Are you against God and Jesus Christ?

Question: OSHO, ARE YOU AGAINST GOD AND JESUS CHRIST TOO? IT FREAKS ME OUT. IT freaks me out too. How I can be against God, who does not exist at all? To be for or to be against, one thing is absolutely necessary, the existence of God. There are fanatic theists in the world, and similarly fanatic atheists too. Those who believe that God exists, their fanaticism can be forgiven. But those who think that God does not exist, their fanaticism is unforgivable. They should not bother about God at all. I don't bother a bit. But there is a human weakness, the weakness of categorizing: if you are not for, then you are against. And the mind functions in polarities, it does not allow the middle way. This is something significant to understand, that the mind can exist only at the extremes.

Question: OSHO, DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT GOD DOES NOT EXIST? The presence of beings is enough proof that God does not exist, cannot exist. Either you can exist or God can exist; you both cannot exist. The person who starts believing in God, unknowingly is losing his beinghood; he is becoming a thing. So there are Christian things, Hindu things, Mohammedan things, but not beings. They have dropped their being of their own accord; they have given their being to God. The fiction has become alive, and the alive has become a fiction. I am simply putting things right side up. When I say God does not exist, I have no grudge against God. I don't care a bit about God, whether He exists or not -- it is none of my business.

Question: A friend has asked: Osho, do you teach atheism? Would the man who wants to save people even from learning theism teach atheism? I teach neither theism nor atheism. I teach neither belief nor disbelief. I say: remain free of belief as well as disbelief, and search in freedom. Do not be bound by partisanship. Seek impartially—there are two sides. And remember, opposing sides are two faces of the same coin. There is not much difference between them. The theist and the atheist are two faces of the same coin. There isn’t much difference: one is the back of the same thing, the other its face. Reason is a very fragile realm. I am not saying, “Cling to belief.” The believer says, “We have reasons, arguments.” The disbeliever also says, “We have reasons, arguments. We say there is no God, no soul.” I am not speaking for either.

Question: BELOVED OSHO, IF THERE IS NO GOD, WHY WERE YOU BEING CALLED BHAGWAN? There is no God, but that does not mean that I'm an atheist. Certainly I am not a theist -- I am saying there is no God -- but that does not mean that you jump to the opposite, the atheist. The atheist says there is no God also, but when I say there is no God, and the atheists like Charvaka, Karl Marx, Lenin, Epicurus.... When these people say there is no God, there is a tremendous difference between my statement and their statement -- the statements are absolutely similar -- because I say at the same moment that there is godliness. Charvaka will not agree on that point; Epicurus, Marx, other atheists will not agree on that point. To them, denying God means denying consciousness.

Question: OSHO, ARE YOU ESPECIALLY AGAINST CHRISTIANITY? I said, "But remember, I am going to remain here, otherwise I will call the education minister immediately." And I knew what he was going to do. His clerk was in his room and after five minutes he called me. The principal had phoned the education minister to say, "This order has not reached us by post. Somebody can just arrange a false, bogus order and come. Moreover he is not qualified for this college at all, so what are we to do?" The education minister said, "First accept him, and then we will see where to send him, because I don't know what has happened. I was not aware that something had gone wrong, so we will see." The clerk told me in the evening that the principal had phoned the education minister to confirm my post.