Question 4:
Osho,
Fritjof Capra contends that, "modern physics goes far beyond technology. The way - or tao - of physics can be a path with a heart, a way to spiritual realization." Do you agree?
Maneesha, the question is not of agreeing or not agreeing, because all agreements and disagreements are of the mind. I know that Capra is simply guessing. He is a man who knows modern physics and a little bit of the philosophy of Tao. And it is a very small thing to create a physics of Tao, or a Tao of physics, because the word tao simply means the way, and modern physics certainly has gone beyond technology. It has moved beyond the boundaries of mind, and is in a tremendous chaos. As far as mind was concerned, things were clear. But now, modern physics has come to a point where mind cannot make any sense. Capra himself, being a physicist, started learning about Tao in the effort to understand the chaos that modern physics has entered into, and that perhaps Tao may help.
But he is not a man of Tao, he is still an intellectual trying to make some definitions, trying to make something out of the chaos. He is still thinking of spiritual realization, and there is no spiritual realization because there is no spirit as such.
There is a dispersion into nothingness. You cannot call it realization. It can be called DErealization, but it cannot be called realization. Nothing is realized. Even that which was there is no more - only silence prevails.
I know the chaos of existence is ultimate. Every effort to bring it into a system is bound to fail.
Philosophies have failed, science has failed. More efforts will be made, but I can predict with absolute authority that no system is going to explain this vast existence. It is bound to remain a mystery.
Religions have tried in their own way, but failed. Philosophies have failed. Science came with great systematic logic, and in the beginning of this century science was absolutely certain that it was going to succeed and explain away the whole mystery of existence, bring it down to rationalization. But on the contrary, the opposite has happened.
As science has approached deeper into reality, all its old concepts have become invalid. Now Aristotelian logic is no longer logic, and Euclidean geometry is no longer geometry. Now, science is at a point where everything again has become mysterious - no explanation, and no reason. But the effort continues.
My approach is totally different. I want you to know that chaos is the very nature of existence, you cannot make it a cosmos. You cannot make it a system, either by Tao or by Zen. You cannot make it an explained system where everything is knowable.
I have always divided existence into three segments: the known, the unknown, and the unknowable.
That which is unknown will become known tomorrow.
That which is known today was unknown yesterday. But the known and the unknown are a very superficial part. Beyond both is the unknowable. That unknowable is a chaos; it is irrational, illogical.
There is no way to bring it into explanations, no way to make a science of it, or a philosophy of it.
This chaos I have called nothingness. You can enter into it, you can be one with it, you can rejoice in it, but don't try to conceptualize it.
So it is not a question, Maneesha, of my agreement or disagreement with Fritjof Capra. I know existence is a chaos, and will remain always a chaos. All efforts of man are bound to fail in systematizing it. It is not a system; it is not mechanics. Hence, I always have loved Gautam Buddha's statement. Asked, "What is truth?" he replied in a very strange way. He said, "Whatever works." He did not define truth, he simply said, "Whatever works is true."
And more than that, even today we don't know. We don't know what electricity is, we only know how it works; we don't know what it is. There is no way to know it, and there is no need.
Let existence function.
Use it, love it, rejoice in it. There is no need to systematize it; all systems are bound to fail.
Zen is not a system, it is a path towards the chaos.
Go dancingly in without bothering and worrying what it is.
Rejoice in it!
What is the point in thinking what is music?
Love it, listen to it, create it.
What is the point of finding the definition of dance?
Dance!
But still very few people are of the age, mature enough to recognize this immense chaos without fear, and to use it as much as you can. Love it, live it, and drop the childish idea that you have to understand it. What are you going to do by understanding it? And in the first place, understanding is not possible.
Mind is too small, and existence is too vast - without any boundaries. There is no possibility that there will ever be a system which explains everything. And that will be a very fatal day if some system explains everything - life will lose all joy.
People are trying to explain everything. Then love becomes just chemistry, biology, hormones. Do you ever think about love as hormones, as biology, as chemistry? And the moment you think about chemistry, biology, hormones, love loses all mystery. And certainly love is more than chemistry, biology, or hormones can explain. They may explain sex, but they cannot explain love.
Love need not be sexual. In fact, at the highest point even sexuality transforms into love... love unexplained, irrational, a chaos. You can experience it, but you cannot explain it.
-Osho, "The Zen Manifesto: Freedom from Oneself, #6"