From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 9. I TEACH A RELIGIONLESS RELIGION
There are no types of silence, remember that. There cannot be two kinds of silence. Silence is
simply one.
Just the taste of it and you have tasted the silence that is there millions of light years away,
surrounding the whole universe.
By feeling your inner silence you have felt the pulse of the universe.
I say to you, with God there is no possibility of religion.
And I say to you also, that with the so-called religions that have existed up to now, there is no
possibility of religion either.
I teach you a Godless, religionless religion.
Of course, then my meaning of religion will be ”religiousness”. You are not a Christian, you are
not a Hindu, you are not a Mohammedan. You are just a man of silence, a man of truth, a man of
compassion, a man who is no longer searching – one who has arrived. And the feeling of arrival...
then there are no questions, no doubts, no beliefs, no answers either.
When Bodhidharma was dying his disciples asked him, ”Master, your last message?”
He opened his eyes, and said, ”I do not know anything at all – I have arrived. Knowledge is left far
behind; who cares to know? There is nobody asking, there is nobody questioning, there is nobody
answering; all has become silent. Hence,” he says, ”all that I can say is that I do not know.”
That was the statement of Socrates also in the end. He said, ”When I was young I thought,’I know
much and soon I will know all.’ But as I went on searching, doubting, enquiring” – and he was a man
not of belief, but of doubt. He is far superior to any of your religious prophets, messiahs, avataras,
tirthankaras – he is far superior In the end he said, ”The more I started to know, the more I started
to feel that I don’t know anything.”
His statements are tremendously beautiful, because on the surface they look contradictory. He says,
”The more I knew, the less I knew. The moment I came to know all, all was lost; only ignorance
remained.” So he said, ”There is a knowledge which is ignorant, and there is an ignorance which
knows.”
With belief you will come to a knowledge which is ignorant.
With doubt, enquiry, meditation, you will come to a state of ignorance which knows.
There is no need for you to be labeled. There is no need for you to be part of a congregation.
My commune is, in a way, strange, a contradiction.
My function is to make you free of all congregations, to give you total freedom to be yourself
From Ignorance to Innocence 121 Osho