Doubt

Question: BELOVED MASTER, IS DOUBT REALLY OKAY? Doubt is the very foundation of all human growth. Belief is the poison -- doubt is the nectar. Doubt does not mean disbelief, because disbelief is again negative belief; it is not doubt. So don't get confused between doubt and disbelief. Doubt is simply the open mind, inquiring. Doubt means only a question mark. Doubt means, "I do not know, and I want to know, and I am ready to travel to the very end. But I will not accept any borrowed knowledge -- I want to know on my own." Yes, doubt is absolutely okay. Okay?

Beloved Osho, can you say something about doubt and negativity? What is the difference?

In Soviet Russia man has been reduced to a mechanism. You can kill -- nothing is killed, because there was nobody in the first place. It is just like a clock functioning. It moves, it shows you the time; that does not mean that there is somebody inside. You can take the clock apart and you will not find anything. I have heard.... Once Mulla Nasruddin's clock stopped. It was an old clock, and some day everything has to stop. He opened the clock and found there a fly, dead. He said, "Now I know the clock is dead -- this is the clock's soul!" He was just going to bury the clock in the garden when his wife caught hold of him. She said, "What are you doing? Have you gone mad? Clocks are not buried, graves are not made for them!" Nasruddin said, "Those people have never known…

Osho, I know for sure that my wife is utterly faithful to me, but still doubt goes on lingering somewhere inside me. What should I do to get rid of the doubt?

IN THE first place, why should you ask that she should be faithful to you? It is from there that doubt arises. The very desire that your wife should be faithful TO YOU is the beginning of doubt. Why? Who are you that she should be faithful to you? She should be faithful to herself, you should be faithful to yourself. That's what love is. If you love the woman, you would like her to be faithful to herself, because you would like her to be authentic. You would like her to be an individual in her own right. Why should you demand that she should be faithful to you? Who are you? -- just a stranger. YOU need not be faithful to her, you have to be faithful to yourself. This is my basic approach; it has to be understood well. Down the ages it has been said: be…

Question: First question: Osho, can doubt arise even in faith? Never. I wish you had asked, “Can faith arise in doubt?” I would say, certainly. And how else will it arise? Man lives in doubt. Doubt is his natural condition. We are born in the night of doubt. We are searching for the dawn, looking for morning, waiting for the sun. Faith can arise in doubt—and let me add, only in doubt. Those who avoid doubt avoid faith. You have been taught very wrong things for centuries. You have been told, “Drop doubt.” I say to you, doubt—doubt to your heart’s content; doubt totally. Do not leave even a grain, because whatever you leave will haunt you later. Better to settle it now. Doubt—why be afraid? Truth is so vast; doubt cannot destroy truth. If truth is, what can doubt do?