Taoism, Daoism, Tao, Dao, Lao Tzu's Tap Te Ching, Vol. 2 Tao: The three treasures, Chapter 8: In Existence There Is No Question, Question 3

The third question:

Question 3

AFTER TWO YEARS WITH YOU I SEEM TO HAVE BECOME AN IDIOT. I DON'T KNOW WHERE I'M GOING OR WHAT I WANT OR EVEN WHAT I LIKE. I FIND THIS STATE VERY PAINFUL. AND IN ALL THIS SUFFERING I FEEL THAT I AM GROWING APART FROM, RATHER THAN CLOSER TO YOU.

This is precisely what I want. You should become idiots. That is the greatest performance you can perform. That is the peak, the pinnacle, that intelligence can achieve.

This is the whole effort: you should be ignorant, you should drop all knowledge, all belief, all the rubbish that comes from accumulating words, theories, doctrines. They give you a sense of power and a sense that you are somebody and a sense of intelligence. When you stop carrying this burden of scriptures, doctrines, doctrinaires, suddenly you realize that you are an idiot, because now the ego is no longer on firm ground, it is trembling. In fact I'm trying to take the earth away from your feet. The moment will come when you will realize that you are an idiot -- it is a beautiful moment, if you understand.

You can miss it. There is more possibility of missing it. Then you can fall back on your knowledge again, and cling to it. If you understand it, immediately there is a transformation because ignorance means a cleaning. Now your slate is clean, nothing is written on it. Now your mind is empty, hollow, nothing fills it. Now there is no furniture in the mind, now the house has space. Much is possible in this space but the moment you call it idiotic, or you say to yourself, 'I am feeling like an idiot,' you have already condemned it.

Soon we will come across Lao Tzu's saying: In this whole world only I am an idiot. Everybody seems to be so wise, everybody knows where he is going to, where he is coming from, only I seem to be bewildered. Everybody seems to be so intelligent, only I seem to be muddleheaded. Soon we will come across that saying.

So try to understand this state; this state is a great passage. From the rubbish that you call knowledge you are now entering the world of being and existence. In the interval, the interim period, you will feel like an idiot. Feel and enjoy it. Don't get disturbed. What is wrong in being an idiot?

The ego suffers. That's why you feel pain. I DON'T KNOW WHERE I'M GOING OR WHAT I WANT OR EVEN WHAT I LIKE. Beautiful! That means there is nowhere to go. You can only be here and now. The goal has disappeared, now you don't feel certain where you are going. Perfectly beautiful. When the goal disappears you cannot go anywhere, you can only be here -- and here now is the goal. You feel this state as very painful because the ego has to die. The ego would like to be a knowledgeable person, not ignorant; the ego would like to cling to mere words without any content in them, because still they give you a feeling that you know something and you know where are you going. You will feel painful if you are persuaded by the ego. If you are not persuaded by the ego you will feel happy and you will celebrate. You will be happy that you have attained something worthwhile.

Don't create suffering for yourself. Try to look at this ignorance with a totally different vision. That is what I am trying to impart to you -- the vision to look at things in a totally different way. Ignorance is clean, cleaner than any knowledge; ignorance is silent, more silent than any knowledge. Knowledge is always noisy, knowledge is a market-place; ignorance is a cave somewhere deep in the Himalayas.

Knowledge is ill, ignorance is healthy. Knowledge is ill because of the ego -- the ego is the greatest disease. You cannot feed the ego if you don't cling to knowledge. If you cling, you can feel that you are somebody -- that you know something, that you are not an ignorant person; you can compare yourself to others -- that you know more, that everybody else is ignorant, stupid, but you are very intelligent, you have degrees from the universities. And you exhibit them in your sitting-room, you frame them, you bring it to everybody's notice that you are no ordinary person; you are very cultured and cultivated, knowledgeable. You go on showing your knowledge everywhere. Wherever you can get a chance, even a slight chance, you jump in and you start showing your knowledge, your software. You start arguing; you start proving yourself right. The whole effort is egoistic.

Ignorance is healthy; ignorance is innocent, innocent like a child, a newly-born babe. Ignorance is never cunning, knowledge is always cunning. When you have knowledge you call it cleverness; when somebody else has it you call it cunningness -- but cleverness and cunningness are the same.

Knowledge can deceive others. It is a criminal. Ignorance cannot deceive anybody -- at the most it can be deceived by everybody else. Ignorance is never a crime. Knowledge is active, aggressive, male; ignorance is inactive, passive, female. Ignorance is receptive, a womb; knowledge is never receptive, it is always rejecting. Have you seen people who are knowledgeable? It is very difficult for them to say yes, it is very easy to say no. No is always ready on their lips. No gives them power, the feeling of power, that they can argue and they can destroy.

Knowledge does not know how to say yes, and it misses much, misses all. Because the existence is known only by one who has given a total yes to it, who has signed a blank cheque and given it to existence. Only in that trust are mysteries revealed. You become intimate. Ignorance is wonderful.

So be an idiot, and be one totally. Don't hesitate. Then there will be no pain, no suffering. The suffering and pain is not coming from ignorance, it is coming from the dying ego.

It is also very, very important that the second part of the question should be understood: I FIND THIS STATE VERY PAINFUL. AND IN ALL THIS SUFFERING I FEEL THAT I AM GROWING APART FROM, RATHER THAN CLOSER TO YOU.

Yes, that happens. When you come near to me for the first time it is through the ego that you are close because you don't know anything else. You come as an ego. The closeness is false. How can the ego be close? It can only pretend that it is close, it can never be close. How can the ego be intimate? It is always in conflict, it can only deceive, it cannot truly be intimate and close. Closeness means that the ego should disappear, only then can you come close. If you are surrounded by the ego, armored by it, how can you come close to me? Impossible. The ego gives you a feeling that you are coming close because that too becomes food for the ego. Now you are close to Osho. Now you are close to your master. There is always comparison in it -- closer than others. It is not really closeness, it is the old game of the ego. It continues around me -- people go on thinking: Who is closer?

People are even worried about who is going to be my successor. What foolishness! I am here. You cannot be intimate with me and you are worried about who is going to be my successor. People who are worried about it must unconsciously be angry deep down -- they should be my successor. They are trying to pose that they are closest. But closeness needs no certificates, and a closeness needs no justification. It is simply there in its total naked beauty. There is no need for it to be claimed.

When you come near me for the first time, it is the ego that comes nearer and gives you the sense of nearness; and when the ego starts dropping, disappearing, dissolving, suddenly you see, for the first time the reality of how far you are from me.

But don't be worried. Closeness through the ego is no closeness and even a great distance with no ego is closeness. Let the ego die. Then you will understand the real closeness. A real closeness is not a comparison. You simply feel exactly with me, as if you are not even near. But let the ego die completely. It is still alive -- it may be on the deathbed, but it is not dead yet. Don't give it an oxygen cylinder, and don't feel pity for it. Let it die. Help it to die, because that is your disease. Even if it is painful, let it be, because no rebirth is possible without pain. If it is suffering, rejoice that the moment of suffering has come for you, because only through suffering does one reach to the blessing, to the benediction.

Taoism - Daoism - Tao - Dao

VOL. 2, TAO: THE THREE TREASURES

Chapter-8

In Existence There Is No Question