Osho on Belief
I DO NOT BELIEVE IN ANYTHING, BUT I DO BELIEVE IN GOD. WHY ARE YOU SO MUCH AGAINST BELIEFS?
Because
a belief is a belief, and is not an experience. Belief is a barrier. If you believe in God you will never know God — that’s why I am against belief, because I am for God. Your very belief will never allow you to know that which is, because the belief means that before knowing it you have decided already what it is. Your decisive mind will not relax. Your mind with a conclusion is a prejudiced mind, and to know God an empty mind is needed — unprejudiced, pure, uncontaminated by any belief, by any ideology. Because I am for God, that’s why I am against all beliefs.
And you say: I DO NOT BELIEVE IN ANYTHING ELSE…
But if you believe in God, then what more is needed? That is enough. You have made the greatest mistake! Now every other mistake is very small. And if the great mistake has been done, then other mistakes will follow in its wake. If you can believe in God without knowing God — without under-standing what it means, without ever experiencing even a little bit of it, without ever seeing a single ray of light; if you can believe in God, if you can be so deceptive, if you can be so cunning — then you can believe in anything. And what else is needed? You think this belief is not a big mistake? This is the biggest mistake.
A husband walked into his house unexpectedly one evening, and noticed some men’s clothing at the foot of the bed. He asked his wife, who was in the bed at the time, where the clothes came from. His wife told him that the clothes belonged to him, and she was taking them to the cleaner’s. Going to the closet to hang up his coat, he eyed a man bare as the day he came into the world.
The husband: ‘What are you doing here?’
The man: ‘Did you believe what your wife told you?’
The husband: ‘Yes!’
The man: ‘Well, I’m waiting for a bus.’
If you can believe that, then you can believe anything. The naked man standing in the closet, waiting for the bus…If you can believe in God, then you can believe in Adolf Hitler, in Josef Stalin, in Mao Tse-tung, then you can believe in any nonsense, because you have accepted the basic nonsense.
Never believe in God. God has to be KNOWN, not to be believed. God has to be LIVED, not to be believed. God has to be EXPERIENCED, not to be believed.
And why do you believe in God? If you have not known, then it must be out of fear, then there can be no other reason. Remember, God can be known only out of love, and beliefs come out of fear. And love and fear never meet; they never cross each other’s path.
Love knows no fear. Fear knows no love.
If you are afraid of somebody you cannot love that person. That’s why it is very difficult for children to love their parents, because parents make them afraid. It is very difficult for husbands to love their wives, because wives make them afraid. It is very difficult for wives to love their husbands, because the husbands make them afraid. Wherever fear comes, fear comes from THIS door, and love escapes from the other. They never live together, they can’t live together. Have you not observed? When you love a person all fear disappears. In that very love there is no fear.
God has to be known through love. And belief is based in fear. Belief stinks.
A salesman couldn’t make the lady understand the power brakes on the car he was selling her, so he took her for a ride. When he was almost five hundred feet from a brick building, he speeded up and at the last minute he hit the brake.
Lady: ‘What is that smell?’
Salesman: ‘Rubber burning, madam.’
She brought the car home to show her husband and took him for a ride. Coming to the same brick wall, she slammed on the brakes missing it by about three inches. Looking at her husband, she said ‘Do you smell that, honey?’
Husband: ‘I should. I’m sitting in it.’
All beliefs stink. Drop beliefs. Have the courage to know. God is an invitation for the ultimate journey. Let God be a quest, not a belief. Let it be a question mark on your heart, at the deepest core of your being. Let the question trouble you, let the question become a turmoil. Let the question create a chaos in you, because only through chaos stars are born. And only when the quest has destroyed all your belief systems and you are freed of all conclusions given by others, will you be able to open your eyes to the naked truth. And it is facing you. It is always facing you. It is just in front of your nose. But there is a great China Wall of beliefs, and you cannot see that which surrounds you from everywhere.
Source:
Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.
Discourse Series: I Say Unto You, Vol 1
Chapter #6
Chapter title: They Gave Him Crucifixion
28 October 1977 am in Buddha Hall
References:
Osho has spoken on ‘quest, truth, courage, experience’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:
- Beyond Psychology
- The Book of Wisdom
- Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons
- The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha
- From Bondage to Freedom
- The Path of the Mystic
- Sat Chit Anand
- Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries
