Do you Believe in God?

When asked "BELOVED OSHO, DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD? " .........

I do not believe in believing. That has to be understood first.

Nobody asks me, "Do you believe in the sun? Do you believe in the moon?" Nobody asks me that question. Millions of people I have met, and for thirty years continuously I have answered thousands of questions. Nobody asks me, "Do you believe in the roseflower?" There is no need. You can see: the roseflower is there or it is not there. Only fictions, not facts, have to be believed.

God is the greatest fiction that man has created. Hence you have to believe in him. And why does man have to create this fiction of God? There must be some inner necessity. I don't have that necessity so there is no question. But let me explain to you why people have believed in God.

One of the significant things to understand about man's mind is that the mind is always seeking and searching some meaning in life. If there is no meaning, suddenly you feel then what are you doing here? Then why go on living? Then why go on breathing? Then why tomorrow morning have you to get up again and go through the same routine -- the tea, the breakfast, the same wife, the same children, the same phony kiss to the wife, and the same office, and the same work, and comes the evening, and bored, utterly bored, you are back home -- why go on doing all this? The mind has a question: Is there any meaning in all this, or are you just vegetating?

So man has been searching for meaning. He created God as a fiction to fulfill his need for meaning. Without God, the world becomes accidental. It is no more a creation of a wise God who creates it for your growth, for your development, or for something. Without God -- remove God and the world is accidental, meaningless. And the mind has an intrinsic incapacity to live with meaninglessness, so it creates all kinds of fictions -- God, nirvana, heaven, paradise, other life beyond death -- and makes a whole system. But it is a fiction, to fulfill a certain psychological need.

I cannot say, "There is God." I cannot say, "There is not God." To me the question is irrelevant. It is a fictitious phenomenon. My work is totally different.

My work is to make your mind so mature that you can live with meaningless life, and yet beautifully.

What is the meaning of a rose, or a cloud floating in the sky? There is no meaning but there is such tremendous beauty. There is no meaning. The river goes on flowing but there is so much joy, meaning is not needed. And unless a man is able to live without asking for meaning, moment to moment, beautifully, blissfully, for no reason at all.... Just to breathe is enough. Why should you ask for what? Why do you make life a business?

Is not love enough? Have you to ask what is the meaning of love? And if there is no meaning in love, then of course your life becomes loveless. You ask a wrong question. Love is in itself enough; it needs no other meaning to make it beautiful, a joy. The birds singing in the morning... what is the meaning? The whole existence, to me, is meaningless. And the more I became silent and became attuned with the existence, the more it became clear that there is no need for meaning. It is enough as it is.

Don't create fictions. Once you create a fiction then you have to create a thousand and one other fictions to support it, because it has no support in reality.

For example: there are religions which believe in God, and there are religions which do not believe in God. So God is not a necessity for religion. Buddhism does not believe in God, Jainism does not believe in God. So try to understand, because in the West it is a problem. You are aware only of three religions which are all rooted in Judaism: Christianity, Judaism and Mohammedanism. All three believe in God. So you are not aware of Buddha. He never believed in God.

I am reminded of H.G.Wells, his statement about Gautam Buddha. He said, "He is the most godless person, yet the most godly." A godless person, and godly? Do you think there is any contradiction? There is no contradiction. Buddha never believed in God, there was no need. He was so utterly fulfilled that his whole fulfillment became a fragrance around him. Mahavira never believed in God, yet his life was as divine as life can be.

So when I say God is a fiction, please do not misunderstand me. God is a fiction but godliness is not a fiction; that is a quality. 'God' is a person... as a person it is a fiction. There is no God sitting in heaven creating the world. And do you think a God will create such a mess that you call the world? Then what is left for the devil? If anybody has created this world it must be the devil, it cannot be God.

But fictions -- and old fictions, repeated millions of times -- start taking a reality of their own. It has been repeated so much that you don't even ask what kind of world God has created, what kind of man God has created. This mad humanity.... In three thousand years man has fought five thousand wars. This is a creation of God? And still man is preparing for the total, suicidal, ultimate war. 'God' is behind it.

And what kind of foolish fictions can become realities once you start believing in them! 'God' created the world -- Christians think it was exactly four thousand and four years before Jesus Christ. Of course it must have been a Monday morning, the first of January, I assume -- because The Bible says so. Now there are proofs, a thousand and one proofs, that this earth is millions of years old. We have found, hidden in the earth, animals millions of years old and even man's fossilized bodies, thousands of years old. But what has the last pope said about it? He said, "The world was created exactly as it is said in The Bible." Four thousand and four years before Jesus? That means six thousand years ago. All the evidence goes against it.

In India we have found cities which are seven thousand years old. In India we have the Vedas which are at least ten thousand years old, according to the very scientific approach. According to the Hindus they are ninety thousand years old, because in the Vedas there is a mention of a certain state of the stars which happened ninety thousand years ago. Now, how can that be described in the Vedas if they are not ninety thousand years old?

But what has the last pope said? He said, "God created the world with all these things. Everything is possible for him; he created the world four thousand and four years before Jesus, with animal bodies looking millions of years old." Everything is possible for 'God'. One fiction, then you have to support it with another fiction, and you can go to the point of absurdity. And why? Again and again man has asked this question.

A simple, very simple argument has been behind it. You see an earthen pot. You know it cannot be created by itself; there must have been a potter. This has been the simple argument of all these religions: that if even a single earthen pot cannot be created by itself and needs a potter to create it, this vast universe needs a creator. And it has satisfied the simple human mind. But it cannot satisfy a sophisticated, rational mind.

If you say the universe needs a God to create it, then the question is bound to arise, "Who created God?" And then you fall into a regress absurdum. Then God one is created by God two, and God two is created by God three, and God three by God four, and then there can be no end. I don't want to be absurd like that. It is better to stop the first fiction; otherwise you are sowing the seeds for other fictions.

I say existence itself is enough, it needs no creator. It is creativity itself.

So rather than asking me do I believe in a creator, you should ask me what is my substitute for God, the creator. My substitute is the existential energy of creativity.

And to me, to be creative is the most important religious quality.

If you create a song, if you create music, if you create a garden, you are being religious. Going to the church is foolish, but creating a garden is tremendously religious. That's why here in my commune, work is called worship. We don't pray in any other way, we pray only through creating something. To me, creativity is God. But it will be better if you allow me to change the word god into godliness, because I don't want to be misunderstood. There is no person like God, but there is tremendous energy -- exploding, unending, expanding. This expanding, unending, exploding energy, this creativity, is divine.

I know it; I don't believe in it.

I have tasted it; I don't believe in it.

I have touched it, I have breathed it.

I have known it in the deepest core of my being.

And it is as much in you as it is in me. Just a look inwards, just a little one hundred and eighty degree turn, and you become aware of a truth.

- Osh0