OSHO - If one can rest in one's ignorance, there is no problem, no anxiety. The mind by and by disappears. It makes ripples no more.

 

Somebody asks, 'What is water', and you say, 'H2O' -- you are simply playing a game. It is not known what water is, nor what H is nor what O is.

You are just labelling. Then somebody asks what this H is -- this hydrogen -- and you go to the molecules, to the atoms, to the electrons... but you are again giving names. The mystery is not finished -- the mystery is only postponed. And at the last, there is tremendous ignorance. Nobody knows what the electron is.

In the beginning we did not know what the water is -- now we don't know what the electron is, so we have not come to any knowledge. We have played a game of naming things, labelling things, categorising, but life remains a mystery.

Ignorance is so profound and so ultimate that it cannot be destroyed. And once you understand it, you can rest in it. It is so beautiful, it is so relaxing... because then there is nowhere to go. There is nothing to be known, because nothing can be known. Ignorance is ultimate. It is tremendous and vast.

All that we know is illusory. Somehow we manage the illusion that we know. Somebody introduces you to somebody else, tells them your name, your qualifications, your country, and it is thought that you have been introduced. You remain completely unintroduced, because your name is not you, neither is your country nor is your religion. You are that profound ignorance inside.

But when I use the word ignorance, I don't use it in any negative sense -- I don't mean absence of knowledge. By ignorance I mean something very fundamental, very present, very positive. It is how we are. It is the very nature of god to remain mysterious. It is the very nature of things to remain mysterious. Everything is illusive, and that's why it is so beautiful. If man succeeds in knowing everything one day, there will not be anything left except to commit suicide.

We can go on knowing and knowing and knowing, and we never arrive -- the ignorance remains untouched, undisturbed by it.

To come to an understanding of this ignorance is to become enlightened. Hence the socratic dictum: 'I know only one thing -- that I don't know.' That's what enlightenment is all about. If you can accept your ignorance -- welcome it, cherish it, enjoy, delight in it, because this is how things are: nothing is known, nothing can be known and everything is mysterious your life will have a quality of magic.

If one can rest in one's ignorance, there is no problem, no anxiety. The mind by and by disappears. It makes ripples no more.

You must have heard the old proverb: Ignorance is bliss. It has some depth in it. And I always say, 'Blessed are the ignorant, for theirs is the kingdom of god.' And I don't say, 'Theirs will be the kingdom of god'; I say 'Theirs is the kingdom of god.'

Osho