Osho Quotes on Wisdom and Knowledge

Osho Quotes on Wisdom

1. Wisdom consists only of one thing, not of knowing many things but of knowing only one thing: that is your awareness and its separation from the mind.
2. Wisdom is an interior phenomenon. It is the discovery of the spirit of all the Buddhas. And there is no need to go into the history of the Buddhas. You have only to go within yourself, because you contain the whole past of existence, the infinite past, and you also contain the infinite future.
3. Knowledge makes you learned: wisdom makes you innocent. Knowledge is very ego-fulfilling, very ego-strengthening. The ego feeds on knowledge; it is the best tonic for the ego. But wisdom happens only when ego has disappeared; wisdom appears only on the death of the ego. The death of the ego is the birth of wisdom.
4. People go on collecting knowledge and get mixed up and start thinking that this knowledge is wisdom. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom comes through your growth of consciousness, and knowledge comes through collecting from the scriptures, from learned people, and making some sort of a system. But you remain the same; you don’t go through any transformation.
5. Mind is interested in knowledge not in wisdom, because for wisdom you will have to create a space called no-mind. And, naturally, mind is afraid of your ever becoming interested in wisdom, because mind does not want to commit suicide.
6. Wisdom is knowing. And when you know, you need not guess. You are not guessing that this is morning and the birds are singing and the trees are bathed in sunlight. You are not guessing it, you are not thinking that it is so. If somebody is guessing it, then he must be blind or at least drunk. It is an experience, and every experience is self-validating.
7. The exact thing is meditation. On one side it brings morality in your life; on another side it brings wisdom in your life. But you cannot do anything to attain wisdom directly; neither can you do anything to be moral directly. But you can do something for meditation; you can meditate directly, and morality and wisdom both are by-products. Morality will be in your actions and wisdom will be your intelligence, your awareness, your final enlightenment.
8. Eat the fruit of knowledge! Become knowledge-able, and one day renounce your knowledge. Then wisdom is born. Wisdom is not ignorance; wisdom is renunciation of knowledge — but first the knowledge is required.
9. Wisdom is a shadow of meditation. In fact, all so-called virtues, without meditation, are fake. With meditation, authentic virtues start arising all over your inner space.
10. Knowledge gratifies the ego, wisdom happens only when the ego is gone, forgotten. Knowledge can be taught; universities exist to teach you. Wisdom cannot be taught, it is like an infection: you have to be with the wise, you have to move with the wise, and only then will something start moving inside you.
11. Enlightenment cannot come from the mind. Enlightenment can come only when the mind disappears. In fact, enlightenment is the light and mind is the ignorance. Enlightenment is the wisdom; mind is the darkness.
12. God is the ultimate dance. You will have to learn ecstatic dancing to experience God. God is the dance where the dancer disappears. Then the experience arrives, showers on you, and you KNOW. But that knowing is not knowledge, that knowing is wisdom.God is the ultimate dance. You will have to learn ecstatic dancing to experience God. God is the dance where the dancer disappears. Then the experience arrives, showers on you, and you KNOW. But that knowing is not knowledge, that knowing is wisdom.
13. If your mind is dropped and you go beyond it, you enter into the world of wisdom — into the world of awakening. In that awakening everything is true. Because you are true, everything is authentic because YOU are authentic. In the mind you are untrue, you are false. That’s why whatever happens through the mind turns into a falsity, a hypocrisy. Mind is the greatest enemy of man.
14. Nature has tremendous wisdom, just we have forgotten to listen to it. The only way for you to listen to nature is by going deeper into yourself, because there are roots which are spread into existence. Those roots still understand the language of existence.
15. The mind always functions in an eccentric way, the mind is always an idiot. The really intelligent person has no mind. Intelligence arises out of no-mind, idiocy out of the mind. Mind is idiotic, no-mind is wise. No-mind is wisdom, intelligence. Mind depends on knowledge, on methods, on money, on experience, on this and that. Mind always needs props, it needs supports, it cannot exist on its own. On its own, it flops.
16. The asleep person at the most can dream that he is awake. But that too is a dream. That dream is knowledge. The person who is asleep and thinks that he knows… that is knowledge. But the person who really awakes is wise. Knowledge is a false, plastic substitute for wisdom. Wisdom is true knowledge — rather knowing than knowledge, because it has no full point to it. It goes on growing, it goes on flowing. The man of wisdom goes on learning; there never comes a stop. Don’t be knowledgeable, be wise.
17. When you are in deep meditation, you feel a great serenity, a joy that is unknown to you, a watchfulness that is a new guest. Soon this watchfulness will become the host. The day the watchfulness becomes the host, it remains twenty-four hours with you. And out of this watchfulness, whatever you do has a wisdom in it. Whatever you do shows a clarity, a purity, a spontaneity, a grace.
18. Wisdom needs unity, wisdom needs integration, wisdom needs a crystallization of awareness, of watchfulness, of watching your acts, your moods, your thoughts, your emotions…of watching everything that is happening in your inner world. By just watching it, a miracle starts happening. If you start seeing that you tell lies for no reason at all, just that very awareness will become a hindrance. Next time you are just on the verge of telling a lie a voice within you will say, “Watch, beware — you are moving into the trap again.” The next time you are falling into sadness, something inside you will make you alert, will alarm you. This is the path of transforming your energies — AES DHAMMO SANANTANO. AES MAGGO VISUDDHYA — this is the way of purification, this is the eternal law of transformation.