THE UPANISHADS do not believe in a personal God. Neither do they believe in any personal relationship with the divine. They say that personal relationship is impossible, inconceivable. Why?

 

- because the UPANISHADS say that personality itself is illusory. Try to understand this.

 

I am a person. It means I am separate from existence - personality means separation. I cannot be a person if I am not defined, I cannot be a person if I am not different. I cannot be a person if I am not separate. Personality exists as an island, defined, demarked, different, separate. The UPANISHADS say, personalities are false; you only appear to be persons, you are not.

 

The inner being is impersonal; it has no limitations, no boundaries. It begins nowhere and ends nowhere. It goes on and on to the infinite; it is the infinite and eternal. In space and in time both, it is undefined, undifferentiated; it is not separate like an island.

 

This word "personality" is very beautiful; we don't have such a beautiful word in Sanskrit or Hindi.

 

This word "personality" comes from a Greek root which means mask. The Greek root is PERSONA.

 

"Persona" means mask. Actors used it to deceive or to create the impression of some face in a drama. The original word means just a mask, a face, artificial. So if you are playing in a drama, acting as Rama, you can use a false face which gives the impression that you are Rama. Inside you are not Rama, only the face is Rama. The word personality comes from "persona."

 

We all have personalities, which are simply masks. Inside there is no person at all; inside you are just eternal energy, infinite energy. Outside you have a face. That face is not you, that face is just like any mask in any drama. The world is a great drama and you have faces to play - and that's why one face is not enough. The drama is so long and so big and multi-dimensional, so everyone has many faces. You are not one person, you are many persons together.

 

When you are talking to your friend, you have a different face; you are not the same person. When you are encountering your enemy, you have a different face; this is not the same face. You are with your beloved, this is a different face; you are with your wife - this is a different face. You can see: a couple is passing, and you can say whether they are husband and wife or not. If they are happy, they are not; if they feel blissful, ecstatic, they are not - the man must be moving with someone else's wife. With one's own wife it is a suffering, a pain, a burden - a duty. Any duty becomes a burden; it is not fun, it is not play.

 

Look at a person moving with his wife... he cannot look here and there; if a beautiful woman passes, he will remain a monk. Then you can know the man is moving with his wife, because the wife is observing him every moment - "Where are you looking? Why are you looking?" And he will have to explain everything back home. Of course, no explanation is ever accepted, but still explanations have to be given.

 

You are talking to your servant; look at your face in the mirror. You are talking to your boss; look - look at your tail, which is absent but still working, wagging. It is not there, but it IS there.

 

Man has many faces, has to have, because every moment you need a new face. And the more civilized, the more faces; and the more civilized and cultured, the easier it is to change faces immediately. Really, you are not even aware that you go on changing faces; the whole thing has become automatic.

 

So personality is not personality, it is really personaliTIES. Every man is many men - a crowd inside, and many faces constantly changing moment to moment. But are you your faces?

 

In Zen, in Japan, whenever a seeker comes to a master, the master says to him, "Meditate - and this is the object of your meditation; I give you this object for your meditation: find your original face.

 

Find out how you looked before you were born; or find out how you will look when you have died.

 

Find your original face - which is YOURS, not for others."

 

All our faces are for others. Have you any face of your own? You cannot have, because faces are basically for others. You do not need them for yourself, there is no need. You are faceless. Really, the original face is faceLESS. You have no face inside - all the faces are outside; they are for others, meant to be for others.

 

The UPANISHADS say that you are impersonal inside - just life, not a person; just energy, not a person; just vitality, not a person; just existence, not a person. So how can you create a relationship with the divine? How can you create any relationship with the original source of life? When you don't have any face, how can the divine have any face? The divine is faceless. The divine has no face, he need not have any. The divine is just pure existence with no body and no face. So you cannot be related personally.

 

Religions have talked in terms of personal relationship. Some religions call God father, mother, brother, beloved, or anything you wish - but they go on thinking in terms of relationship, of being related. They go on thinking in terms of anthropocentric attitudes. The father is a human relationship.

 

Brother, mother, beloved, all - all relationships are human. You think in terms of relationship with the divine; you miss the point, because the divine is not a person, and there is no possibility of personal relationship. That's why the UPANISHADS never call God the father. They never call God the mother; they never call God the beloved or the lover. They simply call God "that" - TAT.

 

This word "that" is very basic to upanishadic teaching and philosophy. When you say "that," it gives no sense of personality. When you call existence "that," you cannot be related to it - there is no possibility. How can you be related to "that"? You cannot be related to "that." What does it mean?

 

Does it mean that you cannot be really related to the divine? No, but this shows that to be related to the divine is going to be altogether a different relationship; the quality cannot be human. Rather the relationship with the divine is going to be the very reverse of a human relationship.

 

When I am related to someone as husband and wife, or brother and sister, or father and son... two are needed in any relationship. Relationship can exist only between two points - two relators. This is how human relationship exists: between two. It is a flow, a bridge between two; it is dual. Human relationship is dual: two points are needed, then it can exist between these two. But with "that" - pure existence, divine, or God - you cannot be related in a dual way. You can be related only when you become one. You can be related only when you are no more. As long as you are, there can be no relationship. When you are not, then you are related. But then the very word becomes absurd, because relation always means between two. How can there be relationship when only one exists?

 

But this is the reverse of relationship. To call the divine "that," indicates many things; there are many implications. One, you cannot be related in the ordinary sense of relationship with the divine. You can be related in a very extraordinary sense, absurd sense, when you have become one. Secondly, you cannot worship "that"; that's impossible.

 

The UPANISHADS don't preach any worship, any prayer - no. It would be good to understand the difference between prayer and meditation. The UPANISHADS teach meditation, never prayer.

 

Prayer is always personal, a dialogue between you and the divine. But how can you have a dialogue with "that"? Impossible - the person must be there; only then a dialogue is possible.

 

One of the greatest Jewish thinkers of this age, Martin Buber, has written a book, I AND THOU.

 

Jewish thinking is dual, just the contrary of the upanishadic thinking. Buber says, "I AND THOU - this is the basic relationship between man and man, and between man and the divine also. Because this is the only relationship: I AND THOU.

 

When you stand before God as "I," and God becomes "thou," you are related. Buber says that when God becomes "thou," you are in love. The UPANISHADS will not agree. They say if God is "thou," then you are still there to call him "thou." The "I" exists, and "I" is the barrier: the ego exits and the ego cannot be related. And if you think that the ego is related to the divine, then this thinking is false and pseudo. Really, you are in imagination. If God becomes "thou," it is imaginary. The UPANISHADS say: "that." But we can say "I and thou"; we cannot say "I and that," because there is no relationship between "I" and "that." The "I" must drop; only then the "that" evolves, arises. With the dropping of the "I," the "that" is born. It is there, but the "I" is a barrier. When the barrier drops for the first time you realize existence as it is - THAT WHICH IS.

 

So the UPANISHADS always call the ultimate truth "that" - TAT.

 

-Osho, “That Art Thou, Discourse #43”