According to Osho, the journey toward the Unknowable will be a universal, lived experiment—turning the whole world into a university of wonder where each person moves inward beyond labels and beliefs. Guided by tested, 'twenty‑four‑carat' principles and trust in our inner gold, it will face resistance from religions and politics, yet signals inevitable transformation and shared human victory.
It’s a worldwide adventure of discovering the mystery inside you, using proven ways, dropping labels, and bravely continuing even when big institutions resist.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Remember: the unknowable. Science only believes in two things -- the known and the unknown; it does not believe in the unknowable. That's the difference between science and religion. Science says the existence can be divided into two parts -- the known and the unknown. The unknown is that which we will know some day. It has no intrinsic quality of remaining unknown forever -- it is just uncharted, but we will chart it. All that has become known was unknown one day; it has become known. All that is unknown today will become known tomorrow... or some day! it is potentially capable of being known. Religion says there are three things: the known, the unknown... and up to this point religion agrees with science, there is no disagreement. But religion says there is something more too: that is the unknowable, which cannot be known ever, which will remain mysterious.
Beloved Osho, out on the sparkling seas of oneness, a mysterious wind fills my sails, giving direction to my journey and beckoning me onwards into unknown waters. My beloved captain, when does the unknown become the unknowable?
Milarepa, your question is very simple. The mind can be divided into two parts: the known and the unknown. The known is your knowledge; the unknown is your ignorance. And all your universities and educational systems are trying to do only one thing: to put your mind completely in the field of the known, to dispel the unknown, to dispel ignorance. Beyond the known and the unknown is what I call `the unknowable'. That is beyond mind. That is the world of the mysterious, the world of the miraculous. The moment you pass beyond mind, the unknown is left behind, the known is left behind, and you enter into the unknowable. And the unknowable is the field of true religion. You experience it, you live it, you feel it, it becomes your heartbeat, but you can never say you know it. Knowledge seems to be a much lower category. The…
If in the past there could be only A few Buddhas and a few Christs Now there can be many more. The time is ripe For a great explosion of consciousness. It has never been ripe, because life is evolving And we are coming to a climax. If we don't attain to a radical transformation Then this same state of evolved humanity Will become a strain on us. Man is no more a child And if he continues to wear the old clothes Which were made for children He is bound to be in difficulty. He will remain unnecessarily crippled For the simple reason that the clothes are small And he has become big. Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Mohammedanism These are all clothes Made for another state of humanity When man was more childish.
The first preference is for the known. If you insist and force it too much it can move towards the unknown, but to the unknowable it simply says an absolute'no'... and that's where courage is needed. And unless we know the unknowable -- which is a contradiction in terms but that is the only way to express it -- when we come to know the unknowable, only then have we come to know ourselves... because our very being is made of the unknowable stuff: god itself. So I would like to give you a special meditation that you can do before you come back again. This is a buddhist meditation; the method is to penetrate the unknowable.
Osho, the path of sannyas is unfamiliar and I am afraid. What should I do?
But this is everyone’s belief—that love arises from fear. So the husband frightens the wife as much as he can, thinking otherwise there will be no love. And the wife frightens the husband as much as she can, thinking the same. Parents frighten the children; and the children, for their part, do not hold back—they frighten the parents too; they have their own ways, their recipes. All devotees of Baba Tulsidas! Everyone is frightening everyone. Teachers are frightening students; students are frightening teachers. Fear pervades everywhere. Our notion of God is as if he were a policeman. We imagine he watches you twenty-four hours a day; he won’t even leave you alone in the bathroom—sitting there, peeping through the keyhole. I have heard: a Christian nun used to bathe with her clothes on. At last her companions became concerned. They said, “What sort of madness is this? Why don’t you…