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"