Astrall
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"Every child is intelligent, far more intelligent than so-called adults. Adults are only so-called – it is very rare to find a person who is truly adult. The primary quality of a truly adult person is that they still retain the innocence of a child, the surprised eyes of a child, the curious heart of a child. The purity, the clarity of the child remains intact within them. They have conquered society. They have not allowed anyone to destroy their intelligence.
People do not grow up; they only grow old. Growing up is something vertical, while growing old is something horizontal. You remain on the same plane; only time passes. And of course, time helps you accumulate many impressions, knowledge, words, and information, and you begin to think that you know. And this is the greatest misfortune that can befall a person: not knowing and thinking that you know. This means that the doors to knowledge are now closed forever. Socrates was an adult. He said: “I know only one thing: that I know nothing.” His state of being a child is absolutely unpolluted. The time that has passed has not simply become dust accumulated on a mirror. On the contrary, it has helped to sharpen his sword; it has not become rust on that sword.
Knowledge is rust: it destroys your intelligence and gives you poor substitutes. Knowledge is a poor substitute for intelligence. Remember: you can be very intellectual and still be unintelligent. A child is not intellectual. He knows nothing of great philosophers, of great scriptures; he is not a scholar. He knows nothing! But it is from this state of not-knowing that he acts. Therefore, he is always full of wonder and awe; he looks at the world, feeling that the world is a mystery. The more you know, the more you destroy this mystery. The entire function of our so-called schools, colleges, and universities is to deprive the universe of its mystery.
Even scientists boast that they are doing humanity a great service by revealing the mysteries of the universe.
In reality, they are creating more and more boredom in the world. No child is ever bored; he always finds something that is extremely interesting to him. He can be fascinated by anything – a butterfly, a flower, a stone – anything at all. He immediately begins to see something extraordinary in it. This is insight, this is intelligence. If we help children in every possible way to remain as intelligent as they are born, then many adult people will emerge. Right now, the number of adult people in the world can be easily counted on one’s fingers – because everyone has been processed, everyone has been poisoned. For a child to be treated with respect, a completely different society is needed, a completely different view of life. For centuries, we have respected old age: the older a person is, the more we respect them. Why do you respect this old person – only because he has existed for a hundred years? Mere existence is not enough for respect; living a life is something completely different. Existence is very mundane – living a life has a completely different flavor. To live a life means to live from a state of agnosia, to live from a state of not-knowing, to treat life as a mystery.
This is the only way to live it. Other ways are merely existence, other ways are merely survival. An adult person is in deep harmony. His body, his mind, his spirit are always in tune; they move in one direction, together. This does not happen with people who only grow old. Their bodies become older, but their minds lag behind in their development. Psychologists first realized this fact during World War I. Then, for the first time on a large scale, they tried to observe people to determine how many people were truly psychologically adult. And they were astonished, shocked: the average psychological age of people was only twelve years old. The body may be eighty years old, but the mind is far behind. In fact, it looks as if there is no connection between them... a gap of seventy or eighty years. And an eighty-year-old person claims to be knowledgeable, simply because he is eighty years old, although he stopped growing up when he was only twelve. In reality, he should be considered to be only twelve years old, not eighty. And as for the spirit, it may still be in the mother’s womb; it may never have left her womb.
Being in deep harmony, all together – body, mind, and spirit – they create beauty, grace, light, love. When they are all in harmony, life becomes an orchestra. But they are out of tune, and the spirit is almost absent. For this reason, George Gurdjieff said: “I have met very few people who have a soul.” Usually, every person believes that they have a soul, because religions have said for centuries that everyone has a soul. Everyone has only the potential for a soul to exist, but this potential has not been realized. It is still a seed; it has not become a tree. It has not reached the point where spring arrives and flowers bloom, and the person feels fulfilled, satisfied. An adult person blossoms. His life is not divided; his life is an organic unity. He moves in absolute unity; nothing lags behind, nothing goes too far ahead. And this discord that we see in the world has many manifestations. The soul is in a nascent state; the mind, the psyche is stuck somewhere at the age of twelve, and the body is eighty or ninety years old. This is just one manifestation of disharmony; there are many other kinds."
Osho
People do not grow up; they only grow old. Growing up is something vertical, while growing old is something horizontal. You remain on the same plane; only time passes. And of course, time helps you accumulate many impressions, knowledge, words, and information, and you begin to think that you know. And this is the greatest misfortune that can befall a person: not knowing and thinking that you know. This means that the doors to knowledge are now closed forever. Socrates was an adult. He said: “I know only one thing: that I know nothing.” His state of being a child is absolutely unpolluted. The time that has passed has not simply become dust accumulated on a mirror. On the contrary, it has helped to sharpen his sword; it has not become rust on that sword.
Knowledge is rust: it destroys your intelligence and gives you poor substitutes. Knowledge is a poor substitute for intelligence. Remember: you can be very intellectual and still be unintelligent. A child is not intellectual. He knows nothing of great philosophers, of great scriptures; he is not a scholar. He knows nothing! But it is from this state of not-knowing that he acts. Therefore, he is always full of wonder and awe; he looks at the world, feeling that the world is a mystery. The more you know, the more you destroy this mystery. The entire function of our so-called schools, colleges, and universities is to deprive the universe of its mystery.
Even scientists boast that they are doing humanity a great service by revealing the mysteries of the universe.
In reality, they are creating more and more boredom in the world. No child is ever bored; he always finds something that is extremely interesting to him. He can be fascinated by anything – a butterfly, a flower, a stone – anything at all. He immediately begins to see something extraordinary in it. This is insight, this is intelligence. If we help children in every possible way to remain as intelligent as they are born, then many adult people will emerge. Right now, the number of adult people in the world can be easily counted on one’s fingers – because everyone has been processed, everyone has been poisoned. For a child to be treated with respect, a completely different society is needed, a completely different view of life. For centuries, we have respected old age: the older a person is, the more we respect them. Why do you respect this old person – only because he has existed for a hundred years? Mere existence is not enough for respect; living a life is something completely different. Existence is very mundane – living a life has a completely different flavor. To live a life means to live from a state of agnosia, to live from a state of not-knowing, to treat life as a mystery.
This is the only way to live it. Other ways are merely existence, other ways are merely survival. An adult person is in deep harmony. His body, his mind, his spirit are always in tune; they move in one direction, together. This does not happen with people who only grow old. Their bodies become older, but their minds lag behind in their development. Psychologists first realized this fact during World War I. Then, for the first time on a large scale, they tried to observe people to determine how many people were truly psychologically adult. And they were astonished, shocked: the average psychological age of people was only twelve years old. The body may be eighty years old, but the mind is far behind. In fact, it looks as if there is no connection between them... a gap of seventy or eighty years. And an eighty-year-old person claims to be knowledgeable, simply because he is eighty years old, although he stopped growing up when he was only twelve. In reality, he should be considered to be only twelve years old, not eighty. And as for the spirit, it may still be in the mother’s womb; it may never have left her womb.
Being in deep harmony, all together – body, mind, and spirit – they create beauty, grace, light, love. When they are all in harmony, life becomes an orchestra. But they are out of tune, and the spirit is almost absent. For this reason, George Gurdjieff said: “I have met very few people who have a soul.” Usually, every person believes that they have a soul, because religions have said for centuries that everyone has a soul. Everyone has only the potential for a soul to exist, but this potential has not been realized. It is still a seed; it has not become a tree. It has not reached the point where spring arrives and flowers bloom, and the person feels fulfilled, satisfied. An adult person blossoms. His life is not divided; his life is an organic unity. He moves in absolute unity; nothing lags behind, nothing goes too far ahead. And this discord that we see in the world has many manifestations. The soul is in a nascent state; the mind, the psyche is stuck somewhere at the age of twelve, and the body is eighty or ninety years old. This is just one manifestation of disharmony; there are many other kinds."
Osho
