According to Osho, a creed is a fixed, rigid formula that inevitably turns living intelligence into bondage. Time strips it of relevance, yet it sits immovably, uprooted from life, demanding conformity. Creeds freeze growth; thoughtfulness remains fluid. He rejects forming any creed, urging free, alive inquiry over belonging, because new creeds only multiply the disease, not cure it.
A creed is a hard rule that traps your mind, so keep thinking freely and stay flexible.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
A man once hurt his leg. He had to walk with a crutch.
THIS CRUTCH WAS VERY USEFUL TO HIM, BOTH FOR WALKING, AND MANY OTHER THINGS. HE TAUGHT ALL HIS FAMILY TO USE CRUTCHES, AND THEY BECAME PART OF NORMAL LIFE. IT WAS PART OF EVERYONE'S AMBITION TO HAVE A CRUTCH. SOME WERE MADE OF IVORY, OTHERS ADORNED WITH GOLD. SCHOOLS WERE OPENED TO TRAIN PEOPLE IN THEIR USE, UNIVERSITY CHAIRS ENDOWED TO DEAL WITH THE HIGHER ASPECTS OF THIS SCIENCE. A FEW, A VERY FEW PEOPLE, STARTED TO WALK WITHOUT CRUTCHES. THIS WAS CONSIDERED SCANDALOUS, ABSURD. BESIDES, THERE WERE SO MANY USES FOR CRUTCHES. SOME REPLIED, AND WERE PUNISHED. THEY TRIED TO SHOW THAT A CRUTCH WOULD BE USED SOMETIMES, WHEN NEEDED; OR THAT MANY OF THE OTHER USES TO WHICH A CRUTCH WAS PUT COULD BE SUPPLIED IN OTHER WAYS. FEW LISTENED. IN ORDER TO OVERCOME THE PREJUDICES, SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO COULD WALK WITHOUT SUPPORT BEGAN TO BEHAVE…
A man's capacity for rational understanding becomes his self-awareness. It is no wonder that so-called religious people are opposed to such reasoning, to such understanding. If the truth be known, they are not even in favor of intelligence. Wherever there is intelligence, creativity and reason, there is revolution. And revolution means the quest for a new way of life. Revolution means leaving the known in search of the unknown. Revolution means breaking through the barriers that separate every older generation from every younger one. As I see it, revolution is the nucleus of a religious mind. There is no greater revolution than religion. Religion is a life-transforming process. It is the most radical transformation there is. So, religious education cannot be an education in dullness, in ignorance -- it must be an education in profound and creative thinking.
Question: OSHO, PLEASE DESCRIBE AN ORTHODOX RAJNEESHEE. You will find strange things in BIBLES. Your daughter or your sister may be keeping her love letters in the BIBLE, because that is the best place. Neither the father opens it nor the mother opens it; nobody ever opens it. Phone numbers which are very important and secret and which you don't want everybody to know -- keep them in the BIBLE. The BIBLE is a great safe deposit with no lock. It goes on gathering dust. You can write your name on any Bible with just your finger, because there will be enough dust -- no need for any ink or any color. These are revolutions. Once there was fire. But now there are only ashes left. My sannyasin has not to look backwards. He has not to think of a revolution that happened in the past.
Osho, what is the difference between surrender and blind imitation?
So be careful: the freedom you allow yourself, allow the other too. You have no right to judge another as blindly credulous or as a surrendered being. Drop that concern. You cannot judge anyway—how will you enter another’s heart? How will you know? Think only about yourself. See within whether, up to now, you have lived by blind belief or by surrender. Decide only there; leave worrying about others. Otherwise, all your judgments will be wrong. Jesus said: Judge not; do not set yourself up as a judge in relation to another. To the friend who has asked: if you are asking for yourself, good. Drop worrying about others. Look within and see: whatever I have been clinging to till now—have I ever staked my life to hold it? Have I meditated for it? Have I loved for it? Or am I just clutching what culture, society, civilization handed me?…
Osho, you say the same thing in countless ways. But when I listen to you, it feels as if I am hearing it for the first time. And I feel so much joy that I don’t feel like going back home. What should I do—what can I do—so that I can just keep listening to you!
You will feel as if you have been made to rise out of season, before time—as if you were not yet to go and yet had to go. And if you go in that way, your home will become even more desolate than before. I do not want to make your home desolate; I want to make your home a temple. I want that when you go home, your home’s new form is revealed. I do not want to tear you away from home, from the world, from family life. That is the newness of my sannyas: I do not want to sever you from the world; I want to join you to the world in such a way that your connection with the world becomes a connection with the Divine. Let the world no longer be a barrier between you and the Divine; let it become a means. If…