There is a Zen story: Two monasteries existed side by side and both the masters had small boys to run errands. Both the boys used to go to the market to fetch things for the masters -- sometimes vegetables, sometimes other things.
These monasteries were antagonistic towards each other, but boys will be boys. They would forget the doctrines and meet on the way and talk, enjoy. It was really prohibited to talk -- the other monastery was the enemy.
One day, the boy from the first monastery came and said, "I am puzzled. As I was going to the market, I saw the boy from the other monastery and asked him, `Where are you going?' He replied, `Wherever the wind blows.' I was at a loss as to what to say; he puzzled me.
The master said, "This is not good. Nobody from our monastery has ever been defeated by the other monastery, not even a servant, so you must fix that boy. Tomorrow, ask again where he is going. He will say, `Wherever the wind blows,' so you say, `If there is no wind, then?' "
The boy couldn't sleep the whole night. He tried and tried to conceive of what would happen the next day; he rehearsed many times. He would ask and the other boy would respond and then he would give his answer.
The next day he waited on the road. The other boy came and he asked, "Where are you going?" The boy said, "Wherever my feet lead me."
He was at a loss as to what to do. His answer was fixed; reality is unpredictable. He came back very sad and said to the master, "That boy is not trustworthy. He changed and I was at a loss as to what to do."
So the master said, "Next day when he answers, `Wherever my feet lead,' you tell him, `If you are crippled and your legs are cut off, then?' "
Again he couldn't sleep. He went early to wait on the road. When the boy came he asked, "Where are you going?" And the boy said "To fetch vegetables from the market." He became very disturbed and said to the master, "This boy is impossible: he goes on changing."
Life is that boy. Reality is not a fixed phenomenon. You have to be present, spontaneously in it -- only then will the response be real. If your answer is fixed beforehand you are already dead, you have already missed. Then tomorrow will come but you will not be there; you will be fixed in the yesterday, that which has passed. All the minds which are too verbal are fixed like this. Go to a pundit, a scholar, and ask, "What is God?" Before you have asked he will start answering. Your question is not answered because even before you had the question this man had the answer. The answer is dead; it is there already, it has just to be brought from the memory.
This is the difference between a man of wisdom and a man of knowledge. A man of knowledge has ready-made answers: you ask and the answer is already there. You are irrelevant, your question is irrelevant. Before the question, the answer exists; your question simply triggers the memory.
If you go to a man of wisdom he has no answers for you; he has nothing ready-made. He is open, he is silent. He'll respond but first your question will resound in his being, not in his memory. Through his being the response comes; nobody can predict that response. If you go the next day and ask the same question, the response will not be the same.
-Rajneesh
