Sin

Are we not punished for out sin?

No, We are punished BY our sin, not FOR our sin. Sin itself is its punishment. You over-eat, you suffer; you over-indulge, you suffer. It is not that the suffering will come later on, that suffering will come as a result, no. Suffering comes in the act itself. So let me tell it in this way: We are punished BY our sin, not for our sin. That FOR has created great difficulties for man, because 'for' means 'in the future', maybe in the other life. 'Who bothers about the future? And we will see when it comes if some ways and means can be found to avoid it. Or we can always go to the priest and confess, or we can go to the Ganges and take a bath and be relieved of the sin. Or we can go to a saint and be blessed by him.' Some strategy can…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, IN YOUR RELIGION IS THERE SUCH A THING AS SIN? Sin is a technique of the pseudo-religions. A true religion has no need of the concept at all. The pseudo-religion cannot live without the concept of sin, because sin is the technique of creating guilt in people. You will have to understand the whole strategy of sin and guilt. Unless you make a person feel guilty, you cannot enslave him psychologically. It is impossible to imprison him in a certain ideology, a certain belief system. But once you have created guilt in his mind, you have taken all that is courageous in him. You have destroyed all that is adventurous in him. You have repressed all possibility of his ever being an individual in his own right. With the idea of guilt, you have almost murdered the human potential in him. He can never be independent.

Osho, what do you want man to do? What is right and wrong according to you? Is there something like sin and its punishment too?

Perhaps I am the only person here, on this whole earth, who is objecting that this is befooling people. This is creating a camouflage, a bogus spiritual jargon. If God has any sense, any intelligence at all, He should find some better way to bring the best out in people. This does not seem to be very intelligent. If this is what God is doing then where is the devil? And what will the devil do? God has taken his job too; the devil is unemployed. And people applauded her; she is a great saint. And what present has she brought to them? -- a small statue of Mother Mary. A great help: "Pray to Mother Mary, and don't take it as a tragedy and don't complain that it is the fault or carelessness of certain officers concerned; no, that is not good." Of course if those people were not…

In the same context I ask, Osho, what is sin and what is virtue?

If the inner lamp of awareness is lit, then whatever actions happen are virtue. If the inner lamp is extinguished, then whatever actions happen are sin. Understand this! No act in itself is sin or virtue. Sin and virtue depend on the doer. No act is intrinsically sin or virtue. Generally we believe that acts are good or bad—this act is bad, that act is good. That is not the case. A person whose inner lamp is out cannot truly do a good act—it is impossible. It may look as if he is doing good. He can imitate the actions of those whose lamps are lit. But even in imitation his motive will be contrary. If he builds a temple, it won’t be for the Divine; it will be for his own name or his father’s—he will get the name inscribed. If he gives charity, he will be anxious whether…