According to Osho, the impulse to know the unknowable is our very soul—the inherent Why that makes us human. We cannot tack a reason onto this curiosity; it is our destiny and will not rest. If pursued to total doubt beyond beliefs, it triggers a transforming leap into an ineffable knowing, maturing consciousness even though no answer can be carried back.
We try to know the unknowable because our natural “why?” won’t stop; honoring it grows us and can open a truth beyond words.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, why should one try to know the unknowable?
Yes! You ask why anyone would want to know the unknown, the unknowable, the Unknowable. Why would anyone want to know the unknowable? The very moment we ask, “Why should one want to know?” we reveal that the Why is already within us—and it makes us restless. That very Why unsettles us. We cannot simply accept, without question, that the unknowable should be known. The mind asks, “Why?” The mind also asks, “Why is there the unknowable? What is it? Why is it? Why is there anything at all? And why do I want to know it?” If we look very closely and ask, “Why do we want to know the unknowable?”—that too becomes an attempt to know the unknowable. Because it is itself utterly unknowable why I want to know. My point is: what we call the human spirit, the very soul of man, is this longing to know…
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…
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.
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.
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.