Is not training the mind a misfortune?

Osho, if the intellect becomes such a major obstacle on the journey to self-realization, isn’t it futile to train and sharpen it? Wouldn’t it be better, to keep children’s simplicity unbroken, to lead them straight into meditation without any intellectual training?

Many times it has happened that wolves have stolen away small children. Some forty years ago, near Calcutta, two girls were found in the forests. And about ten years ago, near Lucknow, a boy was found who had been raised by wolves. He had grown quite big—about fourteen years old. He had received no training, never gone to school, never lived among humans. A little child lifted from the cradle by wolves, he grew up among them. He could not even stand on two legs, because that too is part of education. Do not think that you stand on two legs by yourself; you were taught to do so. The human body is fashioned to go on all fours. No child is born walking on two legs; he walks on all fours. Two-legged walking is learned. Ask the scientists, the anatomists; they say something striking: man’s body can never be…

Beloved Osho, if intellect is such an obstacle in the journey towards self-realization, is not then training and sharpening of it just useless? Is it not possible that because of their innocence and expressiveness, children should be helped to move into meditation directly, without imparting them any training in the intellect?

It is worth consideration, it is significant, and the question naturally arises, that if intellect is such a big obstacle, why train it in the first place? Why not introduce children to meditation while they are still innocent and simple, instead of sending them to university? Instead of shaping their logic and thinking faculty, instead of educating them, why not drown them into meditation in their innocence and simplicity? If intellect is an obstacle, why help it grow? Why not get rid of it before developing it? It would have been alright if intellect was only an obstacle. But an obstacle can also become a stepping-stone. You are walking on a pathway and there is a huge rock lying on the pathway. Now, this is an obstacle, and you may return from there thinking the pathway does not go anywhere further. But if you climb on the rock, a new…

Osho, you have called training a child’s intellect essential. But should training in meditation also be given simultaneously? Many sannyasins have families. What outlook should they have toward their children? Where should the emphasis be? Please shed light on this.

Jesus tells a very sweet parable—understand it. Jesus used to say, and because his whole emphasis was on love, the story is indicative. He said: A father had two sons. The father was very rich. One son was obedient; the other was rebellious. One increased the wealth; the other broke and wasted it. At last there was no way but to separate them. The father divided the wealth in halves. The elder stayed with the father, invested, bought fields, made orchards. The younger disappeared from the village as soon as he got his share. Soon news began to come that he had squandered everything in gambling, drank it away, lost it in the dances and songs of prostitutes—everything turned to dust. The father sent word: come back home. The younger, who had left, a gambler and drunkard, could not believe that after wasting everything his father could still call him…

Yesterday you said don't allow the elephant driver's hook of the intellect to ride over the feelings of the heart. But Osho I find your discourses absolutely logical. Is the mind nourished by the enjoyment of argument? Is it not a danger for me that the argument-nurtured mind will take control of the heart and suppress the experience of feelings? Please show me the path.

What I am saying is certainly logical, but not just logical -- something more too. I speak logically for you, and something more is for me. If I do not speak logically you won't be able to understand. And if I do not say that which is beyond logic, I would not speak at all: what would be the use of speaking? When I am talking, speaking to you two are present: you and I. There is both a speaker and a listener. If it was up to me I would speak In transcendence of logic, I would completely drop arguments, but then you would think I am insane. Then you wouldn't understand anything, you would feel it is just noise with no meaning. I speak logically to fit with your pattern of logical thinking. But if this is all you understand, then your visit here has been useless. It…

The buddha said: my doctrine is to think the thought that is unthinkable; to practise the deed that is not doing; to speak the speech that is inexpressible; and to be trained in the discipline which is beyond discipline. Those who understand this are near; those who are confused are far. The way is beyond words and expressions, is bound by nothing earthly. Lose sight of it to an inch or miss it for a moment, and we are away from it forever more.

A doctrine is arrived at through logical thinking. A doctrine comes through the process of 'about-ism'. A siddhanta is arrived at not by closing your eyes, not by thinking too much, but by dropping thinking as such, in toto; by opening your eyes with no prejudice, with no a priori conceptions, and looking direct into reality, facing reality direct. It is already there, it needs only you to be there. And when you are absolutely without any thought, your mind is still, your memory is still, your thinking has completely ceased to be, then reality erupts, explodes. Then you become a receiver. Then siddhanta arises. <q>MY SIDDHANTA IS TO THINK THE THOUGHT THAT IS UNTHINKABLE....</q> The first thing, Buddha says, is to think the thought that is unthinkable. It is a contradiction, a paradox. Now, no logician will ever utter such nonsense. It is from the very beginning nonsensical. That's…