The Goose Is Out

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With the help of a Zen koan about a goose in a bottle, Osho shows how people are restricted by their prejudices and beliefs, ignorant of their true nature. You are already free if you wake up and see the illusion of knowledge and the mind.
The Goose Is Out
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With the help of a Zen koan about a goose in a bottle, Osho shows how people are restricted by their prejudices and beliefs, ignorant of their true nature. You are already free if you wake up and see the illusion of knowledge and the mind.

Excerpt from: The Goose Is Out, Chapter 6

Osho,
I have got all the degrees that a university can offer. Why am I still ignorant?

     “Knowledge has no capacity to dispel ignorance. Knowledge is a false phenomenon; it is not wisdom at all, it is just the opposite of wisdom.

     “Knowledge is borrowed; wisdom is the flowering of your innermost being. You can borrow a plastic flower, but if you want real roses then you will have to grow them in your innermost being. No university can offer it, no scripture can offer it, no scholarship is capable of doing it. They are all impotent efforts, but they have been deceiving millions of people for thousands of years. Yes, they can make you knowledgeable. To be knowledgeable is one thing, and to know is totally different.

     “A blind man can be knowledgeable about light, but he knows nothing of light; he has not experienced it. He can collect all kinds of information about light, he can argue, philosophize, systematize; he can write great treatises on light, but he has not tasted the joy of light – he has not seen even a single ray of light. He has not seen the rainbow, the colors of the flowers, the wings of a butterfly. He has not seen the green trees, he has not seen the stars, the sun, the moon. He has missed all that. And what he has accumulated is simply rubbish.

     “It is better to be ignorant and have eyes than to be very knowledgeable about light and be blind.

     “The universities exist for that purpose specifically. No society wants you to become wise – it is against the investment of all societies. If people are wise they cannot be exploited. If they are intelligent they cannot be subjugated; they cannot be forced into a mechanical life, to live like a robot. They will assert themselves – they will assert their individuality. They will have the fragrance of rebellion around them; they would like to live in freedom.

     “Freedom comes with wisdom, intrinsically – they are inseparable – and no society wants people to be free. The communist society, the fascist society, the capitalist society, the Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Christian – no society would like people to use their own intelligence because the moment they start using their intelligence they become dangerous, dangerous to the establishment, dangerous to the people who are in power, dangerous to the ‘haves,’ dangerous to all kinds of oppression, exploitation, suppression; dangerous to the churches, dangerous to the states, dangerous to the nations.

     “In fact, a wise man is afire, alive, aflame. He would prefer to die than to be enslaved.”

ieve it. If you can achieve it then it will not be of much value to the ego.

"So the intrinsic quality of the perfectionist ideal is that it should be unattainable; only then is it worth attaining. You see the contradiction? And that contradiction creates a schizophrenia: you are trying to do the impossible, which you know perfectly well is not going to happen – it cannot happen in the very nature of things. If it can happen then it is not much of a perfection; then anybody can do it. Then there is not much ego nourishment in it: your ego cannot chew on it, cannot grow on it. The ego needs the impossible and the impossible, by its very nature, is not going to happen. So only two alternatives are left: one is, you start feeling guilty. If you are innocent, simple, intelligent, you will start feeling guilt – and guilt is a state of sickness.

"I am not here to create any guilt in you. My whole effort is to help you to get rid of all guilt. The moment you are free of guilt, rejoicing bursts forth. And guilt is rooted in the idea of perfection.

"The second alternative is: if you are cunning then you will become a hypocrite, you will start pretending that you have achieved it. You will deceive others and you will even try to deceive yourself. You will start living in illusions, hallucinations, and that is very unholy, very irreligious, very unwholesome.… Osho

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Publisher Osho Media International
Type Series of Talks