belief, doubt, and fanaticism; is it essential to have something to believe in?

8/2/2019 Belief, Doubt, and Fanaticism; Is It Essential to Have Something to Believe In?

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, , . Copyright 2012 by OSHO International Foundation,

New York, www.osho.com/copyrights. All rights reserved.Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martins Press,

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OSHO is a registered trademark of Osho International Foundation,

www.osho.com/trademarks.

The material in this book are questions and Oshos responses selected from

various talks by Osho given to a live audience. All of Oshos talks have been published in fullas books, and are also available as original audio recordings. Audio recordings and the

complete text archive can be found via the online OSHO Library at www.osho.com.

ISBN 978-0-312-59548-7 (trade paperback)ISBN 978-1-4299-5126-5 (e-book)

First Edition: April 2012

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I would like you all to be gnostics, to come to a point of experiencewhere things beyond words happen, where language is left far awayback, light-years back, where there is no possibility to conceptualize

your experience.

You cannot say, God is, you cannot say, God is not. You cannot say, I cannot say these things. You can be simply silent. And thosewho can understand silence will understand the answer. You can help

peoplethats what gnostics can do you can help people to come tosilence. Call it meditativeness, awarenessthose are just names, butthe essential quality is absolute silence, nothing stirring in you, nothingwavering in you. And in that state, godliness is. It is all over the place.It is within you, it is without you.

Do you believe in God?I do not believe in believing. That has to be understood rst.Nobody asks me, Do you believe in the sun? Do you believe in

the moon? Nobody asks me that question. Millions of people I have

met, and for thirty years continuously I have answered thousands of

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Belief Is Not the Answer


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B e l i e f , D o u b t , a n d F a n a t i c i s m

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questions. Nobody asks me, Do you believe in the rose ower?There is no need, you can see that the rose ower is there, or it isnot there. Only ctions, not facts, have to be believed.

God is the greatest ction that man has created; hence you haveto believe in him. And why does man have to create this ction ofGod? There must be some inner necessity. I dont have that neces-sity, so there is no question, but let me explain to you why peoplehave believed in God.

One of the signi cant things to understand about mans mind isthat the mind is always seeking and searching some meaning in life.If there is no meaning, suddenly you feel . . . then what are you do-ing here? Then why go on living? Then why go on breathing? Thenwhy tomorrow morning do you have to get up again and go throughthe same routinethe tea, the breakfast, the same wife, the samechildren, the same phony kiss to the wife. Then the same offi ce, the

same work, and the evening comes, and bored, utterly bored, you areback homewhy go on doing all this? The mind has a question: Isthere any meaning in all this, or are you just vegetating?

So man has been searching for meaning. He created God as a c-tion to ful ll his need for meaning. Without God, the world be-comes accidental. It is no longer a creation of a wise God who createsit for your growth, for your development, or for something. RemoveGod, and the world is accidental, meaningless. And the mind has anintrinsic incapacity to live with meaninglessness, so it creates allkinds of ctionsGod, nirvana, heaven, paradise, another life be-yond deathand makes a whole system. But it is a ction to ful lla certain psychological need.

I cannot say, There is God, and I cannot say, There is not God.


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To me the question is irrelevant. It is a ctitious phenomenon. Mywork is totally different.

My work is to make your mind so mature that you can live withmeaningless life, and yet beautifully.

What is the meaning of a rose, or a cloud oating in the sky?There is no meaning but there is such tremendous beauty. There isno meaningthe river goes on owing. But there is so much joy,meaning is not needed! And unless a person is able to live without

asking for meaning, moment to moment, beautifully, blissfully, forno reason at all. . . . Just to breathe is enough! Why should you ask,and for what? Why do you make life a business?

Is not love enough? Have you to ask what is the meaning of love?And if there is no meaning in love, then of course your life becomesloveless. You ask a wrong question. Love is in itself enough; it needsno other meaning to make it beautiful, a joy. The birds singing in

the morning . . . what is the meaning? The whole existence, to me, ismeaningless. And the more I became silent and became attunedwith the existence, the more it became clear that there is no need formeaning. It is enough as it is.

Dont create ctions. Once you create a ction then you have tocreate a thousand and one other ctions to support it, because it hasno support in reality.

For example, there are religions which believe in God, and thereare religions which do not believe in God. So God is not a necessityfor religion. Buddhism does not believe in God, Jainism does not be-lieve in God. So try to understand, because in the West it is a prob-lem. You are aware only of three religions, which are all rooted in JudaismChristianity, Judaism, and Mohammedanism, all three


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believe in God. So you are not aware of Buddhahe never believedin God.

I am reminded of H. G. Wells, his statement about Gautam Bud-dha. He said, He is the most godless person, yet the most godly. Agodless person, and godly? Do you think there is any contradiction?There is no contradiction. Buddha never believed in God, there wasno need. He was so utterly ful lled that his whole ful llment be-came a fragrance around him. Mahavira never believed in God, yet

his life was as divine as life can be.So when I say God is a ction, please do not misunderstand me.God is a ction but godliness is not a ction, it is a quality. God is apersonas a person, it is a ction; there is no God sitting in heavencreating the world. And do you think a God would create such amess that you call the world? Then what is left for the devil? If any-body has created this world it must be the devil, it cannot be God.

But ctionsand old ctions, repeated millions of timesstarttaking on a reality of their own. It has been repeated so much that youdont even question what kind of world God has created, what kindof man God has created. This mad humanity . . . In three thousandyears man has fought ve thousand wars. This is a creation of God?And still man is preparing for the total, suicidal, ultimate war. Godis behind it.

What kind of foolish ctions can become realities once youstart believing in them! God created the worldChristians think itwas exactly four thousand and four years before Jesus Christ. Ofcourse it must have been a Monday morning, and the rst of Janu-ary, I assumebecause the Bible says so. Now there are proofs, athousand and one proofs that this earth is millions of years old. We

have found, hidden in the earth, the remains of animals millions of


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years old, and even mans fossilized bodies, thousands of years old.But what has the last pope said about it? He said, The world wascreated exactly as it is said in the Bible. Four thousand and fouryears before Jesus, that means six thousand years ago.

All the evidence goes against it. In India we have found citiesthat are seven thousand years old. In India we have the Vedas, whichare at least ten thousand years old, according to a very scienti capproach. According to the Hindus they are ninety thousand years

old, because in the Vedas there is a mention of a certain state of thestars which happened ninety thousand years ago. Now, how can thatbe described in the Vedas if they are not ninety thousand years old?

But what has the last pope said? He said, God created the worldwith all these things. Everything is possible for him; he created theworld four thousand and four years before Jesus, with animal bodieslooking millions of years old. Everything is possible for God! One

ction, then you have to support it with another ction, and youcan go to the point of absurdity. And why? Again and again man hasasked this question.

A simple, very simple argument has been behind it. You see anearthen pot. You know it cannot be created by itself; there musthave been a potter. This has been the simple argument of all thesereligions: that if even a single earthen pot cannot be created by itselfand needs a potter to create it, this vast universe needs a creator.And it has satis ed the simple human mind. But it cannot satisfy asophisticated, rational mind.

If you say the universe needs a God to create it, then the questionis bound to arise, Who created God? And then you fall into a re-gress absurdum. Then God one is created by God two, and God two

is created by God three, and God three by God four, and then there


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can be no end. I dont want to be absurd like that. It is better to stopthe rst ction; otherwise you are sowing the seeds for other ctions.

I say existence itself is enough, it needs no creator. It is creativityitself.

So rather than asking me if I believe in a creator, you should askme what is my substitute for God, the creator. My substitute is theexistential energy of creativity. And to me, to be creative is the mostimportant religious quality.

If you create a song, if you create music, if you create a garden,you are being religious. Going to the church is foolish, but creatinga garden is tremendously religious. Thats why here in my commune,work is called worship. We dont pray in any other way, we pray onlythrough creating something. To me, creativity is God. But it will bebetter if you allow me to change the word god into godliness , because Idont want to be misunderstood. There is no person like God, but

there is tremendous energyexploding, unending, expanding. Thisexpanding, unending, exploding energy, this creativity, is divine.

I know it; I dont believe in it. I have tasted it; I dont believe in it.I have touched it, I have breathed it, I have known it in the deepestcore of my being. And it is as much in you as it is in me. Just a lookinward, just a little one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, and youbecome aware of a truth. Then you dont ask for beliefs. Only blindpeople believe in light. Those who have eyes . . . they dont believe inlight, they simply see it.

I dont want you to believe in anything, I want you to have eyes;and when you can have eyes, why be satis ed with a belief and re-main blind? And you are not blind. Perhaps you are only keepingyour eyes closed. Perhaps nobody has told you that you can open


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your eyes. Then you live in darkness, and in darkness you ask, Doeslight exist?

I am reminded of a small story in Buddhas life. A man wasbrought to Gautam Buddha who was blind, but was a very logicalman. He was so logical that his village and the pundits of the vil-lage became utterly fed up with his logic. They could not prove tohim that light exists. The whole village knew; everybody saw it, onlythe blind logician was unable to see it. But he was a very logical

man. He said, Anything that exists can be touched. Bring lightIwould like to touch it. Anything that exists, you can hit it withsomething, it will make sound. Let me hear the sound of your lightbeing hit by something. If it has any smell, bring it to my nose, I cansmell it. If it has any taste, I can taste it. These are the four possi-bilities with me.

Now, you cannot taste light, and you cannot create a sound out

of it, and you cannot smell it, and you cannot touch it. And the blindlogician would laugh and he would say, You just want to prove meblind, hence you have created this ction of light. There is no light.You are all blind just like me; you are befooling yourself.

Buddha was passing by the side of the village, so the villagersthought, It is a good opportunity; let us take this logician to Gau-tam Buddha, perhaps he may be able to help. Buddha listened tothe whole story and he said, The blind man is right, and you are allwrong, because what he needs is not argumentation; he needs medi-cine for his eyes to be cured. And you have brought him to thewrong person. Take him to a physician.

Buddha had his own personal physician, who was provided by agreat king, Bimbisara, to take care of Buddhas body. So Buddha


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said, You need not go far to nd a great physician, I have one withme. You can show the blind man to him. He left the physicianbehind in the village, and he moved on. In three months the blindmans eyes were opened. He was not really blindjust a small dis-ease; a small, thin layer was covering his vision. It was removed. Hecame dancing. He fell at Buddhas feet and he said, If they had notbrought me to you, my whole life I would have argued against light,and they would not have been able to prove it.

Godliness is not something that argument can prove or dis-prove. It is something that you can experience.You will be surprised to know that the wordmedicine and the word

meditation come from the same root. Medicine cures the body, medita-tion cures your being; it is the inner medicine.

I have experienced godliness everywhere, because nothing else ex-ists. But there is no God. And if you want to experience godliness

just a little bit of meditation, a little bit of becoming thoughtlessand remaining aware. When your awareness is there, and thoughtsstart dropping like leaves in the fall, and when there is only aware-ness and there is not a single thought there, you will have the taste,the very taste on your tongue, of what I am saying. And unless youhave tasted, dont believe me; dont believe anyone, because beliefcan become a beggar. You may become satis ed with the belief, andyou may never try.

I just heard the other day that President Ronald Reagan wantsone minute of silence in every school, college, and institution. Theidea is great, but I dont know whether Reagan understands what itmeans, one minute of silence. He must mean simply one minutekeeping quiet, not speaking. Not speaking is not silence. You may


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not be speaking, you may not be uttering anything, but inside athousand and one thoughts are running. There is a continuous owof thoughts, day in, day out. I would like to tell President Reagan

rst to try one minutes silence. That means for one minute nothought moves on the screen of awareness. It is not easy. It is one ofthe most diffi cult things in the world. But it can happen if you con-tinue to try.

And if it happens for one minute, thats enough. If for one min-

ute you can be in a state where no thought moves . . . This has beenmy whole lifes work, teaching people how to be silent. People havetried keeping a watch by their side: not even twenty secondsoneminute is too big, not even twenty seconds can they remain withoutthought. One thought after another, running . . . And even if they canremain for twenty seconds, the thought comes, Aha! Twenty sec-onds! Finishedthe thought has come.

If you can be silent for one minute, you have learned the art. Thenyou can be silent for two minutes, because it is the same; the secondminute is not different from the rst. You can be silent for threeminutes; all the minutes are the same. Once you know the way . . .and the way is not something which can be told to you; you have tojust sit with closed eyes and start watching your thoughts. In thebeginning there will be a great rush hour, but slowly you will ndthe street is less and less crowded; fewer cars are passing, fewerthoughts are passing, fewer people are passing, gaps are becoming big-ger. If one continues patiently, in three months time he will certainlybe able to attain one minutes silence.

I dont know if President Reagan has ever tasted it, because anyman who can taste silence will not try to be a president of a country,


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cannot be in politics. That is not for meditators, it is for mediocres.It is for all kinds of fools and idiots.

I have heard that before Reagan became president he used tohave a monkey . . . I have just heard, I dont know whether it is true ornot. The day Ronald Reagan was elected president, one of my Amer-ican sannyasins brought a picture to me of Ronald Reagan with hismonkey, and he said, Reagan is declared president todaywhat isyour comment?

I looked at the picture for a long time. The sannyasin appearedpuzzled and asked, What is the matter? What are you looking atin the picture?

I said to him, I cannot gure out who is Reagan and who is themonkey. Out of these two fellows, who has been elected the president?

He laughed and showed me a picture of Reagan, and I still re-member my comment, that It would have been better if the mon-

key had been chosen as president. Surely the Kremlin would havefollowed immediately and would have chosen a monkey as theirprime minister. They cannot tolerate America being ahead of them.And one thing is absolutely certain: with a monkey in the WhiteHouse and a monkey in the Kremlin, the world would be savedfrom a third world war, which is going to destroy the whole of hu-manity and the whole of life on earth.

Politicians are monkeys. In fact, monkeys should forgive mepoliticians are worse.

But the idea is good; once in a while, even in a monkeys mind agood idea can come. But if Reagan really means it, I can provide thepeople who can teach every university, every college and school, howto be silent. I can send my sannyasins all over America to teach si-

lence.

belief, doubt, and fanaticism; is it essential to have something to believe in?

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