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Part V : Osho's interaction with Atheists
I have never come across an atheist who is really an atheist.
All atheists are in search, all atheists are in deep search for
a faith and trust. But they are afraid. The adventure seems to
be so dangerous and risky. They start believing in no-God, but
that no-God is also a belief. It is negative: it cannot be nourishing,
it cannot give you life, energy; it cannot enhance your being,
it cannot help you to become centered. It cannot help you to see
the true and the real because it is a false belief, a negative
belief. But, I say, it is still a belief. foll411
Atheists have been coming to me, and they ask me about God. I
say, "Forget about God. You don't believe? That's perfectly
good. You just meditate." - And meditation does not need
any prerequisite belief in God or anything - it is a scientific
method. But if in the end of meditation you realize something
which you had never dreamt of, then don't blame me. You will come
to know something greater than God. You will not see God so that
you can photograph him. You will not meet God and shake hands
with him. But you will feel an oceanic energy all around you,
all over the world, in which you disappear like a dewdrop; and
that experience is so tremendously blissful that there is nothing
that can surpass it. last415
Once I was staying in a village. Two old men came to me. One
was a Hindu, another was a Jaina. The Jainas don't believe in
the existence of God. Both were friends, almost lifelong friends,
both must have been nearabout seventy. And both had quarreled
for their whole lives: whether God exists or not? The Hindu insisted
that he exists and would quote the Vedas and Upanishads and Gita,
and the Jaina would insist that he does not exist and would quote
Mahavir and Neminath and Parshwanath and his tirthankaras. And
they argued and argued to no end, because these questions are
so meaningless, so futile, you can go on arguing, ad infinitum;
there is no end to it. Nobody can prove absolutely, nobody can
disprove absolutely either. The questions are so utterly useless:
nothing can be proved definitely this way or that, so the question
goes on hanging.
Hearing that I was staying in the guesthouse outside the village,
they came to see me. And they said, "Our whole lives have
been a conflict. We are friends, in every way we are friendly,
but about this question of God we immediately start quarreling.
And we have quarreled the whole life. Now you are here: give us
a definite answer so this quarrel can be stopped, and we can at
least die in ease."
I asked them, "If it is proved definitely that God is, how
is it going to change your life?"
They shrugged their shoulders. They said, "We will live as
we are living."
"Or, if it is proved," I told them, "that God definitely
does not exist, how is it going to change your life?"
They said, "It is not going to change our lives at all, because
we both live exactly the same life. We are partners in a business.
He believes in God, I don't believe in God, but as far as our
lives are concerned we have the same pattern. His God does not
make any difference, my no-God does not make any difference."
Then I said, "This is a futile question."
Which question is futile? One whose answer is not going to make
a change in your life. It is useless. People ask, 'Who created
the world?' How is it going to change your life? Anybody, A B
C D anybody, how is it going to change your life? 'Is there life
after death?' How is it going to change your life?
Can't you see theists and atheists all living the same kind of
life, the same rotten kind of life? Can't you see the Catholic
and the communist living the same kind of life, the same lies,
the same falsehood, the same masks? Can't you see the Protestant
and the Catholic living the same life? Can't you see the Hindu
and the Mohammedan living the same life, with no difference at
all? All differences are only verbal. No verbal difference makes
any difference in their existence. They have been discussing about
useless questions.
But why do people ask useless questions? To avoid going in, they
pretend that they are great inquirers. They are interested in
God, they are interested in the after-life, they are interested
in heaven and hell. And the real thing is that they are not interested
in themselves. To avoid that, to avoid seeing this fact, that
'I am not interested in my own being,' they have created all these
questions. These questions are their strategies to avoid their
central question: Who am I?
True religion consists in the inquiry 'Who am I?' And nobody else
can answer it. You will have to go digging deeper and deeper into
your being. One day, when you have reached the very source of
your life, you will know. That day, the real question and the
real answer will have happened simultaneously. sos202
I used to know a man who was an atheist. Once I heard that he
had become a theist. I could not believe it. So when I came across
him I asked him, 'How come you decided to become a theist?'
'Well,' he said, 'I used to be an atheist but I gave it up.'
'Why?' I enquired.
He said, 'No holidays.' dang08
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