The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 3. MAXIMS OF YOGA: A SENSE OF WONDER
why this man remained silent is that this sense of wonder is the door to the divine. Had you been a
little wiser, you would have remained with the man who did not answer. And you would have tried
to understand him: you would have peeped into his eyes; you would have lived in his company, in
his proximity because he has experienced something, and the experience is so immense that words
cannot express it; he has seen something that cannot become an answer.
Questions and answers are alright for the school-children. Your question in itself is absurd. One
cannot ask a question about God. How can one ask a question about the infinite? Both the question
and the answer drop by themselves before the infinite. Your question is petty, that’s why Buddha has
remained silent. But maybe you will come back thinking that had this man known, he would have
answered. He did not answer, that means he did not know. You recognize a scholar because your
head is full of words, too. You will not be able to understand a sage because a sage is full of wonder.
And your sense of wonder is dead.
The greatest calamity of the world is: destruction of wonder. The day your sense of wonder is
destroyed, your possibility of liberation is destroyed. The day your sense of wonder is dead, your
childlike heart is dead, frozen. You have become old.
Are you still amazed? Does life pose a question to you? Are you thrilled by the chirping of the birds,
the sound of the running streams, the wind rustling through the trees? Do you feel joy? Does this life
surrounding you everywhere makes you speechless? No, because you know that birds are making
these sounds and wind is rustling through the trees – you have answer to every question. These
answers have killed you. You have become knowledgeable before attaining knowledge.
A SENSE OF WONDER IS THE FOUNDATION OF YOGA.
A sense of wonder becomes a door for one who wants to enter yoga. Revive your childhood! Start
asking again. Awaken your curiosity, your quest and the roots of life that have dried in you will start
greening again. All the blocks will melt away and streams will start running. Open your eyes and
look all around once again – all answers are false, because all your answers are borrowed. You
have not known anything. But you are stuffed with borrowed knowledge, to the extent that you feel,
you known it.
Awaken your sense of wonder. Your yoga-postures and breath-exercises are useless if there is no
sense of wonder within you – because all the yogic exercises belong to the body. It’s true that your
body will be purified, healthy but purified and healthy body will not help you to attain divinity.
A sense of wonder purifies the heart. Wonder means: the mind is free of all answers. Wonder
means: you have removed all the garbage of answers. Your question has become new, rejuvenated;
you have understood your ignorance.
Wonder means: I do not know.
Scholarship means: I know.
The more you know, the more you are wrong. When you are simple enough to say: ”I don’t know” –
although this too is not sufficient – when the understanding of your own ignorance settles deep into
The Great Path 47 Osho