Osho – You can be a participant but not an observer in religion. You can be be an observer in science, never a participant. Really, for science this is a basic condition: you should not be a participant. Because if you participate you are involved in it, then you become a party to it. So you must be neutral, like a judge — outside. For science it is a basic condition.
For religion, quite the opposite is the basic condition. You must not be the observer, because how can you observe anything which is inside? You can observe only the outside. You must be a participant. This is a basic condition for religion: you must be a participant. For science, non-participation is the condition, because it is a method to observe from the outside. For religion, deep involvement, deep commitment, participation, is a necessary condition, because it is a knowing of the inside; it is a knowing of the whole. You can know it only when you are in it.
So sometimes it happens that for a scientifically trained mind that which looks foolish, for a religious mind may be the very wisdom. And the vice versa is also true: for a religious mind, that which looks foolish may be very meaningful, rational, and logical for a scientifically trained mind. But it you are aware of the basic difference of approach, of the foundational difference of dimension, then you can say something can be scientifically foolish and religiously wise; and something can be religiously foolish and scientifically wise. And these two are not contradictory.
That is what is meant by the strangeness and mystery of life. If we look at life as a mysterious phenomenon, then contradictions are not there. They only appear, they are related, they are complementary. A logical approach is good in itself within limitations… illogical approach is also good in itself within limitations.
If you are approaching the whole then approach illogically.
If you are approaching the part then approach logically.
Logic is the door to the part: Illogic, or meditation, is the door to the whole.
Meditation is illogical; it is a jump from the mind to the no-mind. It is a jump from reason to life itself. It is a jump from thinking to existence, so how can it be logical? It is a jump from thinking to existence. It is not thinking, it is experiencing. So I will say, “Be foolish,” scientifically be foolish when you approach religion. That foolishness pays; that foolishness ultimately proves to be wisdom. Be mad when you are approaching the whole.
Be mad, I say, when you are approaching the whole.
Don’t cling to so-called sanity, which is based on the experiences of the past. Be mad!
But this madness is divine, and this madness has a method of its own. Religious madness is methodological. Religious madness is a method to approach the whole, the mystery of life, existence itself; to take a plunge, to take a jump, to suddenly take a jump from the mind — because the mind is your past and mind is your thinking, your thoughts, your culture, your civilization, your theology.
Mind is just thoughts, an accumulation of thoughts, existence is not. And thoughts are dead, all thoughts are dead; existence is alive. All thoughts are borrowed, and existence is always original. And all thoughts are just dust on the mind, accumulated in your movement, accumulated through your life, death, birth. Existence is ever-fresh just like a flower, fresh, flowering this very moment, a river flowing, this very moment, a sun rising this very moment — existence is ever-fresh. Don’t cling to the dead mind. Take a jump into the freshness of existence.
Existence is always here and now, and mind is never here and now. Mind is always there and then. Either the mind is in the past or it is in the future — it is never in the present. Have you ever observed it? Have you ever become aware of the fact that mind is never HERE, it is never NOW; it is always either in the past or in the future. And neither is there past nor is there future. Past is that which has gone dead, and future is that which has yet to be born. Only this moment, here and now, is in existence.
When I say take a jump from the mind, I am saying take a jump from past orientation, from future orientation. Take a jump here, this moment into the present. Existence is here; mind is never here, so they never meet. Mind never meets existence.
Mind is just like a radar — it can look far away; it cannot look just near here. Radar cannot look near; it can only look far. Mind is a radar. It is a useful thing but it always looks faraway. Either the expanse must be in the past or in the future; it cannot look here and now. Here and now is just missed by the radar. It is good for looking to the future, it is good for looking to the past. It is good to go down for memory, it is good to go down for desire; but it is never good — absolutely useless — for going down here and now into existence.
Meditation means a jump — it is foolish, it is mad. But be mad in it and be foolish in it, and then you will gain a strange wisdom which comes only to the mad mind, the religiously mad mind. Life is a mystery; it is not a mathematical problem. It is more like poetry than like mathematics, it is more like love than calculation. It is love, not logic. Now be ready for the madness.
Source – Osho Book “That Art Thou”