The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 03

Select all	TALKS IN THIS SERIES - 10	Minutes
	1. Knowledge Is Not Knowledge	104
	2. A Watcher on the Hills	111
	3. Be a Buddha!	107
	4. I Am a Drunkard	109
	5. Freedom Contains All	106
	6. Existence Is Perfection	100
	7. Living with Self-Remembrance	108
	8. Initiated into Life	110
	9. The Man Who Has Conquered Himself	106
	10. The Pure Sky of Consciousness	103

Osho shines a light on Buddha′s continual emphasis on freedom. These talks illuminate how a genuine search needs, not a mind filled with knowledge, but a totally open approach: inquiry, not belief.

Excerpt from: The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 3, Chapter 1

Knowledge is not knowledge. It has the appearance of knowledge, hence it deceives many. Knowledge is only information. It does not transform you; you remain the same. Your accumulation of information goes on growing. Rather than liberating you, it burdens you, it goes on creating new bondages for you.

The so-called man of knowledge is far more foolish than the so-called fool, because the fool at least is innocent. He is ignorant, but he has no pretensions of knowing – that much truth is his. But the man of knowledge is in a far greater mess: he knows nothing but he thinks he knows. To believe that one knows, without knowing, is to remain forever rooted in ignorance.

Knowledge is a way for ignorance to protect itself – and it protects itself very cunningly, very efficiently, very cleverly. Knowledge is the enemy although it appears as the friend.

This is the first step towards wisdom: to know that you don’t know, to know that all knowledge is borrowed, to know that it has not happened to you, it has come from others, that it is not your own insight, your own realization. The moment knowledge is your own realization, it is wisdom.

Wisdom means that you are not a parrot, that you are a man, that you are not repeating others but expressing yourself, that you are not a carbon copy, that you have an original face of your own.

Knowledge makes you a carbon copy, and to be a carbon copy is the ugliest thing in the world. That is the greatest calamity that can happen to a man – because knowing not and yet believing that you know, you will remain always ignorant and in darkness. And whatsoever you do is going to be wrong. You may even be able to convince others that you know, you may be able to strengthen your ego, you may become very famous, you may be known as a great scholar, a pundit, but deep down there is nothing but darkness. Deep down you have not yet encountered yourself, you have not yet entered the temple of your being.

The ignorant is in a far better situation. At least he has no pretensions, at least he is not deceiving others and himself. And ignorance has a beauty – the beauty of simplicity, the beauty of uncomplicatedness. To know that “I don’t know” immediately brings a great relief. To know, to experience, one’s utter ignorance fills one with great wonder – existence is transformed into a mystery.