Should the fear of God also be dropped?

I am a god-fearing man, but you say that all fear has to be dropped. Has the fear of god also to be dropped?

Patanjali says: God is only an excuse to pray. It is like a peg on the wall to hang your coat on. If the peg is not there you can hang your coat somewhere else. You can hang it on the door, on the window, anywhere. Patanjali has great insight when he says that God is just a peg: God has been invented because otherwise it will be difficult for you to pray. Ordinarily you think prayer is a means to reach God; Patanjali says God is only a means so that you can pray. But it is only for the beginners -- to help them. It is just like when a small child goes to school to learn the alphabet we give him a few helpful clues. We say, "D is for donkey." Now, D has nothing to do with donkey in particular; donkey is not the owner of…

Mahatma Gandhi said: “I fear no one—except God.” I say to you: fear everyone else if you must, but do not fear God. If you fear God, there will never be any relationship. Will you fear God—and then connect? Does a relationship grow out of fear? Fear poisons. Not fear, but a wave of love is needed between you and God. Lovers are eager to drown in one another. A bhakta is not born out of fear. And if fear births it, know it is not bhakti. It is only fearfulness. Because of this fearfulness religion is little visible in the world; for centuries man was frightened. The accumulated result was that a thinker like Friedrich Nietzsche could declare: “God is dead.” And not only that—he added, “And understand clearly how he died: we killed him. We murdered him. We had to.

Osho, there is a saying, “If you believe, it is a god; otherwise, it’s a stone.” Is it all just a matter of believing?

I tell you: do not believe in God. There is no need to believe. If you believe in God, then what will you know? To believe in God means you have declared defeat in knowing—you are tired, you have thrown down your arms. You have said, “The search is over; there is nothing to know, so let us believe.” You don’t believe in the sun or the moon; you know them. You don’t believe in this world; you know it. And you believe in God? If your believed God is repeatedly defeated before your known world, it is no surprise. God should also be known. The day God is known, this world becomes insipid—maya, a dream. Experience is wealth; empty beliefs are not. So I make a small change in the saying: “Know, and it is God; otherwise, it’s a stone.” But to know, a great journey is required. To…

Osho, is the hypothesis of god not useful in any way? -- because the very idea of dropping the idea of god makes me immensely afraid.

I said, "Many times I am there by the side of the neem tree in the darkness; your chanting becomes louder and you start walking faster -- that much I know. Why do you chant there if you are not afraid? And if you are afraid of ghosts, then that three-hour morning chanting with God is useless. Can't he save you against ghosts?" He said, "From today I am not going to chant." Certainly he kept his word. He was not chanting. Although he was walking faster than usual. And all that I had to do was to sit in the tree with a kerosene can -- empty, so I could beat it like a drum. I simply drummed the can and threw it on top of him. You should have seen the situation! He ran away screaming and shouting, "BHOOT! BHOOT! BHOOT! BHOOT!" BHOOT is the Hindi word for…

Osho, not only is there no tradition around revelers like Baba Malukdas; even companions are scarcely ever heard of! Why has there always been fear and objection to drinking with drunkards? Please speak.

When someone like Maluk appears in the world, he says: drop fear; come, let us talk of love. Drop fear—come, let us be intoxicated. Drop fear—come, let us hum the Beloved’s songs—in ecstasy, in love. Beyond God-love there is nothing else. Come, place your hand in God’s hand, embrace the Beloved; dance with God, play the rās. When a saint says something like this, you get frightened. Because the nets of fear woven over lifetimes—your chains, your habits, your notions, your conditioning—suddenly halt and stiffen: this is dangerous talk. You know that if you drop fear, your whole morality goes; your whole conduct goes. It is all false—that is why you fear its going. Maluk brings a new kind of conduct into the world—a conduct that rests on love; a conduct that rests on joy. You cannot do wrong because you are so blissful—how could you do wrong! You cannot…