Osho on New Man

I HAVE HEARD YOU SAY THAT KNOWLEDGE IS USELESS.

No, I have not said that. Knowledge is very useful — wisdom is useless! Knowledge is needed in the marketplace, in business, in politics. Everywhere knowledge is needed — in technology, in science — everywhere knowledge is needed. Knowledge is very useful, utilitarian; wisdom is absolutely useless, but that’s its beauty. It is not a commodity, you cannot use it in any way; you cannot sell it, you cannot purchase it. It does not belong to the utilitarian world; it is a flowering. What use is a rose flower? What use is the song of a bird? What use is it? If you look around in existence — the stars, the clouds, the mountains, the rivers — what is the use of it all? It is all useless. Why are butterflies so beautiful? Why does God take so much care in painting their wings? What is the point of it all?

Remember, the outside world is the world of utility; the inside world is the world of significance, not of utility. The outside world has a totally different dimension — there it is needed. You need bread, you need butter, you need a house, you need medicine, you need clothes, shelter; you need thousands of things. But the inner world is simply of luxury; it is not a need, it is a joy. It is a sheer rejoicing.

If somebody asks you, “What is the use of love?” the question is unanswerable, by the very fact of its use of the word “use.” Love is not a commodity; the world can go on without love — it is already going on without it. Everything is going perfectly well; in fact, it is only when love happens that some disturbance happens. Hence all the societies are against love.

The world is going perfectly well without musicians. Who needs musicians? They will not be able to drive a train, to pilot an airplane; they are not reliable people.

I used to travel in India. One of my friends who died just a few months ago was a lover of travelling. I used to go on the fastest trains possible, because I had to cover the whole country, and he loved to travel by passenger trains which stopped at every station, every small station. The journey that could have been completed within ten hours would take four days, five days, sometimes seven days. And whenever he was with me he would insist…. One time I agreed and really it was a joy, because he knew every place where the tea was the best, where the milk was the purest, where you could get a good sweet, where you could get good apples, mangoes. In those five days of travelling with him I forgot all about where we were going — there was no need to go anywhere! And everybody knew him — the porters, the station-masters, the drivers — because he was always travelling on these small trains. And at each station the train would stop for one hour, half an hour, two hours. One small station was really a beautiful place. The whole station was surrounded by a big mango grove, hundreds of mango trees. He took me out of the station and he started climbing a tree. I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “The mangoes are ripe!” And I said, “If the train leaves we will be in difficulty!” He said, “Don’t be worried. Come along with me.” So I went along with him. I was constantly telling him, “It is time now, the train will leave.” And he said, “Don’t be worried. Do you see the man above us?” One man was there. He said, “He is the driver. Unless he gets down, the train cannot move!”

I enjoyed that moment!

Life can be lived either with utility as your very style or it can be lived as a playfulness. Music, love, flowers, stars, poetry, painting, dancing, all belong to the inner world. I am not against knowledge; when you are doing something in the world use your knowledge. There, to use wisdom is foolish; there, sitting in a car and meditating is dangerous. There, you should use all your efficiency, all your knowledge, all your know-how; but you should not be confined to it. You should not become obsessed with it, you should be able to go inside. When the work is over you should be able to close the doors to the outside world and return to the inner. Then dance, sing, meditate, love, live. One should be flexible, liquid.

This misunderstanding, Geetam, is possible with me, but you can see my approach if you don’t bring your own mind in. I am not telling you to renounce the world for the simple reason that you can always use your knowledge. Sitting in a cave in the Himalayas you will not be able to use your knowledge. And the outside world is as beautiful as the inside world — if we can have both, why choose one?

My whole message is that you can eat the cake and have it too, so why go for half?

Knowledge is useful in the outside world, in the inside world it is a hindrance. And the same is true about the inner wisdom: it is of immense joy inside, but don’t try to use it outside. Both things have been done. The West has lived through knowledge only, hence it has lost the inner dimension, it has lost the inner flowering, it has lost contact with its own being. The East has done the reverse: thinking that knowledge is useless it has become non-scientific, non-utilitarian, so its outside world has become shrunken. It is poor, ugly, unscientific. The West has lost contact with its own soul and the East has lost contact with its own body. And man is a dance of these two complementaries; these two are partners in the dance. These two are like two wings: you cannot fly into the sky with one wing alone, with one wing you will fall. The West has fallen, the East has fallen; both have proved to be utter failures.

We need a new kind of human being who has both wings: the wings of knowledge, science, technology, and the wings of meditation, enlightenment, love, freedom. When both wings are functioning in a deep synchronicity, in a deep togetherness, in accord and harmony, then only man is complete, total.

Knowledge is not needed for the inner world. About the inner world, you ask:

THEN WHAT IS NEEDED TO GUIDE US TO THE ULTIMATE GOAL?

There is no ultimate goal — let it be clear from the very beginning. There is no goal as such, hence there is no question of there being an ultimate goal. All that is, is immediate — let me repeat, IMMEDIATE. There is nothing ultimate anywhere; the immediacy itself is the ultimate. And there is no goal; the pilgrimage itself is the goal. Each step is the goal, each moment is the goal.

For that, knowledge is not needed because knowledge is a guidance for goals, for achievements. For that, that goal-less immediate life, innocence is needed not knowledge. Innocence, like a child, what Dionysius calls a “luminous ignorance” — exactly that is needed; a luminous ignorance, an enlightened state of not-knowing.

You always think in terms of enlightenment as if it were the ultimate in knowing — you are wrong.

Enlightenment is the ultimate state of not-knowing; it is luminous ignorance, it is childlike. The sage again becomes a child. He starts collecting colored stones, pebbles, seashells on the sea beach. He starts collecting wildflowers, for no reason at all, just for the sheer joy of it.

Source:

This is an excerpt from the transcript of a public discourse by Osho in Buddha Hall, Shree Rajneesh Ashram, Pune. 

Discourse name: The Goose is Out
Chapter title: Just see it
Chapter #2
2 March 1981 am in Buddha Hall

References:

Osho has spoken on ‘love, new man, wisdom, freedom’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

1. The Beloved, Vol 1, 2
2. From Death to Deathlessness
3. The Osho Upanishad
4. Beyond Psychology
5. The Golden Future
6. The New Dawn
7. The Rebel
8. Zarathustra: A God That Can Dance
9. Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen Master
10. The Messiah, Vol 2
11. Unio Mystica, Vol 1
12. From Bondage to Freedom
13. The Secret