What does it mean to be God?

Question: The second question: Osho, what did you do that made you God? No one becomes God by doing; godhood is our nature. When you drop all doing and look within, you discover—God is what we are! It has nothing to do with doing. You probably imagine: how many fasts were undertaken, how many push-ups and squats (dand-baithak), how many headstands, how many asanas and exercises, how much bhajan and kirtan—perhaps you are asking in that sense: what did you do by which you became God? It is precisely through doing that you miss. By doing and doing, you miss. Because godhood is our very being; nothing needs to be done for it—you are God. Try a hundred thousand methods, you will not become anything else. Every method will fail. That is why you are weeping in life—because every method is failing. Whatever you do does not succeed; it cannot.

Osho, what is god?

GOD is not a person. That is one of the greatest misunderstandings, and it has prevailed so long that it has become almost a fact. Even if a lie is repeated continuously for centuries it is bound to appear as if it is a truth. God is a presence, not a person. Hence all worshipping is sheer stupidity. Prayerfulness is needed, not prayer. There is nobody to pray to; there is no possibility of any dialogue between you and God. Dialogue is possible only between two persons, and God is not a person but a presence -- like beauty, like joy. God simply means godliness. It is because of this fact that Buddha denied the existence of God. He wanted to emphasize that God is a quality, an experience -- like love. You cannot talk to love, you can live it. You need not create temples of love, you need…

Carrying Christ in your head is absolutely meaningless. And that's what Christians are doing, and others are doing the same: Hindus carrying Krishna in the head, Buddhists carrying Buddha in the head. And these are not things of the head, these are not thoughts. These are deep, deep experiences, profound feelings. They can happen only in the heart. And when they happen in the heart you don't become a Christian, you become a Christ. You don't become a Buddhist, you become a Buddha. It is ugly to be a Buddhist or a Christian. When you can be a Buddha or a Christ, why settle for being a Christian or a Buddhist? That is settling for something plastic, something pseudo. Christ is a state of consciousness, just as Buddha is a state of consciousness.

... That these unfortunates seek afar the goodness whose source within they bear.

FOR FEW KNOW HAPPINESS: PLAYTHINGS OF THE PASSIONS, HITHER; HITHER TOSSED BY ADVERSE WAVES, UPON A SHORELESS SEA, THEY BLINDED ROLL, UNABLE TO RESIST OR TO THE TEMPEST YIELD. GOD! THOU COULDST SAVE THEM BY OPENING THEIR EYES. BUT NO: 'TIS FOR THE HUMANS OF A RACE DIVINE TO DISCERN ERROR, AND TO SEE THE TRUTH. NATURE SERVES THEM.... ... THOU WHO FATHOMED IT. O WISE AND HAPPY MAN, REST IN ITS HAVEN. BUT OBSERVE MY LAWS, ABSTAINING FROM THE THINGS WHICH THY SOUL MUST FEAR, DISTINGUISHING THEM WELL; LETTING INTELLIGENCE O'ER THY BODY REIGN. SO THAT, ASCENDING INTO RADIANT ETHER, MIDST THE IMMORTALS, THOU SHALT BE THYSELF A GOD. But truth is not decided by voting. It is not a question of how many people believe in it. It has always been an individual experience. Pythagoras knows it -- he has experienced it. The knowing depends on his experiencing,…

A friend has said: Osho, why do you call yourself Bhagwan? And he is a very bold man, because he also wrote: If you are really bold, you must reply to my question.

You ask, “Why do you call yourself God?” I have never said it. But now that you say it, I will say: I am God. And I say this because there is no way to be anything other than God. You are God too. In this whole existence there is nothing but God. So if someone claims, “I am God and you are not,” then that claim is criminal. I have never made any claim. I have never even said it. But I cannot say the opposite either—that I am not God—because that would be downright untrue. I can only say there is nothing but God. And what can I do, since there is nothing but God? You too are God. It may be you don’t know it; it may be you do. One who doesn’t know should try to know. God means: existence—purest existence. That which we are in…