Knowledge and wisdom

Soon, computers will replace all your knowledge. The pundit is going to disappear from the world; the computer will take its place. And I say 'its' place knowingly, because a pundit is a mechanism, he is not a man. That's all you have been doing with the brain - you go on feeding it information. Knowledge is borrowed. Others know it; you believe they must be true.

Wisdom comes through your own experience. Knowledge is an accumulation, wisdom is also an accumulation. But knowledge is an accumulation of others' experiences; wisdom is an accumulation of your own experience. A young man can never be wise; he can be knowledgeable - because for wisdom, time is needed. Old people are wise because you must pass through experiences....

Your own youth - you cannot step in it twice. You have learnt something from your experience, you carry it. Knowledge can be washed away, wisdom also. They can be brainwashed, completely wiped from your mind.


Understanding can never be brainwashed, it is not part of the brain, it is non-accumulative. All that is accumulative is accumulated in the brain. Understanding is the real flowering of being. A man of understanding is mirror- like. A mirror carries nothing. A mirror always lives in the immediate present: whoever comes before it, it reflects.

Abridged from Tao: The Three Treasures; Courtesy: OSHO Times International; www.osho.com