According to Osho, the master helps by awakening gratitude for existence and turning the seeker from borrowed beliefs to direct experience. Through shocks and insight-provoking devices, he reveals the pricelessness of life—eyes, ears, breath—and points to the true temple: the living sky, trees, rivers. When gratitude opens the heart, religiousness flowers naturally, without churches, creeds, or a hypothetical God; receptivity replaces ritual.
A master makes you grateful for being alive and shows that life itself is the temple, so you don’t need a religion to be truly spiritual.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, how can the master help the disciple to live religiousness without religion?
It is the most simple thing in the world. The reverse is the most difficult -- to be religious and to be part of an organized religion is almost impossible. But just to be religious, without being part of any religion, is the simplest thing. You have to understand what I mean by religiousness: by religiousness I mean a gratitude towards existence. It has given so much to you, and you cannot pay it back. I have heard, a man was going to commit suicide and a master was sitting on the river bank from where this man was going to take the jump. He said, "Wait just a moment! Wait! Are you going to commit suicide?" The man said, "But who are you to prevent me?" The master said, "I am not preventing you. In fact, I would love for you to commit suicide, but before committing it, if…
Beloved master, the religion is dead. Then is there any need of meditation?
My God! It seems it is the same idiot who is asking all these questions. Because the religion is dead, now only meditation is left. I had to destroy everything nonessential, so you don't get lost in nonessentials as all other people in the world have. They have got lost in nonessentials, and completely forgotten the essential. The essential is very simple; the nonessentials you can go on increasing. Buddhism has thirty-three thousand rules for the Buddhist monk. Now, I don't think any Buddhist monk can even remember them. I don't think even Gautam Buddha can repeat them again. Thirty-three thousand rules! And if people start following these rules, who is going to meditate? There is no time left. Strange kinds of rules all the religions have! I have not given you a single rule -- just to keep you focused on the essential, the only thing that can transform…
Beloved Osho, your relationship with your disciples seems to be unique among the religions. Would you say something about this?
The person who made it possible for you to have those few moments, the woman, the man -- be grateful, immensely grateful to the person. Yes, those moments are no more there. Nothing can be done about it. They cannot be pulled back, and even if there was some way to pull them back, they would not be the same. It would be a repetition. It wouldn't bring you the same joy, the same ecstasy. It is good that they cannot be pulled back, otherwise even the memory of those cherished moments would be spoiled. Respect the person, be grateful to the person that, for no reason at all -- she is a stranger, you are a stranger -- for no reason at all, for no bargain, there was no business... mysteriously the universe managed; something transpired between you. And it was nourishing to both of you. It has made…
Osho, please shed light on what walls stand between religion and man.
There aren’t many walls—just one: ego. Though there are many bricks in that wall, and they all get mortared in the same way: whatever is against nature becomes a brick for the ego. I teach a natural life. My message is straight and simple. Live simply. Don’t run away from anywhere; don’t avoid anything. Whatever God has given is auspicious—give thanks. And if he has given mud, he gave it in the hope that lotus flowers would bloom from it. And if he has given iron, he did so in the hope that you also have the philosopher’s stone within—find it. At its touch, iron becomes gold. And not merely gold—fragrance comes into gold. And don’t keep asking the pundit-priests. Avoid them. They neither know nor have experience. But in this world very few are simple-hearted enough to say, “I don’t know.” If someone asks you something, even if you…
Beloved Osho, I listened to the tender sound of a cool well, bubbling water just flowing without any effort and yet busy ... Sunrays dancing to the melody, eternally fresh. But the `I' forgot. All that remains is the thirst to come back and be the well, sometimes recognized, sometimes not. Osho, is there anything to be done? Is the thirst enough?
And while you are slipping into the presence of the master, you will find that a dark shadow of your own, which we call the ego, is leaving you. As you are coming closer to the master, the ego is leaving you. The moment you have come and there is no barrier between you and the master, you will be surprised: for the first time you don't have any weight. It is as if that ego was a mountain on you, and suddenly everything looks bright, fragrant, rosier. Life is simple. We make it complex by doing things against nature. There is only one religion, and that is nature. Allow nature to take you completely; allow yourself to be one with nature. Anything that goes against nature is against religion, is against spirituality, is against your ultimate welfare. So just listen to your nature -- and your nature goes on…