According to Osho, fulfill your profession’s need for information, but don’t let it become your soul. Treat technical knowledge as utilitarian memory—use it at work, then drop it like changing clothes. Keep a clear distance: information serves others; knowing transforms you. Be the professional in the market, a simple, aware human at home.
Learn what your job needs, but don’t make it your identity—use it at work and set it down so you can stay simple, loving, and aware.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
You told us yesterday that only through undoing and through unlearning can we find our true being. What are we to do when our profession requires a lot of knowledge?
Fulfil it! But let it be a profession, don't allow it to become your soul! Of course information is needed. A doctor has to know about 707 arteries, 433 muscles, 71 bones, 230 nerves, and thousands of things in the body; and above it all, about ten thousand drugs. Otherwise he cannot be a doctor. But this is not the problem. He should know it, but this is not knowledge, this is information -- useful, utilitarian, but this is not a growth in his being. Keep it separate. It should remain part of the memory. You are not to be burdened by it. And the memory has tremendous capacity; no computer yet invented has that much capacity. One man's memory, given enough time, can memorize all the books that exist in the world today. One man's memory can contain the whole world of books. It has tremendous capacity. The only…
It is asked: Osho, if we drop acquired knowledge—if we let go of what we have learned—won’t it create dullness and inactivity?
I have heard: In a school a teacher was teaching his students mathematics. He asked the children: “In a small pen, in a little garden, eleven sheep are penned. Five of them jump out—how many sheep are left inside?” A child waved his hand, a very small child waved his hand first. The teacher asked: “What is the answer?” The child said: “Not a single sheep will be left.” The teacher said: “You are absolutely crazy! Five sheep went out and eleven were inside—none will be left inside?” The child said: “You may know mathematics; I know sheep. We have sheep at home. If even one sheep jumps out, none will remain behind. You may know mathematics, but I know sheep—there are sheep in my house.” Can we not say the same about man—that he has behaved like sheep? Can we say we are thoughtful like humans, or do we…
Osho, are those pieces of information harmful even if we remain only the witness-knower?
The reason is that what is hidden within us—if we keep bringing things from outside into the inside, that inner treasure will be buried all the more. Suppose there is a diamond lying in this room. And we keep bringing in from outside all the world’s pebbles, stones, and furniture, piling them up; and we say we are trying to find that diamond, that in the effort to find it we are bringing these things in. Anyone would tell us we are mad. The diamond will get lost even more. The more things in the room, the more difficult it becomes to search for the diamond. Kindly take the furniture out of the room. Bring out even what is already lying inside—so that in the end only the diamond remains within, and you can see where it is and what it is. When we say that knowledge is a quality…
What we call knowledge is learned material. It can be taken away. Now there are many methods of brainwashing in the world. In Russia, if someone is anti-communist, they no longer kill him. Killing is a very old, primitive method. They just pass electric currents through his brain so strong that his memory is destroyed. When memory is destroyed, where is opposition? What communism? What anti-communism! The man becomes blank; his slate is wiped clean. Then teach him whatever you want. If you want to teach communism, teach communism. Dangerous tools have fallen into human hands. Governments have acquired very dangerous powers. There is no need even to kill opponents—this is worse than killing. If they killed him, at least he would die with dignity. Now his brain is wiped. Only one kind of person can escape this brain-wiping: the one who has attained meditation.
A friend has asked: Osho, if we come to know, accept, and recognize that this knowledge is not ours, what will happen within us? What will change? Will there be a revolution?
The minister too stood astonished. “What happened?” The youth said, The very thought that I have been called back and am heir to the throne—and everything changed in that moment. I became another man. The beggar who had been within me for five years—where has he vanished? I cannot find him though I search. My whole consciousness has become different. A small remembrance: for five years he held the notion “I am a beggar,” so he was abject; his eyes were abject; his face dull. In a moment a recognition, a remembrance, an awakening occurred: “I am an emperor”—and everything changed. That abjectness dissolved from his eyes; eyes once dull filled with brilliance; life-energy that had grown sluggish became vibrant; breaths that seemed dead inhaled the air of life again. What happened to that youth? The day you realize that what you have so far taken as knowledge is worth…