What is religion according to the siddhas Saraha and Tilopa?

Osho, the siddhas Saraha and Tilopa have said that rites and rituals are not religion. Please tell us, according to them, what is religion? What is their message?

Chant it for five minutes and the siddhi will happen; then whatever you want you will get.” For this the man had served three years. People serve even to get the goodies, the reward. Now that the sweets were given, he left the fakir and ran home. As he was descending the temple steps, the fakir called out, “Listen, brother! I forgot one thing. While you chant the mantra for five minutes, remember: no thought of a monkey should arise.” The man said, “What nonsense! I haven’t thought of a monkey in all my life—why would it come now?” But he hadn’t even reached home when thoughts of monkeys began to appear. He scolded himself, “What am I doing?” But the monkeys kept multiplying; they peeped within, giggled and laughed, made faces! He was terrified: “If this was the condition, the foolish fakir should have kept quiet!” Not a single…

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…

Osho, you said religion is sadhana, not ritual. But many of the very things Saraha would call ritual—such as bhajan and kirtan—have become parts of practice in your ashram and elsewhere. Kindly explain.

And that priest who blows the conch in the temple, and the adhan that rises from the mosque—there is no real difference. If there is soul in the conch’s sound and soul in the adhan, they are two styles of the same call. The priest’s way of calling in the temple is to ring the bell and blow the conch; in the mosque, instead of bells there is the adhan. It is the same call. The essential question is: from whom does the call arise? Is it truly his, or is he parroting someone else? Does the voice issue from him, is it his own? Are his life-breath and being in it? If not, it is all futile. Then you can buy plastic flowers in the market, place them in the window; perhaps the neighbors will be fooled. Mulla Nasruddin watered the flowers in his window every day. The neighbors…

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…

We get rid of illusion and acquire the truth, but this is discrimination; our mind is cleverly false. All principles are no principles; they have no relation to spiritual perception. It never leaves this place, and is always perfect. When you look for it, you find you can't see it. You can't get at it, you can't be rid of it. When you do neither, there it is! When you are silent, it speaks; when you speak, it is silent.

The ordinary man's ego is gross, the saint's ego is very very subtle, refined, sophisticated. When the poison is pure, it is more poisonous, so is the case with the ego. The saint's ego is a pure ego, hence it is more poisonous. The sinner's ego is nothing compared with the saint's ego. Never be a sinner and never be a saint. Just be. Drop all definitions and confinements. Celebrate being. Never think yourself as a saint or a sinner. Never feel guilty, and never feel gratified because you are virtuous. And then you are a sage; when you are neither, you are a sage, a SIDDHA. Then you are a sage, then you have arrived. Remember, God has not to be sought, nothing has to be sought. Never lose the quality of herenow. Bring yourself back again and again whenever you start on a journey. Whenever the mind starts…