According to Osho, most ritual worship and conventional prayer are futile—not because God is absent, but because the praying heart is absent. Mechanical rites, priestly proxies, gadgets, and bargaining petitions only deceive ourselves. Where there is asking, there is no prayer. Real prayer is a living, grateful presence that serves the divine rather than using it; only such heart-born silence bridges the connection.
If you’re doing rituals or asking God for favors, you’re pretending; real prayer is a quiet thank-you from the heart without asking for anything.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, there are still countless temples, mosques, churches, and gurdwaras on the earth where ritual worship and prayer go on. In your view, are all of them simply futile?
If they were not futile, heaven would already have descended on earth. If they were not futile—so much worship, so much prayer, so many temples, so many churches, so many mosques—if all that were true, if those prayers were real, arising from the heart, the earth would have become heaven. But the earth is hell. Certainly, somewhere there is a miss. Either God is not, hence the prayers are going in vain; or God is, but the prayers are not happening rightly, and the connection with the divine is not being made. There are only two options. Choose whichever you like. One option is that God is not; then pray as much as you want—what is going to happen? There is no one there to listen; the sky is empty and bare. Shout, scream—you’re just being crazy. The time is being wasted; you could have put it to some use.…
Osho, is it really true that even the devil cannot deceive the Marwaris?
Sahajanand! After hearing yesterday’s discourse, even Nasruddin got riled. I had said that even the devil cannot deceive a Marwari. So the mulla thought to himself: To hell with the Marwaris! Today I’ll trick a Marwari in such a way that her seven generations will remember it. It was dusk; the sun had set, and because of a power failure the street was dark. Nasruddin saw that the neighbor, the Marwari Seth Dhannalal’s new daughter-in-law, was coming along with a long veil drawn, a beautiful bag dangling from her hand. The mulla thought, A good chance—let me give this Marwari woman a taste today. He quickly got up and fell into step with her. Half past seven in the evening, the darkness, and then that long veil! The woman thought, My husband has come. She said, Listen, dear, I feel like having a Coca-Cola. The mulla understood she was taking…
Osho, Ashtavakra is the proponent of uncontrived, natural samadhi. In his vision, apart from awakening, no ritual, means, or effort has any place. Then is prayer also useless there?
Any prayer that can be done is useless. On Ashtavakra’s path, doing is useless, action is useless, duty is useless, the sense of doership is useless. So the prayer that can be done is useless; yes—prayer that happens is not useless: a prayer in which, while it is happening, your doer is absent. A prayer that comes from arrangement is futile. That which happens unawares—sometimes, seeing the sun rise, your hands come together; not that you joined them. If you joined them, they didn’t truly join. If they came together of themselves, only then did they truly join. And what kind of thing is it that you are doing Surya Namaskar because you are a Hindu? That makes it petty. Because you are a Hindu you salute the sun? Salute because the sun is rising. The sun is rising—and a Muslim’s hands don’t fold because he is a Muslim; a…
Osho, if God and religion are but names for the Supreme Law, nothing else, then prayer, devotion, worship—all become futile. Then religion becomes synonymous with science, and religion remains only the quest for that Supreme Law. Please shed more light on this.
Prayer, worship, adoration are not because of God. But because of prayer, worship, adoration, the world begins to appear God-like. It is not that God is—and therefore we pray. We pray—and therefore God happens. People say, “God created you,” and I say, “Your devotion creates God.” Where your devotion flowers, there God manifests. Where your devotion departs, there God departs. God is your way of seeing. Religion is law. But to enter that law, you must change yourself—only then is it possible. Prayer is to change you. Ordinarily we pray to change God. You are ill, so you pray, “Make me well.” Our prayer is an attempt to change God’s intention. If you are ill and truly a devotee, you would accept, “God wills that I be ill; that is why I am ill.” We try to change God’s view: “Make me healthy; I am poor—make me rich. I am…
Osho, I want to be rich, I want a high position, and I want a beautiful woman too. What should I do?
A man once placed an advertisement—meant for people like you: “Send two rupees and learn the formula to become a millionaire overnight.” Now who wouldn’t want to become a millionaire for two rupees! Almost a hundred thousand people sent their money. A week later, everyone who had sent the two rupees received the reply: “Do exactly what I did.” He had indeed become a millionaire overnight! One lakh people sent two rupees each—two lakhs landed in his lap. This is how you’re being duped—through gambling, matka. And it’s not only people who run these scams; governments do it too. Governments that claim to be Gandhian run lotteries! A lottery is gambling—a cheat dressed up nicely. But the greedy get hooked: “Just one rupee for a chance at lakhs. If it comes once, that’s enough…!” But what will you do after getting lakhs? There’s a famous story by Tolstoy: A tailor…