No—dripping water doesn’t prove a temple is alive; some alive temples have no water, and some places with water aren’t alive.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
In some temples, water trickles down naturally over the images. Is this a sign that such a temple is a living temple?
No. The validity of a living temple has nothing to do with this. The water will trickle whether there is an image underneath it or not. These are false proofs, and because of them we assume that a temple is a living one. Where not a drop of water falls, still there are temples that could be and are living temples.
Osho, in some temples water keeps dripping on its own over the idol. Is that a sign that the temple is living?
No; such things as water have nothing to do with it. Water keeps dripping even without the idol’s consecration; and even if you place an idol there, it can still drip. There is no great difficulty in that; it’s no big issue. These are all false proofs on the basis of which we assume consecration has happened. These are all false proofs on the basis of which we assume consecration has happened. Dripping water and such have nothing to do with it. Even where absolutely no water falls, there are living temples; they can be there too. Initiation is not given—it happens.
Osho, temples, pilgrimages, tilak and forehead marks, image-worship, rosaries, mantra–tantra, scriptures and Puranas, fire-offerings and Vedic sacrifices, rites, shraddha, planets and constellations, astrological calculations, omens and portents—these once had meaning, but now seem futile. Please explain them and tell us: were they merely outer instruments of sadhana? Merely external arrangements for remembering, which time’s swift pace uprooted? Or did they also have inner interrelations? Will time consent to take them up again?
In the life of Moses it is said: he went up the mountain and saw a divine fire—a bush aflame, fire all around, yet flowers blooming and leaves green within. Seeking God, Moses rushed forward, and a voice cried from the bush, “Fool, leave your shoes beyond the boundary!” There was no boundary—open wilderness. He looked, “Where is the boundary?” He experienced: “Here it is—up to where Moses is Moses; a step further, and something changes.” He left his shoes and sought forgiveness: “Pardon me; I entered holy ground with shoes.” That is the magnetic field. The temple has a circle—an enchanted domain—with a very living use for the village. And it bore fruit. For thousands of years, the innocence and purity of Indian village life owed less to the villagers than to the charged temple. The poorest village was wretched without a temple. However poor, a temple it must…
Osho, you are so opposed to temples and mosques—then why are you yourself building this vast temple?
We are not building a temple. We are awakening those consciousnesses whose very presence carries the fragrance of the temple by itself. Wherever they are, it will be. If they stand in the marketplace, there a temple will be. This is something altogether different; hence the trouble. That is why the people of temples, mosques, and gurdwaras are angry. They feel I am cutting their roots, pulling down their temples. And you ask, “You are building a grand temple here!” No temple is being built here. What is gathering here are the intoxicated. What is being shared here is ecstasy. A divine madness is rising—a madness that belongs to God. Had there been no tavern outside the cloister and the Kaaba, God knows where the rejected ones would have gone. Good that our own madness came in handy; else where would we have gone to convince the world? Those who…
Osho, there are still countless temples, mosques, churches, and gurdwaras on the earth where ritual worship and prayer go on. In your view, are all of them simply futile?
If they were not futile, heaven would already have descended on earth. If they were not futile—so much worship, so much prayer, so many temples, so many churches, so many mosques—if all that were true, if those prayers were real, arising from the heart, the earth would have become heaven. But the earth is hell. Certainly, somewhere there is a miss. Either God is not, hence the prayers are going in vain; or God is, but the prayers are not happening rightly, and the connection with the divine is not being made. There are only two options. Choose whichever you like. One option is that God is not; then pray as much as you want—what is going to happen? There is no one there to listen; the sky is empty and bare. Shout, scream—you’re just being crazy. The time is being wasted; you could have put it to some use.…