Osho – Our minds always think in terms of dichotomies. They cannot think without dividing. Whenever we go to think about something, we dissect it, we divide it into two. That is the methodology of the mind. Mind cannot think in terms of Unity, in terms of synthesis. Mind thinks in terms of analysis so everything passing through the prism of the mind becomes divided.
Just like the light is one but through a prism it is divided into seven rays, so, too, the prism of the mind divides everything. That is why if you want to know and realize that which is undivided, you have to go beyond mind.
Do not use your mind as the instrument. It cannot lead you beyond duality. If you use The mind, there will be a creator and that which has been created. This division is false and because of this false division you create false problems and false theologies. You create problems and then you think about the solutions. Because the problems are false, the solutions are bound to be false.
All theologies are based on dualistic concepts. That is false. Religion is not theology! A theology can be Christian, a theology can be Hindu, a theology can be Buddhist, but religion itself is the realization of the whole. It is not divided into Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism.
Theology is based on a false assumption: an assumption of duality. Then, problems arise. First you divide the existence, which creates problems. Then you go on solving the problems endlessly. But there is no solution. No theology has come to any conclusions; every theology has moved deeper and deeper into falsehoods.
That is why the new generation has come to a point of discarding all theologies: Christianity, Hinduism, Islam. The few generation has come to a breaking point where they want to discard all the falsehoods that theology has created. You have created the problems and you have created the solutions but you have not asked the basic thing: whether the problem is authentic or whether it has been created because of your mind; whether the problem is your creation or whether it is really a part of the reality.
In reality, there are no problems so there is no need of any answer. When you think, there are problems. When you do not think but you realize, there are no problems. So religion is a process to go beyond thinking: to achieve a point in your mind where there is no thinking at all. You are, but without thoughts. You are in a state of mind which can be said to be a state of no-mind, a state of no mental processes.
A mind that is not thinking is a mind that is in meditation. That is the meaning of meditation. To meditate means to go beyond your thinking process. The moment you transcend the thinking process, you come to a realization, you come to feel that which is Philosophy cannot exist without thinking and religion cannot exist with thinking. Philosophy thinks. Religion knows.
Thinking means a mind that does not know. A blind man can think about the light and go on thinking about it. But he cannot come to any conclusion because he cannot really Think about it. You can only think about something you have known, but when you have known it, there is nothing to think about. That is the dilemma, the predicament.
That is the basic puzzle. A person who knows never thinks because there is no need to think. What you know, you know. There is no need to think about it. Only a person who does not know who is ignorant, thinks. But how can you think about what you don’t know?
A blind man goes on thinking about light, but he cannot really think about it. He cannot imagine it, he cannot dream about it, because he has not known it. Light is foreign to him. A blind man cannot even think about the darkness because, even to know darkness, eyes are needed. Without eyes you cannot know the darkness: a blind man knows neither the darkness nor the light.
Ordinarily we think that a blind man lives in darkness. No, their is no darkness for a blind man. Darkness is as much a perception of the eyes as the light. You cannot say to a blind man that light is opposite to darkness because that, too, will be unintelligible to him. A blind man can know light only by becoming able to see. Thinking cannot become seeing.
In reference to this, one thing must be said. In India we have called philosophy darshan. Darshan means seeing. We have not called philosophy ’thinking’; we have called it ’seeing’. In Europe the term ’philosophy’ carries another connotation. ’Philosophy’ means love of knowing, love of thinking. There is no parallel term in western languages for darshan.
A new term has been coined by Herman Hesse. The term is appealing. The new term is philosia: the love of seeing. Sia means ’to see’. Philo means ’love.’ And sophy means ’thinking’. So philosophy means ’love of thinking’. We have no term in India for it. We cannot translate the word ’philosophy’ into any Indian language. Our term is darshan. It means seeing. Not thinking, but seeing.
Seeing comes not through the mind but at the moment the mind is annihilated, the moment the mind is not, the moment the mind ceases. Every type of seeing – either of science or of philosophy or of religion – is an outcome of the state of no-mind.
We have known the example of Archimedes. He was thinking and thinking, and came to no conclusion. Then he was lying in his bathtub. Suddenly something was seen. He ran out of his house naked. He had seen something and he ran into the street crying, ”Eureka, eureka! I’ve found it, I’ve found it! I’ve achieved!”
If you ask an Einstein or a Picasso or a Hesse, they too will say that something has been seen. Whether in poetry or in painting or in scientific discovery, something is seen. And the moment of seeing is not the moment of brooding, the moment of seeing is not the moment of logical thinking. Logical thinking is held in abeyance. The logical mind is not working and suddenly something overpowers you. Something comes to you, or you go somewhere – somewhere beyond the human limits. Then you know; knowing is there.
So do not create dichotomies. First you create dichotomies, then you create problems, then you go on solving them. And then of course, as a logical consequence, theologies are created and there are theologians, teachers, professors, gurus, and the whole nonsense, the whole nuisance. So to me, there is no problem. The problem itself is false.
Source – Osho Book “The Eternal Quest”