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According to Osho, prayer is a heart-born gratitude and welcoming mood—a spontaneous, childlike offering that prepares the inner home for the divine guest. It is not formal words or seeking answers, nor an attempt to change God, but deepening sincerity, tears and joy poured without expectation. Persisted in, such prayer ripens into innocence, inner silence, and the first fragrance of samadhi.
Prayer is saying thank you from your heart like a little child and getting ready inside for a beloved guest, without asking for anything.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: WHAT IS PRAYER? Prayer is a state of gratitude. Prayer is thankfulness. God has given so much, at the very least we can give thanks. Prayer is a preparation to welcome him. The guest will come, the guest will have to come. Decorate the house with flowers and boughs. String flower garlands. Prepare lamps of blessing. Prayer is a preparation to welcome. Who knows when the guest will come? I will be ready. Whenever the guest will come, on whichever path he will come, from whichever door he will come, prayer is the preparation for his coming! Prayer is a mood of welcoming. Don't fall into formal prayer. Let prayer be spontaneous, direct, arising from your heart, only then will it be meaningful. Not scriptural but heartful. Then even if it is babbling...
Osho, what is the proof of God’s existence?
And you still ask for proof? There have been people who offered proofs, and all their proofs are futile. No proof works. All the proofs for God so far are not worth a penny. Someone says: everything that is made must have a maker; such a vast world—surely it must have a maker. But that proof commits suicide; the moment it meets an atheist, it goes lame. The atheist says: If every made thing must have a maker, if God is needed to make the world, then who made God? With that he tightens the noose around your neck. Who made God? You protest: No, no one made God. Then the atheist says: If God can be without being made, why can’t the world be without being made? The argument collapses; it falls flat. You say: just as the potter makes the pot, so that Great Potter made this world.…
Osho, what is the definition of God?
Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…
Question: The first question: Osho, what is prayer? Avinash, prayer is the distillation of love. As pressing flowers yields perfume, so if you press all the forms of love, prayer is born. As fragrance dwells in flowers, so prayer is the fragrance of love. Prayer is neither Hindu, nor Muslim, nor Christian. And if it is, then know it is not prayer; it is something else—fraud, self-deception. And deception never reaches the Divine. You need real steps if you are to reach the doorway of that temple. If it rises from your heart, then even if your words are lisping, it will reach. But let the call be your own—not stale, not borrowed. Simple and direct; there is no need for formality. No ornate embellishment is needed. Do not live under the delusion that some God understands only Sanskrit—that if you pray in Sanskrit, then he will understand.
Osho, how to pray?
Prayer happens for each person in an unparalleled way, a unique way. One person’s prayer is not another’s. Therefore do not imitate prayer. And this is where the hindrance has come in. We have been taught prayers—of Hindus, Muslims, Jains, Christians. Someone recites the Gayatri, repeating it like a parrot. Someone chants the Navkar Mantra, repeating it like a parrot. Someone reads verses from the Quran. Those verses are beautiful, those mantras are beautiful, and their meanings are lovely; but prayer does not happen by that alone. Prayer cannot be borrowed. Prayer is the flow of your own heart. Sushila, heighten your sensitivity to beauty; then prayer will arise of itself. Listen to music—the waterfalls, the wind passing through the trees, or a veena in a veena-player’s hands. Listen to the birds of morning, or to the crickets in the silence of night. See beauty—the trees, the moon and stars,…