According to Osho, you can’t beat doubt by adopting methods, because doubt will infect every method. Instead, use doubt radically and without fear: question everything until you discover the one fact you cannot doubt—your own being. From that indubitable center, trust naturally flowers. Doubt neither creates nor destroys reality; pursued to its end, it becomes a bridge to authentic faith.
Don’t fight your doubts; keep questioning until only the sure feeling that you exist remains, and from that certainty real trust comes.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, I am a very doubt-ridden person. Is there any way to be free of it?
Mulla said, “Don’t worry. I told them to stand quietly. After all, how long can they stand? The moment they make a peep, they will have broken the rule.” An hour passed. But the thirty-five had been drinking too; they kept standing. Two hours passed; it was nearing midnight. Finally they said, “How long will we stand? This way it’ll be morning.” They knocked. Mulla sent his wife to the door: “Tell them Mulla is not at home.” She went and said, “Mulla is not at home.” They said, “This is too much! We have been standing here for three hours, and we saw him go in before our very eyes. Thirty-five pairs of eyes don’t get deceived. He is inside somewhere. Let us come in; we’ll drag him out.” She said, “He isn’t here. He went out in the morning to buy okra and never returned. I am sitting…
Osho, you say the same thing in countless ways. But when I listen to you, it feels as if I am hearing it for the first time. And I feel so much joy that I don’t feel like going back home. What should I do—what can I do—so that I can just keep listening to you!
You will feel as if you have been made to rise out of season, before time—as if you were not yet to go and yet had to go. And if you go in that way, your home will become even more desolate than before. I do not want to make your home desolate; I want to make your home a temple. I want that when you go home, your home’s new form is revealed. I do not want to tear you away from home, from the world, from family life. That is the newness of my sannyas: I do not want to sever you from the world; I want to join you to the world in such a way that your connection with the world becomes a connection with the Divine. Let the world no longer be a barrier between you and the Divine; let it become a means. If…
Question: First question: Osho, can doubt arise even in faith? Another’s truth can never become your truth—never has, never will. Truth is always one’s own—intimate, self-realized. And when truth is of one’s own experience, what doubt? Santosh, in faith no doubt can arise. Faith comes after killing, crossing, and drinking down all doubts—assimilating them—nothing is left to arise again. But in doubt, faith certainly arises. If you doubt, one day you will reach faith. Do not be in a hurry to believe. Do not be hasty. Do not settle for cheap faith. Do not accept because your father believes. Though a father dearly wishes to have you believe what he believes—for his ego’s satisfaction—do not accept it. Do not accept what your teachers believe—again, for their ego’s satisfaction. Do not accept what your priests, pundits, and politicians believe. All of them want quick assent.
Osho, I am skeptical; I long for faith, but it won’t take root. Doubts keep arising and arising. Show me the way!
Therefore do not be frightened, do not be anxious. I am ready to give sannyas even to an atheist. Because I hold that often atheists are more honest than theists. Theists are often hypocrites. Atheists can be hypocrites too, but at least not in India; in Russia they are. In India it is a little difficult to be an atheist. Here even one who is an atheist shows himself as a theist, because that is convenient. There is a crowd of theists all around—who will take the trouble to be an atheist! Here only one who truly has courage can be an atheist. If you are skeptical, an atheist, full of doubt—the door of my sannyas is open to you. You will not find anyone else in the world willing to give you sannyas; I tell you this. Such courageous theists—who can take even an atheist inside—have disappeared from the…
If your belief comes very strong, in the unconscious your doubt will become strong in the same proportion, because they balance each other. A strong doubt needs a strong belief to push it down, and the strong belief creates the strong doubt. The proportion always remains the same: they are like two wheels of a bullock cart. When I say. 'Drop belief,' then there is a possibility to drop doubt also, because when you don't believe there is no question of doubting. How can you doubt without belief, tell me? If you want to doubt something, in the first place you will have to believe in something. If you don't believe in anything, how can you doubt? Doubt is not possible, doubt becomes impossible.