According to Osho, knowing has two dimensions: objective knowing is intellectual—fit for outer objects—while true knowing of oneself is non-intellectual, arising in silent, thought-free awareness. The intellect lacks a 'reverse gear' to turn inward; it can map galaxies yet miss the knower. Only consciousness discovered in utter inner silence transforms, fulfills, and brings one home.
Your mind can study things outside, but to know who you are you must be very quiet with no thoughts.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, IS KNOWING AN INTELLECTUAL EXPERIENCE? The experience of knowing has two dimensions to it. One is objective knowing, the other is subjective knowing. Objective knowing is intellectual. That's what all of science goes on doing. It is intellectual knowing. Intellect is enough to know the object. The object is outside -- available to your eyes, available to experiments. You can dissect it, you can do whatsoever you want, all kinds of experimentation. It is available to the pure intellect. But your own being is not available to your intellect. Your own being is available only in silence, not in intellectual activity, but in a silent awareness. That is a totally different dimension and that is true knowing, knowing yourself. But that cannot be intellectual, because intellect is something that can only reach outwards; it has no way of reaching inwards.
Osho: To think is the nature of the mind. And if you don't think then there is no mind. A state of no-mind comes, then you know. That is nature, this too is nature; that is not against this nature which creates ignorance, creates unknowing, creates conflict. We have not known the total mind, we have known only the mind which thinks. If you transcend it then you know the total mind -- which knows. Thinking is one thing, knowing is quite another. QUESTION: THE NATURE OF THE MIND IS TO THINK, AND THEN IT CEASES TO THINK. WHAT DO YOU DO IN ORDER TO CAUSE IT NOT TO THINK? DOES IT NATURALLY NOT THINK? Osho: If you become aware of your thinking process, then the process by and by is dissolved.
Osho, through study, reflection, and listening one does gain an intellectual understanding, but my life keeps being tormented and driven by the impulses and shocks rising from the unconscious cellars. I am helpless; I have no access to those unconscious basements. Please be gracious and give a method, a way of life, a formula and direction.
What comes through study, thinking, and contemplation is not even the intellect’s understanding; it is only the illusion of understanding. Just as if we tried to explain light to a blind man—he listens; and there is a system by which the blind can read, so he studies; and on what he has heard and read he also reflects and contemplates within—do you think he will gain any understanding of light? Yes, one thing can be gained: the illusion that “I understand light.” And that illusion is more dangerous than blindness itself. Because if a blind man understands that he does not understand, he might search for the remedy by which eyes can be found. But if the blind man concludes that he understands, then even that door is closed. Your question has two parts. You are calling study, listening, and contemplation the intellect’s understanding. The intellect has never truly understood…
Osho, why has human faith in religion waned?
Then there is a further fall. This is when, around Buddha, people hear, oppose, accept. Then two-and-a-half thousand years pass. One generation hands it to the next. Those who had heard from Buddha, or at least seen him—some hint of truth must have reached their ears; some touch of Buddha’s presence must have touched them; some color of Buddha must have fallen upon their souls—however slight, it fell. Then their sons and their sons’ sons believe because the fathers believed, the forefathers believed, people have always believed—and then belief becomes blind belief. What you call religions are superstitions. They should have been bid farewell long ago. New editions of truth descend from the sky every day. A new Koran descends every day. God has not grown tired, has not exhausted Himself with Mohammed. Jesus is not God’s only son—as Christians say, the only begotten. Nor did God come to an…
The appreciation of objects and subjects is the same for an enlightened as for an unenlightened person. The former has one greatness: he remains in the subjective mood, not lost in things.
BELIEVE OMNISCIENT, OMNIPOTENT, PERVADING. So nothing is attracting you -- YOU get attracted. Be alert and the bridge will be broken and you will regain balance inside. Go on doing it more and more. The more you do, the better. And a moment will come when you will not need to do it because the inner power will give you such a strength that the attraction of things will be lost. It is your weakness which is attracted. Be more powerful and nothing will attract you. Only then for the first time are you master of your own being. That will give you real freedom. No political freedom, no economic freedom, no social freedom, can be of much help. Not that they are not desirable, they are good, good in themselves, but they will not give you the things which the innermost core of your being is longing for --…