According to Osho, the unknown becomes the unknowable the moment you pass beyond mind. Beyond both what you know and what you don’t, you enter the mysterious realm of being—the field of true religion—which can be lived and felt but never captured in knowledge, words, or symbols. Here, experience replaces explanation; the knower, known, and knowing dissolve into a silent, creative, wordless presence.
When you step out of thinking into pure being, the mystery can be felt but can’t be turned into facts.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
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…
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.
Question: IN THIS SEVENTH STAGE, THE STATE OF VIDEHAMUKTI, LIBERATION WHILE LIVING IN THE BODY IS ACHIEVED. THIS STAGE IS TOTALLY SILENT AND CANNOT BE COMMUNICATED IN WORDS. IT IS THE END OF ALL STAGES, WHERE ALL THE PROCESSES OF YOGA COME TO THEIR CONCLUSION. IN THIS STAGE, ALL ACTIVITIES -- WORLDLY, BODILY AND SCRIPTURAL -- CEASE. THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IN THE FORM OF THE WORLD -- VISWA, INTELLIGENCE -- PRAJNA, AND RADIANCE -- TEJAS, IS JUST AUM. THERE IS NO DIVISION HERE BETWEEN SPEECH AND THE SPEAKER. IF HOWEVER ANY SUCH DIVISION REMAINS, THE STATE HAS NOT BEEN ATTAINED. THE FIRST SOUND 'A' OF AUM, STANDS FOR THE WORLD, THE SECOND 'U' FOR RADIANCE AND THE THIRD 'M' FOR INTELLIGENCE. BEFORE ENTERING SAMADHI, THE SEEKER SHOULD CONTEMPLATE ON AUM MOST STRENUOUSLY, AND SUBSEQUENTLY HE SHOULD SURRENDER EVERYTHING, FROM GROSS TO SUBTLE TO THE CONSCIOUS SELF.
Thus, by meditation, they achieve the ultimate reality , which is unthinkable, unmanifest; the one of endless forms, the ever-auspicious, the peaceful, the immortal, the origin of the creator, the one without a beginning, a middle and an end; the only one, the non-dual, the all-pervading, the consciousness, the bliss, the formless, the wonderful.
To use a name as a repetition has its own difficulties. It is easy to throw out all else, but then it is difficult to throw out itself. If you have used "Rama" to throw out all other thoughts, it will become rooted in you, and then you cannot throw it out. It will be very difficult and very painful. Then something else will be needed to throw it out. As far as I am concerned, I never suggest this method. It is better to begin with no word. Then how to begin? Take the total energy of your body and mind as the beginning. Let you total body-mind energy be involved in it. Make it so active -- let your body energy, your mind energy becomes so active, so active at the peak -- that thoughts dissolve, because thoughts cannot exist at the peak. When your energy is moving…
Let science do its work. That is science' work to demystify existence. Anything that is not known has to be made known -- that's the whole scientific approach. We will not leave anything unknown in existence. And it is possible to conceive one day perhaps we will have exhausted the unknown. But what about the unknowable? The scientist himself is unknowable. He knows everything. He does not know who is the knower. In fact, he denies the knower -- and that is so stupid that one of Indian scientists, Khorana , who got a Nobel prize, I asked him that, "You are a Nobel prize winner scientist. Have you ever bothered that you go on searching, discovering, new areas but who is the seeker and who is the searcher? Have you ever thought about yourself?" He said, "I don't have time for that.