Can a devotee live only by the support of belief?

Question: The last question: Osho, can a devotee live only by the support of belief? Belief is a hollow thing, a false thing. A devotee lives by love, not by belief. Belief is needed by those in whose lives love is absent. In a devotee, love wells up on seeing existence. Seeing green trees, the desire to embrace them arises. Hearing music, there is a longing to become musical. Seeing the stars, one feels like dancing with them. In a devotee, love toward existence has awakened. A devotee has no need of belief. In a devotee, trust has arisen. And there is a great difference between trust and belief. Belief belongs to the head, trust belongs to the heart. Belief is of doctrine. If you are born in a Hindu home, your beliefs are Hindu; that does not make you a devotee.

Osho, to cross the ocean of becoming and dissolve into the Supreme Self, which should one rely on—insensate devotion, foolish devotion, or blind devotion?

So drop this worry—whether insensate devotion, foolish devotion, blind devotion, or deranged devotion. Drop it; devotion is enough. And in devotion all these labels will take care of themselves. Become a devotee once, and “blind” you will automatically be—meaning: the whole world will call you blind. You will not become blind; rather, you will gain eyes. You will begin to see what ordinary eyes cannot see. The invisible will become visible; the imperceptible will come within perception. That which no one has ever touched will be felt as touch. But the world will call you blind. The world will not be able to accept it—because the world is blind, and the blind call you blind. H. G. Wells has a story: somewhere in Mexico there is a valley where children go blind within three months of birth. The story is based on fact. The climate, the food—something there ruins the…

Osho, there is a saying, “If you believe, it is a god; otherwise, it’s a stone.” Is it all just a matter of believing?

I tell you: do not believe in God. There is no need to believe. If you believe in God, then what will you know? To believe in God means you have declared defeat in knowing—you are tired, you have thrown down your arms. You have said, “The search is over; there is nothing to know, so let us believe.” You don’t believe in the sun or the moon; you know them. You don’t believe in this world; you know it. And you believe in God? If your believed God is repeatedly defeated before your known world, it is no surprise. God should also be known. The day God is known, this world becomes insipid—maya, a dream. Experience is wealth; empty beliefs are not. So I make a small change in the saying: “Know, and it is God; otherwise, it’s a stone.” But to know, a great journey is required. To…

Beloved Osho, the other day when you said something like, the more devoted one is the more one can absorb you, I got scared. I don't know what devotion is. In fact, I know it less now than I did five years ago. Osho, am I missing?

When love is so deep, the respect is so immense that everything is forgiven, the disciple can slap the master and yet the master simply laughs -- because he knows his devotion. He knows that this slap has not come from a logical mind, it has come from a loving heart. It is as if with his own hand he has slapped himself -- no distinctions are there anymore. Even to say that the devotee is close to the master is not right, because closeness is still a distance. The devotee is one with the master. His oneness is something not of this world. I will tell you another story -- because there is no other way to explain it. A master is staying in a temple. The night is cold. And in Japan the statues of Buddha are made of wood. There are many statues in the temple, so…

Osho, isn’t devotion merely a kind of imagination? Isn’t it also a kind of dreaming?

If you think with the intellect, it will indeed seem like a dream. Just look—Radha is talking to Krishna! Not only talking, she even raises quarrels and complaints. She coaxes and consoles, and she also sulks. So if you look with the intellect, it will all appear like a web of dreams. Thought through the intellect, devotion will certainly look like a dream-web. But thought through the intellect, love too is a dream-web. And through the intellect, whatever in life is juicy and alive is all a dream-web. Through the intellect, your life will become dry, stony, a desert; no oasis will remain. Because every oasis, according to the intellect, is a dream, an imagination. All over the world thoughtful people have constantly raised the question: What is the meaning of life? And they find no answer—because whatever meaning life has comes from the heart, not from the head. And…