According to Osho, God-believers push conversion to muffle their own hidden doubt. By swelling the crowd, they borrow certainty from numbers - 'the whole world can't be wrong' - and thus repress, not resolve, inner uncertainty. Proselytizing becomes a psychological crutch of the sleepwalking masses. Authentic knowing stands alone; it neither seeks followers nor needs social proof.
People try to make others believe what they do because big crowds make their own shaky beliefs feel safe.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
I have been surrounded since my childhood by people who wanted me to believe in god and to follow his commandments. Why are the god believers always trying to convert others?
Mahatma Gandhi interpreted them -- I don't agree with his interpretation. He interpreted that the monkey who is holding his hands on the ears says, "Don't listen to anything evil." And the monkey who is holding his hands on the eyes says, "Don't see anything evil." And the third monkey who has his hands on the mouth is indicating, "Don't say anything evil." Now, you can understand why the fourth monkey has been dropped -- in fact he should not have been dropped if Gandhi had really been a man of truth. The fourth monkey is the logical conclusion: "Hide the origin of all evil." But this is not my interpretation. Knowing the people, and knowing that Charles Darwin has this great idea that man has come from monkeys -- and there is every possibility, because your mind still functions like a monkey. My interpretation, when I went to see…
Beloved Osho, people of almost all the religions try to convince other people to follow their respective religions. But I have met many of your followers and they always discourage me from adopting the way you are preaching. Why so?
But Jesus could not prove anything on the cross, where the real test was, when one hundred thousand people had gathered to see the miracle. And he had been doing all these small miracles, but only in front of his disciples, and they were not many. He had only twelve apostles and they were all villagers, uneducated -- fishermen, woodcutters, carpenters, farmers, gardeners -- simple people. He walked on water in front of these people; he raised the dead in front of these people; he cured the blind in front of these people. And when one hundred thousand people had gathered, the most educated and sophisticated of all the rabbis and all the scholars and all the professors in Jerusalem, he could not do anything. Jesus was thirsty on the cross, and he could not even produce a cup of water for himself. And he had done miracles like transforming…
I have heard that such people are sent to hell—for they do nothing but ruin others’ sleep. Those forced to listen will first be irritated by the noise, and slowly they will come to be irritated even by God’s name. No one can force God’s name upon another. Nor can anyone influence another by making him praise God. But when someone lives God, then in his rising, in his sitting, in his walking, in his speaking, in his silence, in his expressions and gestures—on all sides, the praise of God begins. Someone came to Buddha and asked, “I have heard that you do not believe in God!” Buddha said, “Forget what you’ve heard; look at me attentively. What I say is not valuable—what I am is valuable.” But the man, his eyes fixed on the ground, said, “You haven’t answered my question. Answer my question.
Question: OSHO, DID YOU DRIFT AWAY ON MANY POINTS YESTERDAY? All religions teach that every man has a potential right to reach God, but practically they say: Only our religion is the true religion. Yes, every man can reach God but he has to reach through our way: Unless you follow Jesus Christ you have no chance. But the same is said by Krishna: "If you surrender to me, leaving everything aside, I will take care of you, you need not worry." And the same is true about all other religions. They seem to be competing shopkeepers -- everybody is trying to sell his thing: his holy book, his messiah, his god. Pseudo-religion is always basically afraid, because deep down the pseudo-religious person knows that it is only his imagination, he has no actual experience. He himself is not convinced; hence, he needs to convince others.
Question: BELOVED MASTER, ARE YOU CONVERTING PEOPLE TO YOUR OWN RELIGION? In India I have never come across a single rich family who has become Christian. Only very poor people who are always on the verge of dying because of starvation have become Christians. The reason is not that they are interested in Christ; they are simply interested in surviving -- and Christian missionaries have the money. They can give them the money, employment, clothes, medicine, schools, hospitals. And when it is a question of survival, who cares about religion? To what religion you belong does not matter -- the first requirement is to survive. So in India all the poor people, very poor people have been converted. This is converting them by bribery. Now instead of swords, a very subtle methodology is being used to convert them. But I am not interested in converting anybody.