According to Osho, when you can’t feel any wonder, your mind is overcrowded with secondhand knowledge and the ego of “I know.” This labeling dulls sensitivity, halts real seeking, and blinds you to life’s mysteries and beauty. You become a programmed computer—mathematically right, poetically dead. Drop borrowed knowing, reopen poetic windows, and reclaim childlike amazement; only then does wisdom and the living adventure return.
If you stop feeling wonder, your head is stuffed with borrowed facts—empty it a little and look with child eyes again.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why can't I feel any wonder in existence?
Shivananda, you are too knowledgeable, you know too much. And all that you know is just holy cow dung -- all knowledge always is. Wisdom is a totally different matter. Knowledge is all rot, junk; you gather it from here and there, it is not your own. It has no authenticity, it has not grown in your being, you have not given birth to it. But it gives you a very gratified ego to feel "I know." And the more you become settled in the idea of "I know," the less and less will you feel wonder in life. How can a man of knowledge feel wonder? Knowledge destroys wonder. And wonder is the source of wisdom, wonder is the source of all that is beautiful, and wonder is the source for the search, the real search. Wonder takes you on the adventure to know the mysteries of life. The…
I don't have any sense of wonder in me. Why?
It happens to almost everybody. The more knowledgeable you become, the less wonder is felt. And parents, schools, universities, society, they all go on forcing you to become knowledgeable. Their whole effort is to give you knowledge. Your inner space becomes so full of knowledge that wonder disappears, wonder has no space left to abide in you. A child has the yes of wonder. He feels awe, he is mystified by each and everything, small things surprise him. Hence his bubbling joy, because his life is a constant discovery. You become knowledgeable, the society wants you to become knowledgeable. Knowledge is very very needed, knowledge has much utility. And wonder is dangerous, because a person who wonders is bound to become either a philosopher or a poet or a mystic, and all these three kinds are useless for the society. Society needs machines, skillful machines. By giving you more and…
A sense of wonder is the foundation of yoga. To be established in oneself is strength. A transcendental logic is a means to self-realization. To enjoy the blissfulness of the existence is enlightenment. A sense of wonder is the foundation of yoga.
We are separated only at the circumference. 'You' and 'I' are separations of the body. As we leave the body and turn within, the distance gets smaller and smaller. The day you know the soul you will also have known God. The day you know your own self you will know the self of all creation, because at the center all is one. Distances only exist at the periphery. Shiva says: By attaining this existence within one's self, the joy of samadhi is attained. Samadhi-sukham, the 'bliss of samadhi'; these words should be understood. You have known many joys: the joy of a good dinner, the joy of good health and well-being. When you quench your thirst or enjoy sex -- such bodily joys you know fully, but understand well that all these joys carry complementary sorrows with them. If you are not thirsty, water will bring no joy. If…
Osho, under the sway of what great ambition have we human beings renounced our incomparable capacity for wonder? Please explain.
Once Janaka organized a great scriptural debate. Yajnavalkya, the great scholar of that time, also went to it. Janaka had a thousand cows standing at the palace gate as the prize—whoever won could take them. Yajnavalkya was a grand pundit. He told his disciples, “The cows are standing in the sun; you take them away, I will argue later.” He must have had that much confidence in his debating skill. A very egoistic personality he must have been. And indeed, he was a pundit; he defeated everyone in argument. But those were extraordinary times! A woman stood up to debate. Her name was Gargi. She asked Yajnavalkya questions and put him in difficulty. A woman is closer to children than men are. That is why even when a woman grows old there remains on her face a certain innocence and childlikeness; that is her beauty. A woman is closer to…
And it’s dirty, lying in the mud—throw it away!” But the child clutches it. Because you do not understand the child: for him it is wonder; this colored stone is no less precious than the Kohinoor. The value lies in wonder; stones have no value. A butterfly can bewitch him so much that even if God Himself were to appear before you, He would not bewitch you so. He begins to run after the butterfly. The pristine state of a small child—at the ultimate height of such wonder, in Buddhahood, that state becomes any person’s. Therefore Jesus said: only those who are simple like little children shall enter my Father’s kingdom. Jesus has said exactly what Shiva is saying in this sutra. ‘Vismayo yogabhumikah.’ Wonder is the first ground of Yoga. Then many points must be kept in mind.