What is the relationship between devotion and awareness?

Osho, yesterday Dariya Sahib’s aphorisms were paeans to awareness. By changing just one word—replacing “lover” with “meditator”—those aphorisms could quite easily be called the sutras of Jineshwar Mahavira. Is devotion really so combative? And is that the only difference between devotion and meditation?

On the path of religion, whichever method you choose, courage is indispensable. Without courage there is no religion. Whether it is devotion or meditation, there is no path for the weak and the timid. The timid cannot muster the courage for meditation, because meditation means the effort to become complete. Meditation means the endeavor to realize oneself. Meditation means an unprecedented resolve. Courage is needed; struggle is needed. On the path of love, just as much courage is needed. Let no one think, “Why should courage be needed on the path of love or devotion?” In fact, perhaps a little more courage is required, because devotion is surrender. Devotion is dissolution. Meditation says: Become yourself. Devotion says: Efface yourself. Efface yourself utterly. To disappear demands even greater courage. The meditator still keeps a little hope that “I will remain.” The devotee cannot even keep that much hope. The meditator too…

Osho, you have earlier said, “Live moment to moment, live in the present.” Now you are saying, “Return to the past.” What should we do?

So it is with the mind—there are ruts. The past means endless grooves. However much you understand, your intellect agrees, you make decisions, you resolve—at the moment of resolve you feel something is going to change. But not even an hour passes before your decision breaks. Then only self-condemnation is produced, nothing else. Your saints, your fakirs, your priests and pundits—most of the time they only succeed in producing self-condemnation in you, nothing else. Their words are logically correct. You cannot even say they are wrong; you have to admit they are right. In that admission you take a decision. But against what are you deciding? Inside are grooves carved since who knows when, deep tracks. Walking in them has become a habit. It is easy to walk in them. They will pull you again and again. The meaning of returning into the past is: these grooves must be erased.…

Osho, to cross the ocean of becoming and dissolve into the Supreme Self, which should one rely on—insensate devotion, foolish devotion, or blind devotion?

So drop this worry—whether insensate devotion, foolish devotion, blind devotion, or deranged devotion. Drop it; devotion is enough. And in devotion all these labels will take care of themselves. Become a devotee once, and “blind” you will automatically be—meaning: the whole world will call you blind. You will not become blind; rather, you will gain eyes. You will begin to see what ordinary eyes cannot see. The invisible will become visible; the imperceptible will come within perception. That which no one has ever touched will be felt as touch. But the world will call you blind. The world will not be able to accept it—because the world is blind, and the blind call you blind. H. G. Wells has a story: somewhere in Mexico there is a valley where children go blind within three months of birth. The story is based on fact. The climate, the food—something there ruins the…

Beloved Osho, the other day when you said something like, the more devoted one is the more one can absorb you, I got scared. I don't know what devotion is. In fact, I know it less now than I did five years ago. Osho, am I missing?

When love is so deep, the respect is so immense that everything is forgiven, the disciple can slap the master and yet the master simply laughs -- because he knows his devotion. He knows that this slap has not come from a logical mind, it has come from a loving heart. It is as if with his own hand he has slapped himself -- no distinctions are there anymore. Even to say that the devotee is close to the master is not right, because closeness is still a distance. The devotee is one with the master. His oneness is something not of this world. I will tell you another story -- because there is no other way to explain it. A master is staying in a temple. The night is cold. And in Japan the statues of Buddha are made of wood. There are many statues in the temple, so…

Osho, what attitude should a seeker of absorption and devotion (leenata and bhakti) have toward the Buddha’s insistence on awareness and the saying Appa Deepo Bhava—be a light unto yourself?

The bhakta does not worry about sin and merit. This does not mean he commits sins. The bhakta becomes so absorbed in the Divine that sins do not happen. One who has remembered God with such a heart—how will sins arise from him? Understand it this way: the bhakta does not drop sin; he takes hold of God, and sins drop by themselves. The seeker drops sin, and through the dropping of sin he finds God. The seeker must strive, grain by grain. The seeker is effort and resolve. The bhakta is surrender. The bhakta says, “Your compassion is so boundless—why should we be needlessly crushed, ‘this mistake happened, that mistake happened’? Will You really be concerned with such mistakes? Will You keep accounts of our faults? We are so small—we cannot even manage great faults!” What great wrong have you done—just think. And if God keeps accounts, then He…