• My whole love and respect is for the person who accepts himself totally, as he is. He has courage. He has courage to face the whole pressure of the society which is bent upon splitting him into divisions – into good and bad, into saint and sinner. He is really a brave, courageous being who stands against the whole history of man, of morality, and declares to the skies his reality, whatever it is.
    - Osho

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First a few fundamentals....

 

Zen is not a theology, it is a religion -- and religion without a theology is a unique phenomenon. All other religions exist around the concept of God. They have theologies.

 

They are God-centric not man-centric; man is not the end, God is the end. But not so for Zen. For Zen, man is the goal, man is the end unto himself God is not something above humanity, God is something hidden within humanity. Man is carrying God in himself as a potentiality.

 

So there is no concept of God in Zen. If you want you can say that it is not even a religion -- because how can there be a religion without the concept of God? Certainly those who have been brought up as Christians, Mohammedans, Hindus, Jews, cannot conceive of what sort of religion Zen is. If there is no God then it becomes atheism. It is not. It is theism to the very core -- but without a God.

 

This is the first fundamental to be understood. Let it sink deep within you, then things will become clear.

 

Zen says that God is not extrinsic to religion, it is intrinsic. It is not there, it is here. In fact there is no 'there' for Zen, all is here. And God is not then, God is now -- and there is no other time. There is no other space, no other time. This moment is all. In this moment the whole existence converges, in this moment all is available. If you cannot see it that does not mean that it is not available -- it simply means you don't have the vision to see it. God has not to be searched for, you have only to open your eyes. God is already the case.

 

Prayer is irrelevant in Zen -- to whom to pray? There is no God sitting there somewhere in the heavens and controlling life, existence. There is no controller. Life is moving in a harmony on its own accord. There is nobody outside it giving it commandments. When there is an outside authority it creates a kind of slavery... a Christian becomes a slave, the same happens to a Mohammedan. When God is there commanding, you can be at the most a servant or a slave. You lose all dignity.

 

Not so with Zen. Zen gives you tremendous dignity. There is no authority anywhere.

 

Freedom is utter and ultimate.

 

Had Friederich Nietzsche known anything about Zen he might have turned into a mystic rather than going mad. He had stumbled upon a great fact. He said, 'There is no God. God is dead -- and man is free.' But basically he was brought up in the world of the Jews and the Christians, a very narrow world, very much confined in concepts. He stumbled upon a great truth: 'There is no God. God is dead, hence man is free.' He stumbled upon the dignity of freedom, but it was too much. For his mind it was too much. He went mad, he went berserk. Had he known anything like Zen he would have turned into a mystic -- there was no need to go mad.

 

One can be religious without a God. In fact, how can one be religious with a God? That is the question Zen asks, a very disturbing question. How can a man be religious with a God? -- because God will destroy your freedom, God will dominate you. You can look into the Old Testament. God says, 'I am a very jealous God and I cannot tolerate any other God. Those who are not with me are against me. And I am a very violent and cruel God and I will punish you and you will be thrown into eternal hell fire.' How can man be religious with such a God? How can you be free and how can you bloom? Without freedom there is no flowering. How can you come to your optimum manifestation when there is a God confining you, condemning you, forcing you this way and that, manipulating you?

 

Zen says that with God, man will remain a slave; with God, man will remain a worshipper; with God, man will remain in fear. In fear how can you bloom? You will shrink, you will become dry, you will start dying. Zen says that when there is no God there is tremendous freedom, there is no authority in existence. Hence there arises great responsibility. Look... if you are dominated by somebody you cannot feel responsible.

 

Authority necessarily creates irresponsibility; authority creates resistance; authority creates reaction, rebellion, in you -- you would like to kill God. That's what Nietzsche means when he says God is dead -- it is not that God has committed a suicide, he has been murdered.

 

He has to be murdered. With him there is no possibility to be free -- only without him.

 

But then Nietzsche became very afraid himself. To live without God needs great courage, to live without God needs great meditation, to live without God needs great awareness -- that was not there. That's why I say he stumbled upon the fact, it was not a discovery. He was groping in the dark.

 

For Zen it is a discovery. It is an established truth: there is no God. Man is responsible for himself and for the world he lives in. If there is suffering, you are responsible; there is nobody else to look to. You cannot throw off your responsibility. If the world is ugly and is in pain, we are responsible -- there is nobody else. If we are not growing we cannot throw the responsibility on somebody else's shoulders. We have to take the responsibility.

 

When there is no God you are thrown back to yourself. Growth happens. You have to grow. You have to take hold of your life; you have to take the reins in your own hands.

 

Now you are the master. You have to be more alert and more aware because for whatsoever is going to happen you will be responsible. This gives great responsibility.

 

One starts becoming more alert, more aware. One starts living in a totally different way.

 

One becomes more watchful. One becomes a witness.

 

And when there is no beyond.... The beyond is within you, there is no beyond beyond you. In Christianity the beyond is beyond; in Zen the beyond is within. So the question is not to raise your eyes towards the sky and pray -- that is meaningless, you are praying to an empty sky. The sky is far lower in consciousness than you.

 

Somebody is praying to a tree.... Many Hindus go and pray to a tree, many Hindus go to the Ganges and pray to the river, many pray to a stone statue, many pray towards the sky or many pray towards a concept, an idea. The higher is praying towards the lower. Prayer is meaningless.

 

Zen says: only meditation. It is not that you have to kneel down before somebody. Drop this old habit of slavery. All that is needed is that you have to become quiet and silent and go withinwards to find your centre. That very centre is the centre of existence too. When you have come to your innermost core you have come to the innermost core of existence itself. That's what God is in Zen. But they don't call it God. It is good that they don't call it God.

 

So the first thing to remember is that Zen is not a theology, it is a religion -- and that too with a tremendous difference. It is not a religion like Islam. There are three fundamentals in Islam: one God, one book, and one prophet. Zen has no God,, no book, no prophet.

 

The whole existence is God's prophecy; the whole existence is his message.

 

And remember, God is not separate from this message either. This message itself is divine. There is no messenger -- all that nonsense has been completely dropped by Zen.

 

Theology arises with one book. It needs a Bible, it needs a holy Koran. It needs a book which pretends to be holy, it needs a book which tries to say that it is special -- that no other book is like this, this is a Godsend, a gospel.

 

Zen says everything is divine so how can anything be special? All is special. Nothing is non-special so nothing can be special. Each leaf of every tree and each pebble on every shore is special, unique, holy. It is not that the Koran is holy, not that the Bible is holy.

 

When a lover writes a letter to his beloved that letter is holy.

 

Zen brings holiness to ordinary life.

 

A great Zen Master, Bokoju, used to say, 'How wondrous this. How mysterious. I carry fuel, I draw water.'

 

'How wondrous this. How mysterious.' Carrying fuel, drawing water from the well and he says, 'How mysterious.' This is the Zen spirit. It transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. It transforms the profane into the sacred. It drops the division between the world and the divine.

 

That's why I say it is not a theology. It is pure religion. Theology contaminates religion.

 

There is no difference between a Mohammedan and a Christian and a Hindu as far as religion is concerned but there is great difference as far as theology is concerned . They have different theologies. People have been fighting because of theology.

 

Religion is one; theologies are many. Theology means the philosophy about God, the logic about God. It is all meaningless because there is no way to prove God -- there is no way to disprove either. Argumentation is just irrelevant. Yes, one can experience but one cannot prove -- and that's what theology goes on doing. And theology goes on doing such stupid things -- logic chopping. When you look at it from a distance you will laugh. It is so ridiculous.

 

In the Middle Ages, Christian theologians were very much concerned, very much troubled, puzzled about problems which will not look like problems to you. For example, how many angels can stand on the point of a needle? Books have been written about it -- great argumentation.


[....]

 

Theology is crap. And because of theology, religion becomes poisoned. A really religious person has no theology. Yes, he has got the experience, he has the truth, he has that luminosity, but he has no theology. But theology has been of great help to scholars, pundits, the so-called learned people. It has been of great interest to the priests, to the popes, to the SHANKARACHARYAS. It has been of great benefit to them. Their whole business depends on it.

 

Zen cuts the very root. It destroys the very business of the priest. And that is one of the ugliest businesses in the world because it depends on a very great deception. The priest has not known and he goes on preaching; the theologian has not known but he goes on spinning theories. He is as ignorant as anybody else -- maybe even more so. But his ignorance has become very, very articulate. His ignorance is very decorated -- decorated with scriptures, decorated with theories; decorated so cunningly and cleverly that it is very difficult to detect the flaw. Theology has not been of any help to humanity but certainly it has helped many people: the priests. They have been able to exploit humanity in the name of foolish theories.

 

Two psychiatrists meeting in a busy restaurant got to talking and one said he was treating a rather interesting case of schizophrenia.

 

At that the other analyst balked. 'What's so interesting about that? Split-personality cases are rather common, I would say.'

 

'This case is interesting,' responded his colleague. 'They both pay!'

 

That's how theologians have lived. Theology is politics. It divides people. And if you can divide people you can rule them.

 

Zen looks at humanity with undivided vision -- it does not divide. It has a total look.

 

That's why I say that Zen is the religion of the future. Humanity is growing slowly towards that awareness where theology will be dropped and religion will be accepted purely as an experience.

 

In Japanese they have a special word for it. They call it KONOMAMA or SONOMAMA -- 'Thisness' of existence. This -- capital 'This' -- is it. This isness of life is God. It is not that God is, but the very isness is divine: the isness of a tree, the isness of a rock, the isness of a man, the isness of a woman, the isness of a child. And that isness is an undefined phenomenon, undefinable. You can dissolve into it, you can merge into it, you can taste it. 'How wondrous. How mysterious.'

 

But you cannot define it, you cannot pinpoint it logically, you cannot formulate it into clear-cut concepts. Concepts kill it. Then it is the isness no more. Then it is a mind- construction. The word 'God' is not God, the concept 'God' is not God. Neither is the concept 'love' love nor is the word 'food' food. Zen says a very simple thing. It says:

 

remember that the menu is not the food. And don't start eating the menu. That's what people have been doing down the centuries: eating the menu.

 

And of course, if they are undernourished, if they are not flowing, if they are not vital, if they are not living totally, it is natural, it is predictable. They have not lived on real food.

 

They have been talking too much about food and they have completely forgotten what food is. God has to be eaten, God has to be tasted, God has to be lived -- not argued about.

 

The process of 'about' is theology. And that 'about' goes round and round, it never comes to the real thing. It is a vicious circle. Logic is a vicious circle. And Zen makes every effort to bring you out of that vicious circle.

 

How is logic a vicious circle? The premise already has the conclusion in it. The conclusion is not going to be something new, it is contained in the premise. And then in the conclusion the premise is contained. It is like a seed: the tree is contained in the seed and then the tree will give birth to many more seeds and in those seeds trees will be contained. It is a vicious circle: seed, tree, seed. It goes on. Or, egg, hen, egg, hen, egg...

 

it goes on ad infinitum. It is a circle.

 

To break out of this circle is what Zen is all about -- not to go on moving in your mind through words and concepts but to drop into existence itself.

 

A great Zen Master, Nanin, was cutting a tree in the forest. And a professor of a university came to see him. Naturally the professor thought that this woodcutter must know where Nanin lived in the hills, so he enquired. The woodcutter took his axe in his hand and said, 'I had to pay very much for it.'

 

The professor had not enquired about his axe. He was enquiring where Nanin lived; he was enquiring if he would be in the temple if he went there. And Nanin raised the axe and said, 'Look, I had to pay very much for it.' The professor felt a little puzzled and before he could escape, Nanin came even closer and put his axe just on the head of the professor.

 

The professor started trembling and Nanin said, 'It is really sharp.' And the professor escaped.

 

Later on, when he reached the temple he came to know that the woodcutter was nobody but Nanin himself. Then he enquired, 'Is he mad?'

 

'No,' the disciple said. 'You had asked if Nanin was in and he was saying yes. He was showing his "inness" and "isness". That moment he was a woodcutter; that moment, axe in his hand, he was totally absorbed in the sharpness of the axe. He was that sharpness in that moment. He was saying "I am in" by being so immediate, by being so totally in the present. You missed the point. He was showing you the quality of Zen.'

 

Zen is non-conceptual, non-intellectual. It is the only religion in the world which preaches immediacy; moment to moment immediacy; to be present in the moment, no past, no future.

 

But people have lived with theologies. And those theologies keep them childish, they don't allow them to grow. You cannot grow by being confined in a theology, by being a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan or even a Buddhist. You cannot grow; you don't have space enough to grow. You are confined very much, in a very narrow space; you are imprisoned.

 

[....]

 

That's what happens. If you believe in God you can believe in a witch, it is the same package. If you can believe in one kind of nonsense, you can believe in all kinds of nonsense. But you never grow. You remain juvenile.

 

Zen means maturity. Zen means drop all wishes and see what is the case. Don't bring your dreams into reality. Clean your eyes completely of dreams so that you can see what is the case. That isness is called KONOMAMA or SONOMAMA. KONO or SONOMAMA means the isness of a thing -- reality in its isness. All ideologies prevent you from seeing. Ideologies are all blindfolds, they obstruct your vision. A Christian cannot see, neither can a Hindu, nor a Mohammedan. Because you are so full of your ideas you go on seeing what you want to see, you go on seeing what is not there, you go on projecting, you go on interpreting, you go on creating a private reality of your own which is not there. This creates a sort of insanity. Out of a hundred of your so-called saints, ninety-nine are insane people.

 

Zen brings sanity to the world, utter sanity. It drops all ideologies. It says: 'Be empty.

 

Look without any idea. Look into the nature of things but with no idea, with no prejudice, with no pre-supposition.' Don't be preoccupied -- that is one of the fundamentals. So theology has to be dropped otherwise you remain preoccupied.

 

Can you see the point? If you have an idea, there is every possibility that you will find it in reality -- because the mind is very, very creative. Of course, that creation will be only in imagination. If you are seeking Christ you may start having visions of Christ, and they will be all imaginary. If you are seeking Krishna you will start seeing Krishna, and they will be all imaginary.

 

Zen is very down-to-earth. It says that imagination has to be dropped. Imagination comes out of your past. From childhood you have been conditioned for certain ideas. From childhood you have been taken to the church, to the temple, to the mosque; you have been taken to the scholar, to the pundit, to the priest; you have been forced to listen to sermons -- all kinds of things have been thrown into your minds. Burdened with all that, don't come to reality -- otherwise you will never come to know what reality is.

 

Unburden. That unburdening is Zen.

 

A minister of the Gospel was conducting religious services in an asylum for the insane.

 

His discourse was suddenly interrupted by one of the inmates crying out wildly, 'I say, have we got to listen to this tommyrot?'

 

The minister, surprised and confused, turned to the keeper and said, 'Shall I stop speaking?'

 

The keeper replied, 'No, no, keep right on, that won't happen again, not at least for seven years. That man has only one sane moment every seven years.

 

It is really very difficult to be sane in an insane world.

 

Zen is simple and yet difficult. Simple as far as Zen is concerned -- it is the most simple thing, the simplest, because it is a spontaneous thing -- but very difficult because of our conditioned minds, because of the insane world in which we live, by which we have been brought up, by which we have been corrupted.

 

- Osho, "Zen: The Path of Paradox, V.1, #1"


 


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    God is not to be searched for; what is to be searched for is Consciousness

    From birth to death you go on living, groping in darkness with no light — and you could have created the light. You cannot find it in the scriptures; nobody can hand it to you. It is not purchased or sold; it is nontransferable. But you can ...
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    God is more a mother than a father

    Question : You refer to God always as ‘him’ or ‘he’. What are some of the female qualities of god? NOW IT IS a very delicate problem…. In fact, all His qualities are feminine — that’s why I call Him ‘He’ and ‘Him’. Otherwise He has no reason...
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    God comes in many ways, in thousands of ways

    God is always ready to give. He is always ready to share his being, his bliss, his truth, but we are unavailable, we are very closed. We don’t give him any way into our being, we don’t open even a single window. Out of fear we keep all the d...
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    To know God is totally different than knowing about God

    Question 2 : I wish i could know more about god. can you help me, Beloved Osho? There is no way to know more about God. You can know God, but you cannot know more about God. Knowing more about God is not knowing God. Knowing more is knowledg...
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    God is just a way, a method, a technique. 

    There is no one who will take your surrender. If there is someone and you surrender to him, then it is a sort of slavery. Really, there is not even a god to whom you are surrendering. And when we talk about a god, that is just to find you so...
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    All those things that are dependent on the concept of God are bogus

    Question 3 All the religions are based on god. their morality, their commandments, their prayers, their saintliness -- everything points towards god, and you say that god is dead. then what will happen to all these great things that are depe...
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    Kabir says: I sing the glory of forms, because I cannot sing the glory of the formless

    And Kabir says: I sing the glory of forms, because I cannot sing the glory of the formless. You cannot sing the glory of God; that is not possible. It is difficult tp reduce Him a song, it is difficult to reduce Him the words. So Kabir says:...
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    I am destroying God and spreading godliness to every human being

    Question : Why does Man need God? It is out of fear. God is not needed at all. Man has lived in so much fear that he has needed some protection. There was fear of disease, there was fear of death — mostly it is death that makes man so afraid...
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    Even Godot Is Dead - Let's Dance

    Even Godot Is Dead - Let's Dance Question 1 Osho, It seems that never has any god-oriented religion been more anachronistic than it is today; yet curiously, Christianity at least seems to be blooming. Born-again Christians, Jesus freaks, and...
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    God Is Dead – Or Just Missing in Action?

    God Is Dead – Or Just Missing in Action? "All the religions believe that God created the world and also mankind. But if you are created by someone, you are only a puppet, you don't have your own soul. And if you are created by somebody, he c...
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    God is the eternally unknown. Even by knowing him, one never knows him

    Question : The sky and the plants can bring me to my knees and there is a heartache for something unknown. Yes, God is the eternally unknown. Even by knowing him, one never knows him; even by knowing him, he remains unknown. His unknowabilit...
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    God is dead, but that creates the question: who began this universe?

    Question 1 God is dead, but that creates the question: who began this universe? There is no need for anybody to begin it, because there is no beginning to this universe, and there is no end. This question has been exploited by all the religi...
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    God, fate, destiny – these are bogus words, mumbo jumbo

    Question : Osho, You say we are responsible for ourselves, and that there is no god. What part do fate and destiny have in our lives? or are they just excuses to avoid our responsibilities by pinning hope on something outside ourselves? They...
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    Is it possible for man to live without god?

    Question 2 Is it possible for man to live without god? Yes. In fact, it is only possible for man to live without God. A man with God does not live, he hesitates on every point of living, he is just half-hearted. He is making love and worried...
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    The real seeker cannot search for God, because to start a search for God means you have already accepted that God is.

    Question 2 : Is it not possible at all that the, great religious, scriptures of the world can help the seeker in his search for god? The real seeker cannot search for God, because to start a search for God means you have already accepted tha...
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    Never believe in a God who is separate from His creatures and the creation

    ONCE UPON A TIME, two explorers came to a clearing in the jungle. It was a beautiful place — thousands and thousands of flowers were blossoming. One of the explorers said, “There must be a gardener tending these flowers, looking after this p...
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    God is not a thought but the experience of thoughtlessness

    Deva means divine, unmana means no-mind. The state of no-mind is the state of the divine. God is not a thought but the experience of thoughtlessness. It is not a content in the mind; it is the explosion when the mind is contentless. It is no...
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    It rarely happens that a person dies with God on his mind

    BAULS say that there is only one way to come out of the stupor man lives in, and that is remembrance of God: NAM-SMARAN, remembrance of His name. That has always been part of the basic techniques on the path of love — to remember Him. And wh...
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    Everybody is resistant against God - why? Because if you want to know God, you have to disappear

    Question 1 : I realized in yesterday’s discourse that i am resisting the word `god’. My thoughts go back to an event which happened several years ago when i was caring for a very ill man in the hospital — he was dying. He had asked me to get...
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    I am saying God is not, but there is tremendous godliness.

    Question 1: Beloved Osho, If there is no god, why were you being called bhagwan? There is no God, but that does not mean that I'm an atheist. Certainly I am not a theist - I am saying there is no God - but that does not mean that you jump to...
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    God - Osho Quotes on God

    Osho Quotes on God God is the state of no-mind. ♦ When things are no longer important, only consciousness becomes important. When things are no longer significant, a new search, a new door opens. Then you are not rushing towards the without:...
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    God is energy. God is absolute awareness.

    God is not a person. Because man has always taken God as a person, a thousand and one difficulties have arisen. All the problems that theology deals with are simply futile exercises -- and the base is that God is taken as a person. God is no...
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    God is also seeking you in many, many ways

    Many people have been doing that down the centuries. A Buddha comes, a Jesus comes, a Krishna, a Zarathustra — very few, very rarely. Shiko’s are very few — those who understand. Butei exists as the mass; Butei is the many; Butei is the majo...
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    When you are in suffering your remembering God is just meaningless. Just because you want to avoid suffering, you remember God as a protection.

    Question : Why do I remember God only When I am in Suffering? You don’t remember God. When you are in suffering your remembering God is just meaningless. Just because you want to avoid suffering, you remember God as a protection. You are not...
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    God is a pure isness, pure existence, and there is nowhere for God to go or come.

    Question : Meher Baba has talked about god descending in man (avatar, rasool, christ) and man rising to be god (the perfect master, sadguru, qutub, teerthankara). would you please talk to us about the same? God is. He neither ascends nor des...
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    on Purpose of Existence and Creation – Existence exists without any cause

    Question : You said that god is the creative process. Then why are things created? What is the purpose of creation, or is it something that just exists? If God exists as a person then the question why becomes relevant. If God is a person the...
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    God is not a 'who', He is not a person.

    Question 1 Do you believe in you? Do you believe in god? Who is god? NO, I DON'T BELIEVE IN ME... I CANNOT, BECAUSE I AM NOT. There is nobody I to be believed in, and nobody to believe in it either. If you believe in yourself, you believe in...
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    Consecrated to god is exactly the definition of sannyas. One starts living not for the ego but for the whole, one starts living as a vehicle of god

    There is a flowering inside. Roses bloom inside, and roses which are imperishable, roses which are not gross, which are made of grace. Gravitation has no effect on them. They come from the beyond, they descend on you, they shower on you. But...
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    Blessed are those who are blissful - A miserable person cannot find truth. He can theorise about truth

    Bliss is equivalent to god. ‘God’ is a beautiful word but it has become ugly because of wrong associations. It has fallen into wrong company. The priests have exploited it so much that I appreciate very much Friedrich Nietzsche’s declaration...
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    Whenever I use the word god I simply mean godliness, remember it.

    Osho on Godliness Hell is a lie; there is no hell. And heaven is a lie; there is no heaven. But they have lived for centuries and centuries, and I don't think they are going to disappear. They will live. God as a person is a lie. There is go...
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    Why did friedrich nietzsche declare that god is dead?

    Question 4 Osho, Why did friedrich nietzsche declare that god is dead? He had to declare it, because God was dead. The God that had been worshipped for thousands of years was dead; not the real God, but the God that the human mind had create...
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    Godliness is a state.

    Ordinarily people understand God to be some person that they will meet face-to-face. This is a false notion. God is not a person that you will meet and you will interview. God is a state. As you approach nearer to that state you will go on b...
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    Does God exist? how can there be so much evil and corruption in the world if God exists?

    Question 1 : Does God exist? how can there be so much evil and corruption in the world if God exists? God is a mythical word, a mumbo-jumbo word that is the invention of the priesthood. Actually, to ask whether God exists is absurd. For thos...
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    God is crazy, truth is crazy, because truth is so vast

    Question : Osho, Your ideas seem to be crazy! Thank you for the compliment. They don’t SEEM to be crazy, they ARE. But that is the only way God expresses himself. God’s ways are crazy. If the word `crazy’ does not look proper, you can say, “...
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    God is dead and man is free.

    on The Modern Mind The modern mind is feeling more meaningless than ever has been the case, because the past centuries lived in a kind of stupor, sleep. Orthodoxy was much. Convention was heavy and strong. The citadel of religion was very, v...
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    God has no form, although all forms are his.

    Nirakar, the formless. God has no form, although all forms are his. This paradox becomes possible only because he has no form. If he had any particular form then he could not have all the forms. He is liquid, utterly liquid. Because he is fo...
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