According to Osho, don’t “give up” idols as a rule; awaken. When consciousness ripens, childish attachments drop by themselves. God is formless and cannot be captured by images—idol worship merely mirrors the ego. Let the ‘I’ be extinguished so the heart has “no room for two.” Live God in awareness, breath, and love; when the lamp of ‘I’ goes out, the moonlight enters.
Become so awake and quiet inside that your need for statues falls away, because when the little “I” fades, love itself fills your heart.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
I am an idol-worshipper, but from your point of view there seems to be no need for an idol. Would you advise me to give it up?
Your body on the other hand extends to a point where others do have access. The limit of the world's entry into you is the boundary of your body. The world can enter it because it is a part of the world, of samsara. The senses are the doors through which the world enters. The mind is a hodgepodge of impressions that have entered you like this. That which is beyond the body, beyond the mind and the senses is the soul, atman. Without attaining that soul life is useless, because without knowing and attaining it all knowledge and achievements are worthless. I do not consider samsara and nirvana, the world and emancipation, as two different things. The distinction that exists between them has nothing to do with their natures. it is not an objective distinction. The distinction is not between them, it is in your way of looking at…
Today I would request Osho to guide us on idol worship.
A Japanese seeker from Soto Zen told me of a practice: twenty-four hours a day the disciple intones “Muuuu… muuu…” After days, the sound storms inside; thoughts drop. By three weeks, the roaring “Muuuu!” possesses him. Food, sleep fall away; guards must watch him. At the final climax, a last thunderous roar—and suddenly all is still. For days he lies in deep quiet. When he returns, the old man is dead; a new man stands—continuity with the past broken. Om is such a sound; every religion has its own. As worship deepens, sound transforms consciousness. Repetition is crucial. If you sing one hymn one day, another the next, there will be no results. Continuous blows on one point drive the nail. But beware of mechanical repetition—then it is wasted labor. If the sound becomes your very life, every cell, bone, blood crying it—then sound can open the door. And all…
Osho, without seeing God, whom should I worship—how, and where? Please be compassionate and explain!
Jageshwar, When you have not seen God at all, why worship in the first place? Why does the question arise—whom should I worship, how, and where? That’s strange. It’s like a naked man asking, “If I take a bath, where shall I wring out my clothes? And even if I wring them, where shall I dry them?” When you have no sense of God yet, how will you worship now? No realization of God—and you want to go further! That’s Sheikh Chilli stuff, castles in the air. But often such foolishness passes for metaphysics. When you asked it, you probably thought you were asking a very profound, very religious question. You are asking something utterly pointless. It’s like the house isn’t even built, the foundation hasn’t been laid, and you are already worrying about the roof—should it be tiles or asbestos sheets? Worship will come later; first there must be…
A friend has asked: Osho, if God is everywhere, then why would he not be in an idol?
Of course he will be. But the one who insists that he is only in the idol will never find him everywhere. And for the one who does not find him everywhere, he cannot be in the idol either. God is everywhere—certainly he is also in the idol. But the person who says, “He is only in the idol,” for that person he is not everywhere; and for the one for whom he is not everywhere, he cannot be in the idol either. And the one who says, “He is everywhere,” will not go searching for an idol; whatever he encounters will be God. He will not go searching for a temple, because all is his temple. Then he will not say, “This is my idol; I will worship it.” Whom to worship then? When all is that. Every breath is that, every particle is that—so whom to worship? I…
What is worship? Once you are able to invoke life into the idol, you are worshiping a real, alive deity. Try to understand this deeply: as soon as something becomes alive, the form and the formless become one... because the body is the form, and the life that is in it is the formless. Life has no form. If my someone cuts my hand, my life is not cut. If I am hypnotized or anesthetized and my hand is cut off, I will not feel any pain. My whole brain can be removed without my becoming aware of the operation... because life as such has no shape or form. Wherever there is life, there is a meeting of form and formlessness. Matter has a shape, consciousness has none.