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 godliness, but there is no God. Whenever I use the word god I simply mean godliness, remember it. Translate it always as godliness. There is a quality of godliness in existence, but there is no God. But people want a God, not godliness; they are not interested in godliness.
-Osho, “The Book of Wisdom, #19, Q3“
What do you mean by "SEEING God"? Is he a person? Will you say hello and will you shake hands with him? God is not a person, hence God cannot be seen in that sense. God is a presence.
There is no God but godliness. It is a quality, a fragrance. You experience it, you don't see it. And when you experience it, it is not something out there as an object; it is something IN HERE, in the heart of your hearts. It is your subjectivity, it is your consciousness.
So there is no question of belief and there is no question of seeing either.
But people are brought up in all kinds of beliefs and they go on seeing through their prejudices. So anything that fits with their prejudices enters inside; anything that does not fit with their prejudice is prevented from entering.
-Osho, “Ah, This!, #6, Q6”
To be in touch with a master is, in an indirect way, to be in touch with the godliness of existence.
-Osho, “Beyond Enlightenment, #19, Q1”
Just relax more, and leave everything in the hands of existence... a total trust and a complete passivity. Your absence is the presence of godliness. The moment you are not, the miracle has happened.
-Osho, “Beyond Enlightenment, #26, Q3”
Meditation means going into your immortality, going into your eternity, going into your godliness.
-Osho, “Beyond Enlightenment, #28, Q1”
If you are a man of prayer, existence appears as God, as personal. If you are a man of meditation, existence is impersonal, just a wholeness, a divineness. For the man of prayer there is God; for the man of awareness there is godliness but no God.
-Osho, “The Book of Wisdom, #17
People who are very uptight, unable to enjoy anything, unable to relax, incapable even of enjoying a good sleep, they are the very people who become interested in God. And they become interested for wrong reasons. They think that because life is useless, futile; they have to seek and search God. Their “God” is something against life, remember.
Gurdjieff used to say: “I have searched every religion, every church, mosque and temple, and I have found that the ‘God’ of the religious people is against life.” And how can God be against life? If he is against, there is no reason why life should exist or should be allowed to exist. So if your God is against life, in fact deep down you are against the real God. You are following a Godot, not a God.
God is the very fulfillment of life, God is the very fragrance of life, God is the total organic unity of life. God is not something that exists like a dead rock, God is not static. God is a dynamic phenomenon. God does not exist – it happens; when you are ready it happens. Don’t think that God exists somewhere and you will find a way to reach him. No, there is no way and there is no God existing somewhere waiting for you. Godliness is something that happens to you when you are ready. When you are ready – when the sadness has disappeared and you can dance, when the heaviness has disappeared and you can sing, when the heavy weight of conditioning is no longer on your heart and you can flow – godliness happens. God is not a thing that exists; it is something that happens. It is a dynamic, organic unity.
When godliness happens everything happens: the trees, the stars, the rivers. And to me, to be capable of enjoying is the door. Serious people have never been known to reach him. Seriousness is the barrier, the wrong attitude. Anything that makes you serious is irreligious. Don’t go to a church that makes you serious.
-Osho, “Come Follow to You, Vol. 1, #2”