In a great capital the king was robbed. The soldiers searched and searched, wore themselves out, and still the theft could not be traced. As so often happens, thieves prove wiser than the police; this thief too proved more clever. The king grew anxious; something essential had gone in the theft, something that had to be retrieved. An old man said, There is a man in the village who knows everything. In that village there was a Sheikh Chilli, a wise-fool, who knows everything. Such Sheikh Chillies are always omniscient. He too was omniscient. There was nothing he did not know, no question for which he had no answer. At last messengers were sent to Sheikh Chilli. He said, What difficulty is there in this! I can tell it. But I will tell it only to the king. And I will tell it only in private, and only into his ear. In private Sheikh Chilli was taken to the king. The king asked, Speak, tell me. He said, I will tell it only into your ear, because the walls of a king’s palace cannot be trusted—they too listen. He placed his mouth to the king’s ear and said, as all gurus whisper a mantra into the ear, so he too whispered this into the ear. Bringing his lips near he asked, Shall I really tell the truth? The king said, That is why you have been called, that is why you have been invited. Then Sheikh Chilli said, I will tell it, but do not tell anyone, otherwise trouble may befall me. The king said, Out with it! The matter will be kept secret. Sheikh Chilli said, I say with certainty: some thief has done the theft. The king was baffled. He said, What is this you are telling me? Sheikh Chilli began to laugh and said, If my statement is wrong, then the statements of all the metaphysicians the world has known are wrong as well. The king asked, How so? He said, People ask, Who created the world? They say, We will tell it into your ear. And in the ear they tell that some creator created the world. So I too thought, some thief has done the theft. The king said, But at least tell the thief’s name! He said, Is ‘thief’ not name enough? In just this way those metaphysicians say that God created the world. Some maker created the world. Ask the name and they say, God. Sheikh Chilli was sent back. But the world still has not sent the metaphysicians back. I am telling this story this morning to begin my talk: in a human being’s life nothing is more dangerous than hollow knowledge. In the attainment of truth, that which we take to be knowledge is the obstacle itself. Last night I said to you: those who can halt will come to know what truth is; those who can stay still become heirs to life’s treasure. The first step toward that stillness is to be free from this so-called knowledge of ours. You will have heard it said that one should be freed from ignorance; but I would say to you, be freed from knowledge. You have heard it said that people come to teach you knowledge; I am here to teach you ignorance. This knowledge—this whole stock of knowledge that has taken up residence in the human mind—has done two things. First, it has covered over the ignorance within. And any illness that becomes hidden is exceedingly dangerous. Because when an illness is out of sight it continues to grow within. An illness hidden is dangerous also because then even the thought of treatment is forgotten. When the illness is forgotten, the thought of healing is forgotten. This knowledge has hidden our ignorance. Do we know God? We do not. Do we know ourselves? We do not. Do we know these trees standing all around? Do we know the stones lying on the path? Do we know the stars in the sky? Do we know the heartbeat sitting beside us—this living breath next door? Do we know? Does a husband know his wife? Does a mother know her son? Do we know? Our ignorance is profound. But we have covered that ignorance with many knowledgeable utterances. This covering has become very dangerous. Because of it, the pain of ignorance—the fire of ignorance, the flames of ignorance that should have burned us—no longer burn. We have grown carefree and contented. One who becomes contented with knowledge will never reach truth. For the contentment of knowledge does not end his ignorance; it only hides it. We are all sitting, hiding our ignorance. And we call this hiding faith; we call this hiding belief; we call this hiding devotion. We have found good words. Man is very clever: for bad things he always finds good words. What are our faiths, our beliefs? They are devices to conceal ignorance. We have covered our ignorance. If I ask you: Do you know God? Your knowledge will say: Yes, God is; He created the world. But look a little within, reflect: Do you know? No. You have read it in some scripture, heard it from some guru, tradition says so; the Gita, the Quran, the Bible say so; Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna say so; someone has said it and we have accepted it. Has this kind of acquired knowledge ended ignorance? Or has it merely veiled it, only hidden it? It has hidden it. Our ignorance has been hidden: this is one thing knowledge has done. The second is that the mystery in life has been effaced. The mystery in life has dissolved. The Unknown in life has been covered over. Life is utterly unknown; nothing in it is truly known to us. But we have gathered a few imaginations and a few beliefs, and the unknownness of life—the unowned mystery—has ended. It begins to seem as if we know. After twelve years Buddha returned to his village. The whole village went out to receive him, but Buddha’s wife did not go. She must have thought, I know this man very well; this is the same man who ran away leaving me twelve years ago. What is there in Buddha that I should go to receive him? All is known, all is clear. She did not go. Buddha’s father went to receive him. Outside the village he said to Buddha, My door is still open, if you wish to return. A father’s heart is with me. The pain you have caused I will forgive. The wounds you have given me in my old age I will pardon. I have still not closed my door; come back. And this does not befit you! In our family, in our lineage, no one has ever begged. And you will beg, wandering the roads with a begging bowl? Buddha’s father was angry. But what did Buddha say? Buddha said, May I make a request—will you look closely at me once? Am I the same as the one who left your house? And are you certain that when I left your house you knew me? Now the matter of knowing has gone very far—much water has flowed down the Ganges in twelve years. The father must have looked carefully and said, I know you well! You are my own son; shall I not know you? You are made of my own blood; shall I not know you? I gave you birth; shall I not know you? Then Buddha said, Certainly you gave birth, and yet that which you gave birth to is very unknown. Certainly I came into this world through you, but merely for that reason will you be able to know me? Do the roads upon which I traveled—do those roads know me? You too were a road, a path through which I came. But does that mean you have known me? I myself did not know myself; how could you have known me? Yet a father feels he knows his son; a mother feels she knows her child; a husband feels he knows his wife. We all live in the illusion of knowing. While the truth is: we do not even know ourselves—how then shall we know another? The life spread on all sides is utterly unknown, utterly unowned. But we have patched on labels of knowing, and we think knowing has happened. The moment a person gets the idea that he has known something, his journey of knowing is closed for the future. Therefore I say I will speak this morning on ignorance. The one who comes to know, I know nothing at all—the door to his journey of knowing opens. A simple, direct recognition of ignorance—the easy acceptance of that ignorance within, its simple experiencing. And set aside all that knowledge which covers that ignorance. Then two things will happen. First, the ignorance within that knowledge has veiled will be revealed. Second, the mystery outside that knowledge has obscured will become mysterious again. Whatever we begin to feel we know ceases to be mysterious for us. New friends have come here. Seeing this place they will feel delight. Why? Because the place is new; it will appear very mysterious. Its trees are new, its breezes are new. But for those who live here the mystery will have ended. People go to see Kashmir and the Himalayas. But one who lives there sees nothing. He has the notion that he knows. The poet Byron married in his final days. For months he had been mad after the woman he married. The marriage was very difficult to bring about. But he finally won and it happened. He was walking down the church steps holding his newly wed wife’s hand. The bells that had been rung in celebration of the wedding were still sounding, the candles lit for the ceremony had not yet gone out. He took her down the steps and seated her in the carriage. Just then another woman appeared on the road—and in that instant his wife vanished from his eyes, and the other woman alone filled them. He even forgot that his wife’s hand was in his hand—the wife for whom he had been mad for years; had he not obtained her, perhaps he would have committed suicide, or gone mad, or who knows what. A moment later he came to himself—the other woman had passed—and he said to his wife, A very strange thing has happened! The very moment my marriage to you was complete, I find that in you there is no charm for me, no juice, no savor. All the longing to possess you has dissolved. And just now another woman appeared before me, and in a moment you vanished for me and my desire pursued her, and I dreamed in an instant of possessing her—and you were not there for me! And I know, had I not married you, I would have dreamed of you all my life; perhaps I could not even have lived without that dream! Perhaps even Byron did not understand what had happened. What happened is what always happens: the moment we possess a thing—the moment the mind believes it knows—the entire mystery is drained out of it. That is the whole frenzy of life. That which we have not attained seems juicy, meaningful. We attain it: the juice disappears, the meaning dissolves. Because it seems to us that we have gotten it, known it, finished. But such a state of mind—one that, in this way, takes mere acquaintance to be knowledge—becomes inert; it loses sensitivity; it loses mystery. And in a person whose life has lost mystery, religion can have no place. He may chant Rama-Rama as much as he likes, but his chanting has no meaning. He may read the Gita and the Quran as much as he likes; that too has no meaning. If the whole of life does not appear mysterious to him, then all these things have no meaning. The mysteriousness of life, the unknownness of life, the unacquaintedness of life—when that unknown finds a door in the heart, then the realization of Paramatma, of truth, begins. So let me say: the learned never come to know Paramatma. The pandits have never had any relationship with God till now, nor will they ever have. Not till now, not in the future—for they live in the illusion that they know. A few months before Socrates’ death there was an incident. There was a man upon whom a goddess would descend; in possession he would speak. People asked him questions and he would give answers. Someone asked him, Who is the greatest knower in Athens? The entranced man said, Socrates. People went to Socrates and said, An announcement has been made that you are the greatest knower. Socrates said, Go back and tell them there has surely been some mistake. When I was a small child, I felt I knew very much. When I became a young man, many bricks fell from the house of my knowing, many walls collapsed. My house of knowledge became a ruin. In youth I realized that what I knew was very little. But since I have begun to grow old, now the house has fallen completely—no house remains. Now I know that I know nothing at all. So go back and say that Socrates is the great ignoramus. There is some error in your saying that he is the greatest knower in Athens. He is the great ignoramus. They returned and told the entranced man, There is some mistake. Socrates himself says, I am a great ignoramus. The entranced one said, Precisely! For this very reason I said there is none more knowing than he. When one becomes aware of his ignorance—fully aware of his entire ignorance—a revolution occurs in his life. And what he comes to know through that revolution—that alone is knowing, that alone is knowledge. All else is false; all else is ignorance. In the search for truth, or in the search for oneself, the first point is the sense of ignorance. Do we have the sense of ignorance? Neither the theist has it nor the atheist. The theist says, God is. The atheist says, God is not. Both appear to know. No—they have no sense. One who senses his ignorance cannot say either that it is or that it is not... That which is utterly unknown, life is related to that... All his life Socrates demolished the house we are busy fortifying and enlarging. We are ignorant in childhood; by old age we have become knowing. Socrates must have been very upside down—knowing in childhood, ignorant in old age. But this is how it appears to me as well. If there is knowledge in childhood, it is all right. To be knowing is to be childish. Hence in childhood it still befits one to be under the delusion that he knows. But in old age it does not befit. One who truly grows old—his knowledge dissolves with the years. By the time he becomes old he becomes utterly ignorant. Nothing remains of which he can say, I know. This is the right and proper growth. It means he has become mature, he has ripened, he is no longer a child. About Lao Tzu there is a famous saying that he was born old. A strange thing—that a man should be born old! What would be the signs of being born old? Later, when someone asked him, There is a rumor that you were born old!—Lao Tzu said, Yes. Even in childhood I did not have the delusion that I know. But such children are hard to find, who do not have the delusion that they know. The misfortune today is that even such old people are hard to find. As the vision of life develops, it becomes clear that man is very small and life is very vast. Our intellect is tiny and truth is immense—boundless, infinite. How shall we know? How will knowing be possible? And this knowing—what is it except our ego? No—knowing cannot happen in this manner. Yet we go on accumulating. We memorize the Gita and become learned. We read the Quran and become learned. We learn to repeat a few words and become learned. We learn to repeat—Upanishadic sayings, Vedic verses, the words of Mahavira and Buddha, the utterances of the saints—and we become learned. We become learned so cheaply there is no measure. We study a little and we become knowers. And those who have not studied—we become their gurus. We look down on them and look up to ourselves. All this so-called knowing is decoration for the ego, nothing else. And the more the ego fattens, the more difficult things become. Because that much inertia grows within, that much sensitivity withers, that much capacity to be related to life diminishes—we become that much more unworthy. So this mind of ours that memorizes the Gita, studies the Upanishads, learns the Bible and the Quran—this mind will never know Paramatma, never. Because whatever it comes to know, the idea that I am knowing is utterly false. By knowing words truth is not known. By knowing words love is not known. By knowing words God is not known. Yet there is a great net of words—and that is our knowledge. There was a Baul fakir in Bengal. Bauls dance, sing, and speak of love. Bauls are not learned. No true fakir is a learned man. And if he is learned, know well—he is no fakir. A great pandit came to that Baul. He was a Vaishnava scholar; the scriptures were on his tongue; his fame extended far and wide. He came and said to the fakir, I have heard you speak of love. But do you even know how many kinds of love there are? By nature, the pandit always asks in the language of kinds. He asks, How many kinds of love are there? Which God do you accept—of the Hindus or the Muslims? How many kinds of God are there? Which truth do you accept—the Gita’s or the Quran’s? He always asks in kinds. The scholar’s language is the language of kinds. So he asked. There is nothing to be offended at, nothing to laugh at; the pandit has always asked like this. He asked the fakir, How many kinds of love are there? You go on with this love-love day and night! Do you know how many kinds of love there are? The fakir was in a difficulty. He said, Love I have known, but kinds I have not come upon till today. Love I have certainly known, but kinds never arose on my path. You give me knowledge! You tell me! The pandit took a book out of his bag. The pandit always carries a book. Some keep it in the bag; those who are strong, powerful, keep it on the head. Some keep it in the bag—those who are weak keep it in the bag. Those with a good memory keep it in the head. But there is less weight in the bag; there is more weight on the head. The head is very small, and if too many books are placed there, the head becomes very heavy. So it is better to keep them in the bag. But the bag-carrying pandit is considered a lesser pandit. Hence the real pandit keeps them in the head. He took the book out of the bag. He must not have been a full pandit, otherwise why would he go to a fakir at all! He was a little short—he kept the book in the bag; therefore he went. He read out some aphorisms and said, Love is of five kinds. He read the sutras, explained them, clarified. Then he asked the fakir, Well, how did it feel? Right or wrong? The fakir stood up and began to dance. This was not very appropriate. The pandit had come for debate; to answer by dancing was not proper in any way. But fakirs have their own way of answering. He began to dance and sang a song. In that song he said something very wondrous. He sang, O pandit, O learned one, you ask how your words felt to me. They felt to me as once when a jeweler took his touchstone and went into a garden of flowers, and began to test the flowers on the stone to see which flower is true and which false. As the gardener would have felt, so I too felt. When you began to enumerate the kinds of love and to test them on logic, I felt as if someone had taken the jeweler’s touchstone into a flower garden and was testing flowers on it—that is how I felt. The pandit must have thought—madman. The pandit has always considered those who love to be mad. Because the pandit does not know love. He would have stood up and gone away: What is there to talk with such a man! But what the fakir said was extraordinary. Where are the kinds in love! And one who knows the kinds of love will never know love. Because in relation to love he has learned a few words. Words have their own mathematics, their own net. Words have their own cleverness, their own art. And we are all sitting with words we have learned. And learning these words is what we have called knowledge. These very words have become our hindrance; these words are the obstruction. This is the wall that cuts us off from what surrounds us on all sides. This wall of words must be pulled down, this wall of words must be erased. The wall of theories and words has erected Hindus and Muslims, Jains and Christians, Buddhists and Parsis. Because the walls of words are different for each, they are different. And what is the distance? Between me and you what distance is there other than words? Between a Hindu and a Muslim what wall is there other than words? One has learned the words of the Quran; another has learned the words of the Gita. Their words are different; hence the two persons are different. And over words humanity has been fighting for thousands of years. Man has been killing man for words. They say, The Gita’s words are true and the Quran’s are false. Over this they fight; over this they kill. Over this they have killed; temples and mosques have been burned; men have been destroyed. And these words that can break man from man—how will these words connect man to God? Words cannot connect man to God! Words even cut one man off from another. That which cuts man from man can never become a connecting link between man and Paramatma. The wordless connects man to God. And only the wordless connects man to man. Whenever we become wordless and silent toward someone, only then do we connect. That is why in love words become difficult to find. With one we love it becomes difficult to speak—for what to say? Between us, between the two of us, words are lost. With the one we love, words fall away between us. And when words fall, then heart reaches heart. Words are only the business of the intellect. And intellect separates; it never joins. The heart joins. The heart has no words. The pandit remains only intellect; his heart is lost. So this wall of words, of theories, has to be dropped. But this is precisely what we go on learning. It may be that some friends have come even here—so they may take away a few more words from here. Then they will strengthen their wall further. Here, in these three days, we are to attempt to break the wall. If you leave here utterly ignorant, the work is done. When you go, if you begin to feel that I know nothing at all—the work is done. This state of not-knowing—this bhava, this feeling-state of not knowing—is the first step of the religious mind. In not-knowing a man becomes utterly simple; in knowing he becomes complex. And knowing is utterly untrue; not-knowing is utterly true. It is a fact that we do not know; it is pure imagination that we know. But it is very difficult to break this wall. The greatest difficulty is that no one wishes to accept himself as ignorant, to know himself as ignorant. We all want to know ourselves as learned. We all want to think ourselves learned. Who is willing to agree to being ignorant? One morning Tolstoy went to church. A very big man of the village—a pandit, wealthy and famous—was already there. It was Sunday, and he was praying to God early in the church. It was dark. Tolstoy stood behind. The famous man stood with folded hands, saying to God, O Supreme Lord, I am utterly ignorant; I know nothing; I am a sinner; I have committed many sins. He said all these things. Tolstoy heard. He was delighted, and amazed. He said, We had no idea that this pandit too is ignorant! Let me run and tell the village that we were in illusion in thinking this man is a pandit. In the church he was telling God, I am ignorant. And we were in illusion, thinking him a great saint. There he was saying, I am a great sinner. The man came out, and Tolstoy also came out behind. Morning was dawning; the village was waking; people were moving. When they reached the crossroads, Tolstoy said, Stop! He said to the pandit, Wait! What you were saying in the church—I will gather the people here at the crossroads and tell them. The whole village is under the misapprehension that you are learned and virtuous. The man said, Silence! If you say that here, I will take you to court. That was a matter between me and God. There is no need to say it here among all. We too—between ourselves and God—know very well that we are ignorant; very well we know it, very well that we are utterly ignorant. But who will say it before everyone? Who will say it in the marketplace? And thus false knowledge keeps increasing in the world. The father gives to the son what he himself did not know; he hands it on. The son asks, Who created the world? The father says, God did. And if the son doubts, he says, You are spoiled, the Dark Age has come. We know, and you doubt! And he himself does not know! In this way, in the name of knowledge, great ignorance goes on from generation to generation. Now the whole world is troubled; five or six thousand years of such ignorance has piled up on everyone’s mind. The father gives it to the son; the son then to his sons—and so on. And no one, in simple honesty, admits, I do not know. But one who does not admit this—in total simplicity, with his whole being—will never be capable of knowing. This ego of knowing has to be dropped. And in dropping it, nothing is lost. It is only a delusion that we know. Reflect a little, think a little, and it will begin to be seen—we do not know, we do not know. We have believed. For centuries we have been told: Believe. And under belief darkness is hidden—do not look at it. Behind belief doubt is hidden—do not look at it. In this way we have created a peculiar state of mind. Darkness is hidden, doubt is hidden; we have donned the garments of belief and the garments of knowledge. This state is inauspicious. What is to be done to drop it? Nothing is to be done—only to see this truth is enough for it to drop. And whenever you begin to talk knowledgeably, be a little alert: you are speaking of things you do not know. Of matters with which you have no connection, no living tie, you speak as if they were truth. A little awareness is needed. And within the mind a little search is needed: Where is my knowledge rooted? You will find no roots there, no roots of knowledge. They are leaves stuck on from above, flowers fixed from outside—paper flowers, false. This knowledge must be dropped. So I do not say to you, renounce the world. I do not say, renounce your wife and children. I do not say, leave life and run to the mountains. I say, climb down a little from the mountain of ego. Climb down a little from this mountain of knowing on which you are seated—this mountain of knowing is utterly false. Come to the ground. A very deep truth is this straightforward recognition: that you do not know. And if this begins to be seen, then this very life becomes another life—because your vision becomes different. These same plants, these same birds’ voices will begin to bring a music from afar. These very breezes will become news of Paramatma. These people sitting around you will begin to appear entirely different. Seen from the idea of knowing, they appear one way; seen from the place of not-knowing, they become something else. All becomes mysterious. It all becomes a mystery. Edison once went to a village. The children of that village—there was a small school—had made some small electrical devices. They took them to show Edison. They did not even know that about electricity no one upon the earth knew as much as Edison. The village children said, Please come too. Edison went. He did not say, I know electricity very well; what will you show me! Edison was no pandit. He went. Their little toys—a little car that ran by electricity, a fan that ran by electricity, some other things—he saw them all and was very happy. In the end he said, My children, you have done wonderful work, made fine things. May I ask you one thing—What is electricity? What is this electricity? Will you tell me? The children stood dumbfounded. Their teacher too stood dumbfounded. What is electricity? They felt very sad within that they were so ignorant, unable to answer such a simple question. Edison said, Do not be worried; do not be worried. Perhaps upon the whole earth no one has worked in relation to electricity as much as I have—and I too do not know what electricity is! I too do not know what electricity is. Yes, we have learned to use electricity. What electricity is—I do not know either! This man is religious—one who could say about electricity, I do not know what electricity is. Such humility can only be in one who has the sense of his ignorance. One who has the sense of his knowledge can never be humble. One who has the Gita by heart—can he be humble somewhere? Never, never—there is no possibility. He cannot be humble; he knows. Hence pandits have been debating. Were there humility, how would debate happen? They have done scriptural duels, losing and defeating. This losing and defeating, this roaming the land with flags to win, to defeat someone or be defeated by someone—what madness is this? Has it any relation with a religious mind? It has nothing at all to do with a religious mind. It is the entire mischief of the so-called knowers. A fakir named Farid was on a pilgrimage. On the way lay Kabir’s ashram in Maghar. Farid’s friends, his companions, said, Stay for two days—Kabir’s ashram is there. If you both meet and talk it will be a great joy. On the other side, Kabir’s friends had heard as well; they said, Farid is passing this way—if we can keep him two days in the ashram, it will be wonderful. But a strange thing happened. When Farid’s disciples said, Stay, Farid said, I will certainly stay—but what shall we talk? I know nothing. And when Kabir’s disciples said, Stop Farid, Kabir said, I will certainly keep him—but what shall we talk? I know nothing. The disciples thought, Saints always speak in this upside-down way. They kept them anyway for two days. Two days Farid and Kabir stayed in one place. They met, embraced each other, laughed a lot—but no conversation could happen. After two days Kabir himself went to see Farid off outside the village. The disciples were very disturbed during those two days, very troubled. Expectations fell flat; a kind of boredom must have come. They would seat the two together; they would sit, sometimes laugh, and sit. Then the farewell was done. As soon as the farewell ended, Kabir’s disciples asked Kabir, and Farid’s disciples asked Farid, What happened? They said, We told you already—we have reached that place where we know nothing. Now what shall we do? If we search within our own minds, we too will reach that place where we know nothing. We are already there; to reach it is not far. If one wishes to undertake the journey of knowledge, perhaps it is very difficult—learn, learn, learn. So people ask me, Can we know God right now? I say, Right now! Because if there is learning to do, it will take time. But if there is unlearning to do, how will time be needed? If knowledge is to be collected, time is needed; to collect knowledge takes time. A boy takes seven years to pass matric; for a master’s another six; fifteen or twenty years go in study. If we read scriptures, time will be needed; if we want to be learned, time will be needed. But if we want to know that I am not learned—then where is time? Only ego can be the obstacle; there is no other hindrance. What question of time? It can happen this very moment! Now! Here! Where is there even the scope of delay by a moment? Let it be seen—It is done: I do not know. And the whole house of knowledge will collapse like a house of cards; like a castle of sand before a gust of wind. Only ego is the obstacle. If there is fear of being ignorant, then there is no way—then it will take a long time; then lifetimes may pass and still the work will not be done. But if there is the courage to be ignorant—and upon this earth the greatest courage is the courage to be ignorant—if there is this courage, then the thing is done this very moment. Why even a moment’s delay? Does it not happen now? Is it not already done? No—but within something says, No. The books I mastered with such effort—shall I leave them all as worthless? So many scriptures I memorized—shall I drop them just like that? Will they go to water? The labor of my life—the memorizing of verses and sutras, how much effort, how many nights I ruined, how many mornings I rose early, with what difficulty I gathered all this—and will it all just go away? If such a thing is there in the mind, then he will stop. He will stop as long as we hold him. The day we open our fist, it will scatter and vanish. And a wondrous event occurs: the day knowledge scatters and falls, that day the mind becomes utterly simple; that day the intellect dissolves; what remains is the heart. That day what we call buddhi—the intellect—becomes a zero, and the heart remains. That heart knows, lives, recognizes, sees, and enters into the universal being. So this morning I want to say the first sutra to you: I want to take away your knowledge. I say, I teach ignorance. Blessed are those who become capable of dropping knowledge. This is a great courage. To run away from the family is no great courage. The truth is that people are so bored in the family that whoever gets the chance will run away. Hence to leave the family is no great courage. In fact the weakest people are the first to run away from the family. Weakness is enough to leave the family; strength is not needed. The strong keep enduring; the weak run away; they become sannyasis. The weak, who do not have the courage to stand in the struggle of life, escape, flee. And they decorate their escape with good words—they left the world because it was worthless. Just like the fox once said, The grapes are sour. The weak run away. Weakness always says, Run. Running away is always the slogan of weakness. Strength says, Stay. Weakness says, Run. So to leave home and run away is not difficult at all. If ever there can be a true reckoning of men, those who run away from the world will be proved sick and weak. So there is no purpose in running away from the family or from life. And those who run away from the family and society—even they never leave the knowledge that society gave them. If they were Hindus, then after leaving society they remain Hindus—what a wonder! If they were Jains, after leaving society they remain Jains—what a wonder! They are called Jain sadhus, Hindu sadhus. Where have they run from society? How have they been freed? That which society placed in their mind, they still cling to; they still polish it; still Jain, still Hindu. Can a sadhu be Hindu or Jain or Muslim? And if he is, then certainly he is not a sadhu—he is something else. He is a householder who has fled; not a sadhu, not a sannyasi. Sannyas too, saintliness too, certainly renounces—but not society, not life; rather it renounces the knowledge that society lodges in the mind. Because the knowledge given by others can never be my knowledge. That which others have given can never be my knowing. It will always be false, illusory—because it is given by another. Knowledge is not transferable, not transmittable, that I give it to you and you give it to me. No one can give knowledge to anyone. Knowledge can be realized—but not taken and given. So this knowledge received from others—dropping it is essential, so that that which is not received from anyone may become available; that which awakens in one’s life-breath, rises and unfolds. But it unfolds only when we drop the supports given by others. There is a law of life-energy: it awakens only when it is left without support. If you had the facility to walk without legs, gradually the energy of the legs would disappear. If you had the facility to work without hands, the strength of the hands would return to sleep and go. If we ask a man to live with his eyes closed for two years—live with eyes closed—the power of the eyes will return inward to sleep; there will be no need for it. If we stop speaking, after two or four years we will no longer be able to speak; speaking will be lost; the capacity will fall back asleep. It is a law of life-force: the power we use and the power we challenge—only that power awakens and becomes active. The power we stop challenging, stop using—falls asleep. Within us knowledge is asleep because we have depended on others’ knowledge. When another’s knowledge does the job, there is no need for one’s own knowing to awaken; the life-energy remains asleep. If we reject all others’ knowledge, if we dust it off, if we become empty of it—then the challenge that will arise, the pressure that will come in life, that very pressure will awaken the sleeping fountains of knowing within. Only those in the world come to know in the direction of truth who drop whatever has been known about truth. Then their own life-breaths take over that which they had placed upon others’ shoulders—for which they were seeking others’ support. When all support is lost, their own strength begins to awaken—when there is no support. For knowledge we have taken supports; hence knowledge will never awaken. For knowledge, becoming supportless is necessary. Becoming supportless means standing in the state of ignorance. For today I will say only this much: stand in the state of ignorance if you wish knowledge to be born within. Leave the known if you wish the door to the unknown to open. Forget what you know if you wish to know that which you do not know. That which is not yet known—if you wish to know it—then drop that which you know, that which you fancy you are knowing. Freedom from knowledge is essential if truly knowledge is to be attained. In this direction I will speak two more sutras tomorrow morning and the day after. Now we will sit for the morning meditation, so let me say a few things about the morning meditation. The very first thing: this meditation is not concentration. Concentration has been taken to be meditation. Ask someone, What is meditation? He will say: The mind becoming one-pointed is meditation. But the mind becoming one-pointed is not meditation at all. A restless mind is not meditation, and a concentrated mind is not meditation. Restlessness and concentration are two faces of the same coin. Meditation is something different from both. Meditation is that state where the mind is neither restless nor concentrated. Restlessness means: the mind keeps changing from one object to another, and from the second to a third. Concentration means: the mind remains stuck on one object. In both cases there is some object. In restlessness there are changing objects; in concentration there is one fixed object. Meditation means: where no object remains, where nothing is left as the content, where only we remain alone and no object remains, no subject remains. In restlessness, subjects change; objects change. In concentration, the object remains one. In meditation no object remains—it is objectlessness. There, no content is. There only consciousness remains, and no one else....
Osho's Commentary
As so often happens, thieves prove wiser than the police; this thief too proved more clever. The king grew anxious; something essential had gone in the theft, something that had to be retrieved. An old man said, There is a man in the village who knows everything.
In that village there was a Sheikh Chilli, a wise-fool, who knows everything. Such Sheikh Chillies are always omniscient. He too was omniscient. There was nothing he did not know, no question for which he had no answer.
At last messengers were sent to Sheikh Chilli. He said, What difficulty is there in this! I can tell it. But I will tell it only to the king. And I will tell it only in private, and only into his ear.
In private Sheikh Chilli was taken to the king. The king asked, Speak, tell me.
He said, I will tell it only into your ear, because the walls of a king’s palace cannot be trusted—they too listen.
He placed his mouth to the king’s ear and said, as all gurus whisper a mantra into the ear, so he too whispered this into the ear. Bringing his lips near he asked, Shall I really tell the truth?
The king said, That is why you have been called, that is why you have been invited.
Then Sheikh Chilli said, I will tell it, but do not tell anyone, otherwise trouble may befall me.
The king said, Out with it! The matter will be kept secret.
Sheikh Chilli said, I say with certainty: some thief has done the theft.
The king was baffled. He said, What is this you are telling me?
Sheikh Chilli began to laugh and said, If my statement is wrong, then the statements of all the metaphysicians the world has known are wrong as well.
The king asked, How so?
He said, People ask, Who created the world? They say, We will tell it into your ear. And in the ear they tell that some creator created the world. So I too thought, some thief has done the theft.
The king said, But at least tell the thief’s name!
He said, Is ‘thief’ not name enough? In just this way those metaphysicians say that God created the world. Some maker created the world. Ask the name and they say, God.
Sheikh Chilli was sent back. But the world still has not sent the metaphysicians back.
I am telling this story this morning to begin my talk: in a human being’s life nothing is more dangerous than hollow knowledge. In the attainment of truth, that which we take to be knowledge is the obstacle itself.
Last night I said to you: those who can halt will come to know what truth is; those who can stay still become heirs to life’s treasure. The first step toward that stillness is to be free from this so-called knowledge of ours. You will have heard it said that one should be freed from ignorance; but I would say to you, be freed from knowledge. You have heard it said that people come to teach you knowledge; I am here to teach you ignorance. This knowledge—this whole stock of knowledge that has taken up residence in the human mind—has done two things. First, it has covered over the ignorance within. And any illness that becomes hidden is exceedingly dangerous. Because when an illness is out of sight it continues to grow within. An illness hidden is dangerous also because then even the thought of treatment is forgotten. When the illness is forgotten, the thought of healing is forgotten.
This knowledge has hidden our ignorance. Do we know God? We do not. Do we know ourselves? We do not. Do we know these trees standing all around? Do we know the stones lying on the path? Do we know the stars in the sky? Do we know the heartbeat sitting beside us—this living breath next door? Do we know? Does a husband know his wife? Does a mother know her son? Do we know?
Our ignorance is profound. But we have covered that ignorance with many knowledgeable utterances. This covering has become very dangerous. Because of it, the pain of ignorance—the fire of ignorance, the flames of ignorance that should have burned us—no longer burn. We have grown carefree and contented. One who becomes contented with knowledge will never reach truth. For the contentment of knowledge does not end his ignorance; it only hides it.
We are all sitting, hiding our ignorance. And we call this hiding faith; we call this hiding belief; we call this hiding devotion. We have found good words. Man is very clever: for bad things he always finds good words. What are our faiths, our beliefs? They are devices to conceal ignorance. We have covered our ignorance.
If I ask you: Do you know God? Your knowledge will say: Yes, God is; He created the world. But look a little within, reflect: Do you know? No. You have read it in some scripture, heard it from some guru, tradition says so; the Gita, the Quran, the Bible say so; Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna say so; someone has said it and we have accepted it.
Has this kind of acquired knowledge ended ignorance? Or has it merely veiled it, only hidden it? It has hidden it.
Our ignorance has been hidden: this is one thing knowledge has done. The second is that the mystery in life has been effaced. The mystery in life has dissolved. The Unknown in life has been covered over. Life is utterly unknown; nothing in it is truly known to us. But we have gathered a few imaginations and a few beliefs, and the unknownness of life—the unowned mystery—has ended. It begins to seem as if we know.
After twelve years Buddha returned to his village. The whole village went out to receive him, but Buddha’s wife did not go. She must have thought, I know this man very well; this is the same man who ran away leaving me twelve years ago. What is there in Buddha that I should go to receive him? All is known, all is clear. She did not go.
Buddha’s father went to receive him. Outside the village he said to Buddha, My door is still open, if you wish to return. A father’s heart is with me. The pain you have caused I will forgive. The wounds you have given me in my old age I will pardon. I have still not closed my door; come back. And this does not befit you! In our family, in our lineage, no one has ever begged. And you will beg, wandering the roads with a begging bowl?
Buddha’s father was angry. But what did Buddha say? Buddha said, May I make a request—will you look closely at me once? Am I the same as the one who left your house? And are you certain that when I left your house you knew me? Now the matter of knowing has gone very far—much water has flowed down the Ganges in twelve years.
The father must have looked carefully and said, I know you well! You are my own son; shall I not know you? You are made of my own blood; shall I not know you? I gave you birth; shall I not know you?
Then Buddha said, Certainly you gave birth, and yet that which you gave birth to is very unknown. Certainly I came into this world through you, but merely for that reason will you be able to know me? Do the roads upon which I traveled—do those roads know me? You too were a road, a path through which I came. But does that mean you have known me? I myself did not know myself; how could you have known me?
Yet a father feels he knows his son; a mother feels she knows her child; a husband feels he knows his wife. We all live in the illusion of knowing. While the truth is: we do not even know ourselves—how then shall we know another?
The life spread on all sides is utterly unknown, utterly unowned. But we have patched on labels of knowing, and we think knowing has happened. The moment a person gets the idea that he has known something, his journey of knowing is closed for the future. Therefore I say I will speak this morning on ignorance. The one who comes to know, I know nothing at all—the door to his journey of knowing opens.
A simple, direct recognition of ignorance—the easy acceptance of that ignorance within, its simple experiencing. And set aside all that knowledge which covers that ignorance. Then two things will happen. First, the ignorance within that knowledge has veiled will be revealed. Second, the mystery outside that knowledge has obscured will become mysterious again. Whatever we begin to feel we know ceases to be mysterious for us.
New friends have come here. Seeing this place they will feel delight. Why? Because the place is new; it will appear very mysterious. Its trees are new, its breezes are new. But for those who live here the mystery will have ended. People go to see Kashmir and the Himalayas. But one who lives there sees nothing. He has the notion that he knows.
The poet Byron married in his final days. For months he had been mad after the woman he married. The marriage was very difficult to bring about. But he finally won and it happened. He was walking down the church steps holding his newly wed wife’s hand. The bells that had been rung in celebration of the wedding were still sounding, the candles lit for the ceremony had not yet gone out. He took her down the steps and seated her in the carriage. Just then another woman appeared on the road—and in that instant his wife vanished from his eyes, and the other woman alone filled them. He even forgot that his wife’s hand was in his hand—the wife for whom he had been mad for years; had he not obtained her, perhaps he would have committed suicide, or gone mad, or who knows what.
A moment later he came to himself—the other woman had passed—and he said to his wife, A very strange thing has happened! The very moment my marriage to you was complete, I find that in you there is no charm for me, no juice, no savor. All the longing to possess you has dissolved. And just now another woman appeared before me, and in a moment you vanished for me and my desire pursued her, and I dreamed in an instant of possessing her—and you were not there for me! And I know, had I not married you, I would have dreamed of you all my life; perhaps I could not even have lived without that dream!
Perhaps even Byron did not understand what had happened. What happened is what always happens: the moment we possess a thing—the moment the mind believes it knows—the entire mystery is drained out of it. That is the whole frenzy of life. That which we have not attained seems juicy, meaningful. We attain it: the juice disappears, the meaning dissolves. Because it seems to us that we have gotten it, known it, finished.
But such a state of mind—one that, in this way, takes mere acquaintance to be knowledge—becomes inert; it loses sensitivity; it loses mystery. And in a person whose life has lost mystery, religion can have no place. He may chant Rama-Rama as much as he likes, but his chanting has no meaning. He may read the Gita and the Quran as much as he likes; that too has no meaning. If the whole of life does not appear mysterious to him, then all these things have no meaning.
The mysteriousness of life, the unknownness of life, the unacquaintedness of life—when that unknown finds a door in the heart, then the realization of Paramatma, of truth, begins. So let me say: the learned never come to know Paramatma. The pandits have never had any relationship with God till now, nor will they ever have. Not till now, not in the future—for they live in the illusion that they know.
A few months before Socrates’ death there was an incident. There was a man upon whom a goddess would descend; in possession he would speak. People asked him questions and he would give answers. Someone asked him, Who is the greatest knower in Athens? The entranced man said, Socrates. People went to Socrates and said, An announcement has been made that you are the greatest knower.
Socrates said, Go back and tell them there has surely been some mistake. When I was a small child, I felt I knew very much. When I became a young man, many bricks fell from the house of my knowing, many walls collapsed. My house of knowledge became a ruin. In youth I realized that what I knew was very little. But since I have begun to grow old, now the house has fallen completely—no house remains. Now I know that I know nothing at all. So go back and say that Socrates is the great ignoramus. There is some error in your saying that he is the greatest knower in Athens. He is the great ignoramus.
They returned and told the entranced man, There is some mistake. Socrates himself says, I am a great ignoramus.
The entranced one said, Precisely! For this very reason I said there is none more knowing than he.
When one becomes aware of his ignorance—fully aware of his entire ignorance—a revolution occurs in his life. And what he comes to know through that revolution—that alone is knowing, that alone is knowledge. All else is false; all else is ignorance.
In the search for truth, or in the search for oneself, the first point is the sense of ignorance. Do we have the sense of ignorance?
Neither the theist has it nor the atheist. The theist says, God is. The atheist says, God is not. Both appear to know. No—they have no sense. One who senses his ignorance cannot say either that it is or that it is not...
That which is utterly unknown, life is related to that...
All his life Socrates demolished the house we are busy fortifying and enlarging. We are ignorant in childhood; by old age we have become knowing. Socrates must have been very upside down—knowing in childhood, ignorant in old age.
But this is how it appears to me as well. If there is knowledge in childhood, it is all right. To be knowing is to be childish. Hence in childhood it still befits one to be under the delusion that he knows. But in old age it does not befit. One who truly grows old—his knowledge dissolves with the years. By the time he becomes old he becomes utterly ignorant. Nothing remains of which he can say, I know. This is the right and proper growth. It means he has become mature, he has ripened, he is no longer a child.
About Lao Tzu there is a famous saying that he was born old. A strange thing—that a man should be born old! What would be the signs of being born old? Later, when someone asked him, There is a rumor that you were born old!—Lao Tzu said, Yes. Even in childhood I did not have the delusion that I know.
But such children are hard to find, who do not have the delusion that they know. The misfortune today is that even such old people are hard to find.
As the vision of life develops, it becomes clear that man is very small and life is very vast. Our intellect is tiny and truth is immense—boundless, infinite. How shall we know? How will knowing be possible? And this knowing—what is it except our ego? No—knowing cannot happen in this manner. Yet we go on accumulating. We memorize the Gita and become learned. We read the Quran and become learned. We learn to repeat a few words and become learned. We learn to repeat—Upanishadic sayings, Vedic verses, the words of Mahavira and Buddha, the utterances of the saints—and we become learned. We become learned so cheaply there is no measure. We study a little and we become knowers. And those who have not studied—we become their gurus. We look down on them and look up to ourselves.
All this so-called knowing is decoration for the ego, nothing else. And the more the ego fattens, the more difficult things become. Because that much inertia grows within, that much sensitivity withers, that much capacity to be related to life diminishes—we become that much more unworthy.
So this mind of ours that memorizes the Gita, studies the Upanishads, learns the Bible and the Quran—this mind will never know Paramatma, never. Because whatever it comes to know, the idea that I am knowing is utterly false. By knowing words truth is not known. By knowing words love is not known. By knowing words God is not known. Yet there is a great net of words—and that is our knowledge.
There was a Baul fakir in Bengal. Bauls dance, sing, and speak of love. Bauls are not learned. No true fakir is a learned man. And if he is learned, know well—he is no fakir. A great pandit came to that Baul. He was a Vaishnava scholar; the scriptures were on his tongue; his fame extended far and wide. He came and said to the fakir, I have heard you speak of love. But do you even know how many kinds of love there are?
By nature, the pandit always asks in the language of kinds. He asks, How many kinds of love are there? Which God do you accept—of the Hindus or the Muslims? How many kinds of God are there? Which truth do you accept—the Gita’s or the Quran’s? He always asks in kinds. The scholar’s language is the language of kinds. So he asked. There is nothing to be offended at, nothing to laugh at; the pandit has always asked like this.
He asked the fakir, How many kinds of love are there? You go on with this love-love day and night! Do you know how many kinds of love there are?
The fakir was in a difficulty. He said, Love I have known, but kinds I have not come upon till today. Love I have certainly known, but kinds never arose on my path. You give me knowledge! You tell me!
The pandit took a book out of his bag. The pandit always carries a book. Some keep it in the bag; those who are strong, powerful, keep it on the head. Some keep it in the bag—those who are weak keep it in the bag. Those with a good memory keep it in the head. But there is less weight in the bag; there is more weight on the head. The head is very small, and if too many books are placed there, the head becomes very heavy. So it is better to keep them in the bag. But the bag-carrying pandit is considered a lesser pandit. Hence the real pandit keeps them in the head.
He took the book out of the bag. He must not have been a full pandit, otherwise why would he go to a fakir at all! He was a little short—he kept the book in the bag; therefore he went. He read out some aphorisms and said, Love is of five kinds. He read the sutras, explained them, clarified. Then he asked the fakir, Well, how did it feel? Right or wrong?
The fakir stood up and began to dance. This was not very appropriate. The pandit had come for debate; to answer by dancing was not proper in any way. But fakirs have their own way of answering. He began to dance and sang a song. In that song he said something very wondrous. He sang, O pandit, O learned one, you ask how your words felt to me. They felt to me as once when a jeweler took his touchstone and went into a garden of flowers, and began to test the flowers on the stone to see which flower is true and which false. As the gardener would have felt, so I too felt. When you began to enumerate the kinds of love and to test them on logic, I felt as if someone had taken the jeweler’s touchstone into a flower garden and was testing flowers on it—that is how I felt.
The pandit must have thought—madman. The pandit has always considered those who love to be mad. Because the pandit does not know love. He would have stood up and gone away: What is there to talk with such a man! But what the fakir said was extraordinary. Where are the kinds in love! And one who knows the kinds of love will never know love. Because in relation to love he has learned a few words. Words have their own mathematics, their own net. Words have their own cleverness, their own art. And we are all sitting with words we have learned. And learning these words is what we have called knowledge.
These very words have become our hindrance; these words are the obstruction. This is the wall that cuts us off from what surrounds us on all sides. This wall of words must be pulled down, this wall of words must be erased. The wall of theories and words has erected Hindus and Muslims, Jains and Christians, Buddhists and Parsis. Because the walls of words are different for each, they are different.
And what is the distance? Between me and you what distance is there other than words? Between a Hindu and a Muslim what wall is there other than words? One has learned the words of the Quran; another has learned the words of the Gita. Their words are different; hence the two persons are different. And over words humanity has been fighting for thousands of years. Man has been killing man for words. They say, The Gita’s words are true and the Quran’s are false. Over this they fight; over this they kill. Over this they have killed; temples and mosques have been burned; men have been destroyed. And these words that can break man from man—how will these words connect man to God?
Words cannot connect man to God! Words even cut one man off from another. That which cuts man from man can never become a connecting link between man and Paramatma.
The wordless connects man to God. And only the wordless connects man to man. Whenever we become wordless and silent toward someone, only then do we connect. That is why in love words become difficult to find. With one we love it becomes difficult to speak—for what to say? Between us, between the two of us, words are lost. With the one we love, words fall away between us. And when words fall, then heart reaches heart. Words are only the business of the intellect. And intellect separates; it never joins. The heart joins. The heart has no words. The pandit remains only intellect; his heart is lost.
So this wall of words, of theories, has to be dropped.
But this is precisely what we go on learning. It may be that some friends have come even here—so they may take away a few more words from here. Then they will strengthen their wall further.
Here, in these three days, we are to attempt to break the wall. If you leave here utterly ignorant, the work is done. When you go, if you begin to feel that I know nothing at all—the work is done.
This state of not-knowing—this bhava, this feeling-state of not knowing—is the first step of the religious mind. In not-knowing a man becomes utterly simple; in knowing he becomes complex. And knowing is utterly untrue; not-knowing is utterly true. It is a fact that we do not know; it is pure imagination that we know.
But it is very difficult to break this wall. The greatest difficulty is that no one wishes to accept himself as ignorant, to know himself as ignorant. We all want to know ourselves as learned. We all want to think ourselves learned. Who is willing to agree to being ignorant?
One morning Tolstoy went to church. A very big man of the village—a pandit, wealthy and famous—was already there. It was Sunday, and he was praying to God early in the church. It was dark. Tolstoy stood behind. The famous man stood with folded hands, saying to God, O Supreme Lord, I am utterly ignorant; I know nothing; I am a sinner; I have committed many sins. He said all these things.
Tolstoy heard. He was delighted, and amazed. He said, We had no idea that this pandit too is ignorant! Let me run and tell the village that we were in illusion in thinking this man is a pandit. In the church he was telling God, I am ignorant. And we were in illusion, thinking him a great saint. There he was saying, I am a great sinner.
The man came out, and Tolstoy also came out behind. Morning was dawning; the village was waking; people were moving. When they reached the crossroads, Tolstoy said, Stop! He said to the pandit, Wait! What you were saying in the church—I will gather the people here at the crossroads and tell them. The whole village is under the misapprehension that you are learned and virtuous.
The man said, Silence! If you say that here, I will take you to court. That was a matter between me and God. There is no need to say it here among all.
We too—between ourselves and God—know very well that we are ignorant; very well we know it, very well that we are utterly ignorant. But who will say it before everyone? Who will say it in the marketplace? And thus false knowledge keeps increasing in the world. The father gives to the son what he himself did not know; he hands it on. The son asks, Who created the world? The father says, God did. And if the son doubts, he says, You are spoiled, the Dark Age has come. We know, and you doubt! And he himself does not know! In this way, in the name of knowledge, great ignorance goes on from generation to generation. Now the whole world is troubled; five or six thousand years of such ignorance has piled up on everyone’s mind. The father gives it to the son; the son then to his sons—and so on. And no one, in simple honesty, admits, I do not know.
But one who does not admit this—in total simplicity, with his whole being—will never be capable of knowing. This ego of knowing has to be dropped. And in dropping it, nothing is lost. It is only a delusion that we know. Reflect a little, think a little, and it will begin to be seen—we do not know, we do not know. We have believed. For centuries we have been told: Believe. And under belief darkness is hidden—do not look at it. Behind belief doubt is hidden—do not look at it. In this way we have created a peculiar state of mind. Darkness is hidden, doubt is hidden; we have donned the garments of belief and the garments of knowledge.
This state is inauspicious. What is to be done to drop it? Nothing is to be done—only to see this truth is enough for it to drop. And whenever you begin to talk knowledgeably, be a little alert: you are speaking of things you do not know. Of matters with which you have no connection, no living tie, you speak as if they were truth. A little awareness is needed. And within the mind a little search is needed: Where is my knowledge rooted? You will find no roots there, no roots of knowledge. They are leaves stuck on from above, flowers fixed from outside—paper flowers, false. This knowledge must be dropped.
So I do not say to you, renounce the world. I do not say, renounce your wife and children. I do not say, leave life and run to the mountains. I say, climb down a little from the mountain of ego. Climb down a little from this mountain of knowing on which you are seated—this mountain of knowing is utterly false. Come to the ground. A very deep truth is this straightforward recognition: that you do not know.
And if this begins to be seen, then this very life becomes another life—because your vision becomes different. These same plants, these same birds’ voices will begin to bring a music from afar. These very breezes will become news of Paramatma. These people sitting around you will begin to appear entirely different. Seen from the idea of knowing, they appear one way; seen from the place of not-knowing, they become something else. All becomes mysterious. It all becomes a mystery.
Edison once went to a village. The children of that village—there was a small school—had made some small electrical devices. They took them to show Edison. They did not even know that about electricity no one upon the earth knew as much as Edison. The village children said, Please come too. Edison went. He did not say, I know electricity very well; what will you show me!
Edison was no pandit. He went. Their little toys—a little car that ran by electricity, a fan that ran by electricity, some other things—he saw them all and was very happy. In the end he said, My children, you have done wonderful work, made fine things. May I ask you one thing—What is electricity? What is this electricity? Will you tell me?
The children stood dumbfounded. Their teacher too stood dumbfounded. What is electricity? They felt very sad within that they were so ignorant, unable to answer such a simple question. Edison said, Do not be worried; do not be worried. Perhaps upon the whole earth no one has worked in relation to electricity as much as I have—and I too do not know what electricity is! I too do not know what electricity is. Yes, we have learned to use electricity. What electricity is—I do not know either!
This man is religious—one who could say about electricity, I do not know what electricity is. Such humility can only be in one who has the sense of his ignorance. One who has the sense of his knowledge can never be humble. One who has the Gita by heart—can he be humble somewhere? Never, never—there is no possibility. He cannot be humble; he knows. Hence pandits have been debating. Were there humility, how would debate happen? They have done scriptural duels, losing and defeating. This losing and defeating, this roaming the land with flags to win, to defeat someone or be defeated by someone—what madness is this? Has it any relation with a religious mind? It has nothing at all to do with a religious mind. It is the entire mischief of the so-called knowers.
A fakir named Farid was on a pilgrimage. On the way lay Kabir’s ashram in Maghar. Farid’s friends, his companions, said, Stay for two days—Kabir’s ashram is there. If you both meet and talk it will be a great joy. On the other side, Kabir’s friends had heard as well; they said, Farid is passing this way—if we can keep him two days in the ashram, it will be wonderful.
But a strange thing happened. When Farid’s disciples said, Stay, Farid said, I will certainly stay—but what shall we talk? I know nothing. And when Kabir’s disciples said, Stop Farid, Kabir said, I will certainly keep him—but what shall we talk? I know nothing.
The disciples thought, Saints always speak in this upside-down way. They kept them anyway for two days. Two days Farid and Kabir stayed in one place. They met, embraced each other, laughed a lot—but no conversation could happen.
After two days Kabir himself went to see Farid off outside the village. The disciples were very disturbed during those two days, very troubled. Expectations fell flat; a kind of boredom must have come. They would seat the two together; they would sit, sometimes laugh, and sit. Then the farewell was done.
As soon as the farewell ended, Kabir’s disciples asked Kabir, and Farid’s disciples asked Farid, What happened? They said, We told you already—we have reached that place where we know nothing. Now what shall we do?
If we search within our own minds, we too will reach that place where we know nothing. We are already there; to reach it is not far. If one wishes to undertake the journey of knowledge, perhaps it is very difficult—learn, learn, learn. So people ask me, Can we know God right now? I say, Right now! Because if there is learning to do, it will take time. But if there is unlearning to do, how will time be needed? If knowledge is to be collected, time is needed; to collect knowledge takes time. A boy takes seven years to pass matric; for a master’s another six; fifteen or twenty years go in study. If we read scriptures, time will be needed; if we want to be learned, time will be needed. But if we want to know that I am not learned—then where is time? Only ego can be the obstacle; there is no other hindrance. What question of time? It can happen this very moment! Now! Here! Where is there even the scope of delay by a moment? Let it be seen—It is done: I do not know. And the whole house of knowledge will collapse like a house of cards; like a castle of sand before a gust of wind.
Only ego is the obstacle. If there is fear of being ignorant, then there is no way—then it will take a long time; then lifetimes may pass and still the work will not be done. But if there is the courage to be ignorant—and upon this earth the greatest courage is the courage to be ignorant—if there is this courage, then the thing is done this very moment. Why even a moment’s delay? Does it not happen now? Is it not already done?
No—but within something says, No. The books I mastered with such effort—shall I leave them all as worthless? So many scriptures I memorized—shall I drop them just like that? Will they go to water? The labor of my life—the memorizing of verses and sutras, how much effort, how many nights I ruined, how many mornings I rose early, with what difficulty I gathered all this—and will it all just go away?
If such a thing is there in the mind, then he will stop. He will stop as long as we hold him. The day we open our fist, it will scatter and vanish. And a wondrous event occurs: the day knowledge scatters and falls, that day the mind becomes utterly simple; that day the intellect dissolves; what remains is the heart. That day what we call buddhi—the intellect—becomes a zero, and the heart remains. That heart knows, lives, recognizes, sees, and enters into the universal being.
So this morning I want to say the first sutra to you: I want to take away your knowledge. I say, I teach ignorance. Blessed are those who become capable of dropping knowledge. This is a great courage. To run away from the family is no great courage. The truth is that people are so bored in the family that whoever gets the chance will run away. Hence to leave the family is no great courage. In fact the weakest people are the first to run away from the family. Weakness is enough to leave the family; strength is not needed. The strong keep enduring; the weak run away; they become sannyasis. The weak, who do not have the courage to stand in the struggle of life, escape, flee. And they decorate their escape with good words—they left the world because it was worthless. Just like the fox once said, The grapes are sour. The weak run away. Weakness always says, Run. Running away is always the slogan of weakness. Strength says, Stay. Weakness says, Run. So to leave home and run away is not difficult at all. If ever there can be a true reckoning of men, those who run away from the world will be proved sick and weak.
So there is no purpose in running away from the family or from life. And those who run away from the family and society—even they never leave the knowledge that society gave them. If they were Hindus, then after leaving society they remain Hindus—what a wonder! If they were Jains, after leaving society they remain Jains—what a wonder! They are called Jain sadhus, Hindu sadhus. Where have they run from society? How have they been freed? That which society placed in their mind, they still cling to; they still polish it; still Jain, still Hindu.
Can a sadhu be Hindu or Jain or Muslim? And if he is, then certainly he is not a sadhu—he is something else. He is a householder who has fled; not a sadhu, not a sannyasi. Sannyas too, saintliness too, certainly renounces—but not society, not life; rather it renounces the knowledge that society lodges in the mind. Because the knowledge given by others can never be my knowledge. That which others have given can never be my knowing. It will always be false, illusory—because it is given by another. Knowledge is not transferable, not transmittable, that I give it to you and you give it to me. No one can give knowledge to anyone. Knowledge can be realized—but not taken and given.
So this knowledge received from others—dropping it is essential, so that that which is not received from anyone may become available; that which awakens in one’s life-breath, rises and unfolds. But it unfolds only when we drop the supports given by others.
There is a law of life-energy: it awakens only when it is left without support. If you had the facility to walk without legs, gradually the energy of the legs would disappear. If you had the facility to work without hands, the strength of the hands would return to sleep and go. If we ask a man to live with his eyes closed for two years—live with eyes closed—the power of the eyes will return inward to sleep; there will be no need for it. If we stop speaking, after two or four years we will no longer be able to speak; speaking will be lost; the capacity will fall back asleep.
It is a law of life-force: the power we use and the power we challenge—only that power awakens and becomes active. The power we stop challenging, stop using—falls asleep.
Within us knowledge is asleep because we have depended on others’ knowledge. When another’s knowledge does the job, there is no need for one’s own knowing to awaken; the life-energy remains asleep. If we reject all others’ knowledge, if we dust it off, if we become empty of it—then the challenge that will arise, the pressure that will come in life, that very pressure will awaken the sleeping fountains of knowing within.
Only those in the world come to know in the direction of truth who drop whatever has been known about truth. Then their own life-breaths take over that which they had placed upon others’ shoulders—for which they were seeking others’ support. When all support is lost, their own strength begins to awaken—when there is no support.
For knowledge we have taken supports; hence knowledge will never awaken. For knowledge, becoming supportless is necessary. Becoming supportless means standing in the state of ignorance. For today I will say only this much: stand in the state of ignorance if you wish knowledge to be born within. Leave the known if you wish the door to the unknown to open. Forget what you know if you wish to know that which you do not know. That which is not yet known—if you wish to know it—then drop that which you know, that which you fancy you are knowing. Freedom from knowledge is essential if truly knowledge is to be attained.
In this direction I will speak two more sutras tomorrow morning and the day after. Now we will sit for the morning meditation, so let me say a few things about the morning meditation.
The very first thing: this meditation is not concentration. Concentration has been taken to be meditation. Ask someone, What is meditation? He will say: The mind becoming one-pointed is meditation. But the mind becoming one-pointed is not meditation at all. A restless mind is not meditation, and a concentrated mind is not meditation. Restlessness and concentration are two faces of the same coin. Meditation is something different from both. Meditation is that state where the mind is neither restless nor concentrated.
Restlessness means: the mind keeps changing from one object to another, and from the second to a third. Concentration means: the mind remains stuck on one object. In both cases there is some object. In restlessness there are changing objects; in concentration there is one fixed object. Meditation means: where no object remains, where nothing is left as the content, where only we remain alone and no object remains, no subject remains.
In restlessness, subjects change; objects change. In concentration, the object remains one. In meditation no object remains—it is objectlessness. There, no content is. There only consciousness remains, and no one else....