Is doubt the only barrier preventing us from realizing we are already home?

Is the only thing that keeps us from coming home the doubt that we are not already home, which is reinforced by everyone around us?

Yes, Shobha. The doubt is the only thing that prevents -- the doubt that we are not as we should be, the doubt that God cannot be within us. How can God be within us? -- because you have been taught God is there in the seventh heaven sitting on his golden throne, surrounded by his angels playing on their harps, singing hallelujah. He is not here, he is far away. He is big, he is huge, he is eternal, he is this and he is that. How can he be in your heart? Such a tiny heart you have. And how can he be in your heart? -- you are so ugly and you are so horrible and you condemn yourself in a thousand and one ways continuously. How can he be there? If God is there in you, then where will the devil live? The doubt.... And when…

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…

Osho, the journey so far has been hard, but with your hint and support I have passed through it. I feel blessed to have received what I had never even imagined! Whatever I experienced, I kept explaining to others as well. But the journey ahead seems not only difficult, it feels absolutely impossible. You say, “You are at the destination; drop the very idea of journey.” It seems somewhat understandable, yet the resolution doesn’t stay. Osho, why does this complaint arise? Am I expecting the impossible before its time? Is waiting an even harder practice than practice itself? Osho, what is this r

You get a glimpse that the teaching is right; but the ancient mind won’t let the glimpse stay. It protests, “How can this be right? What will happen to me? Where will I go? If you are already God, then what is the point of religion? What meaning has practice? If you are God, then who is saint and who sinner? Who is Ravana and who Rama?” The mind creates a thousand disturbances. “Then what difference between a drunkard and a devotee—if all are God?” It becomes hard to answer such questions. And the truth is: between saint and sinner there is no difference—only on the surface, in the mind; within, the same One resides. Between Rama and Ravana there is no difference. Have you ever gone behind the stage of a Ramlila? There the reality is revealed. The curtain lifts: Rama and Ravana stand with bows and arrows aimed,…

So what is needed? What basis to enter this void? Shraddha—trust. Nishchaya, firmness, courage—these are shades of trust. Other than trust there is no way into the void. Doubt—and you are afraid; you flee. The doubter cannot enter meditation; he remains entangled in thought. Doubt gives birth to thought. Doubt—and a downpour of thinking begins. A little doubt—“Is he perhaps a thief?”—and a cascade of thought follows. Look closely—“He does look like a thief; those eyes… the way he sits… a knife perhaps!” You begin to fret. One little doubt—and the chain of thought starts. Where there is trust, thought quiets. If you have trust in anyone, in his presence thoughts fall away. To sit in the presence of one you trust is satsang: the dropping of thought. In trust, thought is not needed; thought is needed for doubt—for safety. Doubt arises and we weave a safety net of thought.

Osho,you are here -- then why do I still go on doubting?

THIS ANECDOTE: Sinclair had been married for ten years and had lived all of them in agony. He was unbelievably jealous of his coquettish wife; for years he had suspected she was having an affair with his business partner. Finally, he could stand the tension no longer and hired a detective to trail her. A few days later, the detective reported to Sinclair. "Well, did you follow them?" "Oh, yes," said the detective. "I have the report here. Last night she left your home about eight thirty, and then she met a man on the corner of Reid Street and Montgomery Place. They strolled around for about fifteen minutes, then they got into a car and went down to Patmore Lane. There they parked for a half hour and he made advances to her to which she ungrudgingly responded. Then they drove to the Franconia Hotel; I checked at the…