According to Osho, all organized religions depend on universal conditionings of guilt and fear to control people: they label natural joys as sins, threaten hell, and thus keep masses obedient and miserable. They also enforce monogamy and ban divorce, which breeds jealousy, monotony, and hypocrisy (e.g., prostitution). These strategies are common across traditions—Christianity merely states them more bluntly—because they nourish priestly power.
Religions often make you feel bad and scared about being happy, and set relationship rules that create jealousy, so they can stay in charge.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: Maneesha's question: OUR BELOVED MASTER, ARE THERE CERTAIN CONDITIONINGS -- SUCH AS GUILT, FEAR, JEALOUSY -- THAT ARE NOT PECULIAR TO CHRISTIANITY ALONE BUT HAVE BEEN ENDORSED BY ALL RELIGIONS, IN ALL CULTURES SINCE TIME IMMEMORIAL? Maneesha, no religion can exist without guilt. It is an absolute necessity for a religion that people should feel guilty. No religion can exist without creating fear in people -- fear of hell, fear of punishment, fear of eternal fire. No religion can gather masses and exploit them without guilt and fear. A guilty person feels somehow to find a savior. He has committed sin, and all religions create as many sins as possible. In fact, everything that makes you happy is a sin. Everything that makes you a long-faced Englishman is virtue. Guilt is needed absolutely -- but how to create guilt?
Why does religion create so much guilt?
Religion does not create guilt -- if it creates guilt it is not religion. Yes, Mohammedanism, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, they create guilt. Let that be your definition of religion: if it creates guilt it is not a religion. It is something else pretending, something else garbed as religion, posing as religion -- but it is not religion. Religion creates celebration, not guilt. These are hidden things which don't want to expose themselves. These so-called religions are more political than religious. Their whole idea, desire, ambition, is how to dominate people, how to control people. And naturally, guilt is one of the best mechanisms ever evolved to control people, to dominate people. Make them feel guilty! Once they start feeling guilty they are in your control. All dictators do that, all politicians do that. And your priest is just a politician behind the mask. The popes, the SHANKARACHARYAS, are all politicians;…
Question: OSHO, WHY HAVE ALL THE RELIGIONS USED REPRESSION AS A BASIC STRATEGY? The mind says the woman is beautiful -- and if you feel a desire for beauty I don't see that there is anything wrong in it. If you feel a desire for ugliness, then something is wrong, then you are sick. Beauty has to be appreciated. When you see a beautiful painting, you would like to possess it. When you see anything beautiful, just by the side of it the idea comes as a shadow, "If this beautiful thing could be mine...." Now, these are all natural thoughts. But the priest will say, "The rains have not come because of your impure thoughts" -- and you are absolutely indefensible. You know it, you are ashamed of yourself. God is always right.
Question: OUR BELOVED MASTER, ONCE, WHEN UNGAN WAS IN YAKUSAN'S PRESENCE, THE MASTER SAID TO HIM, "WHAT DOES HYAKUJO OSHO USUALLY TEACH?" UNGAN REPLIED, "HE SAYS, `GO BEYOND THREE PHRASES,' OR `GO BEYOND SIX PHRASES AND GET IT.'" YAKUSAN COMMENTED, "WITH A DISTANCE OF SEVEN HUNDRED MILES BETWEEN US, FORTUNATELY WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH HYAKUJO." BUT THEN HE CONTINUED, "WHAT ELSE DOES HE TEACH?" UNGAN SAID, "ONCE, AFTER THE DISCOURSE, WHEN THE CONGREGATION STOOD UP FROM THEIR SEATS, HYAKUJO CALLED OUT TO THEM. WHEN THEY LOOKED BACK AT THE MASTER, HYAKUJO SAID, `WHAT IS THAT?'" YAKUSAN COMMENTED, "YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID THAT EARLIER -- HYAKUJO IS STILL DOING WELL. THANKS TO YOU, I WAS ABLE TO SEE HYAKUJO.
Osho, catholicism, mohammedanism, hinduism, jainism and buddhism, which are the most "religious" of religions, seem most concerned about purity, cleanliness and sexual abstinence. Yet, the preside over the most unhygienic, malnourished and miserable peoples of the earth. Is there a connection?
God was trying to find a customer. He asked the French, "Would you like to have few commandments?" And the French said, "No. First you show us some sample." And he said, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." They said, "Stop! If we don't commit adultery, then what we are going to do? We don't want such commandments." He asked the Hindus, and he asked others, but nobody was willing. And then he asked Moses, "Would you like to have few commandments?" And Moses being a perfect Jew said, "How much it costs?" And he said, "Free! It costs nothing" Moses said, "Then I will have ten!'; That's how he got those ten commandments. And they are torturing the Jews for three thousand years. It is time to get rid of all that. It was his trip, why you should be on his trip? Do your thing! Why go on doing…