According to Osho, gods and goddesses are not mythic personalities but levels of being where understanding is direct, beyond words. They ‘exist’ as a subtler plane of consciousness that can be present here and now, receiving meaning without interpretation. Man stands between animal and god, a bridge; through sadhana and silence, humans can commune with, and grow into, the godly state.
Yes—but not as people in the sky; ‘gods’ means a quiet, clear state that hears truth without words, which we can reach through silence.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, do hindu mythological gods, like shiva, uma and indra have a real existence on some plane, or are they just symbols as you implied in your talks the last two mornings? And if they are really only symbolic, why do people see visions of them in meditation and what do such visions of gods mean?
Human imagination is such a forcible thing, it has such a tremendous force within it, that if you imagine something continuously you will start feeling it around you. Then you can see it, then you can realize it. It will become an objective thing. It is not objective but you will feel it as existing outside you. So it is dangerous to play with imagination because then you can be hypnotized by your own imagination and you can come to see and feel things which are not. This is creating a private fantasy, a dreamworld; this is a sort of madness. You can see Krishna, you can see Christ, you can see Buddha, but this whole effort is wasted because you are moving in dreams and not in reality. Hence, my insistence to always remember that these mythological figures are symbolic. They are meaningful, they are poetic, they are a…
Osho, what is god?
GOD is not a person. That is one of the greatest misunderstandings, and it has prevailed so long that it has become almost a fact. Even if a lie is repeated continuously for centuries it is bound to appear as if it is a truth. God is a presence, not a person. Hence all worshipping is sheer stupidity. Prayerfulness is needed, not prayer. There is nobody to pray to; there is no possibility of any dialogue between you and God. Dialogue is possible only between two persons, and God is not a person but a presence -- like beauty, like joy. God simply means godliness. It is because of this fact that Buddha denied the existence of God. He wanted to emphasize that God is a quality, an experience -- like love. You cannot talk to love, you can live it. You need not create temples of love, you need…
Osho, lately you have been speaking of godliness instead of God, and of religiousness instead of religion. Kindly explain godliness and religiousness in detail.
In the same way, I speak of religiousness instead of religion. For “religion” means fixed notions—beliefs, dogmas. “Religiousness” means a radiant state of consciousness: the inner becoming luminous, lit up. Right now there is darkness within—that is irreligion, or more precisely, non-religiousness. When the light of awareness spreads within, meditation awakens, the flame of meditation rises—that is religiousness. Religiousness is not a doctrine, just as godliness is not a person. Doctrines are worth two pennies; make them as you like, erase them as you like. A doctrine is a net of arguments—and man is the master of argument. The same logic can prove, the same logic can disprove. There is no trusting logic. What doctrine is there that cannot be refuted? What idea is there that cannot be supported? Logic is a prostitute—make it stand with anyone. Or say logic is a lawyer. There is not much difference between lawyers…
OSHO (TO PATRICK): Bliss is the name given God by the poets and the mystics, and they know what they are doing. When you say "God," the idea of a person arises in the mind, and with the idea of a person many things follow; one thing leads to another. Then God becomes a father-figure and you start depending on God. God does not bring freedom to you; on the contrary, he brings slavery. But change the name from God to bliss and there is no idea of any person. You cannot depend on bliss, you have to create it. It is not ready-made, available somewhere. You have to live in such a way that you start attaining to blissfulness. Ordinarily we live in such a way that misery is created. We have to change our ways.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, IF THERE IS NO GOD, WHY WERE YOU BEING CALLED BHAGWAN? There is a place in India, Mohenjo Daro... it has been found to be the ancientmost city in the world. There are seven layers in Mohenjo Daro. It seems that civilization had to face some calamity seven times. When the first layer was found, it was thought that this is all: we have found Mohenjo Daro. That was determined to be seven thousand years old. But a little more digging and another city was found underneath the first city which must have been ten thousand years old. Then the work continued. The people who were working on the excavation went on digging and city after city.... Seven cities have been found in Mohenjo Daro. The seventh seems to be at least twenty thousand years old. They have temples, they have statues of God.