According to Osho, children embody pure, uncontaminated intelligence—an open, questioning awareness—until society hurriedly brands, conditions, and domesticates them. Parents, schools, and authorities fear intelligence because it rebels, doubts, and resists domination; thus they replace inquiry with belief and dependence. Real trust, he says, is born through doubt, not against it; protecting children’s innate intelligence preserves freedom and authentic growth.
Yes—kids begin as clear, curious minds, but adults paste labels and rules on them that dim their natural smarts.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, are the children really as intelligent as you say they are, before the society starts destroying them?
A CHILD is pure intelligence because a child is yet uncontaminated. A child is a clean slate, nothing is written on him. A child is absolute emptiness, TABULA RASA. The society will start writing immediately that you are a Christian, Catholic, Hindu, Mohammedan, Communist. The society will immediately start writing the Bhagavad Gita, Koran, Bible. The society cannot wait. The society is very much afraid that if the child's intelligence is left intact, then he will never be a slave. He will never be a part of any slavery, of any structure of domination. He will neither dominate nor be dominated. He will neither possess nor be possessed. He will be pure rebellion. His innocence has to be corrupted immediately. His wings have to be cut, he has to be given crutches to lean upon so he never learns how to walk on his own feet, so he remains always…
Question: OSHO, ARE CHILDREN REALLY SO INTELLIGENT AS YOU ALWAYS SAY THEY ARE? Intelligence is not something that is acquired, it is inbuilt, it is inborn, it is intrinsic to life itself. Not only children are intelligent, animals are intelligent in their own way, trees are intelligent in their own way. Of course they all have different kinds of intelligences because their needs differ, but now it is an established fact that all that lives is intelligent. Life cannot be without intelligence; to be alive and to be intelligent are synonymous. But man is in a dilemma for the simple reason that he is not only intelligent, he is also aware of his intelligence. That is something unique about man, his privilege, his prerogative, his glory, but it can turn very easily into his agony. Man is conscious that he is intelligent; that consciousness brings its own problems.
Mr p'ang of ch'en had a son who was clever as a child but suffered from an abnormality when he grew up. When he heard singing he thought it was weeping; when he saw white he thought it was black; fragrant smells he thought noisome, sweet tastes he thought bitter, wrong actions he thought right. Whatever came into his mind -- heaven and earth, the four cardinal points, water and fire, heat and cold -- he always turned it upside down.
A CERTAIN MR. YANG TOLD HIS FATHER: 'THE GENTLEMEN OF LU HAVE MANY ARTS AND SKILLS, PERHAPS THEY CAN CURE HIM. WHY NOT INQUIRE AMONG THEM?' THE FATHER SET OUT FOR LU, BUT PASSING THROUGH CH'EN HE CAME ACROSS LAO TZU AND TOOK THE OPPORTUNITY TO TELL HIM ABOUT HIS SON'S SYMPTOMS. 'HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT YOUR SON IS ABNORMAL?' SAID LAO TZU. 'NOWADAYS EVERYONE IN THE WORLD IS DELUDED ABOUT RIGHT AND WRONG AND CONFUSED ABOUT BENEFIT AND HARM. BECAUSE MANY PEOPLE SHARE THIS SICKNESS NO ONE PERCEIVES THAT IT IS A SICKNESS. BESIDES, ONE MAN'S ABNORMALITY IS NOT ENOUGH TO OVERTURN HIS FAMILY; ONE FAMILY'S TO OVERTURN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD: ONE NEIGHBOURHOOD'S TO OVERTURN THE STATE; ONE STATE'S TO OVERTURN THE WORLD. IF THE WHOLE WORLD WERE ABNORMAL HOW COULD ABNORMALITY OVERTURN IT? SUPPOSING THE MINDS OF EVERYONE IN THE WORLD WERE LIKE YOUR SON'S, THEN, ON THE…
Are children really so intelligent, Osho, as you always say they are?
I said, "I don't know. I myself am puzzled because a single question and the teacher will say,'You go out! Unless you stop asking you cannot come in.' " And it was a good excuse for me to be outside in the air. And that was so beautiful to be outside with the birds and with the trees. So whenever I wanted to go out, just a question, any question would do -- any question that was unanswerable! I was turned out of one college, expelled from this university and that university. One university accepted me, but accepted with the condition that I would not ask any questions. I said, "I can accept that, but then you have to do one thing: that I will not have to go to the classes, because if I am in class and if the professor says something stupid, I will not be able…
Osho, can children understand the truth?
RAJ, CHILDREN CAN UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH but cannot understand that they understand it. They understand more clearly than you can understand because they are more clean, more innocent; but they are so innocent that they cannot understand that they understand. Hence you need another childhood, a second childhood. First you have to lose your first childhood. That is the whole meaning of the biblical story of Adam and Eve losing paradise: that is losing the first childhood. It is a tremendously significant story. It has so many meanings, it is such a multi-dimensional parable, that I don't think there exists any other parable comparable to it. You can look at it from many aspects. It is losing the first childhood -- which is inevitable. Adam and Eve are not committing a sin. In fact, the word "sin" comes from a root which means forgetting, and that is a beautiful meaning:…