According to Osho, prayer and repentance are utterly unrelated: repentance is an ego-driven, past-oriented patchwork that perpetuates mistakes, while prayer is a total plunge into the living present—free of guilt, demands, plans, or ambition. True prayer is spontaneous wonder and gratitude, not ritual or confession; it is conscious presence, here and now, unrelated to yesterday or tomorrow.
No—prayer isn’t saying sorry; it’s quietly feeling thankful and fully awake in this moment without asking for anything or replaying mistakes.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: First question: Osho, isn’t prayer nothing but repentance? Naresh! Prayer and repentance have no connection at all—not even a distant one. Repentance is a process of the ego; the ego busy adorning itself, trying to plaster over the mistakes and slips that have happened. Repentance is past-oriented, while prayer is the name of plunging totally into the present moment. Prayer has neither a past nor a future. Prayer is neither repentance nor a plan. Prayer is not a demand—this should be granted, that should be granted; nor is it a confession that I did this wrong, I did that wrong. Remembering one’s mistakes and asking forgiveness for them—that too is ego. And by pleading for pardon for one’s mistakes, who has ever become free of them? The more you beg forgiveness, the more you repeat the mistakes.
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, what is the definition of God?
Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…
Osho, what is the most astonishing law in this world?
A Sufi story. A thief, at night, began to climb into a house through a window. The window frame gave way, he fell, and broke his leg. The next day he went to court and blamed the householder for his broken leg. The owner was summoned and said in his defense: The one responsible is the carpenter who made the window. The carpenter was called; he said the contractor who built the wall hadn’t made the windowed section strong enough. In his defense the contractor said: My mistake happened because of a woman who was passing by—she drew my attention away. When the woman was presented in court, she said: At that time I was wearing a very fine dress. Normally no one even looks at me. So the fault lies with the dress, which was so exquisitely sewn. The judge said: Then summon the tailor who sewed it; he…
Osho, yesterday you mentioned that to be a disciple one needs to be in prayer -- but what exactly is prayer?
But if one day suddenly the whole of humanity goes blind, and once in a while a man with eyes arrives, then people will ask him: What is sun? What is light? The question simply shows ill TO what impoverishment we have fallen. In the Bible, there is no word for prayer. It was such a diffused experience that even a word was not needed for it -- so much so that in the Hebrew language it is difficult to translate the word 'pray', 'prayer'. Praying was calling, rejoicing, laughing, crying, reviling, imploring, according to how one felt. But there was no single word for it. Man has lost many capacities, and one of the MOST important has been the capacity to pray -- because it is only through prayer that we make a bridge between our tiny self and the infinite and the absolute. You say: WHAT EXACTLY IS…