The first question:

Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

YOU HAVE SAID THAT INTELLECTUAL LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE HAVE HELPED NO ONE AND THAT THE UPANISHAD SAYS THAT NOTHING IS TO BE DENIED. IF THE INTELLECT IS THERE AND WE ARE NOT TO DENY IT, WHAT IS THE BEST WAY IN WHICH TO USE IT?

The first thing to be understood about the intellect is this: that the intellect exists on denial. The very function of the intellect is to deny, to say no. The emphasis of the Upanishad on not to deny is basically to relieve you of your intellectual effort.

Intellect always says no. So the more one becomes intellectual, the more and more one becomes incapable of saying yes. Yes-saying means faith, no means doubt, and intellect depends on doubt. If you doubt, intellect has a function. If you do not doubt, there is no function left for the intellect.

Intellect is denial. So when the Upanishad says, "Do not deny anything," it means that the intellect will have no function at all. Think of your own mind: whenever you say no, it starts working; whenever you say yes, yes becomes the end and there is no further journey.

This age is one of the most intellectual ones, and this intellectual milieu is created by thoroughgoing doubt about everything. The greater the intellect, the more skeptical it will be. It can function very keenly if you say no. If you say yes, intellect is annihilated; hence, the emphasis of all religions on faith -- because in faith intellect cannot move. There is no basis for it to move. There is no further goal; yes becomes the end. If you can say yes to the whole existence, thinking will stop. Thinking has the quality of denial. The master says, "Do not deny." In the nondenial, intellect disappears.

And you ask me what to do about intellect. It will not be there. You will not have to do anything; you will not have to deny it. And you cannot deny intellect because denial is intellectual. If you deny intellect, the very denial gives more roots to your intellectual mind. You will become a victim. If you deny intellect, you will become a victim of a deeper intellectual effort. You cannot deny it. How can you deny it? -- because denial starts thinking. You can find reasons why not to deny, but those reasons will be appeals to the intellect. You can find arguments why to deny, but those arguments will be intellectual.

Faith has no arguments for or against. So really, those who have given arguments for God's existence I call irreligious because arguments have nothing to do with religion. There have been many known thinkers all over the world, particularly in the West, who have tried to prove that God exists. I call them irreligious -- because if you can prove God's existence, then the intellect becomes superior to God's existence. Then it is proved through the intellect, and whatsoever is proved through intellect can be disproved by the same intellect. So those who try to prove, really they are the persons who give challenge to others to disprove.

Atheists exist because there are argumentative theists. When you say, "Because of this God exists," then you are giving a challenge to someone, to someone's intellect, who can say, "This reasoning is false." And arguments can be given for and against, ad infinitum; they never reach to any conclusion. Really religious persons have not argued about God: they have lived. They have lived in the way in which one should live if God is. You cannot see God, but you can see a divine person. You can see a person who is living God. That is the only proof. But that proof is not for the intellect. That proof is not intellectual at all. That proof is absolutely beyond intellect -- it reaches directly to your heart; you feel it.

Whenever you see a Ramakrishna or a Ramana, whenever you see a person like Jesus, it is not the intellect which comes to conclude that this man is divine. You feel it first. Your heart starts vibrating in a new dimension; you feel a new perfume of being. But this is feeling; you cannot prove it.

Intellect can prove or disprove, but it can never give you faith. Even when it proves, it proves only itself; nothing else is proved. If you can prove the existence of God, you have NOT proved the existence of God; you have simply proved that you are a very intellectual being, that is all. You have proved that you have a very keen intellect, you have proved your own ego, nothing else. And intellect is the most subtle food for the ego. Because of it you feel that you know, you feel that you can prove, you feel that you can disprove, you feel to be the center. Then even God depends on you: if you prove him, then he is; if you say no, then he is no more. He is secondary. Remember, for intellect everything is secondary and intellect is primary. Everything else becomes number two; intellect remains number one.

Faith says that this supremacy of intellect should be thrown away. Only then can the total being assert itself. And then being is primary and intellect becomes secondary. Then existence is primary; then intellect is just a part. Intellect is dictatorial; faith is democratic because faith gives expression to your whole being. Intellect is only one part trying to be supreme.