According to Osho, in true nonduality the devotee and God do not remain separate at all: with desire, you are a beggar and God a giver; when desire vanishes, both identities dissolve. Desireless devotion is not "to" someone; devotion itself is God - a midstream current where lover and Beloved, meditator and object, disappear, leaving only pure love, dance, and wonder.
When you stop wanting anything, the idea of ‘me’ and ‘God’ drops, and only the joy of loving remains.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, Sahajo, who has realized nonduality, says, “Practice devotion without desire.” But then the question arises: how can the devotee and God remain separate? Kindly clarify.
Practice devotion without desire! Nishkama bhakti—desireless devotion. So devotion can be of two kinds: one with desire, one without desire. With desire means: some demand. Without desire means: no demand. Without desire means: the joy is in devotion itself. You dance and sing; dance, kirtan, bhajan are themselves the goal. You sing because singing is bliss. You dance because dancing is bliss. There is no reward beyond the dance. After dancing we will not wait before God saying, “We danced so long; now give us a prize, now let us go home.” A devotee’s dance is not the dance of a courtesan, who dances while waiting for a payoff. A devotee’s dance is the dance of existence—there is nothing further to ask for. The dance is the final moment of joy, ahobhava—a sense of wonder. So desireless devotion means: devotion itself is bliss. Devotion with desire means: devotion is a…
Question: The last question: Osho, can God exist without the devotee? Kishori Lal! Neither can the devotee be without God, nor can God be without the devotee. God and the devotee are two aspects of the same coin. If there is a devotee, there is God; if there is God, there is a devotee. These two happenings occur together, not separately. It is not that God sits apart and the devotee stands elsewhere. It is in the very moment of devotion that God manifests. Let me remind you again: God is not a person; God is an experience. Better that we drop the word “God” and use “godliness”; then it becomes simpler. One face of godliness is the devotee, the other face is God. In the final hour the devotee disappears, God disappears; what remains is godliness, the ocean of godliness.
Osho, Shandilya says—love, devotion is Advaita (nonduality). Then what is it that has been said in the name of nonduality?
The devotee’s alchemy is wondrous. He says: there is no need to erase either. Let both join, embrace; let both hearts beat together. What place then for possession? Their heartbeats can be so in step that the One begins to be experienced between the two. Each one’s freedom remains untouched, and yet both unite in One—joined by a bridge. As two riverbanks are joined by a bridge, so true lovers remain two and yet are joined; remain separate and yet become one. Therefore devotion has variety; devotion has richness. A unity that survives by killing one is no great unity, for it is a unity afraid of the other. It could not exist in the other’s presence. The devotee says: the world is true, and God is true; the Creator is true, and His creation is true—both are true. This is what Shandilya said: do not call the world false.…
It is asked: “The devotee cannot forget the Worshiped One even till the final state...?”
Therefore very few have been devotees; yogis have been many. Your understanding is perhaps the reverse. You may think there have been many devotees. Devotees have been almost none, because to be a devotee is audacity. In being a yogi there is no such dare. You remain your own master—stand on your head, do postures, hold the breath, do whatever you wish; but you remain the master. Resolve keeps getting stronger, the ego sharper, the edge keener. Therefore look at the edge of the yogi’s ego—it shines like a sword! The devotee bows. The devotee scatters himself. The devotee becomes very graceful, soft, delicate. The yogi becomes stony, obstinate, stiff; the notion of “doing” takes hold. The yogi seeks siddhis, power; the devotee goes only to lose himself. “Ultimately, for liberation is the dissolution of the deity’s image also necessary?” You are the one who is lost. The worshiper is…
Love means you are trying to join two lamps, two bodies. Melancholy is assured. Devotion means the illusion has been dropped that lamps are to be joined—light is to join light. When light joins light there is no vision, no encounter, no knowledge—the devotee becomes God. The proclamation rises: Aham Brahmasmi. The cry rises: Anal haq. “I” and “Thou” do not remain two. Truly, even to say the devotee remains or God remains is not accurate. I would suggest one word—only “godliness” remains. Here the devotee disappears; there God disappears. For God’s being also requires the devotee’s being; without the devotee, God cannot be; without God, the devotee cannot be. Two sides of one coin. If one goes, the other goes. What remains is godliness—divinity, the infinite radiance. The path of devotion is the path of light. Aloka-pantha—the path of illumination.