According to Osho, thinking is mere verbal dreaming—mechanical repetition of the known—so it never opens new windows to reality. Theology is “logic about God,” a contradiction: the divine is approached by love and no-thought, not arguments. Philosophy, after millennia, yields no conclusions, only more problems, because it speculates about the unknown. Real insight arises from direct experiencing—intuitive gaps between thoughts—not from mental constructions.
Because thinking and theories are like talking about food; they never feed you—only tasting (silent, direct experience and love) shows the truth.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved master, why are you so much against thinking, theology, philosophy?
Just recently an ape escaped from the local zoo. Must have been a philosopher! Several hours later the beast was finally found in the reading room of the library. He was poring over the first chapters of Genesis and he also had a copy of Darwin's THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. When a policeman asked the ape what he was doing, the ape replied, "I am trying to figure out once and for all if I am my brother's keeper or if I am my keeper's brother." That's how philosophy goes on -- words and words. And words can be placed in such a systematic way that they can deceive you, just like playing cards can be put in such a way that they can give you the illusion of a palace. Paper boats can be made to look exactly like boats; you can paint them, but they are of no…
Osho, why are you so much against philosophy?
And I can understand your question: this is how every child is being brought up, for centuries. Your question is relevant. You say, "I LOVE YOU. BUT IF YOU ARE NOT A PERSON, THEN HOW CAN I LOVE YOU?" We have been told that we can love only persons. The truth is just the opposite: you cannot love the person. Persons can only fight, persons can only be in conflict, because wherever two egos are, there is conflict, a CONSTANT war -- sometimes hot, sometimes cold, but the war continues. Sometimes the warriors are tired so they maintain a certain peace. Whenever they are back again and their energy is there again, they start fighting. You can see it happening with all kinds of lovers -- a continuous fight, a kind of intimate enmity, together and yet not together. Why is this fight there? -- because of two egos. Two…
We long exceedingly to dwell in this translucent darkness, and through not seeing and not knowing to see and to know him who is beyond both vision and knowledge -- by the very fact of neither seeing him nor knowing him. For this is truly to see and to know, and, through the abandonment of all things, to praise him who is beyond all above all. For this is not unlike the art of those who hew out a lifelike image (from stone), removing from around it all which impedes clear vision of the latent form, showing its true and hidden beauty solely by taking away.
FOR IT IS, AS I BELIEVE, MORE FITTING TO PRAISE HIM BY TAKING AWAY THAN BY ASCRIPTION, FOR WE ASCRIBE ATTRIBUTES TO HIM WHEN WE START FROM UNIVERSALS, AND COME DOWN THROUGH THE INTERMEDIATE TO PARTICULARS. BUT HERE WE TAKE AWAY ALL THINGS FROM HIM, GOING UP FROM PARTICULARS TO UNIVERSALS, THAT WE MAY KNOW OPENLY THE UNKNOWABLE, WHICH IS HIDDEN IN AND UNDER ALL THINGS THAT WE MAY BE KNOWN. AND WE BEHOLD THAT DARKNESS BEYOND BEING, CONCEALED UNDER ALL NATURAL LIGHT. WE HAVE PRAISED THOSE THINGS WHICH FITLY PERTAIN TO THE THEOLOGY OF AFFIRMATION; HOW THE DIVINE AND EXCELLENT NATURE MAY BE SPOKEN OF AS ONE, AND HOW AS THREE; HOW IN ACCORD THEREWITH THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD MAY BE EXPLAINED, HOW THE SONSHIP, AND IN WHAT MANNER THE TRUTH OF THE SPIRIT MAY BE REVEALED; HOW OUT OF THE INCORPOREAL AND UNDIVIDED EXCELLENCE THEY PUT FORTH THESE…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS THE FUNCTION OF MIND IN RELIGION? But both philosophy and science are impotent as far as religion is concerned. Yes, theology they can create. Theology is nothing but philosophy about God. That's the meaning of the word theology. Theo means God; logy means logic -- logical thinking about God. Nothing can be more absurd. You don't know God, cognition has not supplied God. That's why science goes on succeeding, and theology goes on failing, because science has some grounds, through cognition, to enter objective reality. Theology has no way through cognition. So it simply remains thinking about a fiction. It thinks about God. You don't know God. How can you think about God? Before you start thinking, you must have some sort of experience. So theology is pseudo-religion -- pretending to be religion, but it is not religion. The third function psychology recognizes is feeling.
Osho, why do you think that now is the right time for the authentic religion to be born?
That's why I say India is a rare country: even Brihaspati is accepted as an acharya. Whatsoever he says is debated, confuted, argued about, but that does not mean disrespect to the person. Of course he is a founder of a movement, and what he is saying needs to be argued about -- but you need not kill him, or crucify him. He is challenging you: "All your religion is bogus; it is just because of the fear of death. And nobody has returned after death to say that he is still alive, so you don't have any evidence at all. Death simply annihilates everything." Karl Marx said, after five thousand years, what the Charvakas had been saying in India for that long a time. Of course Marx uses a more scientific terminology. He says, "Man's consciousness is an epiphenomenon -- it is not a reality but only a by-product."…