How can there be any religion without God?

Osho, I was shocked to hear you say that god does not exist. Then the question arose in me: how can there be any religion without god? Isn't god the center and religion the circumference?

These are the three phases of the Hindu God: Brahma is the creative phase, he creates the world; Vishnu, the second phase, he maintains the world, and Shiva -- he destroys the world when the time comes to destroy it. In a way it is perfectly balanced; there are all the three functions that existence needs: creation, maintenance, and one day, de-creation. But if you look into the inner life of these three persons, you cannot believe it. One day, Vishnu and Brahma are quarreling about something. In the first place, the idea of a quarrel between two parts of God makes Him schizophrenic. If both your hands start fighting each other... and that's what you are doing in the mind -- one part fighting against the other part. Sometimes you become so split that you are already two persons, and sometimes you are many persons. God is already three…

Beloved Osho, with no god, no devil, what is religion all about? Does a sannyasin need a religion?

In my house, while my grandmother was alive, tomatoes were not allowed, because according to her the redness of the tomato looked like meat. I asked her many times, "Have you ever seen meat?" She had never seen meat, but she said, "I know meat looks like tomatoes. Don't bring tomatoes in the house." I had not eaten a tomato up to the age of seventeen. I had not eaten onions up to the age of twenty-one, because they were not allowed in the house. It was a great sin to eat onions, potatoes.... Now, have you seen more innocent people than potatoes? But Jainism is against anything that grows under the ground. Anything growing under the ground, Jainas don't allow. Because the sunrays don't reach it, it is heavy. Its heaviness they turn into something spiritual: by eating it you will be going down, it will make you heavy,…

Could one summarize the difference between a god-oriented religion and the quality of religiousness as the difference between a judge external to us, a projected conscience, and a witness within our consciousness?

A woman has to be out of the house just for one night. It does not matter whether she has made love to anybody or not. This is how Indian Mohammedans go on increasing their population. Obviously, one man with four wives, can give at least four children per year. The same is not possible for four husbands and one wife. They may not even give one child -- the four husbands may kill the child before it is born. So remember, your God-oriented religions are only conveniences for the society. They should not be called religions, they are only moral precepts to keep the society together, and in the least inconvenient way. It is not religiousness. Religiousness arises only as a blossoming of your own consciousness. God-oriented religions certainly create a conscience, but not consciousness. And many people have the false notion that conscience and consciousness are one. Their…

Beloved Osho, what is religion?

In anger one day the archbishop took a motorboat and went to those three people who were sitting under a tree. He looked at them and he could not believe it: what kind of saints are these? In the very beginning he introduced himself and declared, "I am the archbishop." The three saints all touched his feet. Now he felt relaxed, "These are fools... and things are not yet gone so far that they cannot be controlled." He asked them, "Are you saints?" They looked at each other, and they said, "We have never heard the word. We are uneducated, uncultured. Don't talk Greek to us; just simply say what you mean." "My God," said the archbishop, "you don't know what a saint means? Do you know the Christian prayer?" Again they looked at each other, and nudged each other as if to say, "You tell him." The archbishop now…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD? I do not believe in believing. That has to be understood first. Nobody asks me, "Do you believe in the sun? Do you believe in the moon?" Nobody asks me that question. Millions of people I have met, and for thirty years continuously I have answered thousands of questions. Nobody asks me, "Do you believe in the roseflower?" There is no need. You can see: the roseflower is there or it is not there. Only fictions, not facts, have to be believed. God is the greatest fiction that man has created. Hence you have to believe in him. And why does man have to create this fiction of God? There must be some inner necessity. I don't have that necessity so there is no question. But let me explain to you why people have believed in God.