According to Osho, a 'real' question is scientific—answerable within the realm of the known. Religion, however, concerns the unknowable; therefore no religious question is authentic. The master helps you drop questioning itself, awakening trust. When the question-mark ends, ego dissolves; in silent, choiceless awareness you don’t get answers—you become aligned with the mystery that is.
Stop trying to figure God out; get quiet and trust, and the truth is felt, not answered.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, which is the real question?
SCIENTIFIC QUESTIONS ARE ALL REAL, because they are answerable. Religious questions are all unreal because they are unanswerable. Religion is the concern with the unanswerable. To ask a religious question is basically wrong -- it is wrong because religion is the search for the mystery, not the search for the answer. Religion is diving deep into that which is basically unknowable -- not only unknown but unknowable. These three words have to be understood: the known, the unknown and the unknowable. The known is that which we have accumulated in the past -- through experience, through experimentation. Whatsoever answers we have forced nature to give to us, that has become the known. That's what science is all about. And the remaining, for science, is only the unknown. The basic hypothesis is this: that life is divided into only two categories -- the known and the unknown. Sooner or later the…
Osho, I want to ask something, but nothing seems worth asking. I am in a very wobbly state. At times an ecstasy surrounds me, and suddenly everything becomes desolate again! Please guide me.
Dariya speaks truly: Practice meditation; don’t worry about knowledge. Worry about knowledge, and you will be led astray. Knowledge will lead you into more and more questions. What will meditation lead you into? A state beyond questions. Let the question mark be—don’t fuss with it. Dismiss thoughts, dismiss questions; leave the question mark standing alone. And you will be astonished: as when you remove all the pillars of a temple, the roof collapses—so, the day you remove all the pillars of thought, the roof of the question mark will collapse. No questions will remain, and the question mark will not remain. If there is no bamboo, there is no flute. And where there are no questions and no question mark, samadhi appears. In that samadhi is resolution. That is the search. That is the ache. That is the thirst. You say, “I am in a very wobbly state.” Everyone is…
Beloved Osho, are we really looking for the answer to our numerous questions? It occurs to me there must be, for each of us present here, one question that characterizes us, and which, if we could just pinpoint it, would act like a beacon. Then that question would be enough in itself and without the need for an answer.
In fact there is no question which will be an answer to you. The reality is unquestionably here. All your questions are not really in search of answers -- but they can put you in great trouble. If the man you are asking the question to is a scholar, a pedagogue, then he can give you an answer which will create thousands of questions. You had come only with one question; he has given one answer. Now that answer creates thousands of questions -- and that's how it has been going on in philosophy, in theology. Each question leads to an answer, and that answer leads to many questions. And this goes on growing. In fact, if the man you are asking knows, then he is not answering your question; he is destroying it. He is trying that you get rid of it. He is not putting an answer in…
Osho, I wonder that the ancient true masters did not beat us as much as you do, and still we do not wake up and go on asking question after question. Kindly bestow the compassion of awakening.
And since I am not against life—I am for it—and I say life and God are synonymous; God is the Great Life, life is the doorway; if God is the temple, then life is the steps to that temple—then of course I must shake you thoroughly to wake you. Suffering itself wakes people: one cannot sleep, and even if one sleeps one wants to wake. But pleasure brings deeper sleep—and the sleeper does not want to wake at all. You have seen: a nightmare breaks sleep by itself. You dream you are falling from a mountain, hurtling toward the rock, about to be smashed into pieces—and your sleep breaks. Or you dream a lion leaps upon your chest, claws poised, roaring—will you remain asleep? You wake. But if you are dreaming of a palace, beautiful queens, a great kingdom—pleasure alone, how will you wake? Even if someone tries to wake…
Osho, all questions seem to be pointless. Only the answerless question of life remains.
IT IS SO. ALL QUESTIONS NOT only seem to be pointless, they are. In your mind there is still a lurking doubt. Hence you say: ALL QUESTIONS SEEM TO BE POINTLESS. It is not a question that they SEEM, that they APPEAR -- they are. The moment you understand that they are pointless, even the answerless question of life will not remain. Then there is mystery -- no questions, no answers. Then there is tremendous mystery. One is not trying to solve it because it is not a problem. One is not seeking for any answer because it is not a question. One starts LIVING it. And the day you start living life as a mystery you have entered into God. Life understood as a question creates science; life understood as a mystery creates religion. And you say: ONLY THE ANSWERLESS QUESTION OF LIFE REMAINS. If it is answerless, how…