Does God take the initiative in a person's transformation to become truly religious?

Osho, it is said that one attains God only by God’s grace. Then is human effort useless for the attainment of God?

The Jain scriptures do not instruct the monk to fold hands in greeting. He can only bless you—not greet you. But a blessing from one who cannot bow is worth two pennies. Without that much humility, his blessing will not work; it will go in vain. His blessing is barren; no flowers can bloom from it. The Jain monk is a monk—but with great pride in being a monk. The Hindu monk is not a monk—but there is one advantage there: no ego. Choose half, and there is both benefit and danger. The Jain monk grows more and more stiff. The more he fasts, the more vows he takes, the more austerities he performs, the deeper the rigidity; the thicker the sense of “I.” This “I” has to be dropped one day. If you fatten it too much, how will you drop it? It is not a friend; it is…

Question: First question: Osho, God-realization through grace—how does it happen? Effort is the shadow of man’s ego. Grace is the fragrance that arises in a state of egolessness. By effort you get the small. Man’s fist is very small. You can hold pebbles in your fist; try to hold the Himalayas and you’ll be in trouble. By effort you get the petty—because man’s power is limited. By grace you receive the vast. Effort is a clenched fist; grace is an open hand. “I will get it”—the untruth is already there in this. Because the “I” itself is the untruth. The day you know “I am not,” that day it is found. In truth it was always found—only the stiffness of “I” did not let it be seen. What comes by grace is not that it comes today—it is already here, always here.

[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been copy-typed on to the computer. It is for reference purposes only.] God is immediately available If we are ready to disappear as an ego. The ego prevents him penetrating us The ego keeps him away from us. Except for the ego There is no distance between you and god. The ego is the only barrier, the only wall. It is of our creation And we can dismantle it any moment. We have put it together, brick by brick And brick by brick we have to dismantle it. We have to be very conscious Not to feed the ego any more Not to strengthen it any more Because it is our weakness. The stronger the ego is, the weaker we are Because god is less and less available to us.

[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.] The so-called religious people have been very inimical towards the lower phenomena of life energies. And being inimical to your own lower self is destructive because you will not find the staircase, the ladder, to go to the higher. And if you are inimical to the lower, the lower becomes inimical to you, and unnecessary conflict, struggle is a wastage of energy. Befriend the lower. Take all the help that the lower is capable of giving. Use it -- it is a great gift of god -- but remember that one has to go beyond it. Sex has to be transformed into prayer. This whole process I call sannyas: from sex to superconsciousness. This whole journey I call sannyas.

Once you start feeling this, not believing but experiencing this, all fear disappears. And the energy that is involved in fear is released and becomes love. It is the same energy that becomes fear. Once fear is no more there tremendous energy is released, and that energy becomes love. It starts radiating through you, reaching to other people. You start overflowing with love. Sannyas is an effort to know oneself as a wave of the ocean that God is. Tanmaya means one who is utterly dissolved, utterly lost. It is a space without ego. One is, but one has no idea of the I. It happens sometimes in listening to music: you are, but there is no sense of I, you are just an open space. That is tanmaya. That space is needed for a sannyasin, because only in that space can God be contacted.