Oath

Beloved master, does the ceremony of oath in the courts around the world have any significance?

When we have devices which can detect lies, this device of the oath is simply out of date, simply meaningless. A man who can commit a murder, do you think he will bother much about your holy book? And he has committed murder already: he knows he is going to hell, what more can you do? If he lies, he will go to hell -- the same hell which he was going to already. What more tortures can you give him? At least by lying he can protect himself while he is alive from the tortures of the prison. And who knows about after death? And God is compassionate, God is kind, God is love: just a little murder.... If one murder sends a person to hell, what will happen to Adolf Hitler? -- ten million murders! Even God cannot find enough punishment for the man; hell will not be…

Beloved Osho, I was brought up as a quaker, and we were told never to swear on a bible in court, because as quakers we could only speak the truth, and that the source of our truth was silence. This is so close to what you say, I am surprised when you say you don't agree with the theology of quakerism.

Quakers have been going to jail. I will not tell my sannyasins to do that. It is not worth it. Take the oath, and say whatsoever you want to say. Oath or no oath, it makes no difference to your statements. Why unnecessarily enrage those poor judges and juries? Let them be satisfied. If they are feeling happy just by your taking an oath, and feeling that now whatever you say will be the truth, let them befool themselves. You have to say what you want to say. The oath is irrelevant to you, but why make so much fuss about it that you have to go for two years behind bars? I am a nonserious man. Quakers are very serious about it. They will risk their life, but they will not take the oath. The oath has become more important than life itself. It is just a game. You…

[NOTE: This was published in THE RAJNEESH TIMES, 24th August 1984 while Osho was in silence.] EXCERPTS FROM THE WORDS OF OSHO DURING HIS DEPOSITION WITH MR. MCMURRAY Your Honor, before I take the oath, I have to say few things, otherwise the oath will be a fraud. The first thing -- I have always been against the ritual of oath-taking for the simple reason that if a man is capable fo lying he can lie even while he is taking the oath. His oath can be a lie, and if a man is a man of truth, the oath creates a dilemma for that man. For the man of truth to take the oath means that he is capable of lying. Without the oath he will lie and with the oath he will say the truth.

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHY SHOULD RELIGION AND STATE REMAIN SEPARATE? Asking you to take oath .... In India once I was in a court. I refused to take the oath; I said, "I cannot take an oath in the name of God. I don't know this fellow. First you have to produce Him, I must see Him. Who is this fellow on whose name I am taking an oath? And why should I take an oath on the name of somebody to whom I have not even been introduced? The judge said, "Okay, then on the SHRIMAD BHAGAVAD GITA? I said, "The SHRIMAD BHAGAVAD GITA? -- which is full of lies and statements of a man, Krishna, whom you cannot trust, who has broken his own promises, who was not a man of his word.