According to Osho, idol worship is what devotional tradition becomes when the living flame of religion is gone: a fixation on footprints, relics, and forms. Tradition clings to extinguished lamps; devotion, alive, meets the master’s light here-now. Thus tradition is anti-religion, while true bhakti is present-moment awareness.
Idol worship keeps the empty shell; real devotion seeks the living light inside you, now.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, Baba Malukdas is a devotee and he mocks idol worship. But isn’t it true that it is the devotional tradition that has given idol worship its greatest prestige?
Tradition has, not the devotees. And tradition is not religion. Tradition is the name for the footprints left in the dust where religion once passed. Where religion once moved, it left lines behind—those lines are called tradition. You walk along a path; your footprints are left behind. Those footprints are not you. Far from it—your shoes, which made the prints, aren’t there either; they too moved on. Only empty marks remain in the dust; from those marks tradition is made. Tradition is made of footprints. Religion is a living event, ever fresh. It is always in the present. Religion has no past and no future. Religion is now, here. While Malukdas is alive, there is religion. When Malukdas is gone and people begin to worship his footprints, that is tradition. Tradition is anti-religion. Religion can have no tradition, because religion and tradition are opposite phenomena. Tradition belongs to the dead;…
Today I would request Osho to guide us on idol worship.
A Japanese seeker from Soto Zen told me of a practice: twenty-four hours a day the disciple intones “Muuuu… muuu…” After days, the sound storms inside; thoughts drop. By three weeks, the roaring “Muuuu!” possesses him. Food, sleep fall away; guards must watch him. At the final climax, a last thunderous roar—and suddenly all is still. For days he lies in deep quiet. When he returns, the old man is dead; a new man stands—continuity with the past broken. Om is such a sound; every religion has its own. As worship deepens, sound transforms consciousness. Repetition is crucial. If you sing one hymn one day, another the next, there will be no results. Continuous blows on one point drive the nail. But beware of mechanical repetition—then it is wasted labor. If the sound becomes your very life, every cell, bone, blood crying it—then sound can open the door. And all…
What is worship? Once you are able to invoke life into the idol, you are worshiping a real, alive deity. Try to understand this deeply: as soon as something becomes alive, the form and the formless become one... because the body is the form, and the life that is in it is the formless. Life has no form. If my someone cuts my hand, my life is not cut. If I am hypnotized or anesthetized and my hand is cut off, I will not feel any pain. My whole brain can be removed without my becoming aware of the operation... because life as such has no shape or form. Wherever there is life, there is a meeting of form and formlessness. Matter has a shape, consciousness has none.
It is asked: “Devotion must be with form.”
All forms are dreamlike. The formless is truth; form is the dream. But where we are standing is the world of forms. We are still within the dream. Even to awaken, we must travel a little within the dream. Devotion must be with form—it simply is. There cannot be formless devotion, because in the formless what remains to be done, when the doer is no more! Devotion will be with form, but God is formless. Therefore, one day devotion too must go. At the completion of devotion, devotion itself disappears. When prayer is fulfilled, prayer too goes. When meditation is complete, meditation becomes useless—it should. Whatever becomes complete becomes useless. So long as it is incomplete, it is fine—go to the temple, perform the worship. Do it, but remember: do not forget that this is only the beginning. It is the beginning of the school of life, not the end.…