Who has suffered the loss from all that has happened in the name of religion?

Osho, from all that has happened in the name of religion, who has suffered the loss?

Rupkishore! Whose loss would it be? Yours. Humanity’s. In the name of religion a great deal of hypocrisy has happened—and it has made you all into hypocrites. You don’t even notice that you are hypocrites; that’s how deeply it has gone. You have also lost awareness. Had awareness been there along with hypocrisy, perhaps dropping it would have been easy. But now even awareness is not there. Hypocrisy has become your natural lifestyle. Truth hardly comes out of you; lies flow from you effortlessly. People compete in lying—who can lie more, and with such skill that no one catches it, no one recognizes it; he becomes a great leader. His name will be written in history. Politics is the art of lying: lie in such a way that it looks like truth. Wear such a mask that people feel, “This is your real face.” Put on a khadi cap, wear…

Osho, what is the greatest harm that the so-called religions have done to humanity?

Just a single hit, and what you are -- you may be acting a Buddha, a Christ, a Krishna -- it will disappear, just by a simple hit on your head. Imitation cannot go to your being, it is going to remain just on the surface. You can practice it for thirty years, forty years.... There are monks who have been practicing for fifty years. There are monasteries, Catholic monasteries, where once a monk enters, he never comes out; and thousands of people are living in such monasteries. What are they doing? Continually trying, making an effort somehow to become a little bit like Christ; if not the whole Christ, even a partial Christ will do. But that imitation is not going to help. It may give you a pseudo, phony mask, but scratch it just a little bit and you will find your real person is still there. You…

Osho, these days in the country, what do you have to say about the communal conflicts taking place in the name of religion?

So, Bansal, don’t bring up the word “these days.” This has always been so. Quarrels in the name of religion have been continuous. Quarrels have been only in the name of religion. The reason is clear: we harbor a fundamental misconception about religion. As with a lamp—when it burns there is light; when it goes out, the light ends—so when a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Lao Tzu, a Jesus-like person ignites, there is light; and when that person departs, the light departs. But the lamp goes out and we get busy worshiping the darkness. Once the lamp is extinguished, only darkness remains. Granted there was a lamp there once and there once was light—but now there is only darkness. When the lamp burns, there is religion; when the worship of darkness begins, there is a sect. And what will sects do if not fight? What will the blind do if…

Osho, why has human faith in religion waned?

Then there is a further fall. This is when, around Buddha, people hear, oppose, accept. Then two-and-a-half thousand years pass. One generation hands it to the next. Those who had heard from Buddha, or at least seen him—some hint of truth must have reached their ears; some touch of Buddha’s presence must have touched them; some color of Buddha must have fallen upon their souls—however slight, it fell. Then their sons and their sons’ sons believe because the fathers believed, the forefathers believed, people have always believed—and then belief becomes blind belief. What you call religions are superstitions. They should have been bid farewell long ago. New editions of truth descend from the sky every day. A new Koran descends every day. God has not grown tired, has not exhausted Himself with Mohammed. Jesus is not God’s only son—as Christians say, the only begotten. Nor did God come to an…

Question: Second question: Osho, why has the man of this century become irreligious? No one knows the past, no one knows the next. On the accounting of the unseen before and after, you explain away what is right before the eyes. A man is poor—you say, his past-life sins. A man is rich—his past-life merits. The facts are exactly the reverse. Has wealth ever been accumulated by merits? Without sin it is impossible to amass wealth. Amassing wealth means it will be taken from someone else. It will leave another’s pocket to come into yours; it will be removed from somewhere to pile up for you. But looters and bandits were deemed virtuous—because they had wealth. Simple, straightforward people were deemed sinners—because they were poor. People are tired of this. These things were false. And they were not religion; they were the long net of the pandit and the priest.