, messengers. There are so many questions concerning such esoteric matters.... Spirituality has nothing to do with any esotericism. Spirituality is very pragmatic, very realistic -- and that is my whole effort here.

All the religions have created a split between the real and the spiritual -- this world and that world, body and soul, matter and spirit. Nobody has yet recognized that this pision in existence is the basis of all schizophrenia in humanity.

Every person is split, he is not one. To be split is to be sick, and to be one and whole is to be healthy and holy. I am against the split. I want you to know that your body is your visible spirit, and your spirit is your invisible body. The universe that you can see is the visible body of existence, and the universe that you can only feel -- the beauty of a flower, the blissfulness of silence, the ecstasy of one's own being -- that is the invisible part of the universe. They are one, there is no piding line anywhere. Certainly they are not opposed to each other.

It is so simple to understand that your body and your soul are not opposed to each other; otherwise, how can they live together? How can they live in such harmony?

But religions had to make the split; their whole business was dependent on the split: God is separate from existence, the soul is separate from the body. That opens the doors to all kinds of exploitation in the name of religion, because then they can say, "Your body is dragging you towards hell, and unless you fight with your body, its nature, its instincts, its hunger, its sensuality, its sexuality -- everything that makes up your body -- unless you conquer it, you will not enter into the kingdom of God. Only pure souls who have transcended their bodies enter there."

Naturally, millions of people have been torturing their bodies to attain spirituality. All that they attain is stupidity. The more they torture their body, the more unintelligent they become, because the body gives everything needed for their intelligence. And if they start fighting the body, those resources stop flowing towards their intelligence.

I have never come across a single so-called saint in my life -- and I have seen thousands -- who had any gleam of intelligence in his eyes, who had any aura of beauty around him; who had any magnetism that made you feel pulled towards him. On the contrary: in India, there are Jaina saints....

Because they are against the body, perhaps their religion is the most antilife religion. They don't take a bath, they don't wash their teeth, because that is all serving the devil, decorating the devil. They stink, because they have not taken a bath for years. Their perspiration has gathered on their body in layers -- dust and perspiration. And they live naked, so the whole body is available to the dust. They don't wash their mouth. You cannot talk to them sitting closely, because every word that they speak comes as a shock: their breath is unbearable.

But they are respected immensely because they have been torturing their body. They have lost the balance of their body completely. Because they eat only one time a day, naturally they eat too much -- to make up for the two other times. So their bellies become too big, and the rest of the body becomes thin. Rather than becoming beautiful, they become ugly. And this is thought to be a great attainment.

A really spiritual person will live life as an art, will create a deep harmony between the body and the consciousness. And this is the greatest art there is. His life will be a joy to see. And he will be fragrant, for the sheer reason that there is no split in his being. The very unity makes him organic; the wound of pision is healed.

So people who go on asking questions about how to control the body, how to control sex, how to control this, how to control that, don't understand me at all.

I am not for control, I am all for understanding. Understanding brings its own balance; it is not control, you live in sheer balance. Nobody is controlling -- neither is the body controlling the soul, nor is the soul controlling the body. They have merged, and a new entity, the organic unity, has arisen in you.

I have called that unity Zorba the Buddha, for the simple reason that Zorba lived according to the body, forgetting the spiritual needs; Buddha lived according to the spiritual needs, forgetting the body. Both are incomplete -- they have to be bridged. In each man, in each woman, they have to be bridged. There has not to be any conflict, but a deep musical unity.

And when I say this, I say it from my own experience. There is no question of any conflict. I have lived in a tremendous togetherness, and I have not found any problem. On the contrary, I have found every solution.

The people who are splitting you are your enemies. But they have to do it, because without splitting you, they cannot make you miserable. And unless you are miserable you cannot become customers of churches, of synagogues, of temples, of mosques.

If you are blissful on your own, why should you go to a church? Are you mad? If you are really in a dance within yourself, why should you bother about any priest, any mediator? You are directly connected with existence. No agent, no mediator is needed at all.

For religions to exist, man has to live in misery, has to be in continuous anguish, suffering, guilt. These are the necessities that make him a Christian, a Mohammedan, a Hindu; otherwise, you will be simply a human being who is utterly fulfilled. You will not become part of any organized ideology. You will know your own truth, you will not live on borrowed knowledge

So forgive me, I do not answer all the questions. I answer only questions which are going to help you in your inpidual growth towards freedom and ultimate truth. Everything else is meaningless. You have to be careful in asking, because I have unnecessarily to go through your questions. That's why sometimes I am late, because after my bath I just go through the questions. Coming here in the car, I go through the questions.

Don't ask foolish things; they simply make me come late, and I hate to come late! To make so many people wait, hurts me. I am not a politician.

It is a ground rule for politicians never to arrive in time, because if you arrive in time that means you are not very much engaged, occupied, overburdened. So even if the politician has nothing to do, he will make people wait. That proves his importance.

I am not a politician. I don't have to prove my importance to anybody. I am not important at all. I enjoy being just my own simple self.

So please, don't bother me by asking questions which have no relevance to me, to this gathering of mystics. Be careful.

- Osho, "From Bondage to Freedom, #34"