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No question is ever complete, because the completion of a question will mean it has its
answer in itself.
A question by its very nature is incomplete. It is a desire, a longing, an inquiry, because
something needs to be completed.
It is part of human consciousness that it demands completion. Leave anything incomplete
and it becomes an obsession; complete it and you are free of it. Completion brings
freedom.
Hence, it is not only your questions that are incomplete. You are more alert that you have
seen the incompleteness of each question.
Secondly, you don't know what to ask. Nobody knows. All of our questions are out of our
ignorance, out of our unconscious, out of our dark soul. Nobody knows exactly what his
question is, what is essential to be asked -- because the moment you know what your
question is, you will immediately find the answer within yourself.
To be absolutely confident about the question means the answer is not very far. It is very
close, because confidence comes from the answer, not from the question.
But still, man has to ask.
Although all questions are incomplete and you do not know what to ask, still man has to
ask because man cannot remain silent. It is possible not to ask -- that does not mean you
don't have questions, that simply means you are not bringing them out. Perhaps you are
afraid to be exposed, because each question will indicate towards your ignorance.
There are millions of people who never ask for the simple reason that to be silent at least
appears to be wise. To ask the question is to show your wounds, is to show all the dark
spots in your being. It needs courage.
Secondly, there are questions which are not out of your ignorance but out of your
borrowed knowledge -- which are the worst questions possible.
A question that comes out of ignorance is innocent, has purity. It is unpolluted,
uncorrupted; it shows your courage, your trust.
But there are questions which come out of your borrowed knowledge. You have heard
much, you have read much, you have been informed from the parents, teachers, priests,
politicians, all kinds of demogogues, all kinds of pretenders to knowledge -- and you
have been collecting their whole garbage.
Purna has sent me a beautiful present: a very artistic, beautiful wastepaper basket with a
note -- "Osho, if you feel my questions are just garbage, throw them in this wastepaper
basket. You need not answer them."
Questions coming out of knowledge are garbage.
You don't know anything about God, the universe; you don't know anything about the
soul, reincarnation, future lives, past lives. All that you know is simply hearsay. People
have been chattering around you and you are collecting all kinds of information that
seems to be important to you. Why does it seem important? -- it seems important because
it covers your ignorance. It helps you to feel as if you know. But remember, it is a very
big `as if.' You do not know, it is only as if.
All holy scriptures, all books on philosophy, theology should be categorized into one
category: as if. They are talking about every possible impossible thing they know nothing
of, but they are articulate, imaginative intellectuals who can create systems out of
nothing.
That's why no philosopher agrees with any other philosopher. And every philosopher
thinks that he has found the whole system that explains everything in the world -- and all
other philosophers laugh at him; they find thousands of loopholes in his system. But as
far as they themselves are concerned, they commit the same mistake: they claim that their
system is complete and now there is no question of further inquiry.
And the strangest thing is that these are the people who are very insightful in seeing the
loopholes of others, but they cannot see the loopholes of their own system. Perhaps they
don't want to see. They are there, everybody else can see them; it is impossible that they
themselves are not seeing them. They are ignoring them, hoping that nobody sees them.
Every philosophy has failed.
Every religion has failed.
You are carrying the ruins of all the philosophies and all the religions in your mind, and
out of those ruins, questions arise. Those questions are meaningless; you should not ask
them. They really show your stupidity.
But questions arising out of your ignorance -- just like a child asking -- those questions
are incomplete, not very great questions, but tremendously important.
One day a small child was walking with D.H. Lawrence in a garden, and was
continuously asking questions of all kinds. And D.H. Lawrence was one of the most
sincere men of this century, condemned by governments, by priests because of his
sincerity, because he would say only the truth, because he was not ready to be diplomatic,
a hypocrite, because he would not compromise. Even before this small child he showed
such authentic sincerity, which even your great saints have not shown.
The child asked, "Why are the trees green?" -- a very simple question, but very profound.
All the trees are green -- why? What is the matter with the trees? When there are so many
colors, when the whole rainbow of colors is available -- some tree can be yellow, some
tree can be red, some tree can be blue -- why have all the trees chosen to be green?
In D. H. Lawrence's place, any parent, any teacher, any priest, anybody -- x, y, z -- would
have told some lie, that "God made them green because green is very soothing to the
eyes." But this would have been deceptive, a lie, because D.H. Lawrence does not know
anything about God, does not know why the trees are green.
In fact, no scientist who has been working with the trees knows, although he can show
that it is because of a certain element, chlorophyl, that trees are green. But that is not the
answer for the child. He will simply ask, "Why have they chosen chlorophyl -- all the
trees?" It is not a satisfactory answer.
D.H. Lawrence closed his eyes, waited for a moment in silence... what to say to this
child? He did not want to be a deceiving person to an innocent child -- although the
question is ordinary, any answer would do. But the question has come from innocence;
hence it is very profound.
And D. H. Lawrence opened his eyes, looked at the trees and said to the child, "The trees
are green because they are green."
The child said, "Right. I was also thinking that."
But D.H. Lawrence remembered it in his memoirs: "To me it was a great experience --
the love and the trust the child showed towards me because of sheer sincerity. My answer
was not an answer; according to logicians, it was a tautology. `The trees are green
because they are green' -- is this an answer?"
In fact, D.H. Lawrence is accepting that: My child, I am as much ignorant as you are. Just
because there is a difference of age does not mean that I know and you do not know. The
difference of age is not the difference between ignorance and knowledge.
Trees being green is part of the mystery of the whole existence.
Things are what they are.
A woman is a woman, a man is a man. A rose is a rose; call it by any name, it still
remains the rose.
That morning, in that small incident, something tremendously beautiful is hidden.
Ask questions -- not out of knowledge because all that knowledge is borrowed,
unfounded, pure rubbish.
Ask out of your ignorance.
Remember, the ignorance is yours -- be proud of it.
The knowledge is not yours. How can you be proud of it?
And the question is not to cover the ignorance. The question is to bring some light, so
that the ignorance, the darkness, disappears.
I cannot give you any better answer than D.H. Lawrence, but I can give you something
else which Lawrence has no insight about.
I can give you a space, a silence in which you can realize the mystery on your own.
You ask the question, whatever the question is. Just remember: don't ask out of
knowledge, ask out of your own authentic ignorance.
And my answers are not answers, in fact. My answers are killers -- they simply kill the
question, they take away the question, they don't give you any answer to hold on to.
And that is the difference between a teacher and a master: the teacher gives you answers
so that you can hold those answers and remain ignorant -- beautifully decorated on the
surface, libraries full of answers, but underneath, below the surface, an abysmal
ignorance.
The master simply kills your questions.
He does not give you an answer, he takes away the question.
If all your questions can be taken away... listen carefully to what I am saying:
If all your questions can be taken away, your ignorance is bound to disappear, and what
remains is innocence.
And innocence is a light unto itself.
In that innocence you don't know any question, any answer, because the whole realm of
questions and answers is left behind. It has become irrelevant, you have transcended it.
You are pure of questions and pure of answers.
This state is enlightenment. And if you are courageous enough, you can go even beyond
it.
This will give you all the beautiful experiences described by the mystics down the ages:
Your heart will dance with ecstasy, your whole being will become a beautiful sunrise...
thousands of lotuses blossoming in you.
If you want, you can make your home here.
In the past, people have stopped here, because where can you find a better place? Gautam
Buddha has called this place the "Lotus Paradise."
But if you are a born seeker....
I will suggest: have a little rest, enjoy all the beauties of enlightenment but don't make it a
full-stop.
Go beyond, because life, its journey, is unending and much more is going to happen
which is absolutely indescribable.
The experience of enlightenment is also beyond description, but it has been described by
all who have experienced it. They all say it is beyond description and still they describe it
-- that it is full of light, that it is full of joy, that it is the ultimate in blissfulness. If this is
not description then what is description?
I am saying it for the first time: for thousands of years the people who have become
enlightened have been saying that it cannot be described, and at the same time have been
describing it, have been their whole lives singing it.
But beyond enlightenment you certainly enter into a world which is indescribable.
Because in enlightenment you still are; otherwise who is feeling the blissfulness, who is
seeing the light? Kabir says, "... as if thousands of suns have risen." Who is seeing it?
Enlightenment is the ultimate experience -- but still it is experience, and the experiencer
is there.
Going beyond it, there is no experiencer.
You dissolve.
First you were trying to dissolve your problems; now you dissolve -- because
existentially you are the problem. Your separation from existence is the only question
which has to be solved.
You lose your boundaries, you are no more. Who is there to experience?
You need tremendous courage to drop the ego to achieve enlightenment.
You will need a million times more courage to drop yourself to attain the beyond -- and
the beyond is the real.
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