What is the unique approach to religion?

My approach to religion is totally different. It is rooted in celebration, in wholeness, in health. I am not against life, I am in absolute love with life because to me life is god. There is no god other than life. One need not bother about any god up above there, in the heavens. God is within you and god is all around you, within everything. God means existence, that which exists is divine; hence even death is divine because that too exists. It exists as much as life itself, it is the very culmination of life. Life comes to a crescendo in death. And I teach my sannyasins to celebrate everything. Celebrate birth, celebrate life, celebrate death. Celebration has to be the most fundamental thing in my sannyasin's life. Accept everything with totality because nothing wrong can ever happen.

I have never heard religion talked about in such a delightful way. What are you doing, Osho?

To me religion is not religion but life; to me religion is not religion but love; to me religion is not a serious thing, it is fun. To me religion is more like laughter, like dancing, like singing. It is not a serious church thing. I am not interested in the after-life, I am not interested in heaven and hell, I am not interested in virtue and vice -- I am interested only in how to impart to you an understanding of living intensely, delightfully, because God is delight. A talkative individual in a coffee house was demonstrating his ability to catalogue people as to their occupations. He had gone around the group with considerable success: a lawyer here, a salesman on the left, a banker in the corner. an editor by the window. Finally, the self-announced expert's eyes fell upon the interesting face of Mulla Nasrudin, a little pale,…

The so-called religions are all rooted in a sad attitude. Their approach towards life is very serious. they don't take it as fun, they don't take it as a cosmic joke; they are very serious about it -- and that seriousness becomes a cancer in the soul. Life becomes a burden because for centuries these so-called religions have been teaching people how to renounce life, not how to live it. They have not taught the art of loving; their whole concern is how to commit slow suicide. and your so-called saints are nothing but suicidal people. to me they are all pathological, ill, they are not healthy and whole. They are lopsided; their vision is not clear. And they are not really religious. A really religious person will say yes to life joyously, dancingly. His whole being will be a celebration.

Osho, why is your religion so simple? Because of this simplicity it doesn’t look like religion at all but like a celebration, and for this very reason many people don’t find you religious. For myself I say: celebration is liberation, liberation is celebration.

And I have not cut sannyas off from the world. So they feel I have made it too simple. The truth is the opposite. Running away from the world is easy. All cowards run—and we clever folk give them beautiful names. You see temples everywhere named “Sri Ranchhoddasji.” Do you know what Ranchhoddas means? One who fled the battlefield—showed his back! But we decorated the abuse—Ranchhoddasji! A Vaishnav sadhu used to visit me; his very name was Mahant Ranchhoddasji. I asked him, “Do you know what your name means? It means coward, deserter.” He said, “Now that you say it, it seems true. But I never thought of it. For fifty years my guru has called me this; now I’m seventy. It never occurred to me that Ranchhoddas would literally mean this. But now you’ve created trouble—whenever someone calls me ‘Ranchhoddasji,’ I’ll remember it’s not a name, it’s a kind…

The religions of the past were anti-individual. They did not give individuals freedom; they did not give them individuality. They tried to make people into sheep. I want to give you freedom. I want to give you your uniqueness. You are unrepeatable. No one here is like anyone else. You need not be an imitation of another. Be as you are—and you must become only yourself. Only thus will you delight the Divine. If you are a rose, blossom like a rose; if you are jasmine, bloom like jasmine—you need not be a lotus. If you are a lotus, bloom as a lotus; the lotus need not become a rose. Accept yourself, embrace yourself. You do not have to become a Buddha, or a Mahavira, or a Rajneesh. You have to become you. And the day you become you, joy will dawn in your life.