From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 12. FAITH: THE SUICIDE OF INTELLIGENCE
I asked him, ”Does God exist or not?”
He became alert. If he says ”God exists,” then according to his own logic He needs a creator. And
where this is going to land is in a regress absurdum. You can go on... A created B, B created C, C
created D – you can go on and the whole alphabet will be finished – and Z will be standing in front
of you with the same question mark. Nothing has changed. The question was bogus, it was not
answerable.
But no religion is courageous enough to say, ”There are things about which you can ask a question,
but don’t expect the answer. Life is a mystery.”
And life can only be a mystery if there are questions which are unanswerable.
But then the religion loses all grasp on your neck. If there are questions which are unanswerable,
then what have your – messiahs and messengers of God and incarnations of God – what have all
these fools been doing? They have all answered questions which are basically unanswerable, and
should be left unanswerable. An honest person, a sincere mind will accept the fact, ”Yes, there is a
question but there is no answer.”
Hence I say poetry is far more religious than your so-called holy books. Music is more religious
than your so-called sermons of great apostles. Painting is more religious because paintings are
not answers, they are rather reflections of the mystery that existence is. Poetry does not answer
anything for you, it simply reflects: the sunrise, the sunset, a cloud wandering in the sky, a bird on
the wing, a rainbow.... It does not give you any answers.
A Zen haiku says: The wild geese fly over a lake. The lake of course reflects them. They neither
ask, ”Please reflect us,” nor does the lake say, ”Thank you for coming to be reflected in me.” The
lake is silent, the wild geese are silent; the reflection happens – but not a single word is uttered from
either side. Not only that, the wild geese have no expectation that they should be reflected; if they
are not reflected they won’t feel offended. If the wild geese never come to the lake, the lake will not
feel offended, rejected, humiliated. It has never asked, never invited them.
Things happen but there is no why to it. In poetry and painting, in music... have you ever asked
about great music, ”What is the meaning of it?” Listening to Beethoven or Mozart have you ever
asked, ”What is the meaning of it?” Or looking at the paintings of Picasso...?
It happened once, an American super-rich millionaire asked Picasso, ”I want a few of your paintings.”
Picasso said, ”But my paintings are very costly.”
The man said, ”Money does not matter at all. Give me two paintings and whatsoever is the price – I
will not ask the price – I will simply give it to you cash.”
Picasso was in difficulty because he had only one painting ready right then. He went inside and cut
the painting in two, brought out two paintings and sold them.
One of his friends who was sitting and watching the whole scene said, ”In the first place the painting
was absolutely meaningless; I have never been able to figure it out. In fact it is difficult to know how
From Ignorance to Innocence 156 Osho