Questions

Is it a very good sign that one has no questions to ask?

If really it happens that you have no questions to ask, it is a tremendous phenomenon. It is one of the most beautiful _ states of mind; because when there are no questions, that nonquestioning consciousness is the answer to all questions. Not that you get the answers, but, simply, questions dissolve. The mind becomes nontense, because each question is a tension, is a worry; it is an anxiety. And no answer is going to solve the question. The questioning mind is the problem, not the question. Your question can be answered, but from the answer your questioning mind will create a thousand and one more questions; you will reduce every answer into many more questions. It never helps. It helps only when all questions drop, when consciousness transcends questioning, when you understand that there is nothing to be asked, nothing to be answered. Life is a mystery, not a…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION WE SHOULD ASK YOU, OSHO? There is not even a first question, so the question about the last question does not arise. You should learn to be silent, to be at ease with me, to be in tune with me. In that silent harmony all is achieved: all the treasures that existence has been keeping safe for you, so that when you wake up you can claim your portion. And everybody's portion of the treasure is infinite. It is not that because it is a portion, it will be limited. The upanishadic seers have said: You can take out even the whole from the whole, yet the whole remains behind. Existence is such a mystery that it can give to each person infinite treasure, eternal life, unbounded beauty. So don't be worried about the last question.

Beloved Osho, after all, what can we ask? Yet you have made us ask questions!

In Japan there is a tradition: whenever someone comes to a Zen master, he brings his sitting mat with him. He unrolls the mat, sits on it, and asks his question. Then he has to leave his mat there, and each day, whenever he has a question to ask, he comes and sits on his mat and asks the question. This sometimes continues for years together. Then a day comes when he becomes tired of this asking and being answered, and he realizes that all this is just nonsense. He rolls up his mat, puts it under his arm, and leaves. The day he rolls up his mat, the master says, "Have you rolled up your mat? Good! My blessings to you!" Rolling up the mat is symbolic of getting tired of asking questions and getting answers to them, of asking and listening. Now he stops both, and from that…

Osho, what is there that we can even ask? Still, you have had us ask questions—why?

You may feel you cannot ask, that asking seems difficult—but the mind you have can hold nothing except questions. This is your catharsis. I say to you: ask, so that your catharsis can happen. The mind anyway goes on asking. You may not gather the courage to voice a question; you may hesitate, feel afraid—but the mind goes on asking continually. In the mind, only questions stick; answers never do. The mind is a process that produces questions. The mind raises questions about everything. So it may happen that out of modesty or etiquette you do not ask me, or out of fear of what people will say: that the question is too small, not worth asking; that it is absurd, irrelevant, unbecoming; that asking it will make you look so ignorant that even this has not been resolved in you. Because of such fears, you don’t ask. But you…