Three Types of Fool
Tarot in The Spirit of Zen
Osho
The first:
one who knows not,
and knows that he knows not: SIMPLE FOOL
The second:
one who knows not
but thinks that he knows: COMPLEX FOOL, LEARNED FOOL
The third:
one who knows that he knows not:
BLESSED FOOL
Everybody is born as a simple fool -- that is the
meaning of "simpleton".
Every child is a simple fool. He knows that he
knows not. He has not yet
become aware of the possibility of knowing.
That is the Christian
parable of Adam and Eve. God said to them,
"Don't eat the fruit of the
tree of knowledge." Before that accident of
eating the fruit of the tree
of knowledge, they were simple fools. They knew
nothing. Of course, they
were tremendously happy because when you know
not, it is difficult to be
unhappy. Unhappiness needs a little training, a
little efficiency is
needed to create it: unhappiness needs a little
technology. You cannot
create hell without knowledge. How can you
create hell without knowledge?
Adam and Eve were like small children. Every
time a child is born, an
Adam is born. And he lives for a few years -- at
the most four years, and
that time is becoming less and less every day.
He lives in paradise
because he knows not how to create misery. He
trusts life; he enjoys
small things -- pebbles on the shore, or seashells.
He gathers them as if he
has found a treasure. Ordinary colored stones
look like Gems. Everything
fascinates him -- the dewdrops in the morning sun,
the stars in the night,
the moon, the flowers, the butterflies,
everything is a sheer fascination.
But then, by and by, he starts knowing: a
butterfly is just a butterfly.
A flower is just a flower. There is nothing
much in it. He starts
knowing the names: this is a rose and that is a
lily and that is a
marigold and this is a lotus. And by and by
those names became barriers.
The more he knows, the more he is cut off from
life as such. He becomes
"heady". Now he lives through the head, not
through his totality.
That is the meaning of the fall. He has eaten
of the tree of knowledge.
Every child has to eat of the tree of knowledge.
Every child is so simple that he has to become
complex -- that is part of the
growth. So every child moves from simple
foolishness towards complex
foolishness. There are different degrees of
complex foolishness -- a few
people only graduate from high school, a few
people become college
graduates, a few become doctors and Ph.Ds -- there
are degrees. But every
child has to taste something of knowledge
because the temptation to know
is great. Anything that is standing there
unknown becomes dangerous, a
danger. It has to be known because with
knowledge we will be able to cope
with it. Without knowledge, how are we going to
cope with it? So every
child is bound to become knowledgeable.
So the first type of fool, out of necessity, has
to become the second type
of fool. But from the second, the third may
happen or may not happen;
there is no necessity. The third is possible
only when the second type of
foolishness has become a great burden -- one has
carried knowledge too much,
to the extreme. One has become just the head
and has lost all
sensitivity, all awareness, all livingness. One
has become just theories
and scriptures and dogmas and words and words
whirling around in the mind.
One day, if the person is aware, he has to drop
all that. Then he
becomes the third type of fool -- the blessed fool.
He is again a child. He trusts life; he enjoys
small things -- pebbles on
the shore, or seashells. He gathers them as if
he has found a treasure.
Ordinary colored stones look like Gems.
Everything fascinates him -- the
dewdrops in the morning sun, the stars in the
night, the moon, the
flowers, the butterflies, everything is a sheer
fascination.