Why has the man of this century become irreligious?

Question: Second question: Osho, why has the man of this century become irreligious? Who told you that? Man’s ego has always thought this way: that earlier people—ancestors, forefathers—were very religious, and now everything has turned irreligious. Which ancestors are you talking about? Just open your scriptures and look—you will find the same kind of human being you find today. Don’t you see Yudhishthira gambling? Don’t you see Draupadi staked? Don’t you see Sita abducted? Don’t you see the war between Rama and Ravana? Don’t you see every kind of intrigue, every kind of ambush, every kind of violence? You think the modern man is irreligious and the ancients were religious? Then who are the characters of your epics? And if Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, the Tirthankaras, the prophets, the avatars were all teaching, what do you think they were teaching and to whom?

Osho, what is the definition of God?

Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…

A friend has asked: I want to take sannyas, but these ochre robes will put me in great difficulty. My job will be endangered, my family will create a fuss, and the people of my village and society will put obstacles in my way.

“Never did I suffer such a wound that spring would arrive.” The sadness is that thousands sit in temples and mosques and in their hearts there is no wound. Otherwise spring would have come long ago. If there is thirst, water is found. It will be found, because search begins. If there is no thirst, even if water flows right before your eyes you will not see it. We see only that for which there is aspiration and longing. God stands all around—within these green trees, within these people, within the moon and stars of the sky—but we do not see. We have no longing. We see only what we want. Have you noticed, when you go to the market, on the day you go to buy a particular thing, only those shops catch your eye. One day you go to buy sweets and you are astonished—so many sweet shops…

Osho, please shed light on what walls stand between religion and man.

There aren’t many walls—just one: ego. Though there are many bricks in that wall, and they all get mortared in the same way: whatever is against nature becomes a brick for the ego. I teach a natural life. My message is straight and simple. Live simply. Don’t run away from anywhere; don’t avoid anything. Whatever God has given is auspicious—give thanks. And if he has given mud, he gave it in the hope that lotus flowers would bloom from it. And if he has given iron, he did so in the hope that you also have the philosopher’s stone within—find it. At its touch, iron becomes gold. And not merely gold—fragrance comes into gold. And don’t keep asking the pundit-priests. Avoid them. They neither know nor have experience. But in this world very few are simple-hearted enough to say, “I don’t know.” If someone asks you something, even if you…

Religiousness means a man who is moving away from thinking to non-thinking, moving from mind to no-mind, moving from body to soul, moving from the outer to the inner. Ultimately religiousness makes you the center of a cyclone. All around you is a cyclone but you are a silent center, and out of that silent center has come all beautiful, still, small voices. The statements of the Upanishads are not the statements of people who belong to any religion. They are the statements of people who drown themselves in religiousness. Anything that is truthful, beautiful, good, has come out of the experience of religiousness. Satyam, shivam, sundram: truth, good, beauty. All the religions have beliefs, and every belief simply covers your ignorance. From the very beginning it is a belief -- you don't know. It is a blind man believing in light, it is a deaf man believing in music.