A friend has presented some paper flowers to me. I look at these flowers — there is nothing in them beyond that which is visible to the eyes. Everything in them is visible, there is nothing invisible. Outside in the flowerbeds roses are in bloom, and beyond the visible there is something invisible in them, and this invisible is their very breath itself.
Modern civilization is analogous to paper flowers. It ends at the visible, with the seen, and hence is lifeless. It has lost its link with the unknown, the invisible. And this is why man is so cut off, so separated from his own roots as never before.
The tree, its leaves, its flowers, its fruits, are all visible but the roots are under the earth. The roots are in the unknown and invisible. The roots that can be seen are not the end of all roots — there are other roots that cannot be seen. The center where life is linked with the universal life is not only unknown, but is also unknowable.
A man connected with the unknowable attains to the real roots.
The unknowable cannot be attained through thoughts. The limit of thought ends at the knowable and visible — thought itself is knowable and visible. And that which is visible cannot become the medium for knowing the invisible.
Isness is beyond thoughts, existence is transcendental to thoughts.
Hence, one does not know existence but one becomes existence. One is not to become acquainted with it as an onlooker, separate from it; rather one has to become one with it.
Dropping thoughts, becoming calm and empty, and so comes that nonduality which puts one into truth, into isness. If one has to see paper flowers they can be seen from a distance, one can become a seer to them. If the real flowers are to be seen, one has to become the flower.
OSHO (BHAGWAN SHREE RAJNEESH)