Suffering

Why do I remember god only when I am in suffering?

You don't remember God. When you are in suffering your remembering God is just meaningless. Just because you want to avoid suffering, you remember God as a protection. You are not interested in God, you are only interested in how to avoid the suffering. So that's why when you are happy you forget all about God. But know well, only when you remember God in happiness is there remembrance, otherwise not. In suffering everybody remembers God -- even an atheist. That's why even atheists start becoming theists as they become older. And at the death point almost every atheist becomes a theist -- when the real suffering of death comes then all your philosophy of atheism disappears. But that is not real, authentic prayer, authentic remembrance. Religious persons are those who remember when they are happy, because they remember in gratitude. When you see a rose flower, that will be…

Question: OSHO, WHY AM I ALWAYS LIVING IN A KIND OF HELL? IT IS ALWAYS your own creation. Whether you live in heaven or hell, you live in your own creation. Nobody else is responsible. Don't throw the responsibility onto God, fate, KISMET, society, economic structure. Don't throw the responsibility on your past lives, on others. Take the whole responsibility on yourself, because that is the only way to move, to change, to go beyond. The only cause of hell, the only cause of misery is you and nothing else. Except you, nobody can cause it. And it is not the past; you are creating it each moment. A construction worker is sitting astride a beam on the twenty-fifth story of a New York skyscraper which is being built. The lunch hour bell rings and he takes out a box of sandwiches from his lunch pack.

Beloved Osho, why is the world so sick today? Why are misery and tension increasing?

It is the outcome of all the idiotic ideas that have dominated humanity in the past. It was bound to happen. All the religions are responsible for it. What they have done, whether knowingly or unknowingly, is the cause of the misery, suffering and anguish of the whole of humanity. Let us think of the most fundamental causes one by one. The first: All the religions have been imposing the idea that God has created the world and God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. He knows all, he is all-powerful, he is everywhere. This idea prevented man from doing anything to life to make it better, beautiful. When somebody all-knowing, all-powerful, everywhere present, is looking after the world, then what can you do? How far can you see? What can be your contribution? If God is the creator of the world, you cannot improve upon it. If you do anything you…

Why does man continue to live the way he lives -- in misery, in agony, in suffering?

These ambitions create misery. They never make you happy, they create misery. Once the mind becomes ambitious the seeds of misery are planted deeply in you. Now you will never be happy, because the future never comes, tomorrow never comes -- and your hope hangs in the tomorrow which never comes. You may have a big house, but you will not be happy because there will always be bigger houses than your house, and that will create misery. You may have a beautiful woman, but there are thousands, many more beautiful women in the world, and that will not make you happy. You will have money, but even that won't make you happy, because more is always possible. This is the trick: "more" has been implanted in you like an electrode -- "Have MORE, then you will be happy." Now how can you have more? Whatsoever you have, you can…