According to Osho, 'spirituality' is a dualistic stance that splits reality into matter and spirit, creating inner conflict and lower consciousness, whereas 'religiousness' (from religio, to bind together) celebrates the oneness of existence—body, mind, and soul as an organic whole. Religiousness unites Zorba and Buddha within, fosters harmony, and leads to higher states of consciousness; therefore, drop all divisions and cherish what unites.
Spirituality separates body and soul, but religiousness brings everything together into one, so you feel whole and peaceful.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, jesus says, "seek and you will find." does a desireless search exist?
But all the religions down the ages have been teaching you to respect your parents. Why? Why do the religions teach that? It is a subtle strategy of exploitation. Your religion has been given to you by your parents, and if you go against your religion, they will be hurt. If a Hindu declares, "I am simply a human being, no longer a Hindu," the parents will be hurt. So the parents have also taught him to respect them and believe in whatsoever they have said -- they cannot be wrong. As if your parents are enlightened people! As if your parents know what they are doing! Their parents did the same thing to them, they have done it to you, and you will do it to your children. This is how diseases go on being transferred from one generation to another generation. Of course the priests will say, "Respect…
[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words] INTERVIEW WITH MA YOGA PRATIMA QUESTION:* BHAGWAN, WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RELIGION, RELIGIOUSNESS AND RELIGIO? ANSWER:* The difference is simple, yet very vast. The difference is that of a dead rose you find in a Holy Bible. It has lost its color, lost its fragrance, lost its life. It is just a rose for name's sake. Otherwise there is nothing of the rose in it. It looks like a rose. Once it may have been a rose, may have danced in the wind, in the rain, in the sun. It may have released fragrance without any conditions to anybody, to strangers or if there was nobody, even just to the winds.
This went on and on. I came from the university, I had been top in the whole university. I said to him, "Now it is time. I have been top in the whole university, so what about my questions?" He said, "You wait." I said, "Now this is going to be too much. I have waited too long. Be honest, do you know the answers or not?" He was an honest man. He said, "To tell the truth, I don't know. This was just a strategy that has been used for centuries. With you the difficulty is that you go on asking. Most people as they grow up become involved in other things and no longer care about these questions, they forget. And mostly they get married, their children start asking them, so they start saying, `Wait. When you become bigger you will get the answer.
Religiousness means a man who is moving away from thinking to non-thinking, moving from mind to no-mind, moving from body to soul, moving from the outer to the inner. Ultimately religiousness makes you the center of a cyclone. All around you is a cyclone but you are a silent center, and out of that silent center has come all beautiful, still, small voices. The statements of the Upanishads are not the statements of people who belong to any religion. They are the statements of people who drown themselves in religiousness. Anything that is truthful, beautiful, good, has come out of the experience of religiousness. Satyam, shivam, sundram: truth, good, beauty. All the religions have beliefs, and every belief simply covers your ignorance. From the very beginning it is a belief -- you don't know. It is a blind man believing in light, it is a deaf man believing in music.
Osho, what is the first experience of samadhi like?
You will know only when it happens. It cannot be said; at most a few hints can be given. It is as if, in the dark, a lamp is suddenly lit. Or as if a dying patient, right at the edge of death, suddenly finds a medicine that works; life’s wave, life’s thrill spreads again—so it is. As if a corpse becomes alive—such is the first experience of samadhi. It is the taste of nectar. The experience of the ultimate music. But it will be only when it happens; and only then will you understand. You will not understand by my saying it. It is as with love. How can anyone explain it? To someone who has never loved, never known love, no matter how many explanations you offer—he will hear it all and still ask, “I haven’t understood; please explain a little more.” It is like explaining light to…