Greatest Understanding:
Nothing can be Understood
Beloved Master,
It seems to me that you are truly the first man this planet has ever
known who really understands women and accepts them. Please comment.
I have told you that a woman is to be loved, not understood. That
is the first understanding. Life is so mysterious that our hands
cannot reach to its heights, our eyes cannot look into its deepest
mystery. Understanding any expression of existence - men or women or
trees or animals or birds - is the function of science, not of a
mystic.
I am not a scientist. To me science itself is a mystery, and now
scientists have started to recognize it - they are dropping their
old stubborn, superstitious attitude that one day they will know all
that is to be known.
With Albert Einstein the whole history of science has taken a very
different route because the more he went into the deepest core of
matter, the more he became puzzled. All logic was left behind, all
rationality was left behind. You cannot dictate to existence,
because it does not follow your logic. Logic is man-made.
There was a point in Albert Einstein's life when he remembers that
he was wavering about whether to insist on being rational... but
that would be foolish. It would be human, but not intelligent. Even
if you insist on logic, on rationality, existence is not going to
change according to your logic; your logic has to change according
to existence. And the deeper you go, existence becomes more and more
mysterious.
A point comes when you have to leave logic and rationality and just
listen to nature. I call it the ultimate understanding - but not in
the ordinary sense of understanding. You know it, you feel it, but
there is no way to say it.
Man is a mystery, woman is a mystery, everything that exists is a
mystery - and all our efforts to figure it out are going to fail.
I am reminded of a man who was purchasing in a toy shop a present
for his son for Christmas. He was a well-known mathematician, so
naturally the shopkeeper brought out a jigsaw puzzle. The
mathematician tried... it was a beautiful puzzle. He tried and tried
and tried and started perspiring. It was becoming awkward: the
customers and the salesmen and the shopkeeper were all watching and
he has not been able to bring the puzzle to a solution.
Finally he dropped the idea and he shouted at the shopkeeper: "I am
a mathematician and if I cannot solve this jigsaw puzzle, how do you
think my small boy will be able to?"
The shopkeeper said, "You don't understand. It is made in such a way
that nobody can solve it - mathematician or no mathematician."
The mathematician asked, "But why is it made in this way?"
The shopkeeper said, "It is made in this way so that the boy from
the very beginning starts learning that life cannot be solved,
cannot be understood."
You can live it, you can rejoice in it, you can become one with the
mystery, but the idea of understanding as an observer is not at all
possible.
I don't understand myself.
The greatest mystery to me is myself.
But a few clues I can give to you...
A psychiatrist is a fellow who asks you a lot of expensive
questions that your wife asks you for nothing.
The key to happiness: You may speak of love and tenderness and
passion, but real ecstasy is discovering you haven't lost your keys
after all.
Women begin by resisting a man's advances and end by blocking his
retreat.
If you want to change a woman's mind, agree with her.
If you want to know what a woman really means, look at her - don't
listen to her.
"I have been watching the whole time," said the cop, "and that man wasn't even looking at you."
"Well," said the woman, "isn't that annoying?"
She thought for a moment and then said, "You could be - I have a terrible memory for faces."
"Only the ceremony!" replied the old maid.
"But Eve," said Adam, "you know that there is only you and I here in Eden!"
"Don't lie to me! I always know when you are lying!" Eve whined.
"Eve, listen! This is just a fantasy brought on by your menopause."
"Don't give me any psychological bullshit! I know what I saw!" Eve roared.
"Okay, okay, then if you don't believe me, just count my ribs."
"Do something!" pleaded his wife in alarm.
"Why should I?" retorted the frustrated hunter. "That lion got himself into this mess - let him get himself out of it"
Everything is mysterious: it is better to enjoy it rather than
trying to understand it. Ultimately the man who goes on trying to
understand life proves to be a fool, and the man who enjoys life
becomes wise goes on enjoying life, because he becomes more and more
aware of the mysterious that surrounds us.
The greatest understanding is to know that nothing can be
understood, that all is mysterious and miraculous. To me this is the
beginning of religion in your life.