"God is not the Answer. God is the state of being where the Question has disappeared!"
- Osho
Master, I myself am a question. I know not who I am. What to do? Where to go?
"Remain with the question. Don't do anything, and don't go anywhere; and don't start believing in any answer. Remain with the question. That is one of the most difficult things to do - to remain with a question, and not to seek the answer; because the mind is very cunning, it can supply a false answer. It can console you; it can give you something to cling to; and then the question is not answered but suppressed. Then you go on believing in the answer, and the question remains deep down in your unconsciousness like a wound. The healing has not happened.
If you remain with the question, I'm not saying that you will receive the answer. Nobody has ever received any answer. If you remain with the question, by and by the question disappears. Not that the answer is received; there is no answer. There cannot be, because life is a mystery. If there is any answer, then life will not be a mystery.
It has no answer to it, it cannot be solved. It is not a puzzle, it is a mystery. And that is the difference between a puzzle and a mystery. A puzzle can be solved, howsoever difficult it is to solve. A mystery cannot be solved - not that it is difficult. It is very simple, but its nature is such that it cannot be solved.
Remain with the question - alert, aware, not seeking, not trying to find an answer. Very arduous it is, but if you can do that... it can be done. I have done it. And all those who have dissolved their questions have done it. The very awareness, the fire of awareness, burns the question. The sun of awareness melts the question; it disappears, it evaporates. One day, suddenly, you find you are there, and the question is not there. Not that the question is replaced by an answer. There is none. But the question has simply disappeared. You are there and without a question. That is the answer.
You, without a question, is The answer. Not that you will be able to say who you are - you will laugh at the very question. The question has become absurd. In the first place, the very asking was wrong. But right now you cannot understand that; you have to ask. You have to ask very intensely. Ask the question, but don't ask for The answer.
That is the difference between theology and religion. Theology gives you the answer; religion gives you awareness. Theology supplies you answers - ready-made, manufactured, polished, perfect. Religion doesn't give you any answer; it simply helps you to penetrate deep into the question. The deeper you go into the question, the more you find it is melting, it is disappearing. And when the question has disappeared, a tremendous energy is released within you. You ARE there, with no question.
And when there is no question, of course, there is no mind. Mind is the questioner. When there is no questioning, the mind has also disappeared - pure consciousness - just the sky without any clouds, the flame without any smoke.
That's what God is. That's what a Buddha is; that's what a Christ is. "
Osho - Come Follow Me - Volume 3
