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. Remember, I repeat it again and again, Buddha has not found the answer; that’s why Buddha never answers. You ask him, “God exists?” He will avoid, he will not answer. You ask him, “What happens when a Buddha dies?” He will avoid, he will start talking about other things. He will not answer.
He is not a metaphysician. He is not a philosopher. He has come to face the question, and the question has disappeared. The question disappears as darkness disappears when you kindle a light, when you bring a lamp. Bring more awareness to the question.
You ask me: “Osho, I myself am a question.” Beautiful – that’s how it should be – reduce all questions to the basic question and that is: “Who am I?” Don’t go on moving on the periphery, like, “Who made the world? Why did he make the world?” – all nonsense questions. Come to the basic question, the most fundamental question: Who am I?
Who? Let your consciousness penetrate into it, like a deep arrow going deeper and deeper and deeper. And don’t be in a hurry to find the answer – because the mind is cunning. If you are in a hurry, impatient, the mind can supply you with it; the mind can quote scriptures; it is the devil. It can say, “Yes, you are God, you are brahma, you are pure consciousness, sat-chit-anand, you are the ultimate truth, the eternal soul, the deathless being.” Those answers can destroy your very search.
A seeker has to be aware of readymade answers. They are available; from every side they are being supplied to you. In fact, your mind has already been conditioned: the answers have been given to you before you had even asked the question.
A small child – he has not asked who God is, and he is being supplied with the answer; he is being conditioned. He has not asked – the question is still not there, and the answer is being given. Many people go on believing in these answers, and they never ask the question themselves.
If you have not asked the question, whatsoever you know is just rubbish. Throw it on the rubbish heap, all your knowledge – because there is no knowledge; there is only knowing. There is no answer, only a state of consciousness where the questioning disappears; only a clarity, a clarity of vision and perception, a clarity of eyes, you can see through and through; not that you find an answer somewhere. Existence is so vast, so mysterious.