So you cannot have a map; by the time the map is ready it is already out of date. By the time the map is available it is useless. Life has changed its tracks. Life has started playing a new game. You cannot cope with life with maps because it is not measurable. And you cannot cope with life with guidebooks because guidebooks are possible only if things are stagnant. Life is not stagnant, it is a dynamism, it is a process. You cannot have a map of it. It is not measurable, it is an immeasurable mystery. Don’t ask for explanations.

That’s why although I answer when you ask questions – because this is part of the agreement of this mad game: you will ask and I will answer – you should never take my answers as explanations. They are not. They are simply introductions to the mystery, prefaces to the mystery, seductions to the mystery. They are not really answers.

My answers are not answers; my answers are simply to help you to come out of your questions and to start living. An answer is an answer when it simply explains your question and you are satisfied that you have now got some information which you were needing and your question is no longer there. Now the place that the question was occupying is occupied by the answer. My answers are not answers in that way. They will help you to drop the question, but they are not going to answer the question. And once the question is dropped you will find no answer occupying its place. There will be no answer. My whole way of answering is such that I answer and yet I never answer. I answer so that you don’t feel offended – your question has to be respected so I respect it – but I cannot answer it because life has no answers.

And this I call maturity of mind: when somebody comes to the point of looking at life without any questions, and simply dives into it with courage and fearlessness.

The second question:

Osho,
Dreams are unreal. But I have heard and read that the mother of Mahavira saw nine white elephants in her dreams before Mahavira’s birth. Then what does that mean? And what is the use of answering the dreams of questioners?

Dreams are unreal, but so is your life. Dreams are unreal, but that is what your life is. Your life is just a dream because you are fast asleep. Can’t you hear yourself snoring?

You are fast asleep. Whatsoever you call your life is just a dream seen with open eyes. You see two types of dreams: one with closed eyes, one with open eyes. But both are dreams.

You say, “Dreams are unreal but I have heard and read that the mother of Mahavira saw nine white elephants in her dreams before Mahavira’s birth.” Your reading is a dream, your hearing is a dream. Whatsoever you have heard about Mahavira has nothing to do with Mahavira. It is your dream.