According to Osho, man is not complex but mysterious: complexity yields to intellect, mystery is the immeasurable and essentially unknowable. Man cannot be captured by concepts—he must be lived, tasted, recognized in childlike innocence, not analyzed. The more one 'knows,' the more one discovers the infinite remainder. Drop the scholar; become a blank page, and life’s rasa reveals itself as a celebrative, wordless recognition.
You can’t solve people (or yourself) like a puzzle; meet life with a quiet, childlike heart and simply feel it.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, there is a question in the Shatapatha Brahmana: Ko veda manushyasya? Who knows the human being? Osho, is man so complex and mysterious that no one can know him?
Purushottam Mahanti, man is not complex; he is certainly mysterious. If he were complex, knowing him would not be so difficult. However complex a thing is, complexity can be unraveled. Complexity is a puzzle that lies within the scope of the intellect, not beyond it. Whatever was complex, man has solved, or if not yet, he will. What was unknown yesterday is known today; what is unknown today will be known tomorrow. Science recognizes only two categories: the known and the unknown. There is no qualitative difference between them—only a difference of time. The unknown is that which is capable of becoming known: a little more effort, a little more search, a little more research, a little more reasoning, a little more science. But mystery is qualitatively different, not merely quantitatively. Mystery does not mean the unknown; mystery means the unknowable—what cannot be known at all, what lies beyond the…
Osho, a thousand years ago Adi Shankaracharya answered some questions like this: “What is it that is impossible for everyone to know?—a woman’s mind and her character. What is it that is most difficult for everyone to renounce?—evil desire. Who is an animal?—one who is without learning.” Osho, if these questions were asked of you today, what would you answer?
What will learning do? You’ll parrot the Gita like a trained bird. Will that bring revolution to your life? The sadhu couldn’t contain himself: “Give up liquor, man! Say ‘Rama, Rama.’ That alone will bring your welfare. Tell me at least—how did you pick up this dirty habit?” Dhabbhuji said, “My cousin’s maternal uncle’s friend’s neighbor’s beautiful young daughter died in a car accident; that’s why I’m drinking.” The sadhu exclaimed, “What are you saying! What has your cousin’s maternal uncle’s friend’s neighbor’s daughter’s death to do with you? Rama, Rama!” Dhabbhuji replied, “The cousin’s maternal uncle’s friend’s neighbor’s daughter—there could at least have been some connection. But you are a complete stranger—no relationship whatsoever. What connection do you have with my not drinking? And what did throwing the bottle into the river have to do with quitting liquor? You saw it—throwing the bottle didn’t stop the drinking. And as…
Lao Tzu says: the ultimate, the deepest truth of life has unknowability as its nature. Therefore whatever you do, you will not know it. It will always remain on the far horizon as the unknowable. If you would relate to it, the relationship cannot be of knowledge. That relationship is not its way. Only love relates to it; not knowing, not the intellect. Only the heart leads to it. The heart has no concern with knowing. The heart does not think of knowing or not knowing. The heart rejoices in it, blossoms in it, floats, swims, dances in it — it has no concern with knowing. The heart says: what is the use of knowing? Being is the real thing. What will you do by knowing? When the path of being is open, only fools will try to know.
Osho, you said that you don't know who you are. Don't you really? Do we never know who we are?
But it has been a great problem for the scholars: "Why did Eknath treat his own god in this way?" They don't have any answer. At least he could have looked at him, at least he could have said, "Please sit down on the brick." I have talked with many Maharashtrian scholars who are followers of Eknath; they don't have any answer. I said, "It is so simple. The story may be bogus, and I know that it is bogus. There is no Vithoba; nobody ever comes, whether you keep your door open or locked. But one thing is certain: Eknath was really an authentic man. When he was doing one thing, he was doing it totally. When God comes he says, "Stand there, don't bother me till I am finished with my work." To me this is the implication in my saying that if death comes to my sannyasins…
Day by day man has been losing the eye to see the mystery of life. The more civilized we became, the more that eye was lost. The more “understanding” we became, the more our knowledge grew, the more we turned our back upon life’s wonder—the unfathomable, the enigmatic for which there is no solution. We have withdrawn from it. We have forgotten that life is an insoluble riddle—forgotten within our knowledge, our information, our cleverness. Man has concluded that almost everything is known, and what is not yet known will be known. There is nothing unknowable in life; everything can be known. This is utterly contrary to truth. In life, everything is unknowable. And that which we think we know is not knowing. Nothing whatsoever can be known in life. From a tiny leaf to all that appears—everything is very, very unknown, very unknowable, very unfathomable, deeply mysterious.