“…‘What is the matter of your pilgrimage?’
Hogen said, ‘I don’t know.’”
Now, if Hogen was only repeating some knowledge gathered from scriptures or others, he would have again answered the same thing, maybe paraphrased in a different way. He would have been like a parrot. The master is asking the same question, but the answer has changed, totally changed. Hogen simply says: ‘I don’t know.’
How can you know if you are aimless? How can you know when you don’t have any goal? How can you be when there is no goal? The ego can exist only with goals, ambitions, desires. Hogen said, ‘I don’t know.’
His answer, his response, is not parrotlike. He has not repeated the same thing again. The question is the same, remember, but the answer has changed. That’s the difference between a knowledgeable person and a man of knowing, the wise man, who functions out of a state of not-knowing. ‘I don’t know.’
Keishin must have been tremendously happy. He said:
“‘Not knowing is the most intimate.’”
Knowledge creates a distance between you and reality. The more you know, the greater is the distance; so many books between you and reality. If you cram the whole of the Encyclopedia Britannica, then there is so much distance between you and reality. Unless reality tries to find you through the jungle of Encyclopedia Britannica or you try to find reality through the jungle of Encyclopedia Britannica, there is not going to be any meeting. The more you know, the greater is the distance; the less you know, the smaller is the distance. If you don’t know at all, there is no distance at all. Then you are face to face with reality; not even face to face – you are it. That’s why the master said: ‘Not knowing is the most intimate.’
Remember, such a beautiful sutra, so exquisite, so tremendously significant: ‘Not knowing is the most intimate.’
The moment you don’t know, intimacy arises between you and reality; a great friendship arises. It becomes a love affair. You are embracing reality; reality penetrates you, as lovers penetrate each other. You melt into it like snow melting in the sun. You become one with it. There is nothing to divide. It is knowledge that divides; it is not-knowing that unites.
Listening to this tremendously significant sutra:
“‘Not knowing is the most intimate.’
Hogen suddenly attained great enlightenment.”
He must have been very close, obviously. When he said: ‘I don’t know’ he must have been just on the borderline. When he said: ‘I am making pilgrimage aimlessly’ he was just one step away from the borderline. When he said: ‘I don’t know’ even that one step disappeared. He was standing on the borderline.
And when the master said, when the master confirmed, illuminated, and said: ‘Not knowing is the most intimate.’ When the master patted him on the back: ‘Not knowing is the most intimate.’ Hogen suddenly attained enlightenment. Immediately, that very moment, he crossed the border. Immediately his last clinging disappeared. Now he cannot even say: ‘I don’t know.’
The stupid person says, “I know.” The intelligent person comes to know that “I don’t know.” But there is a transcendence of both when only silence prevails. Nothing can be said, nothing can be uttered. Hogen entered that silence; that great enlightenment, and suddenly, immediately, without any lapse of time.
Enlightenment is always sudden because it is not an achievement; it is already the case. It is only a remembering, it is only a reminding, it is only a recognition. You are already enlightened. You are just not aware of it. It is awareness of that which is already the case.
Meditate over this beautiful anecdote. Let this sutra resound in your being: ‘Not knowing is the most intimate.’
One never knows, sudden enlightenment may happen to you as it happened to Hogen. It is going to happen to many people here because what I am doing every day is destroying your knowledge. Destroying and destroying all your clingings and strategies of the mind. Any day when your mind collapses, when you cannot hold it together any more, there is bound to be sudden enlightenment. It is not an attainment, hence it can happen in a single moment, instantly. Society has forced you to forget it; my work here is to help you remember it.
All the teachings of the sages expounded are no more than commentaries on your sudden cry, “Ah, this!”
Enough for today.
Chapter: 2
A Path to Freedom
The first question:
Osho,
Please, in the question “Who am I?” what does “I” mean? Does it mean the essence of life?
“Who am I?” is not really a question because it has no answer to it; it is unanswerable. It is a device, not a question. It is used as a mantra. When you constantly inquire inside, “Who am I? Who am I?” you are not waiting for an answer. Your mind will supply many answers and all those answers have to be rejected. Your mind will say, “You are the essence of life. You are the eternal soul. You are divine,” and so on, and so forth. All those answers have to be rejected. Neti neti, one has to go on saying, “Neither this nor that.”
When you have denied all the possible answers that the mind can supply and devise; when the question remains absolutely unanswerable, a miracle happens. Suddenly the question also disappears. When all the answers have been rejected, the question has no props, no supports inside to stand on any more. It simply flops; it collapses, it disappears.
When the question also has disappeared, then you know. But that knowing is not an answer. It is an existential experience. Nothing can be said about it, or whatever will be said will be wrong. To say anything about it is to falsify it. It is the ultimate mystery, inexpressible, indefinable. No word is adequate enough to describe it. Even the phrase “essence of life” is not adequate; even God is not adequate. Nothing is adequate to express it. Its very nature is inexpressible.
But you know. You know exactly the way the seed knows how to grow. Not like the professor who knows about chemistry or physics or geography or history, but like the bud, which knows how to open in the early morning sun. Not like the priest who knows about God; about and about he goes, around and around he goes.
Knowledge beats around the bush. Knowing is a direct penetration. And the moment you directly penetrate into existence, you disappear as a separate entity. You are no more. When the knower is no more, then the knowing is. And the knowing is not about something: you are that knowing, itself.
So I cannot say what I means in the question “Who am I?” It means nothing! It is just a device to lead you into the unknown, to lead you into the uncharted; to lead you into that which is not available to the mind. It is a sword to cut the very roots of the mind, so only the silence of no-mind is left. In that silence there is no question, no answer; no knower, no known; but only knowing, only experiencing.
That’s why the mystics appear to be in such difficulty to express it. Many of them have remained silent, out of the awareness that whatsoever you say goes wrong. The moment you say it, it goes wrong. Those who have spoken, they have spoken with the condition, “Don’t cling to our words.”
Lao Tzu says: “Tao, once described, is no more the real Tao.” The moment you say something about it, you have already falsified it. You have betrayed it. It is such an intimate knowing, incommunicable.
“Who am I?” functions like a sword to cut all the answers that the mind can manage. Zen people will say it is a koan, just like other koans. There are many koans, famous koans. One is: “Find your original face.” The disciple asks the master, “What is the original face?” The