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.