There isn’t a last question—stop asking, be quiet and open, and you’ll feel at home with everything.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION WE SHOULD ASK YOU, OSHO? There is not even a first question, so the question about the last question does not arise. You should learn to be silent, to be at ease with me, to be in tune with me. In that silent harmony all is achieved: all the treasures that existence has been keeping safe for you, so that when you wake up you can claim your portion. And everybody's portion of the treasure is infinite. It is not that because it is a portion, it will be limited. The upanishadic seers have said: You can take out even the whole from the whole, yet the whole remains behind. Existence is such a mystery that it can give to each person infinite treasure, eternal life, unbounded beauty. So don't be worried about the last question.
Osho, in the bitter darkness of my past, tell me—what did you see? Was I entangled in the whirling of time, or did you see me coming out of entanglements? (What did you see in the deep darkness of my past? Was I caught in the wheel of fate or coming out of it?) Dinesh has asked:
Yes, you are still entangled. And a man remains entangled in the wheel of fate until he is fully awake. The very meaning of the wheel of fate is that we keep moving in unconsciousness. Fate belongs only to the unconscious person. One filled with awareness has no fate. About the unconscious person, astrologers can make predictions. About the one who is awake, no astrologer can predict anything. Because what an aware person will do is not decided by the past. What the unconscious will do depends entirely on the past. If your past is known and can be told, then your future can also be announced. You were angry yesterday, you were angry the day before yesterday, and further back you were angry—so you will be angry tomorrow too; there’s no obstacle in that. Because you will do what you have always done. You live by habit, mechanically. Fate…
Someone has asked: “The last question.” There can be no last question. Many times it seems the final question has come. One question gives birth to another. If it is not born from the question, it will be born from the answer. But there is never a last one. You ask something thinking, “This is the end, nothing more remains to ask,” but when I respond, ten new questions will arise from it. Every answer gives birth to new questions.
The last question will be on the day you do not ask at all—when it becomes clear to you that every question turns into an answer, and every answer turns into new questions. The day you understand this, asking will drop; you will sit by me, questionless—just I here, you there; and slowly, neither I here nor you there—both dissolve; a rhythm is set, a chord is struck, a music arises. In that presence is the whole attainment. These questions and answers are only pretexts. They are a device to keep you engaged here. Perhaps you are not yet ready to sit here empty, day after day. You might manage for a day or two, but not every day. If you can sit silently by me, there is no need to say anything; because what I have to say cannot be said, and what I am saying does not need…
Osho, not only in our country but in no country of the world have the elders answered the “final question.” Even if they had, it could not be so, because then creation itself would come to a halt. Osho, please, out of compassion, say something about this statement of the renowned novelist Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay.
Maitreya! There is only one question that has no answer; all other questions have answers. That one question is called the “final question.” It concerns God, or the Self, or existence—and these three are names for the same. What is existence, why is it—there is no answer. There cannot be an answer. It is not that man has failed to search; rather, by its very nature this question admits of no answer. The absence of an answer is built into the structure of the question. Even if someone were to offer a cause for existence, another question would immediately arise: why that cause? One question will always remain. Someone may say that God created existence; you will then ask, who created God? An infinite regress begins. You can go on searching for ever subtler “gods,” but in the end the question will still stand. Behind every answer a question mark…
Osho, what question could I ask, and what answer could you give! You are the question and the answer too. In love, should there be a question, or an answer, or silence?
Life’s ultimate peaks are peaks of paradox. Words are noise, a spectacle; in the ocean of feeling they are sugar-candy that melts. Do not speak the heart’s secret with your lips; silence alone is the language of feeling. Weep—your tears will speak. Dance—your gestures will tell. Hum. Yesterday evening it so happened. Vani, a sannyasin, has come from Germany. I asked her, “Is there something you want to say?” And I felt she had so much to say; her heart was full. She had come from so far, and could stay only for a day or two. She cannot remain long. Every two or three months she rushes here. Even if time allows only two or three days, sometimes only a single day—she comes from Germany to Poona even for a single day! Once she stayed only five hours. So she comes to say something, to make some offering. I…