According to Osho, you feel no surprises because second-hand 'knowledge' has smothered your sense of wonder. Borrowed answers arrive before real questions, dulling the mirror of consciousness and replacing living experience with concepts. Drop the compulsion to know, return to childlike not-knowing, and look freshly; then the ordinary—flowers, sunsets, each moment—reveals its ever-present miracles.
You’re packed with borrowed answers, so nothing feels new; let go of pretend knowing and look like a child again to find surprise.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved master, why don't I feel any surprises in my life? All seems so dull and drab.
Gyano, I have given you the name Gyano: Gyano means knowledge. You are too knowledgeable, you know too much. And when one knows too much, life loses the quality of being mysterious. Then you are never surprised by anything. Your knowledge goes on supplying you all kinds of answers; even before you have asked, the answer is there, you seem to know everything. Knowing nothing you go on believing in borrowed knowledge, and slowly slowly, that borrowed knowledge hypnotizes you so much that you forget that you don't know. You start believing in your own knowledge -- and it is not your own, it is just borrowed. You may have read the Bible, the Gita, the Koran.... Krishna knew what he was talking about, but when you read you don't know. Jesus knew what he was talking about, but when you read the Sermon on the Mount you are simply…
Why can't I feel any wonder in existence?
Shivananda, you are too knowledgeable, you know too much. And all that you know is just holy cow dung -- all knowledge always is. Wisdom is a totally different matter. Knowledge is all rot, junk; you gather it from here and there, it is not your own. It has no authenticity, it has not grown in your being, you have not given birth to it. But it gives you a very gratified ego to feel "I know." And the more you become settled in the idea of "I know," the less and less will you feel wonder in life. How can a man of knowledge feel wonder? Knowledge destroys wonder. And wonder is the source of wisdom, wonder is the source of all that is beautiful, and wonder is the source for the search, the real search. Wonder takes you on the adventure to know the mysteries of life. The…
Osho, in the mahabharata. Yudhishtirha was asked a question: "what is surprising?" (kim ashcharayam) by a yaksha. If you were in his place, what would be your answer?
The father said, "You don't understand. If he rides on the donkey, then how the bride is going to find who is the bridegroom? A donkey riding on a donkey will be very difficult to make distinctions!" Morarji Desai riding on a donkey... it will be really a great joy to see a donkey riding on a donkey! If you look at life you will find everywhere immense surprises. He was fifty and had spent the best years of his life with a woman whose constant criticism had driven him mad. Now, in poor health and with his business on the verge of bankruptcy, he made up his mind. He went to the dining room, fastened his tie over the chandelier, and was about to end it all. At that moment his wife entered the room. "John!" she cried, shocked at the scene before her. "That is your best tie!"…
Question: OSHO, I FEEL LIFE IS VERY BORING. WHAT SHOULD I DO? Brij Mohan, AS IT IS, YOU HAVE ALREADY DONE ENOUGH. You have made life boring -- some achievement! Life is such a dance of ecstasy and you have reduced it to boredom. You have done a miracle! What else do you want to do? You can't do anything bigger than this. Life and boring? You must have a tremendous capacity to IGNORE life. Just the other day I was telling you that ignorance means the capacity to ignore. You must be ignoring the birds, the trees, the flowers, the people. Otherwise, life is so tremendously beautiful, so ABSURDLY beautiful, that if you can see it as it is you will never stop laughing. You will go on giggling -- at least inside. Life is not boring, but MIND is boring.
Osho, why are you so much against philosophy?
And I can understand your question: this is how every child is being brought up, for centuries. Your question is relevant. You say, "I LOVE YOU. BUT IF YOU ARE NOT A PERSON, THEN HOW CAN I LOVE YOU?" We have been told that we can love only persons. The truth is just the opposite: you cannot love the person. Persons can only fight, persons can only be in conflict, because wherever two egos are, there is conflict, a CONSTANT war -- sometimes hot, sometimes cold, but the war continues. Sometimes the warriors are tired so they maintain a certain peace. Whenever they are back again and their energy is there again, they start fighting. You can see it happening with all kinds of lovers -- a continuous fight, a kind of intimate enmity, together and yet not together. Why is this fight there? -- because of two egos. Two…