Spirituality

 

 

Religiousness means the circumference, and spirituality means the center. Religiousness has something of spirituality, but only something -- a vague radiation, something like a reflection in the lake of the starry night, of the full moon. Spirituality is the real thing; religiousness is just a by-product.

 

And one of the greatest misfortunes that has happened to humanity is that people are being told to be religious not spiritual. Hence they start decorating their circumference, they cultivate character. Character is your circumference. By painting your circumference, the center is not changed. But if you change the center, the circumference automatically goes through a transformation.

 

Change the center -- that is spirituality. Spirituality is an inner revolution. It certainly affects your behavior, but only as a by-product. Because you are more alert, more aware, so naturally your action is different, your behavior has a different quality, a different flavor, a different beauty. But vice versa does not.... If your body is healthy then your lips are red, but you can paint them with lipstick and they will look red -- and ugly. A woman with lipstick is the ugliest woman possible. I sometimes wonder who she is trying to deceive! Her whole face is saying something else, her whole body is saying something else, and her lips are so red.... Such redness does not happen naturally; they are painted. But there are fools in the world -- she will find some fool to kiss those painted lips too!

 

I cannot believe it! -- just try tasting lipstick and you will understand what I mean when I say I cannot believe it! And layers and layers of lipstick, old, rotten!

 

People are living with painted faces, wearing masks. These people are called religious. Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, Jainas -- these are religious people. Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, Krishna, Lao Tzu -- these people are spiritual.

 

Spirituality belongs to your essential being, and religiousness only to the outermost: actions, behavior, morality. Religiousness is formal; going to the church every Sunday is a social affair. The church is nothing but a kind of club, a Rotary Club, a Lions Club -- and there are many clubs. The church is also a club, but with religious pretensions.

 

The spiritual person belongs to no creed, to no dogma. He cannot belong to any church, Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan...it is impossible for him to belong to any.

 

Spirituality is one; religions are many.

 

My insistence here is on inner transformation.

 

I don't teach you religion, I teach you spirituality.

 

I can understand why you were unable to find any answer. You must have been asking the religious people -- the Christians, the bishops, the popes, the priests, or the rabbis. They will give you answers because they are supposed to know. They know nothing; they are just supposed to know. [....]

 

The rabbis, the priests, the bishops -- they are supposed to know everything. You can ask any question, sensible or not so sensible, making some sense or making no sense at all, but they will answer. It is their business to answer all kinds of stupid questions.

 

You must have been asking these people, Sylvia, that's why you have not been successful in obtaining an answer. They don't have the answer. Only a Jesus can answer your question, or a Buddha or a Kabir or a Nanak -- somebody who knows life from his innermost being, who has come to know the eternal in himself.

 

Spirituality belongs to the eternal, and religion belongs to the temporal. Religion belongs to people's behavior. It is really what Pavlov, Skinner, Delgado and others call a conditioning of the behavior. The child is brought up by Christians -- then he is conditioned in one way, he becomes a Christian. Or he is brought up by Hindus -- he is conditioned in another way, he becomes a Hindu. His conditioning is an imprisonment; he will remain a Hindu. He will think like a Hindu or a Christian his whole life. And those thoughts are not his own, they have been put into his head by others -- by the vested interests, by the establishment, by the state, by the church. They have their own interests: they want to dominate you. And the best way to dominate you is to condition you from the very beginning so deeply that you start thinking that this conditioning is what you are.

 

You are not a Christian, or a Hindu, or a Mohammedan. You are born as a spiritual being and then you become a victim of your parents, teachers and priests. And of course these parents, these teachers and these priests go on telling you, "Respect your parents, respect your teachers, respect your priests." If you don't respect them you will fall into hell; if you respect them, then all the pleasures of heaven are yours. This is a simple psychological strategy to make you afraid and to make you greedy. These are the two things people are ruled by: fear and greed. And the spiritual person is one who is free of both. [....]

 

Your religions are nothing but the rationalizations of fear, of greed. They are conspiracies against you by the establishment, by the people who are ruling you politically, religiously, philosophically, in every way -- by the people who have reduced humanity to a great concentration camp.

 

And you must have asked these people, "What is the difference between spirituality and religiousness?" They cannot say -- they don't know themselves.

 

Spirituality is rebellion; religiousness is orthodoxy. Spirituality is individuality; religiousness is just remaining part of the crowd psychology. Religiousness keeps you a sheep, and spirituality is a lion's roar.

 

-Osho, "Come, Come, Yet Again Come, #2, Q1"