According to Osho, no-mind is the ultimate prayer: not doing or saying, but a state of utter inner silence where the sense of 'I' and 'God' dissolves. In this wordless gratitude and love, meditation (mind’s path) and prayer (heart’s path) meet. Whether via Zen’s awareness or Sufism’s devotion, all rivers flow into this oceanic oneness—arriving home.
Prayer isn't talking; it's being very quiet inside until you and God feel like the same silence.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, is no-mind the ultimate prayer?
PRAYER IS NOT SOMETHING THAT CAN BE DONE. Prayer is not something that can be thought either. Prayer is a state of silent being, of utter silence. One simply is... then one is in prayer. If you do prayer, you miss the whole point. Doing remains on the circumference; doing cannot enter to the center of your being. If you are saying your prayer, you again miss -- because in saying it you are thinking of yourself as separate from God, you are relating to God as if he is separate from you. And that is the basic illusion: God is not separate from you. Hence, prayer cannot be a dialogue between I and thou. I is thou -- there is no possibility of any dialogue. The moment you say your prayer, you have accepted a hypothesis which is basically wrong -- that God is there, far away from you,…
Question: The first question: TO US, ARE THE WORDS `GOD' AND `NO-MIND' SYNONYMOUS? Looked at scientifically, people who are praying to God are absolutely insane, neurotics, because they are praying to somebody who is not there, and they are talking to somebody who has never been there. No answer ever comes. That Sufi used to shout loudly. Finally, the disciple decided that it was better to keep him in the basement at night. So they arranged a bed in the basement of the house, so he could pray as loudly as he desired and nobody would be disturbed. But in the middle of the night the whole neighborhood gathered, and they said, "Why have you put him on the roof of your house?" He said, "Roof? We have put him in the basement." But they went up to the roof and he was there praying to God so loudly.
If you wish to attain truth, then drop the mind. As the mind ceases to exist, truth is revealed, in just the same way as opening the doors allows the sunlight to enter. Like a wall, the mind prevents the truth from entering, and the bricks of the wall consist of thought. Thoughts, thoughts and more thoughts, this chain of thought constitutes the mind. The sage Ramana once said to someone, "Stop your thoughts, and then tell me where the mind is." Where there is no thought, there is no mind. If there are no bricks, how can there be a wall? A hermit came last night. He asked, "What shall I do with the mind?" I said, "Do not do anything with it. Leave the mind alone and watch. Leave it completely alone and go on watching.
Osho, what is prayer?
They said, "We don't know! We don't know that we are saints either. People have started calling us saints and we go on trying to convince them that we are not, we are very simple people, but they don't listen. The more we argue that we are not, the more they worship us! And we are not very good at arguing either." The priest was very happy. He said, "What is your prayer? Do you know how to pray?" They looked at each other. The first said to the second, "You say." The second said to the third, "You say, please." The priest said, "Say what your prayer is! Are you saying Our Lord's Prayer or not?" They said, "To be frank with you, we don't know any prayer. We have invented a prayer of our own and we are very embarrassed -- how to say it? But if you…
Osho, I want to be rich, I want a high position, and I want a beautiful woman too. What should I do?
A man once placed an advertisement—meant for people like you: “Send two rupees and learn the formula to become a millionaire overnight.” Now who wouldn’t want to become a millionaire for two rupees! Almost a hundred thousand people sent their money. A week later, everyone who had sent the two rupees received the reply: “Do exactly what I did.” He had indeed become a millionaire overnight! One lakh people sent two rupees each—two lakhs landed in his lap. This is how you’re being duped—through gambling, matka. And it’s not only people who run these scams; governments do it too. Governments that claim to be Gandhian run lotteries! A lottery is gambling—a cheat dressed up nicely. But the greedy get hooked: “Just one rupee for a chance at lakhs. If it comes once, that’s enough…!” But what will you do after getting lakhs? There’s a famous story by Tolstoy: A tailor…