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Osho's war was never with the religious impulse — it was with its organization. Religion, in his analysis, is what remains after the founder's living experience has been embalmed: creed, priesthood, moral bookkeeping, a social convenience posing as a spiritual path. Religiousness is the experience itself — a quality of consciousness, not a membership; something that blossoms in an individual and can no more be inherited than a rose's fragrance.
His image for the difference is exact: a dead rose pressed in a Holy Bible — still recognizable, no longer alive. The sections below give the distinction in Osho's own words, each linked to the full discourse.
The difference, in Osho's words
The short notes are Osho Live's; the quoted passages are his own words, checked against the talk.
The Dead Rose in the Holy Bible
Asked to separate religion, religiousness and religio, Osho reaches for the image that carries the whole argument.
The difference is simple, yet very vast. The difference is that of a dead rose you find in a Holy Bible. It has lost its color, lost its fragrance, lost its life. It is just a rose for name's sake. Otherwise there is nothing of the rose in it.
Religion and Religiousness across his talks
Each year, the share of Osho's talks in which the word is used — counted from 6,627 dated talks on Osho Live.
Lighter bars: years with few dated talks. Counts are of the words themselves, so they show how Osho's vocabulary moved — not every talk on the subject.
| Year | Religion | Religiousness | Dated talks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1964 | 11 | 1 | 13 |
| 1965 | 14 | 1 | 19 |
| 1966 | 5 | 0 | 7 |
| 1967 | 31 | 1 | 33 |
| 1968 | 21 | 2 | 30 |
| 1969 | 72 | 3 | 110 |
| 1970 | 89 | 5 | 131 |
| 1971 | 67 | 3 | 111 |
| 1972 | 167 | 4 | 223 |
| 1973 | 159 | 5 | 205 |
| 1974 | 234 | 6 | 271 |
| 1975 | 251 | 7 | 303 |
| 1976 | 458 | 10 | 700 |
| 1977 | 416 | 16 | 679 |
| 1978 | 516 | 30 | 702 |
| 1979 | 535 | 38 | 683 |
| 1980 | 556 | 86 | 674 |
| 1981 | 111 | 32 | 122 |
| 1984 | 61 | 10 | 63 |
| 1985 | 330 | 73 | 356 |
| 1986 | 326 | 56 | 369 |
| 1987 | 413 | 83 | 486 |
| 1988 | 212 | 35 | 276 |
| 1989 | 60 | 23 | 61 |
More in his words
Conscience vs Consciousness
God-oriented religions manufacture a conscience — an internalized judge. Religiousness, Osho insists, is a different substance altogether.
your God-oriented religions are only conveniences for the society. They should not be called religions, they are only moral precepts to keep the society together, and in the least inconvenient way. It is not religiousness. Religiousness arises only as a blossoming of your own consciousness. God-oriented religions certainly create a conscience, but not consciousness.
What Religiousness Actually Is
Stripped of institution and belief, the word points to a movement of consciousness — inward, from mind toward silence.
Religiousness means a man who is moving away from thinking to non-thinking, moving from mind to no-mind, moving from body to soul, moving from the outer to the inner. Ultimately religiousness makes you the center of a cyclone.
From the discourses
Where Osho draws this distinction himself — each passage links to the exact place in the talk.
[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words] INTERVIEW WITH MA YOGA PRATIMA QUESTION:* BHAGWAN, WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RELIGION, RELIGIOUSNESS AND RELIGIO? ANSWER:* The difference is simple, yet very vast. The difference is that of a dead rose you find in a Holy Bible. It has lost its color, lost its fragrance, lost its life. It is just a rose for name's sake. Otherwise there is nothing of the rose in it. It looks like a rose. Once it may have been a rose, may have danced in the wind, in the rain, in the sun. It may have released fragrance without any conditions to anybody, to strangers or if there was nobody, even just to the winds.
Beloved Osho, jesus says, "seek and you will find." does a desireless search exist?
But all the religions down the ages have been teaching you to respect your parents. Why? Why do the religions teach that? It is a subtle strategy of exploitation. Your religion has been given to you by your parents, and if you go against your religion, they will be hurt. If a Hindu declares, "I am simply a human being, no longer a Hindu," the parents will be hurt. So the parents have also taught him to respect them and believe in whatsoever they have said -- they cannot be wrong. As if your parents are enlightened people! As if your parents know what they are doing! Their parents did the same thing to them, they have done it to you, and you will do it to your children. This is how diseases go on being transferred from one generation to another generation. Of course the priests will say, "Respect…
Could one summarize the difference between a god-oriented religion and the quality of religiousness as the difference between a judge external to us, a projected conscience, and a witness within our consciousness?
A woman has to be out of the house just for one night. It does not matter whether she has made love to anybody or not. This is how Indian Mohammedans go on increasing their population. Obviously, one man with four wives, can give at least four children per year. The same is not possible for four husbands and one wife. They may not even give one child -- the four husbands may kill the child before it is born. So remember, your God-oriented religions are only conveniences for the society. They should not be called religions, they are only moral precepts to keep the society together, and in the least inconvenient way. It is not religiousness. Religiousness arises only as a blossoming of your own consciousness. God-oriented religions certainly create a conscience, but not consciousness. And many people have the false notion that conscience and consciousness are one. Their…
Beloved Osho, what is religion?
In anger one day the archbishop took a motorboat and went to those three people who were sitting under a tree. He looked at them and he could not believe it: what kind of saints are these? In the very beginning he introduced himself and declared, "I am the archbishop." The three saints all touched his feet. Now he felt relaxed, "These are fools... and things are not yet gone so far that they cannot be controlled." He asked them, "Are you saints?" They looked at each other, and they said, "We have never heard the word. We are uneducated, uncultured. Don't talk Greek to us; just simply say what you mean." "My God," said the archbishop, "you don't know what a saint means? Do you know the Christian prayer?" Again they looked at each other, and nudged each other as if to say, "You tell him." The archbishop now…
Religiousness means a man who is moving away from thinking to non-thinking, moving from mind to no-mind, moving from body to soul, moving from the outer to the inner. Ultimately religiousness makes you the center of a cyclone. All around you is a cyclone but you are a silent center, and out of that silent center has come all beautiful, still, small voices. The statements of the Upanishads are not the statements of people who belong to any religion. They are the statements of people who drown themselves in religiousness. Anything that is truthful, beautiful, good, has come out of the experience of religiousness. Satyam, shivam, sundram: truth, good, beauty. All the religions have beliefs, and every belief simply covers your ignorance. From the very beginning it is a belief -- you don't know. It is a blind man believing in light, it is a deaf man believing in music.
Frequently asked
What is the difference between religion and religiousness according to Osho?
Religion is an institution — creed, priesthood, ritual and moral rules, a social system built around the corpse of someone's living experience. Religiousness is that experience itself: a quality of consciousness that blossoms in an individual through meditation. Osho's image is the dead rose pressed in a Bible versus the rose dancing on the bush.
Was Osho against all religions?
He rejected every organized religion as a social convenience — moral precepts for keeping society manageable, plus beliefs that cover ignorance. But he was emphatically for religiousness, and he read the great founders as men of religiousness whose followers built religions over them. For him religiousness has no adjectives — the quality has no denominations.
Can I be religious without belonging to a religion?
In Osho's view that is the only way to be religious. Belonging supplies belief, and belief is second-hand — a blind man's idea of light. Religiousness needs no church, scripture or God-concept; it needs a turning of consciousness inward, from thinking toward silence. Meditation, not membership, is its whole discipline.