Can science itself be religious?

Question: BELOVED OSHO, CAN SCIENCE ITSELF BE RELIGIOUS? Those single methods were enough for self-realization, but if you move through different methods, you will come across different spaces, different wonders, different experiences, different flavors, fragrances. But perhaps you may not be able to do all the methods. Then look into the methods and choose ones that you feel have a certain attraction for you. Even if you can manage ten methods, you will be ten times richer than Gautam Buddha! I have tried all one hundred and twelve methods. Hence I can say I am both the poorest man on the earth, with not a single cent, and the richest man who has ever existed -- because I have seen myself from every possible path. And each path had its own richness, its own music, its own poetry, its own colors.

Osho, is this also a science? Science—the supreme science! But ordinarily, in relation to religion, it is understood to be belief, faith. In my view, that is a misunderstanding. To me, religion too is another kind of knowing. And whatever principles religion has have issued from someone’s knowing, not from someone’s belief. Therefore my constant emphasis is: do not believe—try to know; and the day you know, believe that day. The acceptance that comes through knowing is called shraddha—trust; and the acceptance that comes without knowing is called belief. Shraddha is the ultimate state of knowi

Therefore, when I have said, “Do not believe in transmigration, do not believe in reincarnation,” it does not mean I am saying that transmigration does not exist. It also does not mean I am saying that reincarnation does not exist. I am saying only this: once you believe, the search stops. Try to know. And knowing happens only when right doubt is present. If you assume the opposite, even then doubt disappears. If I assume that there is no reincarnation, the search stops. If I assume that there is reincarnation, the search stops. Search is in suspension. I know neither that it is, nor that it is not. So I set out to find what is, so that I may know it. I take a religious person to be the deepest of inquirers; there is no search deeper than that. But those whom we ordinarily call religious, I do not…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, ISN'T A SYNTHESIS BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION NEEDED? Only what I call religiousness can be an intrinsic part of science. But that is not a synthesis because there is not antithesis. To me religion is really one aspect of science. Science has two hands. Now nobody tries to synthesize my right and left hand. They are synthesized, they are continuously synthesized without anybody synthesizing them; they are always in tune. While you are walking do you synthesize your left and right leg, keeping alert so that you do not commit some mistake? I have heard that in an army regiment a captain was training the new recruits and he was saying, "Left turn, right turn, march." And then he said, "All of you raise your left leg." Everybody raised his left leg.

Beloved Osho, what is the difference between the emptiness of the child before the formation of the ego and the awakened childlikeness of a buddha?

Whether you are for it or against it doesn't matter -- your concern shows where your ego is hanging. And I will include the capitalist in it also: his whole concern is how to gather money, hoard money -- because money has power over matter. You can purchase any material thing through money. You cannot purchase anything spiritual, you cannot purchase anything that has any intrinsic value; you can purchase only things. If you want to purchase love, you cannot purchase; but you can purchase sex. Sex is the material part of love. Through money, matter can be purchased, possessed. Now you will be surprised: I include the communist and the capitalist both in the same category, and they are enemies, just as I include Charvaka and Mahatma Gandhi in the same category, and they are enemies. They are enemies, but their concern is the same. The capitalist is trying…

The search for bliss is as scientific as any objective science. The difference is only of direction. The science watches the objective world and enquires into the reality that surrounds us. Religion moves into the watcher, into the subject, into subjectivity itself. Science is concerned with the object; religion is concerned with subjectivity itself -- but the approach, the method, the attitude, is exactly the same. Religion is not superstition, it is not belief. It is not at all a dogma in which you can believe; it is something to be experienced. Just as science works through experimentation, religion works through experimentation. The experiment of religion is, of course, far deeper than that of science, far more individual, personal. Science and its enquiry is collective, objective; others can watch.