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is coming out of his innocence, flowering out of his innocence. He says he does not know.
Have you ever observed the fact that in life we go on claiming that we know, but we don't know? What do you know? Have you known anything, ever? If I ask why the trees are green, will you be able to answer it? Yes, the best answer that I have heard is from D.H. Lawrence. A small child was walking with him in a garden and the child asked -- as children are prone to ask -- "Why are the trees green?" D.H. Lawrence looked at the trees, looked into the eyes of the child, and said, "They are green because they are green." That's the truest answer ever given. What else can you say? Whatsoever else you say will be foolish; it will not make any sense. You can say trees are green because of chlorophyll, but why is chlorophyll green? The question remains the same. I ask you one question, you give me an answer, but the question is not really answered.
You have lived with a woman for thirty years, and you call her your wife, or with a man, for fifty years; do you know the man or the woman? A child is born to you; do you know him? Have you looked into his eyes? Can you claim that you know him? What do you know? Do you know a piece of rock? Yes, scientists will give many explanations, but they don't become knowledge. They will say electrons and protons and neutrons. But what is an electron? And they shrug their shoulders; they say, "We don't know." They say, "We don't know YET," in the hope that someday they will be able to know. No, they will never be able to know, because first they said, "The rock is made of atoms," and when it was asked what is an atom, they said, "We don't know yet." Then they said, "The atom consists of electrons." Now we ask what is an electron; they say, "We don't know yet." Someday they will say the electron consists of this and that, X, Y, Z; but that doesn't make any difference. The ultimate remains irreducible to knowledge. The ultimate remains a mystery.
If the ultimate is a mystery, then life becomes a life of wonder. If the ultimate is not known, then poetry arises. If the ultimate is known -- or you THINK that it is known -- then philosophy
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