Why can't one religion understand another religion's approach to reality?

Why can't one religion understand an other religion's approach to reality? Why is there so much conflict and misunderstanding?

Language conveys and yet does not convey. What to say about the other reality -- which nobody knows, and about which those who know keep silent? Those who know go on saying that nothing can be said about it. But for the people who have not known, some maps have to be drawn, some words have to he created, some structures have to be made, some guidelines have to be given. Those guidelines are what Hinduism is, Islam is, Christianity is. Different people have drawn them in different ways. For example, if five persons are sent into a forest to describe the forest and they come back, do you think they will bring the same message and the same picture from the same forest? No, the painter will bring a painting, and the poet will bring a song. And the biologist will bring something else, the chemist something else again,…

Question: OSHO, WHY CAN'T PEOPLE UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER'S RELIGIONS? WHY IS THERE ALWAYS SO MUCH CONFLICT? The ego. It has nothing to do with religions, just the ego. Whatsoever is yours has to be the best in the world. Whatsoever is others' cannot be the best, cannot be allowed to be the best in the world. Your wife is the most beautiful woman, your husband is the most beautiful person. You are the greatest man in the world. You may not say so, but you say it in a thousand and one ways. And whatsoever belongs to you has to be the best. People are just like small children. Small children go on fighting, "My daddy can lick your daddy any time." A small boy was telling another boy, "My mother is a great orator. She can speak on any subject for hours." The other said, "That's nothing.

Osho, why is it that every religion boasts about being the greatest and truest religion in the world?

In fact, the Buddhist has never accepted Mahavira as an enlightened person. The Buddhists have always condemned Mahavira as a little perverted because he was moving naked -- something is wrong with the man! In contemporary language you can say the Buddhist has always thought of Mahavira as a masochist, torturing himself. And ask the Jaina: he thinks the Buddha was not a real ascetic -- he lived in a little bit of comfort. He was not a real ascetic like Mahavira, moving naked in the heat, in the rain, in the cold, in every season, and almost starving. There is a record of his twelve years of spiritual exercises in which it is said that he ate only once every week or every month -- only once. Sometimes he would eat after one week, sometimes after two weeks, sometimes after three weeks, sometimes after four weeks -- only once.…

Osho, I always believed that an american, a chinese, an african, a swede, an indian, could be happy and content and communicate with one another despite their varying colours, habits, beliefs, etcetera, just as long as they were natural and honest with themselves and each other. Why is mankind making this impossible for mankind?

Their experience is the same, their ultimate experience is the same, but their choice of how life should be lived, how that ultimate experience should be approached, is totally different. Their paths are different, their goal may be the same -- but the goal will be known only when you have arrived, not before that. Before the goal you will have to follow the path. MAHATMA GANDHI WAS TRYING somehow to prove that the Mohammedan and the Hindu and the Jaina are all saying the same thing. It was a forgery, because he was choosing from the Koran only sentences which are harmonious with the Gita, and not choosing sentences which are disharmonious with the Gita. The Gita is his criterion. He calls the Gita his mother, but he does not call the Koran his father. The Gita is his mother; he remains a Hindu, basically a Hindu. And according…

Osho, you said that going to another enlightened person shows a lack of faith in one’s guru. This seems understandable, but Osho, we are ordinary people; we haven’t even gone beyond the pleasures we get from ordinary men and women, from theater, films, and music. For even that we shirk effort.

So someone writes to me, “We listen to everyone. We listen to you as well, to them as well.” I have no objection. Listen to me, listen to them too. But when will you walk? Will you only keep listening? Your ears are already worn out from listening. How long will you go on? One listens in order to ponder; one ponders in order to do. You only listen. Do you think something will happen just by listening to this one and that one? You are a great merchant. You think, “Who knows whose words might work! Listen to everyone—what’s the harm!” You go to the Ayurvedic doctor and take his medicine; you go to the allopathic doctor and take his medicine; you go to the Unani hakīm and the homeopath too—and you mix all the medicines together and drink them. You will die! The disease will not be cured;…