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 not a person and cannot be. Let it go as deep in you as possible, because that will become a door, an opening. And particularly for those who have been raised as Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, it is very difficult to take God as anything else but a person -- that becomes a closing. To think about God as a person is anthropocentric. In The Bible it is said God created man in his own image, but just the contrary seems to be the case -- man has created God in his own image. And men differ, that's why there are so many gods in the world.
It happened that when for the first time Christian missionaries reached Africa, they were in trouble -- because they painted God as white and the Devil as black, and the negroes felt very much offended. They wouldn't listen to them, because from the very beginning the image was in conflict. Then one missionary simply got the idea: he changed the colors. He made God black and the Devil white, and the negroes were very happy -- they could accept. A negro is bound to paint his God in his own image, a Chinese in his own, an Indian in his own. We paint God as our own reflection -- of course, perfect -- but your image cannot be God. You are just a part, a very tiny part, one atom in existence. How can the whole be conceived in the image of the part? The whole transcends the part, the whole is infinitely vast. If you cling to the atom, if you cling to the part, you will miss the whole.
God is not to be conceived in your image; rather, on the contrary, you have to drop your image, you have to become imageless. Then, and only then, you become a mirror and the whole reflects in you.
As man has been seeking more and more, this has become clearer and clearer -- that God as a person creates troubles, because then you are always in conflict with other gods. That's why the Jewish god, the Hindu god, the Mohammedan god, the Christian god exist. This is sheer nonsense! How can God be Christian or Hindu or Mohammedan? But there are different gods because Jews have their own idea of god, Hindus have their own idea of god, and the conflict is bound to be there. Hindus think that God speaks the Sanskrit language; the English always think that he is an English gentleman.
It is said that one German and one Englishman were talking, and the German said, "We plan in every way, but why, every time, are we defeated?"
The Englishman said, "You have to be defeated, because whenever we start fighting, first we pray to God and he looks after us. You are to be defeated; you can never be victorious."
The German said, "But that we also do, we also pray."
Then the Englishman laughed. He said, "But who understands German?" To an Englishman, God is an Englishman. To Adolf Hitler he must be a Nordic, has to be because we create our own image.
I was just reading a memoir of an army priest. This priest was attached to Montgomery's wing, and one day, when they were ready to attack, it was so cloudy and there was so much mist and so much cold that it seemed impossible to move. So the priest has written in the memoir that the general, Montgomery, called him and he said, "You pray to God and tell him immediately that we, his soldiers, are on the march, and what is he doing? Is he in conspiracy with the enemy? Tell him immediately to stop all this!"
The priest was surprised: "A man like Montgomery -- and what is he talking about?" He said, "But this won't look good. It doesn't look good to say to God, `What are you doing? Stop this immediately because we are on the move and we are your soldiers.'"
The priest felt a little embarrassed, but Montgomery said, "You listen to my order! You are my priest, attached to my army, so whatsoever I say you have to do. Go and pray immediately!"
This happens. It looks absurd and foolish, but this is happening all the time, to all the people, to everybody. If you take God as a person this is bound to happen. Then you start communicating with him as a person -- and he is not a person. There are millions of atheists because you have taken God as a person. The atheist is not against God, but he is against your conception of God as a person, because the whole concept is foolish. And think in what anguish you must be putting your God, because Germans are praying for their victory, the English are praying for their victory, and everybody thinks that God is with them, at their side.
I have heard: Once Junnaid, a Sufi mystic, dreamt that he saw that he was dead and the greatest sinner of the town was also dead, and both reached God's door and knocked. The sinner was received and the saint was neglected. He felt very, very hurt. He was expecting always that he should be received, welcomed, and what was happening? -- just the opposite. And he knew this man who was being received with such ceremony. When the ceremony was over and the sinner was sent to his abode, the saint said, "Just one question I have to ask God: What are you doing? I have been praying continuously, twenty-four hours, day and night, calling your name, praying. Even in my sleep I have been calling your name and chanting!"
God said, "Precisely because of that -- you have pestered me so much that I am really afraid of you now that you have come to heaven. What will you do here? From Earth, so far away, in twenty-four hours you have not left me a single moment of peace! This man is good, that's why we are celebrating. He never bored me, he never pestered me; he never used my name; he never created any trouble for me."
God as a person is just foolish, the whole concept is foolish. And he cannot be a person because he has to be all persons -- how can he be a person himself? He cannot be somebody because he is everybody, and he cannot be anywhere because he is everywhere. You cannot define him, and personality is a definition. You cannot limit him, and as a person he becomes limited. Personality is just like a wave that comes and goes, and he is like an ocean. He is immense -- he abides. Personalities come and go, they are forms; they are there and then they are no more there. Forms change; forms change into the opposites continuously, and he is the formless. He cannot be defined, it cannot be said who he is. He is all. But the moment you say, "He is all," the problem arises: how to communicate? There is no need; you cannot communicate with him like a person. You have to communicate with him in a totally different dimension -- that dimension is of energy, that dimension is of consciousness, not of personality.
God is energy.
God is absolute awareness.
God is bliss, ecstasy; indefinable, unlimited; no beginning, no end; always and always; eternal, timeless, beyond space -- because God means the total.
The total cannot have a personality -- this is the first thing to be understood, very, very deeply; not only intellectually, but as totally as possible, because if you can conceive, can feel, grope towards God as totality, then your prayer will be different. Then your prayer will not be a foolish prayer, then he cannot be on your side -- he is on every side. He is also with your enemy as much as with you, and he is as much in the saint as in the sinner -- because he is all! He is as much in the dark as in the light. He comprehends all. All opposites meet and mingle and become one in him. Because of the concept of God as a person we have to create a Devil against God, because all the negativities! -- where will you put them? You have to create somebody to throw all the negativities onto. Then your God also becomes false, your Devil also false, because negatives and positives exist together, not separately. And all that you like you put on God's side. It is your division.
God cannot be divided -- he is undivided.
First thing: God is not a person. And remember, you are also not a person. It is ignorance, it is self-ignorance: that's why you appear like a person. If you move deeper, soon personality becomes blurred; a moment comes when you don't know who you are. Sometimes it happens that if somebody wakes you suddenly, you may have observed many times, you suddenly don't know where you are -- whether it is morning or evening, whether it is your house or somewhere else, what town it is; for a single moment everything is blurred, no time sense, no space sense, and you don't know who you are. Why does it happen? -- because in deep sleep you move towards the center, of course unconsciously, but at the center there is no personality, an impersonal energy exists. And if somebody suddenly wakes you, you have to move from the center to the periphery in such a rush that there is no time to gather personality. In a sudden rush you simply lose identity -- and this is your reality, this is who you are in fact.
Deep in meditation you will become more and more aware of the indefinable, unlimited. First it will look like a blurred phenomenon, and you may even become afraid, scared: What is happening to you? Are you losing your mind? Are you going mad? If you become afraid you will miss. Don't be worried, it is natural. You are moving to the indefinable from the defined; in between there will be a ground where everything will get blurred.
- Osho, "The Hidden Harmony, #4"