Skepticism

Beloved Osho, my mind is extremely skeptical. That is why, in spite of all the efforts, it does not settle anywhere. Since my birth I have only known the material -- and you say that everything is godliness. So should I believe it? Will it be honesty?

I am sitting here and you are listening to me. You may be dreaming: is it definite that I am here and you are sitting there? In your dreams too you have seen people many times so this can also be a dream. And have you ever seen matter? You are hidden behind the brain and matter is outside of the brain. Have you ever taken matter inside the brain? You have never seen matter; only the pictures of matter go into the mind. Do you see the tree there? No, you have never really seen it. The rays which come out of the tree fall on the eyes; these rays carry a picture inside. Just as a picture is created in a camera, the same way a picture goes into your brain. You have seen only that picture. It is not certain that there is a tree just like…

Osho, I am skeptical; I long for faith, but it won’t take root. Doubts keep arising and arising. Show me the way!

Therefore do not be frightened, do not be anxious. I am ready to give sannyas even to an atheist. Because I hold that often atheists are more honest than theists. Theists are often hypocrites. Atheists can be hypocrites too, but at least not in India; in Russia they are. In India it is a little difficult to be an atheist. Here even one who is an atheist shows himself as a theist, because that is convenient. There is a crowd of theists all around—who will take the trouble to be an atheist! Here only one who truly has courage can be an atheist. If you are skeptical, an atheist, full of doubt—the door of my sannyas is open to you. You will not find anyone else in the world willing to give you sannyas; I tell you this. Such courageous theists—who can take even an atheist inside—have disappeared from the…

Osho, you say the same thing in countless ways. But when I listen to you, it feels as if I am hearing it for the first time. And I feel so much joy that I don’t feel like going back home. What should I do—what can I do—so that I can just keep listening to you!

You will feel as if you have been made to rise out of season, before time—as if you were not yet to go and yet had to go. And if you go in that way, your home will become even more desolate than before. I do not want to make your home desolate; I want to make your home a temple. I want that when you go home, your home’s new form is revealed. I do not want to tear you away from home, from the world, from family life. That is the newness of my sannyas: I do not want to sever you from the world; I want to join you to the world in such a way that your connection with the world becomes a connection with the Divine. Let the world no longer be a barrier between you and the Divine; let it become a means. If…

Osho, I am a very doubt-ridden person. Is there any way to be free of it?

Mulla said, “Don’t worry. I told them to stand quietly. After all, how long can they stand? The moment they make a peep, they will have broken the rule.” An hour passed. But the thirty-five had been drinking too; they kept standing. Two hours passed; it was nearing midnight. Finally they said, “How long will we stand? This way it’ll be morning.” They knocked. Mulla sent his wife to the door: “Tell them Mulla is not at home.” She went and said, “Mulla is not at home.” They said, “This is too much! We have been standing here for three hours, and we saw him go in before our very eyes. Thirty-five pairs of eyes don’t get deceived. He is inside somewhere. Let us come in; we’ll drag him out.” She said, “He isn’t here. He went out in the morning to buy okra and never returned. I am sitting…