On a dark night, when the whole village was asleep, a sudden cry rose from a hut: “My house is on fire, I am burning in the fire!” A woman was sobbing and screaming at the top of her voice. The sleeping village woke up; people jumped from their beds and ran toward the hut. Almost the whole village gathered there. But far from a fire, there wasn’t even the light of a lamp in that hut—only dense darkness. Still, from inside someone kept crying and shouting: “My house is on fire, I am burning!”
People knocked at the door, opened it, went in. One ran to find a lantern, someone else brought buckets of water. Inside they found the old woman who had been shouting. They asked her, “Where is the fire? We’ll put it out! We don’t see any fire anywhere.”
The old woman began to laugh and said, “If the fire were outside, you could put it out; the fire is burning within me.”
The villagers must have concluded that the old woman had gone mad. Laughing, cursing for having their sleep spoiled, they went back to their homes and slept again.
The old woman had said: The fire is within me. Your buckets and water cannot extinguish my fire. But they thought she was insane.
I want to begin with this story because in almost every human life there is an inner fire that torments, that pains. And almost everyone tries to extinguish that fire—but the attempt fails. Because the water they use to douse it is outside. The water is outside; the fire is within. The water keeps accumulating, the fire does not go out. In the end, the whole life burns to ashes. Our efforts come to nothing, our running is futile, our labor meaningless. We finally find ourselves arriving where none of us is willing to go.
What is the outcome of a lifelong race except death? After a lifetime of running, where else do we arrive but at death? And if death is the destination, if death is what we are to “reach,” then what meaning does life have? What is its purpose? We want to escape suffering, avoid pain, flee unrest—but where do we arrive? Do we arrive in bliss? Do we arrive in the deathless?
No; we arrive in death, we arrive in darkness, we arrive in dissolution. And if the final fruit of life is death, does not the whole of life appear draped in death’s darkness? And if that which we want to avoid is precisely what we find at the end, shall we call such a life successful? Yet that is where we all arrive. The more we try to avoid it, the more surely we get there. Whatever we run from, to that we come.
Perhaps what that old woman saw, we do not see. Hence the accident, the misfortune. The fire is inside; our efforts to put it out are outside. That fire will not be doused. It is impossible. Only if we could find water inside—then perhaps it could be quenched.
Alexander died. On the day his bier was carried through the capital he had conquered, hundreds of thousands gathered to see. They witnessed something strange, never seen before: Alexander’s hands were hanging outside the bier. Hands are usually placed within. Was it a mistake? A mistake could hardly happen with Alexander. Thousands were carrying the bier—someone would have noticed; they were not blind. The crowd in the streets wondered: Why are his hands outside? Only one question echoed through that capital: Why are Alexander’s hands outside the bier?
By evening it was learned that Alexander, at the moment of dying, had ordered: “Let my hands hang outside the bier.” People asked, “Why?” He said, “So that people may see that even Alexander’s hands are empty at the hour of death.” He said it twice, as if to be sure: “So that people may see that at the time of death even Alexander’s hands are empty!”
Everyone’s hands are empty—but not everyone lets them hang outside. We hide them well within the bier so that people cannot see the emptiness. But whether hidden or held out, it makes no difference: the hands are empty.
Why then do these hands go empty after a lifetime of running? Why does all our labor come to naught?
Perhaps there is a mistake. Perhaps a fundamental mistake. Perhaps we seek treasure where no treasure is. Perhaps we seek life where life is not. Perhaps we seek peace where there is no peace. Then what else will happen but that our hands are empty? And that is why, from the very darkness and suffering we try to flee, we find we have arrived there in the end.
Another small tale, to make my meaning clear; then I will speak what I want to share this evening.
There was a king in Damascus. One night he dreamt that a dark shadow stood behind him, a hand on his shoulder. He asked, “Who are you?” The shadow said, “I am your death. By sunset today be sure to meet me at the right place at the right time. Take care you don’t forget. Take care you do not fail to arrive exactly there. I have come into your dream only to warn you.”
He woke up. Whose sleep would not break at the fear of death? Though, among us are many who could keep sleeping even if death stood before them. In truth, death stands before us all—and we sleep. But that king woke up; the dream shattered.
It was midnight. He summoned his wise elders—astrologers, philosophers—to ask the meaning of the dream: “I saw a shadow behind me, a hand on my shoulder. I asked, Who are you? She said: I am your death. And by sunset today, meet me at the exact place. Beware of any mistake, that is why I came—to warn you.”
The scholars opened their tomes to divine the meaning. Their books were enormous, as scriptures always are. The language was tangled. Extracting meaning from them was arduous. And even if some meaning emerged, it was even more difficult for all those elders to agree. Meanwhile evening drew near. The sun would set and not rest or delay; twilight would soon be upon them. Those book-seeking thinkers would scarcely reach any conclusion.
The king’s old vizier said, “Let them keep searching and thinking. Twilight is close, and you are unlikely to get any solution from them. For five thousand years pundits have been thinking and have reached no solution. Thousands of books and philosophies have been produced—no consensus! Pundits never agree among themselves; do not get entangled in them.”
The king asked, “Then what should I do?”
The vizier said, “Best is this: take the fastest horse you have, and get as far from this palace as you possibly can. Evening is near and the sun will soon set. Death may come at the appointed hour. So ride far, as far from this palace as you can.”
It was sound advice. To depend on thinkers was dangerous; they never have reached a conclusion, nor will they.
Before dawn, while it was still dark, the king summoned his fastest horse, mounted, and fled. He had told his wife many times, “I cannot live a moment without you”—but that morning he forgot her entirely. In the face of death who remembers whom? He had told his friends, “Without you life is meaningless”—but he forgot to bid them farewell. Who takes leave at the hour of death? He spurred the fastest horse in the land. That day he felt neither the blazing noon nor the burning sun overhead. Sweat poured in streams and he did not notice. When death stands before you, what do you notice? He did not stop to rest in shade, he felt neither thirst nor hunger. To pause even a moment was dangerous. Every moment counted. He rode on and on. Before sunset he had reached hundreds of miles away. He was pleased. As the sun began to dip, he was happy—he had come far enough.
As the sun was setting, he tethered his horse in a garden outside a village, preparing to rest for the night. He had come a long way. Now there was no fear. The last rays were sinking. As he was tying the horse, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned—there stood the same dark shadow. “Who are you?” he asked. “Do you not recognize me?” she said. “I came in your dream last night. I am Death. And I must thank your horse. I was worried—for it was at exactly this place that you were to die. I was anxious whether you would arrive in time or not. Your horse is very fast, superb! Before the sun set it brought you to the exact place. My thanks to your horse.”
The man ran all day from death—and by dusk arrived in death’s mouth.
Do you know anyone who ran all his life and did not arrive in the mouth of death? You hardly know such a one. For the great and mysterious fact is: the one who runs lands straight in death’s jaws. The one who stops may even be saved from death. Let me repeat it, for this is what I want to say to you over these three days: the one who runs lands in the mouth of death; the one who stops becomes free of death—he escapes death.
It sounds reversed. We assume the runner gets away. We think only by running can one be saved. But have you ever seen a runner saved from death? No runner has ever escaped. Because the mind that runs is so entangled it cannot know what life truly is. The running mind is so restless it cannot peer within, where That abides—the deathless. The more one runs, the nearer one comes to death. Those with the fastest horses—death will one day thank their horses, “Your horse was swift and brought you right on time.”
Yet in life it seems those with the fastest horses are ahead. It seems the faster one runs, the more one will attain life. Not so. Life’s pathways are strange, profoundly mysterious.
Lao Tzu, in China two and a half thousand years ago, said: If you want to gain, be still; if you want to lose, run. A very strange thing. He said: if you want to gain, stop; if you want to lose, run.
But all we know is running. We run for wealth, for fame, for position, for status. And when we tire of all that and find no juice in it, we run for religion, for the soul, for God, for liberation. But we keep running. Remember, whether one runs for wealth or for religion, running is dangerous in both cases. The runner never attains. Running for wealth makes no difference—and running for religion makes no difference. The mind that runs is restless.
We only know two types of people: those who run after the world, and those who run after God.
I want to tell you: no one has ever reached God by running. Those who attain the divine are those who drop the very running. Therefore there can be no “race” for God. There can be a race for wealth; there can be none for religion. Religion is to stop—what has running to do with it?
But those habituated to running in the world, when they get bored with the world and find nothing, still they do not tire of running. They tire of the world—running continues. Then they run for liberation. Here they were building houses; now they build mansions in heaven. Here they were accumulating money; now they accumulate merit—which is the currency of heaven. Here they wanted to be great in hoarding and possession; now they want to be great in renunciation and sannyas. But the idea of being “great” does not leave them. Here they wanted to attain; now they want to attain beyond, in the other world. But the chase to attain does not end.
What has a religious person to do with running? Nothing at all. Yet we see even the renunciate running. We see him rushing to get something. Even his “leaving” is an investment; his renunciation is a device to obtain. His renunciation is a means by which he hopes to get something further. If he leaves wealth, it is in order to gain religion. But the chase to attain remains intact.
This mind that runs to attain can never turn within.
Grasp this—it is very useful.
As long as I want to get something, my gaze will remain outward. As long as I want to get something, my eyes will search outside. Within—within everything already is. There is no question of getting there. The soul is already given, the divine already given. How can you “get” what is already there? Like fish in the ocean searching for water—running, asking, “Where is the ocean? Where is water?” Such are those who ask—Where is God? Where is the soul? Where is liberation? Right where we are living, there is God—because life is God. From where our breath rises, where our prana vibrates—that is the divine; beyond that, where else is God? But how can the divine be “found”? It is already given! There is only one difficulty in attaining the divine: that it is already given. Therefore whoever sets out to search for it loses it. And whoever drops all searching and becomes still—he finds it.
Once, the old vizier of a king died. It was a large kingdom. And the vizier was always appointed after careful search—only the most thoughtful, most insightful, the wisest in the land would be made vizier. When the vizier died, the search began anew. The intelligent men of the realm were sought out; examinations were held. Finally three men were brought to the capital—the most intelligent, the most wise.
The day for the final test arrived. Of the three, one would be chosen. It was a great office. It was announced that the test would be held the next morning, and the three were lodged in a palace building.
By evening, the whole city knew what the test would be—rumors spread, as they do even today. The test was unusual. The next morning the three would be locked into a large hall; on the outer door would be a lock made by the country’s mechanics, engineers, and mathematicians. That lock took no key. There were some numerical figures inscribed on it—a mathematical riddle. Whoever solved the riddle would be able to open the lock. If the figures were correctly resolved, the lock would open. The lock was a creation of mathematicians and engineers.
The whole city knew that the three would be shut in, and a lock with no key would be set on the door. The one who solved the riddle engraved on the lock would open it, and whoever first opened the door and came out would be appointed vizier.
That very evening the three also learned this. Two of them ran to the market and brought whatever books on mathematics and locks they could find. They studied the whole night. One night’s effort for a lifetime’s prize. But the third man was strange—he neither went anywhere nor brought any book; he pulled a cover over himself and went to sleep. The other two thought: perhaps fear has made him decide not to sit the test! Or perhaps he doesn’t believe the rumor! Yet it wasn’t wise to miss any chance. The two studied through the night. They read whatever literature on math and locks they could find.
By morning they had reached the state exam-takers often reach: if you had asked, “What is two plus two?” they would have frozen, unable to answer. They had stayed up all night; their minds were stuffed with books; small answers became difficult. But one man had slept. He woke fresh.
All three reached the palace. The rumor was true. They were locked in and a large lock was set. The king told them: “It is a mathematical riddle; whoever can solve it will open the door and come out. I will wait outside. The one who comes out first will be the vizier.” The door was shut; the king left.
The two who had studied all night had tucked small books into their clothes. Not only today’s students do that—this is a story from two thousand years ago. Man has always been the same. They pulled out their books as soon as the door closed and copied the figures from the lock, working out solutions on paper.
But the third man was very strange; he sat in a corner with eyes closed. The other two laughed—he must be mad! Unless you do something, how will anything happen? He seemed panicked and unwilling to act. He seemed to have left the swim, withdrawn from the competition. But his eyes were serene; his face was calm. He did not look agitated. He sat quietly... Suddenly, he stood up—as if he saw something. He walked to the door and gave it a gentle push—the door opened! The lock had not been fastened! He stepped out.
The two bookmen kept searching in their pages, not realizing the third had already gone outside. Those who drown in books miss seeing life. They only noticed when the king entered with the other man. “Close your books,” he said. “The one who was to come out has come out.”
They were stunned. “How did you get out?” they asked. The king answered for him: “The lock had not been set. The hardest lock to open is the one that has not been fastened. A fastened lock can be opened. But the one not fastened—opening it is very difficult, because the thought does not arise that perhaps it is not locked. This man is the wisest. Instead of solving the figures on the lock, he first wanted to see whether the lock was even engaged. The truly wise man, before solving a problem, first looks to see whether there is a problem at all. This man is the wisest in the land; we shall make him vizier.”
This story is very strange—and very true. It is a story not of one man alone; the divine has played it with almost everyone.
Whoever sets out to search for God, loses. Because the first and finest point is this: God is not lost. Whoever sets out to search goes astray. First see whether the lock is even engaged. But we are very clever. We either search for wealth, position and prestige—or, when exhausted, troubled, in old age, in weariness, in frustration and failure, we begin to search for God.
God can never be “searched out”; because the searcher is very small, and that which is sought is vast. How can the small find the infinite? And when man fails to find God, he manufactures false gods—made by his own hands, set up by his own hands. When he fails, he builds.
We have made many gods. Hence the Hindu’s god is different, the Muslim’s different, the Christian’s different, the Jain’s different. Can there be many kinds of God? Many kinds of Truth? No. But since there are many kinds of men, they have fashioned the Truth in many forms. And these fabricated truths—home-made truths—have become centers of conflict.
Can there be so many religions? So many temples and mosques? They should not be. But man has fabricated them, therefore they exist. And whatever man makes, whatever man constructs, whatever man creates cannot be greater than man. Whatever we make cannot be bigger than us.
That is why our temples are smaller than us, and our fabricated gods also end up being smaller than us. Therefore, in the name of God we can fight, but we cannot love. Since we ourselves are incapable of love, our manufactured gods cannot become the ground for love. So we wage wars over our gods, commit violence, kill and are killed—but we do not live. Everything we make proves smaller than us.
One night a man knocked at a church door. The priest opened it and saw a dark-skinned man standing there. It was a church of white people; dark-skinned people were not permitted. To this day, a temple for all has not been made. The priest said, “Go back. Why have you come so late at night?”
The man said, “I thought at night you may not recognize me and might let me enter. In daylight I could never get in. My skin declares I am black. Yet my heart also rises in prayer to God. I too am thirsty and seeking water. Will you not let me come in?”
The priest said, “First go and quiet your mind. Fill your heart with peace and love—then come. When your mind becomes clean and pure, I will let you approach God. What will you do now? Without an innocent mind, who can reach God? So go back.”
The man went away. Two or three months passed; he did not return. The priest thought he would never come again. He had set a condition such that there was no longer any chance. Neither would the mind become innocent, nor would the man return. But one day the priest met him on the road. He was astonished—the man’s gait had changed, his eyes had changed, his face had changed. Everything about him seemed different; he had become someone else. A light and a peace seemed to surround him; love seemed to flow around him. The priest stopped him: “You did not come again?”
The man said, “I tried to come, but God prevented me.”
“What do you mean?” asked the priest.
“When I made efforts to purify my mind,” the black man said, “and when I became quiet, and when my heart filled with love, one night God appeared in my dream and asked, ‘Why are you praying? Why are you purifying your mind? What do you want?’ I said, ‘In our village there is a church; I want to enter it.’ God laughed and said, ‘You are absolutely crazy! For ten years I too have been trying to get into that church—the priest won’t let me in; how will he let you in? Drop this idea. Ask me for some other boon—I will grant it. But this boon I cannot give. When I myself cannot enter, how can I get you in?’”
And I tell you: God must have said “ten years” out of modesty. The truth is, for ten thousand years God has been trying to enter some temple or other—but the priests never let him in.
In truth, up to now God has never gained entry into any temple, nor will he in the future. Because God is vast and infinite—and man’s temples are very small. God is boundless, and whatever man builds has a boundary. Whatever man makes cannot be greater than man. Man’s books are not greater than man. Man’s philosophies are not greater than man. Man’s temples, man’s worship, man’s prayers—whatever man does, how can it be greater than man? Therefore, whatever man does has no connection with God. Then what? If man runs, he cannot reach God. If man constructs something, he cannot reach God. If man “does” something, he cannot reach truth.
Our prayers will take us nowhere; nor our worship, nor our scriptures, nor our religions—because we are their makers. Then what? What is the way for a person to know Truth? To know oneself? To know peace? To know music—what is the way?
The way is something else. In these three days I will speak to you about it.
Prayer is not the way; worship is not the way; the temple is not the path; scripture is not the gate. Then what is the way? What is the gate?
I will discuss three small sutras that I see as pathways.
I will say a little now on the first; tomorrow on the second; the day after on the third.
The first sutra: For man to reach the divine, the first and most essential thing to know is this: not through anything he can do, make, or construct—but through whatever way he can let go of himself, efface himself, lose himself. For whatever I build will only strengthen my “I.” Whatever I do will nourish my ego. Whatever I make—I will be bigger than what is made. And what wall other than ego separates man? There is no other wall. In some way may my “I” dissolve and disappear. In some way may I do nothing, think nothing, run nowhere. In every way may my mind become still—not running in doing, not running in thinking, not even running in prayer. Let my mind be utterly at rest, stopped, stunned into silence—like a lake that has become so still no ripple arises. If my mind becomes such, then in that quiet, that vibrationless, that silence—one can know That which is my nature and the nature of all.
Not through my doing, not through my becoming, but through my disappearing. Religion is not the path of becoming, it is the path of dissolving. And the great wonder is that the world—which is the path of becoming—finally takes you to death, where all is dissolved. And religion—which is the path of dissolving—finally takes you to That which can never be dissolved. Those who dissolve attain the indestructible. The drop loses itself in the ocean—and becomes the ocean; man loses himself—and becomes the divine.
Therefore nothing that man “does” can take him there. If man un-does himself—becomes un-done—he arrives. To say “arrives” is not accurate, for there he already is; he finds that he is there.
How then can a person un-do himself, efface himself, become a zero? How can one become empty?
The first step leading toward emptiness is: not-knowing.
You must have heard it said: To know Truth, you must accumulate much knowledge. I say to you: if you would know Truth, disperse knowledge—do not acquire it. The more one collects knowledge, the more powerful one’s ego becomes. One starts feeling, “I know.” One starts feeling, “I am the knower.”
When Socrates was close to death, a friend came and said, “I hear the Athenians say you are the wisest.” Socrates replied, “Go tell them they are greatly mistaken. If, when I was a small child, they had said, ‘Socrates, you are wise,’ I would have been pleased—for as a boy I believed I knew. When I came of age, many walls of my knowing had already fallen. When I grew old, I found the building I had called ‘knowledge’ had collapsed. Today I am utterly ignorant. Go and tell them—Socrates knows nothing.”
They went and told the elders of Athens: “We asked Socrates. The Athenians say Socrates is supremely wise; he says that when he was a child he had the illusion that he knew; now, in old age, that illusion is broken. He plainly says he knows nothing.”
The elders said, “That is why we call him supremely wise. For when one knows that one knows nothing, the doors of knowing open.”
But all of us feel that we know. And what do we know? Beyond words, what do we know? Yet by hoarding words we begin to feel, “I know.” One man memorizes the Gita, another the Koran, another the Bible; someone else memorizes Mahavira’s words, another Buddha’s. They collect those words, and by repeating them over and over, living with them day after day, the illusion arises: “I know.” Scriptures create the illusion that “I know.” Education creates the illusion that “I know.” From all sides what we learn breeds the illusion that we know.
Without breaking this illusion, no one can proceed on the path of Truth. For the one who thinks “I know” has closed the door to further knowing. His journey has stopped. His seeking has broken. His inquiry has ended. But the one who knows “I do not know”—all his life-force will search, will seek...
But how does this notion arise that we know?
Because of borrowed ideas—borrowed knowledge. From all around, we receive second-hand ideas. And through borrowed ideas it is very easy to become “knowers.” But have you ever considered: how can an idea that is not mine become my knowledge? Have you ever sifted and examined your thoughts to see whose they are? They may be Krishna’s, Rama’s, Buddha’s, Mahavira’s—but are they yours? And they may be true—but they were true for the one who knew. How can they be true for you?
There is no Truth other than that which is known firsthand. Borrowed knowledge is more dangerous than un-knowing. Borrowed knowledge is a greater enemy than ignorance—because in ignorance there is the ache to know; with borrowed knowledge even that ache ends. In borrowed knowledge a person becomes complacent, satisfied—“I know.” That is why the pundit never attains Truth; he cannot. The wall of erudition is so huge that Truth cannot cross it.
Yet we all collect borrowed knowledge. And we mistake this collecting for something religious. What do we do with the Gita or the Koran or the Bible? We read them, memorize the words. Those words get stored in our memory. When life throws questions at us, answers come from memory. Those answers are utterly false.
Recently I went to an orphanage. The organizers told me, “We impart religious education here.” I said, “I am amazed—I have never heard that religion can be taught! Spiritual practice can be done, but religious education has never been and never will be. If religion could be taught, we would have made the world religious long ago. What was the difficulty? Science can be taught; the world is becoming scientific. But there can be no education in religion.”
Do you think love can be taught? Could we open a school where we teach how to love? And if, unfortunately, such a thing happens—and it will someday, because man is so foolish he will commit every stupidity—they will open institutes to teach love.
I hear that in America they have set up an institute where they teach how to love. Thousands of books are written: How to Love. If someday schools open that teach how to love, one thing is certain: the graduates of those schools will never be able to love. Their love will be acting—mere performance. Learned love will inevitably become acting.
That is why actors, who earn their living playing lover day and night, are never able to love. No actor loves. The acting goes so deep it displaces the heart. The more the acting, the more the heart is erased.
So I told them: “If even love cannot be taught, then how much more impossible is the teaching of God. Yes—one can teach ‘Hindu,’ one can teach ‘Muslim,’ one can teach ‘Jain’; but religion itself cannot be taught. It is impossible to teach religion.” So I said to them... (Meanwhile, a man began shouting loudly... Osho continues speaking...) It seems some religious man has arrived.
...I once told the organizers of an orphanage that religion cannot be taught. Still, I said, let me hear what you do teach. They took me in. They had about a hundred children—very small ones. Children are vulnerable as it is; orphans even more so. Whatever you teach them, they will have to learn.
They asked the children: Is there a God? All the children raised their hands: Yes, there is. It was what they had been taught; so up went their hands. They asked: Where is God? And all the children placed their hands on their hearts and said: Here.
I asked a little one: Where is the heart? He said: We haven’t been told that. It’s not written in our book either.
What he had been told, he repeated: There is a God. Where is he? Here. But where is the heart—he hadn’t been told. And how could the teacher have told him?
I said to their teachers, You are these children’s great enemies. They will be trained. Whenever life raises the question—Is there a God?—the learned answer from within will say—Yes, there is; their hands will move, they will feel satisfied, the matter closed. And when the question arises within—Where is God?—their learned mind will say—Here; and that hand will be utterly false, because it is a learned gesture; it has no value.
Surely God is here—but that cannot be learned; it cannot be drilled by raising a hand. It can be known. Truth can be known; it cannot be learned. God can be known; he cannot be studied.
And all of us are learned in just this way. Otherwise how does a child born in a Hindu home become a Hindu? And a child born in a Muslim home become a Muslim? It is all schooling; it is all propaganda.
In Russia, because those in power do not believe in God, they taught their children—There is no God; and the children began to say the same.
A friend of mine went to Russia. In a home he asked a small child: Is there a God? The child laughed and said: There was. Don’t say “is.” God was. Not now. There was—our ancestors thought there was. He’s gone—there is no God now. So much light of science has dawned in the world that he has no place left to stand. There isn’t—said the little boy.
Throughout Russia they taught: there is no God, no soul. The children learned it, repeated it, grew up, grew old, and kept saying: There is no God. Do they know there is no God? Do you know there is a God?
No—you repeat learned things, and they repeat learned things. Neither has value.
Whatever we learn about truth has no value. Why? Because truth is within us; it cannot be learned, but it can be known. If we can go within, it will be known.
So the first thing is to become free of knowledge. Before becoming free of ignorance, one has to become free of knowledge. Our so-called knowledge is hollow, false, borrowed.
That is why there is so much knowledge in the world, yet no religion. We all “know” God, the soul, the Supreme, rebirth—we all know. But where is religion? If this knowing were real, could our life run contrary to it? When knowing is true, life inevitably follows it. When knowing is false—borrowed, stale, someone else’s—then life goes one way and knowledge another. Life refuses to follow stale knowledge. And rightly so—life is greater than stale learning. Hence life never follows it, no matter how much you preach: Live according to what we say; this is religion, shape your life by it. People will never truly shape their lives by it.
Therefore it is impossible: knowledge that is not mine cannot shape my life either. And if I try to force it, nothing but hypocrisy will result. I will impose it from above. My life energy will say one thing, my intellect another; within me duality, conflict will arise—and nothing real will happen. I will become an actor. Like someone playing Rama in a Ramleela, I will become Rama outwardly. Inside something else—outside Rama. Something inside, something else outside. All of us are one thing outside and another inside. Why? Because of borrowed knowledge.
But it takes great courage to drop borrowed knowledge. For what we have learned and collected by way of ideas gives great gratification to our ego—we feel, I know. How strange! You know God? And if you had known God, what would you have become—would you still be as you are? Then it is better to acknowledge clearly: I do not know God—this is the first step toward truth. If this is untrue, everything else built on it will be untrue. You know, I know—ask yourself in solitude: Do I know God? Do I know truth? Do I know the soul? Yes, I have read about it in books—but that is not knowing. If you look honestly, the wall of knowledge will collapse and you will find you know nothing.
And I tell you: this is the first condition. If you clearly realize “I do not know,” you will be freed from knowledge—false knowledge. Its weight will drop. That knowing attitude, that ego, that vanity of the knower will evaporate.
Not-knowing is great humility. The state of not-knowing, the experience “I do not know,” makes one deeply humble, simple. Whoever understands “I do not know” becomes utterly simple. His consciousness is freed from others’ knowledge. And others’ knowledge holds us—without dropping it, no journey is possible.
A young man came to a sannyasins’ ashram, seeking truth—as though truth were found elsewhere! People go off seeking truth; he too had set out. He stayed at an ashram, but within a few days he grew bored. The guru there was very old, and his words were few; in two or three days he had said all he had to say. The young man thought: If this is all his knowledge, why stay? The day he was to leave, a guest monk arrived. He seemed vastly learned. He offered very subtle commentaries on everything. To support each point he would marshal the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita—quotations upon quotations, scripture upon scripture. His talk was weighty and forceful.
That night the ashram residents gathered. The new monk spoke for two hours about knowledge. The young man who was about to leave listened and thought: If only I had such a guru, I could learn something. Our guru knows nothing—two or three small things he keeps repeating. The old guru sat listening too. The young man thought: Today he must be realizing what knowledge means; today he must be feeling remorse, envy, pain. After two hours, the visiting monk looked around with pride and asked the elder: How did you like my talk?
The old man laughed and said: For two hours I tried hard to listen and understand—but you didn’t speak at all!
The man protested: Are you mad? If I didn’t speak, who did for two hours?
The elder said: The scriptures spoke, not you. The Vedas spoke, not you. The Upanishads spoke, not you. I tried hard to hear you—but you never spoke.
As long as memory speaks, you are not speaking. As long as the learned speaks, you are not speaking. As long as the learned is your “knowledge,” it is not knowledge. Without dropping this, no one can go further. Without dropping scriptures, no one can reach truth.
Our minds are crammed with knowledge; that is the obstacle. Yet we keep adding to it. Perhaps you too have come here thinking to add some knowledge. For three days I will do my utmost to make your knowledge fall away. I am not among the sinners who add to your knowledge. You have enough—that is the danger. You are much too “knowing”—that is the danger. Come to the point where you can feel: No, I do not know. Let the sense of your ignorance, your incapacity, dawn—perhaps from that awareness a new journey will sprout. But those who tie themselves to the shore of learned knowledge cannot sail the ocean of truth.
One night it happened that some friends got drunk at a tavern. Filled with wine, they came out and saw that it was a full-moon night, the sky flooded with moonlight. Singing, they went to the river. They saw a boat tied up. Someone said, Come, let’s sit in the boat and go boating. They were intoxicated, ecstatic; the moon was bright. They sat in, took up the oars, and rowed. All night long they rowed. Because they were drunk, they forgot to untie the chain that moored the boat to the bank. Their journey was futile.
Before anyone sets out toward truth, the ocean, God, the chain must be untied. If the boat is fastened to the shore, no matter how hard we work, how long we row, how much time and energy we spend, there will be no journey—we will find ourselves where we were.
The knowledge we have learned from others—whether from scriptures, gurus, or anyone—will not lead us to God. Why? God is the Unknown, and what we know is the known. From the known we cannot know the Unknown. From what we know, we cannot know what we do not know. If we are to know the Unknown, we must drop the known. When someone leaves the shore of the known, only then does the voyage into the ocean of the Unknown begin. When someone leaves the shore of learned, borrowed, stale knowledge, only then does one truly enter the realm of knowing.
Those who cling to scripture, to words, to doctrines, never reach truth. Clutching at scripture, word, theory—their journey stops.
So my first prayer to you is this: become free of any knowledge that is not your own. This does not mean I am saying that knowledge is untrue. No. For the one who has known, it is true. But for the one who has grabbed it, it is utterly useless. Knowledge is not transferable. I may know, but I cannot hand it to you. Just as I cannot die for you—you will have to die yourself. No one can die for another; and if I die, you will gain no experience of death. You must die in your own place; only you can know death by dying.
God is deeper even than death. No one else can know him for you. Only you can know. No one but you can know on your behalf. You must know death; you must know love; you must know God. But when we learn from others and mistake that learning for knowledge, it becomes an obstacle, a blockage—a standstill.
The first step toward truth: be free of borrowed knowledge, of what belongs to another. And know clearly: I do not know. There is great freedom in knowing “I do not know.” The mind experiences an extraordinary freedom—and not only freedom, but also the pain that arises from not-knowing.
If a man is ill and comes to know he is ill, he begins to remove the illness. If a man is ill and believes he is healthy, how will he remove it? If a man comes to know his house is on fire, he steps out of it. If he believes there is no fire, he sleeps peacefully.
If it becomes clear to me that I do not know, then the pain of not-knowing is so great that no other fire can match it. If it truly dawns on me that I know nothing—do we know anything? God, the soul, truth, life? Nothing. If this awareness, this sharp realization, arises: I do not know—then one cannot remain where one is; a journey begins. It can end only where the sun of knowing dawns, where eyes open and light appears. But those who trust others’ eyes and take others’ light for light, others’ words as truth—their life loses this pain, this awareness of ignorance is suppressed.
Throughout the world, knowledge has erected barriers to God—Hindu knowledge, Muslim, Christian, Jain: a thousand kinds of knowledge and teachings; and those who clutch them have stopped, become stagnant.
The first sutra: be free of others’ ideas and knowledge.
I will speak of the other two sutras later.
Do not, therefore, clutch at what I am saying either. If you clutch it, it will be the same as clutching something else. Do not seize upon anything. Do not install anything rigidly in the mind. Do not make any relationship of stubbornness or blindness with anything. What is needed is an eye—free, seeing, searching, full of inquiry. And your own eye.
Everyone has eyes—everyone! But those who never use their own and make do with others’ eyes—their vision grows dim and finally shuts. If I do not use my legs for a while, they will fail. If I keep my hands tied, soon they will be useless.
We have never tried to stand on our own knowing. We always grab at someone else’s—whether from the Gita, the Quran, or anywhere else—we grab. And when we are busy grabbing knowledge like this, one thing happens: all possibilities of our own knowing being born are shut.
Only the person who frees himself from others’ knowledge can awaken his own. Be free of knowledge, if you truly want to move toward knowing. Be free of doctrines, if you want to journey into truth. Be free of man-made gods, if you want the God who is not made by anyone, but who makes all.
One small story, and I will complete today’s talk.
A fakir slept one night and dreamed he had come to a new world. He had never seen such people, such trees, such a moon, such stars—nothing like it! What is this? Where have I come? He asked: Where am I? Someone said: This is heaven, the dwelling place of God.
He was delighted. All his life he had prayed for this, sought this. He asked: This great procession, all these people—where are they going? What festival is this? Someone told him: Today is God’s birthday; it is being celebrated in heaven. He was even happier: I have come on a good day; I will see God and see the festival.
Then a great crowd came and, on a chariot, an extraordinary, radiant figure. He asked: Is this God? A passerby said: No, this is Rama; behind him are the hundreds of millions who worship and love him. That section passed. Then another crowd, and on a horse another majestic figure. He asked: Who is this? They said: Mohammed. Then another crowd—Christ; then Buddha; then Mahavira; a long line—and their millions upon millions of followers behind each.
He grew tired, kept asking: Where is God? Where is God? But no procession of God seemed to appear.
The processions ended, people dispersed, the roads grew empty. The fakir stood waiting. At last he saw an old man on a worn-out horse—no one behind him. He laughed to see it: Who is this madman riding alone, with no one at all? He asked the last passerby: Who is he? The man said: Surely this must be God—for who could be more alone? He asked others—the answer was certain: indeed, this is God. He asked: Is there no one with him?
God, seated on that horse, said: Some have gone with Rama, some with Krishna, some with Christ, some with Mohammed, some with Buddha, some with Mahavira—there is no one left to be with me.
The fakir was shaken; his sleep broke. He began to weep and said: If only what I saw in my dream were false, just a dream! But on the earth I see the same: no one is with God; no one is with religion. People are with religions; no one is with religion. People are with the gods; no one is with God.
On this story I leave today’s talk. In two days I will speak to you about how one can be with God.
I am deeply grateful that you listened to my words with such love and silence. In the end, I bow to the Divine seated within each of you. Please accept my salutations.
Osho's Commentary
I would like to begin with a small incident.
On a dark night, when the whole village was asleep, a sudden cry rose from a hut: “My house is on fire, I am burning in the fire!” A woman was sobbing and screaming at the top of her voice. The sleeping village woke up; people jumped from their beds and ran toward the hut. Almost the whole village gathered there. But far from a fire, there wasn’t even the light of a lamp in that hut—only dense darkness. Still, from inside someone kept crying and shouting: “My house is on fire, I am burning!”
People knocked at the door, opened it, went in. One ran to find a lantern, someone else brought buckets of water. Inside they found the old woman who had been shouting. They asked her, “Where is the fire? We’ll put it out! We don’t see any fire anywhere.”
The old woman began to laugh and said, “If the fire were outside, you could put it out; the fire is burning within me.”
The villagers must have concluded that the old woman had gone mad. Laughing, cursing for having their sleep spoiled, they went back to their homes and slept again.
The old woman had said: The fire is within me. Your buckets and water cannot extinguish my fire. But they thought she was insane.
I want to begin with this story because in almost every human life there is an inner fire that torments, that pains. And almost everyone tries to extinguish that fire—but the attempt fails. Because the water they use to douse it is outside. The water is outside; the fire is within. The water keeps accumulating, the fire does not go out. In the end, the whole life burns to ashes. Our efforts come to nothing, our running is futile, our labor meaningless. We finally find ourselves arriving where none of us is willing to go.
What is the outcome of a lifelong race except death? After a lifetime of running, where else do we arrive but at death? And if death is the destination, if death is what we are to “reach,” then what meaning does life have? What is its purpose? We want to escape suffering, avoid pain, flee unrest—but where do we arrive? Do we arrive in bliss? Do we arrive in the deathless?
No; we arrive in death, we arrive in darkness, we arrive in dissolution. And if the final fruit of life is death, does not the whole of life appear draped in death’s darkness? And if that which we want to avoid is precisely what we find at the end, shall we call such a life successful? Yet that is where we all arrive. The more we try to avoid it, the more surely we get there. Whatever we run from, to that we come.
Perhaps what that old woman saw, we do not see. Hence the accident, the misfortune. The fire is inside; our efforts to put it out are outside. That fire will not be doused. It is impossible. Only if we could find water inside—then perhaps it could be quenched.
Alexander died. On the day his bier was carried through the capital he had conquered, hundreds of thousands gathered to see. They witnessed something strange, never seen before: Alexander’s hands were hanging outside the bier. Hands are usually placed within. Was it a mistake? A mistake could hardly happen with Alexander. Thousands were carrying the bier—someone would have noticed; they were not blind. The crowd in the streets wondered: Why are his hands outside? Only one question echoed through that capital: Why are Alexander’s hands outside the bier?
By evening it was learned that Alexander, at the moment of dying, had ordered: “Let my hands hang outside the bier.” People asked, “Why?” He said, “So that people may see that even Alexander’s hands are empty at the hour of death.” He said it twice, as if to be sure: “So that people may see that at the time of death even Alexander’s hands are empty!”
Everyone’s hands are empty—but not everyone lets them hang outside. We hide them well within the bier so that people cannot see the emptiness. But whether hidden or held out, it makes no difference: the hands are empty.
Why then do these hands go empty after a lifetime of running? Why does all our labor come to naught?
Perhaps there is a mistake. Perhaps a fundamental mistake. Perhaps we seek treasure where no treasure is. Perhaps we seek life where life is not. Perhaps we seek peace where there is no peace. Then what else will happen but that our hands are empty? And that is why, from the very darkness and suffering we try to flee, we find we have arrived there in the end.
Another small tale, to make my meaning clear; then I will speak what I want to share this evening.
There was a king in Damascus. One night he dreamt that a dark shadow stood behind him, a hand on his shoulder. He asked, “Who are you?” The shadow said, “I am your death. By sunset today be sure to meet me at the right place at the right time. Take care you don’t forget. Take care you do not fail to arrive exactly there. I have come into your dream only to warn you.”
He woke up. Whose sleep would not break at the fear of death? Though, among us are many who could keep sleeping even if death stood before them. In truth, death stands before us all—and we sleep. But that king woke up; the dream shattered.
It was midnight. He summoned his wise elders—astrologers, philosophers—to ask the meaning of the dream: “I saw a shadow behind me, a hand on my shoulder. I asked, Who are you? She said: I am your death. And by sunset today, meet me at the exact place. Beware of any mistake, that is why I came—to warn you.”
The scholars opened their tomes to divine the meaning. Their books were enormous, as scriptures always are. The language was tangled. Extracting meaning from them was arduous. And even if some meaning emerged, it was even more difficult for all those elders to agree. Meanwhile evening drew near. The sun would set and not rest or delay; twilight would soon be upon them. Those book-seeking thinkers would scarcely reach any conclusion.
The king’s old vizier said, “Let them keep searching and thinking. Twilight is close, and you are unlikely to get any solution from them. For five thousand years pundits have been thinking and have reached no solution. Thousands of books and philosophies have been produced—no consensus! Pundits never agree among themselves; do not get entangled in them.”
The king asked, “Then what should I do?”
The vizier said, “Best is this: take the fastest horse you have, and get as far from this palace as you possibly can. Evening is near and the sun will soon set. Death may come at the appointed hour. So ride far, as far from this palace as you can.”
It was sound advice. To depend on thinkers was dangerous; they never have reached a conclusion, nor will they.
Before dawn, while it was still dark, the king summoned his fastest horse, mounted, and fled. He had told his wife many times, “I cannot live a moment without you”—but that morning he forgot her entirely. In the face of death who remembers whom? He had told his friends, “Without you life is meaningless”—but he forgot to bid them farewell. Who takes leave at the hour of death? He spurred the fastest horse in the land. That day he felt neither the blazing noon nor the burning sun overhead. Sweat poured in streams and he did not notice. When death stands before you, what do you notice? He did not stop to rest in shade, he felt neither thirst nor hunger. To pause even a moment was dangerous. Every moment counted. He rode on and on. Before sunset he had reached hundreds of miles away. He was pleased. As the sun began to dip, he was happy—he had come far enough.
As the sun was setting, he tethered his horse in a garden outside a village, preparing to rest for the night. He had come a long way. Now there was no fear. The last rays were sinking. As he was tying the horse, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned—there stood the same dark shadow. “Who are you?” he asked. “Do you not recognize me?” she said. “I came in your dream last night. I am Death. And I must thank your horse. I was worried—for it was at exactly this place that you were to die. I was anxious whether you would arrive in time or not. Your horse is very fast, superb! Before the sun set it brought you to the exact place. My thanks to your horse.”
The man ran all day from death—and by dusk arrived in death’s mouth.
Do you know anyone who ran all his life and did not arrive in the mouth of death? You hardly know such a one. For the great and mysterious fact is: the one who runs lands straight in death’s jaws. The one who stops may even be saved from death. Let me repeat it, for this is what I want to say to you over these three days: the one who runs lands in the mouth of death; the one who stops becomes free of death—he escapes death.
It sounds reversed. We assume the runner gets away. We think only by running can one be saved. But have you ever seen a runner saved from death? No runner has ever escaped. Because the mind that runs is so entangled it cannot know what life truly is. The running mind is so restless it cannot peer within, where That abides—the deathless. The more one runs, the nearer one comes to death. Those with the fastest horses—death will one day thank their horses, “Your horse was swift and brought you right on time.”
Yet in life it seems those with the fastest horses are ahead. It seems the faster one runs, the more one will attain life. Not so. Life’s pathways are strange, profoundly mysterious.
Lao Tzu, in China two and a half thousand years ago, said: If you want to gain, be still; if you want to lose, run. A very strange thing. He said: if you want to gain, stop; if you want to lose, run.
But all we know is running. We run for wealth, for fame, for position, for status. And when we tire of all that and find no juice in it, we run for religion, for the soul, for God, for liberation. But we keep running. Remember, whether one runs for wealth or for religion, running is dangerous in both cases. The runner never attains. Running for wealth makes no difference—and running for religion makes no difference. The mind that runs is restless.
We only know two types of people: those who run after the world, and those who run after God.
I want to tell you: no one has ever reached God by running. Those who attain the divine are those who drop the very running. Therefore there can be no “race” for God. There can be a race for wealth; there can be none for religion. Religion is to stop—what has running to do with it?
But those habituated to running in the world, when they get bored with the world and find nothing, still they do not tire of running. They tire of the world—running continues. Then they run for liberation. Here they were building houses; now they build mansions in heaven. Here they were accumulating money; now they accumulate merit—which is the currency of heaven. Here they wanted to be great in hoarding and possession; now they want to be great in renunciation and sannyas. But the idea of being “great” does not leave them. Here they wanted to attain; now they want to attain beyond, in the other world. But the chase to attain does not end.
What has a religious person to do with running? Nothing at all. Yet we see even the renunciate running. We see him rushing to get something. Even his “leaving” is an investment; his renunciation is a device to obtain. His renunciation is a means by which he hopes to get something further. If he leaves wealth, it is in order to gain religion. But the chase to attain remains intact.
This mind that runs to attain can never turn within.
Grasp this—it is very useful.
As long as I want to get something, my gaze will remain outward. As long as I want to get something, my eyes will search outside. Within—within everything already is. There is no question of getting there. The soul is already given, the divine already given. How can you “get” what is already there? Like fish in the ocean searching for water—running, asking, “Where is the ocean? Where is water?” Such are those who ask—Where is God? Where is the soul? Where is liberation? Right where we are living, there is God—because life is God. From where our breath rises, where our prana vibrates—that is the divine; beyond that, where else is God? But how can the divine be “found”? It is already given! There is only one difficulty in attaining the divine: that it is already given. Therefore whoever sets out to search for it loses it. And whoever drops all searching and becomes still—he finds it.
Once, the old vizier of a king died. It was a large kingdom. And the vizier was always appointed after careful search—only the most thoughtful, most insightful, the wisest in the land would be made vizier. When the vizier died, the search began anew. The intelligent men of the realm were sought out; examinations were held. Finally three men were brought to the capital—the most intelligent, the most wise.
The day for the final test arrived. Of the three, one would be chosen. It was a great office. It was announced that the test would be held the next morning, and the three were lodged in a palace building.
By evening, the whole city knew what the test would be—rumors spread, as they do even today. The test was unusual. The next morning the three would be locked into a large hall; on the outer door would be a lock made by the country’s mechanics, engineers, and mathematicians. That lock took no key. There were some numerical figures inscribed on it—a mathematical riddle. Whoever solved the riddle would be able to open the lock. If the figures were correctly resolved, the lock would open. The lock was a creation of mathematicians and engineers.
The whole city knew that the three would be shut in, and a lock with no key would be set on the door. The one who solved the riddle engraved on the lock would open it, and whoever first opened the door and came out would be appointed vizier.
That very evening the three also learned this. Two of them ran to the market and brought whatever books on mathematics and locks they could find. They studied the whole night. One night’s effort for a lifetime’s prize. But the third man was strange—he neither went anywhere nor brought any book; he pulled a cover over himself and went to sleep. The other two thought: perhaps fear has made him decide not to sit the test! Or perhaps he doesn’t believe the rumor! Yet it wasn’t wise to miss any chance. The two studied through the night. They read whatever literature on math and locks they could find.
By morning they had reached the state exam-takers often reach: if you had asked, “What is two plus two?” they would have frozen, unable to answer. They had stayed up all night; their minds were stuffed with books; small answers became difficult. But one man had slept. He woke fresh.
All three reached the palace. The rumor was true. They were locked in and a large lock was set. The king told them: “It is a mathematical riddle; whoever can solve it will open the door and come out. I will wait outside. The one who comes out first will be the vizier.” The door was shut; the king left.
The two who had studied all night had tucked small books into their clothes. Not only today’s students do that—this is a story from two thousand years ago. Man has always been the same. They pulled out their books as soon as the door closed and copied the figures from the lock, working out solutions on paper.
But the third man was very strange; he sat in a corner with eyes closed. The other two laughed—he must be mad! Unless you do something, how will anything happen? He seemed panicked and unwilling to act. He seemed to have left the swim, withdrawn from the competition. But his eyes were serene; his face was calm. He did not look agitated. He sat quietly... Suddenly, he stood up—as if he saw something. He walked to the door and gave it a gentle push—the door opened! The lock had not been fastened! He stepped out.
The two bookmen kept searching in their pages, not realizing the third had already gone outside. Those who drown in books miss seeing life. They only noticed when the king entered with the other man. “Close your books,” he said. “The one who was to come out has come out.”
They were stunned. “How did you get out?” they asked. The king answered for him: “The lock had not been set. The hardest lock to open is the one that has not been fastened. A fastened lock can be opened. But the one not fastened—opening it is very difficult, because the thought does not arise that perhaps it is not locked. This man is the wisest. Instead of solving the figures on the lock, he first wanted to see whether the lock was even engaged. The truly wise man, before solving a problem, first looks to see whether there is a problem at all. This man is the wisest in the land; we shall make him vizier.”
This story is very strange—and very true. It is a story not of one man alone; the divine has played it with almost everyone.
Whoever sets out to search for God, loses. Because the first and finest point is this: God is not lost. Whoever sets out to search goes astray. First see whether the lock is even engaged. But we are very clever. We either search for wealth, position and prestige—or, when exhausted, troubled, in old age, in weariness, in frustration and failure, we begin to search for God.
God can never be “searched out”; because the searcher is very small, and that which is sought is vast. How can the small find the infinite? And when man fails to find God, he manufactures false gods—made by his own hands, set up by his own hands. When he fails, he builds.
We have made many gods. Hence the Hindu’s god is different, the Muslim’s different, the Christian’s different, the Jain’s different. Can there be many kinds of God? Many kinds of Truth? No. But since there are many kinds of men, they have fashioned the Truth in many forms. And these fabricated truths—home-made truths—have become centers of conflict.
Can there be so many religions? So many temples and mosques? They should not be. But man has fabricated them, therefore they exist. And whatever man makes, whatever man constructs, whatever man creates cannot be greater than man. Whatever we make cannot be bigger than us.
That is why our temples are smaller than us, and our fabricated gods also end up being smaller than us. Therefore, in the name of God we can fight, but we cannot love. Since we ourselves are incapable of love, our manufactured gods cannot become the ground for love. So we wage wars over our gods, commit violence, kill and are killed—but we do not live. Everything we make proves smaller than us.
One night a man knocked at a church door. The priest opened it and saw a dark-skinned man standing there. It was a church of white people; dark-skinned people were not permitted. To this day, a temple for all has not been made. The priest said, “Go back. Why have you come so late at night?”
The man said, “I thought at night you may not recognize me and might let me enter. In daylight I could never get in. My skin declares I am black. Yet my heart also rises in prayer to God. I too am thirsty and seeking water. Will you not let me come in?”
The priest said, “First go and quiet your mind. Fill your heart with peace and love—then come. When your mind becomes clean and pure, I will let you approach God. What will you do now? Without an innocent mind, who can reach God? So go back.”
The man went away. Two or three months passed; he did not return. The priest thought he would never come again. He had set a condition such that there was no longer any chance. Neither would the mind become innocent, nor would the man return. But one day the priest met him on the road. He was astonished—the man’s gait had changed, his eyes had changed, his face had changed. Everything about him seemed different; he had become someone else. A light and a peace seemed to surround him; love seemed to flow around him. The priest stopped him: “You did not come again?”
The man said, “I tried to come, but God prevented me.”
“What do you mean?” asked the priest.
“When I made efforts to purify my mind,” the black man said, “and when I became quiet, and when my heart filled with love, one night God appeared in my dream and asked, ‘Why are you praying? Why are you purifying your mind? What do you want?’ I said, ‘In our village there is a church; I want to enter it.’ God laughed and said, ‘You are absolutely crazy! For ten years I too have been trying to get into that church—the priest won’t let me in; how will he let you in? Drop this idea. Ask me for some other boon—I will grant it. But this boon I cannot give. When I myself cannot enter, how can I get you in?’”
And I tell you: God must have said “ten years” out of modesty. The truth is, for ten thousand years God has been trying to enter some temple or other—but the priests never let him in.
In truth, up to now God has never gained entry into any temple, nor will he in the future. Because God is vast and infinite—and man’s temples are very small. God is boundless, and whatever man builds has a boundary. Whatever man makes cannot be greater than man. Man’s books are not greater than man. Man’s philosophies are not greater than man. Man’s temples, man’s worship, man’s prayers—whatever man does, how can it be greater than man? Therefore, whatever man does has no connection with God. Then what? If man runs, he cannot reach God. If man constructs something, he cannot reach God. If man “does” something, he cannot reach truth.
Our prayers will take us nowhere; nor our worship, nor our scriptures, nor our religions—because we are their makers. Then what? What is the way for a person to know Truth? To know oneself? To know peace? To know music—what is the way?
The way is something else. In these three days I will speak to you about it.
Prayer is not the way; worship is not the way; the temple is not the path; scripture is not the gate. Then what is the way? What is the gate?
I will discuss three small sutras that I see as pathways.
I will say a little now on the first; tomorrow on the second; the day after on the third.
The first sutra: For man to reach the divine, the first and most essential thing to know is this: not through anything he can do, make, or construct—but through whatever way he can let go of himself, efface himself, lose himself. For whatever I build will only strengthen my “I.” Whatever I do will nourish my ego. Whatever I make—I will be bigger than what is made. And what wall other than ego separates man? There is no other wall. In some way may my “I” dissolve and disappear. In some way may I do nothing, think nothing, run nowhere. In every way may my mind become still—not running in doing, not running in thinking, not even running in prayer. Let my mind be utterly at rest, stopped, stunned into silence—like a lake that has become so still no ripple arises. If my mind becomes such, then in that quiet, that vibrationless, that silence—one can know That which is my nature and the nature of all.
Not through my doing, not through my becoming, but through my disappearing. Religion is not the path of becoming, it is the path of dissolving. And the great wonder is that the world—which is the path of becoming—finally takes you to death, where all is dissolved. And religion—which is the path of dissolving—finally takes you to That which can never be dissolved. Those who dissolve attain the indestructible. The drop loses itself in the ocean—and becomes the ocean; man loses himself—and becomes the divine.
Therefore nothing that man “does” can take him there. If man un-does himself—becomes un-done—he arrives. To say “arrives” is not accurate, for there he already is; he finds that he is there.
How then can a person un-do himself, efface himself, become a zero? How can one become empty?
The first step leading toward emptiness is: not-knowing.
You must have heard it said: To know Truth, you must accumulate much knowledge. I say to you: if you would know Truth, disperse knowledge—do not acquire it. The more one collects knowledge, the more powerful one’s ego becomes. One starts feeling, “I know.” One starts feeling, “I am the knower.”
When Socrates was close to death, a friend came and said, “I hear the Athenians say you are the wisest.” Socrates replied, “Go tell them they are greatly mistaken. If, when I was a small child, they had said, ‘Socrates, you are wise,’ I would have been pleased—for as a boy I believed I knew. When I came of age, many walls of my knowing had already fallen. When I grew old, I found the building I had called ‘knowledge’ had collapsed. Today I am utterly ignorant. Go and tell them—Socrates knows nothing.”
They went and told the elders of Athens: “We asked Socrates. The Athenians say Socrates is supremely wise; he says that when he was a child he had the illusion that he knew; now, in old age, that illusion is broken. He plainly says he knows nothing.”
The elders said, “That is why we call him supremely wise. For when one knows that one knows nothing, the doors of knowing open.”
But all of us feel that we know. And what do we know? Beyond words, what do we know? Yet by hoarding words we begin to feel, “I know.” One man memorizes the Gita, another the Koran, another the Bible; someone else memorizes Mahavira’s words, another Buddha’s. They collect those words, and by repeating them over and over, living with them day after day, the illusion arises: “I know.” Scriptures create the illusion that “I know.” Education creates the illusion that “I know.” From all sides what we learn breeds the illusion that we know.
Without breaking this illusion, no one can proceed on the path of Truth. For the one who thinks “I know” has closed the door to further knowing. His journey has stopped. His seeking has broken. His inquiry has ended. But the one who knows “I do not know”—all his life-force will search, will seek...
But how does this notion arise that we know?
Because of borrowed ideas—borrowed knowledge. From all around, we receive second-hand ideas. And through borrowed ideas it is very easy to become “knowers.” But have you ever considered: how can an idea that is not mine become my knowledge? Have you ever sifted and examined your thoughts to see whose they are? They may be Krishna’s, Rama’s, Buddha’s, Mahavira’s—but are they yours? And they may be true—but they were true for the one who knew. How can they be true for you?
There is no Truth other than that which is known firsthand. Borrowed knowledge is more dangerous than un-knowing. Borrowed knowledge is a greater enemy than ignorance—because in ignorance there is the ache to know; with borrowed knowledge even that ache ends. In borrowed knowledge a person becomes complacent, satisfied—“I know.” That is why the pundit never attains Truth; he cannot. The wall of erudition is so huge that Truth cannot cross it.
Yet we all collect borrowed knowledge. And we mistake this collecting for something religious. What do we do with the Gita or the Koran or the Bible? We read them, memorize the words. Those words get stored in our memory. When life throws questions at us, answers come from memory. Those answers are utterly false.
Recently I went to an orphanage. The organizers told me, “We impart religious education here.” I said, “I am amazed—I have never heard that religion can be taught! Spiritual practice can be done, but religious education has never been and never will be. If religion could be taught, we would have made the world religious long ago. What was the difficulty? Science can be taught; the world is becoming scientific. But there can be no education in religion.”
Do you think love can be taught? Could we open a school where we teach how to love? And if, unfortunately, such a thing happens—and it will someday, because man is so foolish he will commit every stupidity—they will open institutes to teach love.
I hear that in America they have set up an institute where they teach how to love. Thousands of books are written: How to Love. If someday schools open that teach how to love, one thing is certain: the graduates of those schools will never be able to love. Their love will be acting—mere performance. Learned love will inevitably become acting.
That is why actors, who earn their living playing lover day and night, are never able to love. No actor loves. The acting goes so deep it displaces the heart. The more the acting, the more the heart is erased.
So I told them: “If even love cannot be taught, then how much more impossible is the teaching of God. Yes—one can teach ‘Hindu,’ one can teach ‘Muslim,’ one can teach ‘Jain’; but religion itself cannot be taught. It is impossible to teach religion.” So I said to them...
(Meanwhile, a man began shouting loudly... Osho continues speaking...)
It seems some religious man has arrived.
...I once told the organizers of an orphanage that religion cannot be taught. Still, I said, let me hear what you do teach. They took me in. They had about a hundred children—very small ones. Children are vulnerable as it is; orphans even more so. Whatever you teach them, they will have to learn.
They asked the children: Is there a God? All the children raised their hands: Yes, there is. It was what they had been taught; so up went their hands. They asked: Where is God? And all the children placed their hands on their hearts and said: Here.
I asked a little one: Where is the heart? He said: We haven’t been told that. It’s not written in our book either.
What he had been told, he repeated: There is a God. Where is he? Here. But where is the heart—he hadn’t been told. And how could the teacher have told him?
I said to their teachers, You are these children’s great enemies. They will be trained. Whenever life raises the question—Is there a God?—the learned answer from within will say—Yes, there is; their hands will move, they will feel satisfied, the matter closed. And when the question arises within—Where is God?—their learned mind will say—Here; and that hand will be utterly false, because it is a learned gesture; it has no value.
Surely God is here—but that cannot be learned; it cannot be drilled by raising a hand. It can be known. Truth can be known; it cannot be learned. God can be known; he cannot be studied.
And all of us are learned in just this way. Otherwise how does a child born in a Hindu home become a Hindu? And a child born in a Muslim home become a Muslim? It is all schooling; it is all propaganda.
In Russia, because those in power do not believe in God, they taught their children—There is no God; and the children began to say the same.
A friend of mine went to Russia. In a home he asked a small child: Is there a God? The child laughed and said: There was. Don’t say “is.” God was. Not now. There was—our ancestors thought there was. He’s gone—there is no God now. So much light of science has dawned in the world that he has no place left to stand. There isn’t—said the little boy.
Throughout Russia they taught: there is no God, no soul. The children learned it, repeated it, grew up, grew old, and kept saying: There is no God. Do they know there is no God? Do you know there is a God?
No—you repeat learned things, and they repeat learned things. Neither has value.
Whatever we learn about truth has no value. Why? Because truth is within us; it cannot be learned, but it can be known. If we can go within, it will be known.
So the first thing is to become free of knowledge. Before becoming free of ignorance, one has to become free of knowledge. Our so-called knowledge is hollow, false, borrowed.
That is why there is so much knowledge in the world, yet no religion. We all “know” God, the soul, the Supreme, rebirth—we all know. But where is religion? If this knowing were real, could our life run contrary to it? When knowing is true, life inevitably follows it. When knowing is false—borrowed, stale, someone else’s—then life goes one way and knowledge another. Life refuses to follow stale knowledge. And rightly so—life is greater than stale learning. Hence life never follows it, no matter how much you preach: Live according to what we say; this is religion, shape your life by it. People will never truly shape their lives by it.
Therefore it is impossible: knowledge that is not mine cannot shape my life either. And if I try to force it, nothing but hypocrisy will result. I will impose it from above. My life energy will say one thing, my intellect another; within me duality, conflict will arise—and nothing real will happen. I will become an actor. Like someone playing Rama in a Ramleela, I will become Rama outwardly. Inside something else—outside Rama. Something inside, something else outside. All of us are one thing outside and another inside. Why? Because of borrowed knowledge.
But it takes great courage to drop borrowed knowledge. For what we have learned and collected by way of ideas gives great gratification to our ego—we feel, I know. How strange! You know God? And if you had known God, what would you have become—would you still be as you are? Then it is better to acknowledge clearly: I do not know God—this is the first step toward truth. If this is untrue, everything else built on it will be untrue. You know, I know—ask yourself in solitude: Do I know God? Do I know truth? Do I know the soul? Yes, I have read about it in books—but that is not knowing. If you look honestly, the wall of knowledge will collapse and you will find you know nothing.
And I tell you: this is the first condition. If you clearly realize “I do not know,” you will be freed from knowledge—false knowledge. Its weight will drop. That knowing attitude, that ego, that vanity of the knower will evaporate.
Not-knowing is great humility. The state of not-knowing, the experience “I do not know,” makes one deeply humble, simple. Whoever understands “I do not know” becomes utterly simple. His consciousness is freed from others’ knowledge. And others’ knowledge holds us—without dropping it, no journey is possible.
A young man came to a sannyasins’ ashram, seeking truth—as though truth were found elsewhere! People go off seeking truth; he too had set out. He stayed at an ashram, but within a few days he grew bored. The guru there was very old, and his words were few; in two or three days he had said all he had to say. The young man thought: If this is all his knowledge, why stay? The day he was to leave, a guest monk arrived. He seemed vastly learned. He offered very subtle commentaries on everything. To support each point he would marshal the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita—quotations upon quotations, scripture upon scripture. His talk was weighty and forceful.
That night the ashram residents gathered. The new monk spoke for two hours about knowledge. The young man who was about to leave listened and thought: If only I had such a guru, I could learn something. Our guru knows nothing—two or three small things he keeps repeating. The old guru sat listening too. The young man thought: Today he must be realizing what knowledge means; today he must be feeling remorse, envy, pain. After two hours, the visiting monk looked around with pride and asked the elder: How did you like my talk?
The old man laughed and said: For two hours I tried hard to listen and understand—but you didn’t speak at all!
The man protested: Are you mad? If I didn’t speak, who did for two hours?
The elder said: The scriptures spoke, not you. The Vedas spoke, not you. The Upanishads spoke, not you. I tried hard to hear you—but you never spoke.
As long as memory speaks, you are not speaking. As long as the learned speaks, you are not speaking. As long as the learned is your “knowledge,” it is not knowledge. Without dropping this, no one can go further. Without dropping scriptures, no one can reach truth.
Our minds are crammed with knowledge; that is the obstacle. Yet we keep adding to it. Perhaps you too have come here thinking to add some knowledge. For three days I will do my utmost to make your knowledge fall away. I am not among the sinners who add to your knowledge. You have enough—that is the danger. You are much too “knowing”—that is the danger. Come to the point where you can feel: No, I do not know. Let the sense of your ignorance, your incapacity, dawn—perhaps from that awareness a new journey will sprout. But those who tie themselves to the shore of learned knowledge cannot sail the ocean of truth.
One night it happened that some friends got drunk at a tavern. Filled with wine, they came out and saw that it was a full-moon night, the sky flooded with moonlight. Singing, they went to the river. They saw a boat tied up. Someone said, Come, let’s sit in the boat and go boating. They were intoxicated, ecstatic; the moon was bright. They sat in, took up the oars, and rowed. All night long they rowed. Because they were drunk, they forgot to untie the chain that moored the boat to the bank. Their journey was futile.
Before anyone sets out toward truth, the ocean, God, the chain must be untied. If the boat is fastened to the shore, no matter how hard we work, how long we row, how much time and energy we spend, there will be no journey—we will find ourselves where we were.
The knowledge we have learned from others—whether from scriptures, gurus, or anyone—will not lead us to God. Why? God is the Unknown, and what we know is the known. From the known we cannot know the Unknown. From what we know, we cannot know what we do not know. If we are to know the Unknown, we must drop the known. When someone leaves the shore of the known, only then does the voyage into the ocean of the Unknown begin. When someone leaves the shore of learned, borrowed, stale knowledge, only then does one truly enter the realm of knowing.
Those who cling to scripture, to words, to doctrines, never reach truth. Clutching at scripture, word, theory—their journey stops.
So my first prayer to you is this: become free of any knowledge that is not your own. This does not mean I am saying that knowledge is untrue. No. For the one who has known, it is true. But for the one who has grabbed it, it is utterly useless. Knowledge is not transferable. I may know, but I cannot hand it to you. Just as I cannot die for you—you will have to die yourself. No one can die for another; and if I die, you will gain no experience of death. You must die in your own place; only you can know death by dying.
God is deeper even than death. No one else can know him for you. Only you can know. No one but you can know on your behalf. You must know death; you must know love; you must know God. But when we learn from others and mistake that learning for knowledge, it becomes an obstacle, a blockage—a standstill.
The first step toward truth: be free of borrowed knowledge, of what belongs to another. And know clearly: I do not know. There is great freedom in knowing “I do not know.” The mind experiences an extraordinary freedom—and not only freedom, but also the pain that arises from not-knowing.
If a man is ill and comes to know he is ill, he begins to remove the illness. If a man is ill and believes he is healthy, how will he remove it? If a man comes to know his house is on fire, he steps out of it. If he believes there is no fire, he sleeps peacefully.
If it becomes clear to me that I do not know, then the pain of not-knowing is so great that no other fire can match it. If it truly dawns on me that I know nothing—do we know anything? God, the soul, truth, life? Nothing. If this awareness, this sharp realization, arises: I do not know—then one cannot remain where one is; a journey begins. It can end only where the sun of knowing dawns, where eyes open and light appears. But those who trust others’ eyes and take others’ light for light, others’ words as truth—their life loses this pain, this awareness of ignorance is suppressed.
Throughout the world, knowledge has erected barriers to God—Hindu knowledge, Muslim, Christian, Jain: a thousand kinds of knowledge and teachings; and those who clutch them have stopped, become stagnant.
The first sutra: be free of others’ ideas and knowledge.
I will speak of the other two sutras later.
Do not, therefore, clutch at what I am saying either. If you clutch it, it will be the same as clutching something else. Do not seize upon anything. Do not install anything rigidly in the mind. Do not make any relationship of stubbornness or blindness with anything. What is needed is an eye—free, seeing, searching, full of inquiry. And your own eye.
Everyone has eyes—everyone! But those who never use their own and make do with others’ eyes—their vision grows dim and finally shuts. If I do not use my legs for a while, they will fail. If I keep my hands tied, soon they will be useless.
We have never tried to stand on our own knowing. We always grab at someone else’s—whether from the Gita, the Quran, or anywhere else—we grab. And when we are busy grabbing knowledge like this, one thing happens: all possibilities of our own knowing being born are shut.
Only the person who frees himself from others’ knowledge can awaken his own. Be free of knowledge, if you truly want to move toward knowing. Be free of doctrines, if you want to journey into truth. Be free of man-made gods, if you want the God who is not made by anyone, but who makes all.
One small story, and I will complete today’s talk.
A fakir slept one night and dreamed he had come to a new world. He had never seen such people, such trees, such a moon, such stars—nothing like it! What is this? Where have I come? He asked: Where am I? Someone said: This is heaven, the dwelling place of God.
He was delighted. All his life he had prayed for this, sought this. He asked: This great procession, all these people—where are they going? What festival is this? Someone told him: Today is God’s birthday; it is being celebrated in heaven. He was even happier: I have come on a good day; I will see God and see the festival.
Then a great crowd came and, on a chariot, an extraordinary, radiant figure. He asked: Is this God? A passerby said: No, this is Rama; behind him are the hundreds of millions who worship and love him. That section passed. Then another crowd, and on a horse another majestic figure. He asked: Who is this? They said: Mohammed. Then another crowd—Christ; then Buddha; then Mahavira; a long line—and their millions upon millions of followers behind each.
He grew tired, kept asking: Where is God? Where is God? But no procession of God seemed to appear.
The processions ended, people dispersed, the roads grew empty. The fakir stood waiting. At last he saw an old man on a worn-out horse—no one behind him. He laughed to see it: Who is this madman riding alone, with no one at all? He asked the last passerby: Who is he? The man said: Surely this must be God—for who could be more alone? He asked others—the answer was certain: indeed, this is God. He asked: Is there no one with him?
God, seated on that horse, said: Some have gone with Rama, some with Krishna, some with Christ, some with Mohammed, some with Buddha, some with Mahavira—there is no one left to be with me.
The fakir was shaken; his sleep broke. He began to weep and said: If only what I saw in my dream were false, just a dream! But on the earth I see the same: no one is with God; no one is with religion. People are with religions; no one is with religion. People are with the gods; no one is with God.
On this story I leave today’s talk. In two days I will speak to you about how one can be with God.
I am deeply grateful that you listened to my words with such love and silence. In the end, I bow to the Divine seated within each of you. Please accept my salutations.