Why can't people understand each other's religions and why is there always so much conflict?

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.

Why are there so many religions in the world?

-- because there are so many types of people, because there are so many different kinds of people. Religion is one, but the languages of religion are different. The Jew understands one language, the Christian understands another language. The difference is of language. The Hindu speaks still another language -- but all differences are linguistic. Just as English can be translated into French and French can be translated into Italian and there is no conflict, so Christianity can be translated into Hinduism, Hinduism can be translated into Judaism -- there is no problem. One just needs clarity to see. A religious person will see that there is only one religion in the world -- although many are the manifestations. And there is nothing wrong. It is good. If these religions don't fight with each other and don't nag each other, it is perfectly good, it is enriching. It makes the…

Question: it does not enhance human dignity to create friction between faiths -- and that too in the name of religion! There should be no conflict amongst various faiths; but, come to think of it, the world history of faiths is full of strife and wars. Not only that, even in one and the same faith, the various sects malign one another and quarrel amongst themselves! Why?

Ego is the root of all evil. There can not, and need not, be any friction between faiths. The differences lie only in the egoism of so-called followers of faiths. It is ego that is militant. And it is ego that creates frictions and factions even amongst followers of one and the same faith. Actually, not only in religious matters, but in all spheres of life, the underlying cause of conflict and disharmony is ego; and the solution to these fissiparous tendencies is dissolution of ego; because love -- which is the opposite of ego -- creates a common meeting ground for divergent groups of human beings. Ego is irreligion. Religion is not the cause of quarrels or battles or so-called holy crusades; these are caused by the lack of religion in the so-called followers of religion. And this will continue to be the state of affairs so long as…

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.…

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,…