Slavery

 

 

The religions, particularly the organized religions, have always given three qualities to God. He is omnipotent -- absolutely powerful; omniscient -- knowing absolutely everything that is, that haj been that will be; and hc is omnipresent -- he is everywhere present, there is not a place where he is not present. The organized religion depends very much on these qualities. Why? -- because people can be enslaved only if God is the suprememost power.

 

In fact, people are always seeking somebody who is more powerful than themselves so that they can throw all the responsibilities on his shoulders. God has to be omnipotent; there can be nobody more powerful than him. He is pure power. That is the strategy of the priest to enslave people. If he is power, pure power, the highest power, the omnipotent power, then of course all that you have to do is just be a slave. Trying to escape from him is futile, trying to be independent is futile, trying for freedom is futile. It is better to serve him, to be just a servant.

 

You cannot escape from him because he is omnipresent; wherever you go you will find him. He is always watching, he is always looking at you. It is not only that he watches your acts, he watches even your thoughts, so even in thinking you are not free, you are not left alone; there is no privacy. If God is omnipresent then there is no privacy at all. Then you are never alone, he is always there. This is to create fear. You cannot do anything without him knowing it. In fact, before you have done it he knows it.

 

He is also omniscient: he knows all -- past, present, future. So not only does he know your past, not only the present, but also the future. What are you going to do? You are absolutely caught, absolutely imprisoned. You cannot escape from God.

 

This is how Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, Hindus, all have believed. This is a must to create submission in people. And it fits with the upbringing of people -- because the child is born dependent, helpless. He is dependent on the father, on the mother, and so utterly helpless that he cannot survive on his own. He has to compromise, he has to listen and be obedient, and if he does anything against the parents he starts feeling guilt.

 

Parents create guilt. That is the greatest sin against humanity. To create guilt in a child is criminal because once the guilt is created, the child will never be free of it. Unless he is very intelligent it will be impossible for him to get rid of it; something of it will remain around him like a hangover.

 

But the priests and the politicians both conspire in creating guilt in people. The politician wants to enslave your body and the priest wants to enslave your soul, your mind. Your outer side and your inner side, both are being enslaved by the politician and the priest. They have always been in a deep conspiracy.

 

It is not strange that whenever there are elections, politicians start going to the saints and to the temples and to the holy places. For what? Simply to convince the priests that "We are with you, we will never go against you." And the priests are always willing to help the politicians -- their purpose is the same. One wants to rule man's interiority and the other wants to rule his exteriority, but both want to rule.

 

And the parents creating guilt in the child are very helpful, tremendously helpful, because the guilty person always feels that he has to receive orders from somebody and he has to follow them. Whether it is the politician or the priest does not matter -- somebody has to order. He is always at the receiving end. His function is to efficiently fulfill the order. His function is not to think, his function is not to be aware, his function is not to decide.

 

And all parents like stupid children because they are obedient. The intelligent child is bound to be rebellious. Intelligence has the flavor of rebellion. Intelligence has to be completely destroyed, and instead of intelligence a mediocre mind has to be created.

 

My own observation is that each child is born very intelligent, but our whole conditioning hitherto has been such that his intelligence starts gathering dust. And we allow it to gather dust: his sharpness is lost, his sword becomes rusty. and that's what we want. We don't want him to have a sharp intelligence because then he will ask questions -- and there are no answers with the parents, with the priests, with the politicians. They don't have any answers. They have power -- they can punish you for asking an embarrassing question. They don't allow you to ask questions; your function is to fulfill the order, to do and not to ask why. The whole of humanity has been reduced to slavery.

 

This is the real spiritual slavery! Political slavery is nothing compared to it. Regimes change -- a capitalist country can become communist, a socialist country can become fascist, a Hindu country can be ruled by the Christians or Mohammedans, a Mohammedan country can be ruled by the Christians -- it does not matter at all; the spiritual slavery continues. It depends on the idea that God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent: you cannot escape him, you cannot deceive him. It is really ugly, the very idea that he is always watching you, that you are never left alone.

 

What Dionysius is saying is exactly the same as what Nietzsche said in more clear words: that God is dead and man is free. But he is saying it in such a way that the theologians will not be able to detect it.

 

-Osho, "Theologia Mystica, #13"