Is there any need for meditation if religion is dead?

Beloved master, the religion is dead. Then is there any need of meditation?

My God! It seems it is the same idiot who is asking all these questions. Because the religion is dead, now only meditation is left. I had to destroy everything nonessential, so you don't get lost in nonessentials as all other people in the world have. They have got lost in nonessentials, and completely forgotten the essential. The essential is very simple; the nonessentials you can go on increasing. Buddhism has thirty-three thousand rules for the Buddhist monk. Now, I don't think any Buddhist monk can even remember them. I don't think even Gautam Buddha can repeat them again. Thirty-three thousand rules! And if people start following these rules, who is going to meditate? There is no time left. Strange kinds of rules all the religions have! I have not given you a single rule -- just to keep you focused on the essential, the only thing that can transform…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, AND AN OLD PRIEST SAID, SPEAK TO US OF RELIGION. AND HE SAID: HAVE I SPOKEN THIS DAY OF AUGHT ELSE? IS NOT RELIGION ALL DEEDS AND ALL REFLECTION, AND THAT WHICH IS NEITHER DEED NOR REFLECTION, BUT A WONDER AND A SURPRISE EVER SPRINGING IN THE SOUL, EVEN WHILE THE HANDS HEW THE STONE OR TEND THE LOOM? WHO CAN SEPARATE HIS FAITH FROM HIS ACTIONS, OR HIS BELIEF FROM HIS OCCUPATIONS? WHO CAN SPREAD HIS HOURS BEFORE HIM, SAYING, "THIS FOR GOD AND THIS FOR MYSELF; THIS FOR MY SOUL AND THIS OTHER FOR MY BODY"? ALL YOUR HOURS ARE WINGS THAT BEAT THROUGH SPACE FROM SELF TO SELF. HE WHO WEARS HIS MORALITY BUT AS HIS BEST GARMENT WERE BETTER NAKED. THE WIND AND THE SUN WILL TEAR NO HOLES IN HIS SKIN.

Meditation means becoming so aware, so intensely aware, now, this very moment, that all these stupidities are seen as stupidities, and the moment you see something as false you are free of it. Not only that, there is even more danger for the vested interests, for the establishment; the person who has come to know the false as the false and the true as the true does not remain hidden. He cannot remain hidden. He has to share his experience. He has to spread his fire. And that fire can burn all the temples and all the churches and all the mosques. The meditative person will not be Christian, will not be Hindu, will not be Buddhist, will not be Mohammedan. He will simply be human. Hence the Christians will be against him, the Hindus will be against him, all the organised religions will be against him.

To leap into that very awareness, into that very beingness, is religion. To jump into That—into that existence—is religion. And the experience that happens there frees one from life’s bondage, from life’s attachment, from life’s misery. Because going there it becomes known that that inner being seated within is ever free of sin, of sorrow, of pain. Not even for a single moment has any stain of sin, of pain, of sorrow ever touched That. That consciousness is eternally tranquil, eternally free. That consciousness is eternally in Brahman-state. In that consciousness no defilement has ever occurred, nor is there any possibility of defilement. As soon as this darshan happens, life becomes oriented toward an otherworldly plane of the experience of bliss. I call this orientation meditation and Samadhi. I have said two things: unoccupied and non-doing. In truth both mean the same.

And you have become so much focused on outer things which are meaningless that I don't see you have any time for the inner." All the religions have become focused on the outer. I am trying to abandon everything that is outer. My people have no outer discipline. They have no outer obsession. Their whole effort and energy has to be directed inwards. Life is small and time is so precious. You cannot waste it into unnecessary things. And you can see people all around wasting it in unnecessary things. One shankaracharya was staying in Delhi and a poor man, a clerk stood up in the question hour and asked about the ultimate, what it is, how to attain it. And the shankaracharya looked at him. He was using the ordinary desk, a full pant, a bush shirt, and he became furious.