NotKnowing

“I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.” ~Socrates

 "And see there's nothing we can know!

That all but burns my heart right out." -Goethe

Osho:

"One has to be innocent Not knowing is the most intimate. Knowing creates distance.

You ask me: WHY ISN'T KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCRIPTURES HELPFUL IN FINDING THE TRUTH?

For the simple reason that if you accumulate knowledge you will be starting to believe in conclusions. You will already conclude what truth is without KNOWING it, and your conclusion will become the greatest hindrance. Truth has to be approached in utter nudity, in utter purity, in silence, in a state of innocence, child-like wonder and awe; not knowing already, not full of the rubbish called knowledge, not full of the Vedas and the Bibles and the Korans, but utterly silent...without any thought, without any conclusion, without knowing anything about truth. When you approach in this way, suddenly truth is revealed. And truth is revealed here and now: "AH, THIS!" A great rejoicing starts happening inside you.

Truth is not separate from you; it is your innermost core. So you need not to learn it from somebody else. Then what's the function of the Masters?

The function of the Masters is to help you drop your knowledge, to help you unlearn, to help you towards a state of unconditioning. Your knowledge means you will be always looking through a curtain and that curtain will distort everything. And knowledge is dead.

Consciousness is needed, knowing is needed, a state of seeing is needed, but not knowledge. How can you know the alive through the dead?

A man stepped into a very crowded bus. After a while he took out his glass eye, threw it up in the air, then put it back in again. Ten minutes later he again took out his glass eye, threw it up in the air, then put it back in again.

The lady next to him was horrified. "What are you doing?" she cried.

"I am just trying to see if there is any room up front."

That's what knowledge is: a glass eye. You cannot see through it, it is impossible to see through it.

Drop all your conclusions -- Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan, Jaina, Jewish. Drop all the knowledge that has been forced upon you. Every child has been poisoned -- poisoned by knowledge, poisoned by the parents, the society, the church, the state. Every child has been distracted from his innocence, from his not-knowing. And that's why every child, slowly slowly, becomes so burdened that he loses all joy of life, all ecstasy of being, and he becomes just like the crowd, part of the crowd.

In fact, the moment a child is perfectly conditioned by you, you are very happy; you call it "religious education." You are very happy that the child has been initiated into the religion of his parents. All that you have done is you have destroyed his capacity to know on his own. You have destroyed his authenticity. You have destroyed his very precious innocence. You have closed his doors and windows. Now he will live an encapsulated existence. He will live in his inner darkness, surrounded by all kinds of stupid theories, systems of thought, philosophies, ideologies. He will be lost in a jungle of words and he will not be able to come out of it easily.

Even if he comes across a Master, if he meets a Buddha, then too it will take years for him to unlearn -- because learning becomes almost your blood, your bones, your marrow.

And to go against your own knowledge seems to be going against yourself, against your tradition, against your country, against your religion. It seems as if you are a traitor, as if you are betraying. In fact, your society has betrayed you, has contaminated your soul.

Every society has been doing that up to now, and every society has been very successfully doing it. That's why it is so rare to find a Buddha; it is so rare to escape from the traps the society puts all around the child. And the child is so unaware; he can easily be conditioned, hypnotized. And that's what goes on and on in the temples, in the churches, in the schools, colleges, universities. They all serve the past; they don't serve the future. Their function is to perpetuate the past, the dead past.

My work here is just the opposite. I am not here to perpetuate the past; hence I am against all knowledge. I am all for learning, but learning means innocence, learning means openness, learning means receptivity. Learning means a non-egoistic approach towards reality. Learning means: "I don't know and I am ready -- ready to know." Knowledge means: "I know already." Knowledge is the greatest deception that society creates in people's minds.

My function is to serve the future, not the past. The past is no more, but the future is coming every moment. I want you to become innocent, seers, knowers -- not knowledgeable -- alert, aware, not unconsciously clinging to conclusions.

...

Eastern or Western, mind is mind; and the way is no-mind. If you are Eastern, you will have to drop the Eastern mind. If you are Western, you will have to drop the Western mind. To move into meditation, mind, as such, has to be dropped. If you are a Christian you will have to drop a Christian mind. If you are a Hindu, you will have to drop the Hindu mind. Meditation is not concerned with Christian, Hindu, Eastern, Western, Indian or German, no.

What is mind? Mind is a conditioning given to you by the society. It is an over-imposition on the original mind, which we call no-mind. Just so that you don't get confused, all mind, as such, has to be dropped. The passage has to be completely empty for the divine to enter into you. Thinking is not meditation. Even right thinking is not meditation. Wrong or right, thinking has to be dropped. When there is no thought in you, no clouds of thinking in you, the ego disappears. And remember, when the ego disappears the 'I' is not found. The questioner says that Rudolf Steiner says, "When the ego disappears, the 'I' is found." No, when the ego disappears I is not found. Nothing is found. Yes, exactly; nothing... is found."

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." - Shakespeare

"And whenever you decide what is wrong and what is right, you are there, immediately. Between the right and the wrong exists the ego. Between one thought and another thought exists the ego. Each thought brings its own ego. [...] A tension. Each thought is a tension. Even very ordinary, very innocent-looking thoughts are tensions.-

Remember, this is what meditation is all about. to destroy you so utterly that even if gods come they cannot seek you, they cannot find you. You yourself have found when such a situation arises, that not even gods can find you. There is nobody inside to be found. That 'somebodiness' is a sort of tension. That's why people who think they are somebodies are more tense. People who think that they are nobodies are less tense. People who have completely forgotten that they are, are tension-less. So remember, when the ego is lost, the 'I' is not found. When the ego is lost nothing is found. That nothingness, that purity of nothingness is your being, your innermost core, your very nature, your Buddha-nature, your awareness -- like a vast sky with no clouds gathered in it.

the way for the East or for the West is: how to unlearn thinking, how not to think, and just be. And it is needed more for the West than for the East, because in the West the whole two millennia since Aristotle have been of conditioning you for thinking, thinking, thinking. Thinking has been the goal. The thinking mind has been the goal in the West: how to become more and more accurate, scientific in your thinking. The whole scientific world arose out of this effort, because when you are working as a scientist you have to think. You have to work out in the objective world, and you have to find more accurate, exact, valid ways of thinking. And it has paid off too much. Science has been a great success, so of course people think that the same methodology will be helpful when you go inwards.

The First Part OF THE TRAGEDY -Faust

NIGHT.

In a high-vaulted, narrow Gothic chamber FAUST,

restless in his chair by his desk.

Faust. I've studied now Philosophy

And Jurisprudence, Medicine,

And even, alas! Theology

All through and through with ardour keen!

Here now I stand, poor fool, and see

I'm just as wise as formerly.

Am called a Master, even Doctor too,

And now I've nearly ten years through

Pulled my students by their noses to and fro

And up and down, across, about,

And see there's nothing we can know!

That all but burns my heart right out.