Faith-based Confusion - by Osho

It is a complex phenomenon ― complex not because of itself, but because you are brought up by parents, by society, by schools, colleges, universities. Before you have even asked any significant question about life, you are already burdened with answers.


The child has not asked about God, but the parents are forcing him to believe that God created the world.



This is pure corruption. The child is innocent ― he trusts his father, his mother, his brothers, sisters, elders, neighbors. He trusts ― he cannot think that they are all lying to him. There is no basis for him to think that they are all lying to him. They all love him, how can they lie? And this is the complexity...
Everybody is lying about ultimate truths, without knowing. Without experiencing, they are burdening their children with such garbage ― which is going to hinder the child's own progress, his own purity of consciousness. It is very unconscious love. They do not know what they are doing. It has been done to them by their parents, and they are simply repeating it.
And in this way one generation gives all its diseases to the other generation. And for centuries all kinds of idiotic ideas remain prevalent, remain alive because there are people who believe in them. They are ready to die for those ideas, they are ready to kill for those ideas, and those ideas are simply fictions.
The complexity comes because the child, out of necessity, has to grow up with people who are unconscious ― they cannot but do harm. They are bound to give him their minds, knowing perfectly well that their minds have not helped them, that their minds and their ideologies have not liberated them. Still, they think something is better than nothing: "Perhaps we have not worked hard. Perhaps we have not disciplined ourselves according to our own philosophies. The philosophies are not wrong, we are wrong."
The situation is just the opposite: the philosophies are wrong.


And once those philosophies settle down in the child's mind, they become the very base of his intelligence, his intellectual development.



That is what creates complexities, and the complexities have become more and more. In the past a Hindu was only burdened by Hindu superstitions; he knew nothing about Judaism, he knew nothing about Confucian ideology. He had no idea what other people in the world were thinking. He lived in his own small well, where everybody was thinking alike. Now those wells have disappeared.
Now the Hindu knows about Mohammedan ideas, about Christian ideas, about Jewish ideas; the complexity has grown a thousandfold. He knows not only about theistic theories, he knows about the atheists, the communists, the agnostics. His mind is buzzing with contradictory thoughts. He is full of all kinds of ideas which are against each other.


He is crippled because of their contradiction, he cannot do anything ― because whatever he wants to do, there is some idea that says that it is not right.



If he wants to be a vegetarian... Jainas and Buddhists have been vegetarians for twenty-five centuries. And no Jaina has ever thought that he could be anything other than vegetarian, but now questions arise. Not a single vegetarian has been able to receive a Nobel prize ― strange. You have the purest minds; those meat-eaters have thick skulls. You are pure vegetables ― cabbages, cauliflowers, beautiful things ― but not a single Nobel prize. Strange. But the meat-eaters...
Hindus don't eat the meat of the cows; Jews do, and Jews receive forty percent of the Nobel prizes. It is simply inconceivable, out of all proportion to their population. And they are eating cow meat! Questions arise. And it has been found that vegetarians will never receive the Nobel prize, because no vegetable can give them certain proteins which only meat can give them.
I have found an alternative. In my commune... it was a vegetarian commune, but I was giving all commune members unfertilized eggs. They are vegetable, because they don't have any life ― but they have all the proteins that are necessary for intelligence to grow. Now the vegetarians are very much against me. They would like to kill me ― although they are vegetarians. They don't want to kill anybody, but as far as I am concerned, they are ready to kill me: "This man is going to teach people to eat eggs." They don't see a simple point: that an unfertilized egg is not alive, it is pure protein. And it makes the vegetarian food complete and competitive; in fact, it gives more protein than meat, especially for intelligence.


When you are surrounded with all kinds of ideas, there are bound to be doubts.



All the religions of the world have based everybody's mind on faith. It is not coincidence that religions are called `faiths'; it is on faith that they are based. It was perfectly right not to doubt because everybody had the same faith. It was very difficult to doubt; only very rare, talented people, geniuses, used to doubt. Now the situation is totally different.
Mohammedans say God created the world, and God created all the animals for man to eat. Christians believe the same. Jews believe the same, that animals are food: just like vegetables, fruits, so are animals. They have all been created for man to eat. Now half of the world is Christian; the number two religion is Mohammedanism; the two greatest religions, and millions of people believe.
Naturally it creates doubt in the minds of people who have lived with the thought that animals are not to be eaten, that it is insensitive, ugly, unaesthetic; that it degrades you, that it is not human. Now doubts start arising, doubts which are significant ― because Jesus eats meat, Mohammed eats meat, Moses eats meat, Ramakrishna eats fish, and still they achieve the ultimate. The doubt is bound to arise in the minds of those who have been told that if you eat meat, your consciousness cannot grow.
And this is about everything. For example, Jainism does not believe in God. There is no God in Jainism; in Buddhism there is no God ― the two great religions of the East are godless religions. The religions other than Jainism and Buddhism have always thought that God is the center of religion. How can there be a religion without God? ― a doubt arises.
The whole of Asia has been Buddhist. No Buddhist child ever asks, "Who created the world?" Strange... millions of children; no Buddhist child ever asks who created the world. There is no creator; the question of creation is nonsense. Existence has always been here, it is eternal. The very idea of creation and the creator is stupid. Now those who have believed in God as the central theme of religion, their faith is shaken.


Almost everybody's faith is shaken, because they can see that somebody else without this faith, having absolutely antagonistic ideologies, is living as good a life as they are living ― perhaps even better.



Buddhists have lived a better life without God than anybody who has believed in God. And the reason is clear ― because there is no God, the whole responsibility falls on your shoulders. You cannot pray to God because all prayer is meaningless. Only your actions are going to decide, not prayers. The way of prayer is the way of the impotent man, who is not going to do anything. He is just continuing to live his life, and praying that God will help: "When God is there, all-compassionate ― and I am such a small sinner in comparison to his compassion ― I need not be worried."
Omar Khayyam, one of the poets of the greatest quality as far as poetry is concerned, says that you can drink as much alcohol as you want, and anybody who says "Stop drinking alcohol because it is a sin" is creating a doubt in you about God. His logic looks very strange, but is very clear. He is saying, "God is compassionate, and if I don't commit any sins it means I am suspicious of God's compassion. Let me commit as many sins as possible ― because I trust, I have faith that God is compassionate. He will forgive me."
He was a great thinker. He is saying that to try to live a virtuous life means that you suspect that God will not forgive. Perhaps unconsciously, the people who have believed in God have not lived so virtuously as the people who have not believed in God. Because when there is no God, you have to live virtuously. You cannot depend on anybody's compassion; only your action will bring its fruit. So whatever you are going to do, you are responsible for the fruits that will come out of it. You are the cause, you are the effect. So the Buddhists, the Jainas ― who don't believe in God ― have lived more virtuously than the people who believe in God. Strange....


All these things ― because the world has become small, all these faiths are now no longer closed but have become open to everybody ― have created tremendous complexity in the mind.



It has burdened the mind with thousands of contradictions.
I have heard that a centipede, a small animal with one hundred legs, is going for a morning walk. And a small rabbit is puzzled, has a philosophical mind, starts thinking, "How does this fellow manage one hundred legs? How does he remember which one is to go first, then second, then third? One hundred legs, my God!"
He stopped the centipede and said, "Uncle, forgive me for disturbing your morning walk, but I am a little bit the philosophical type. A question has arisen which only you can solve."
The centipede said, "What question?"
He said, "Seeing your one hundred legs, I am puzzled at how you manage, how you remember which one goes first, then second, then third, up to one hundred."
The centipede said, "I have never thought about it. I have been walking since my childhood ― the question has never come to my mind. Perhaps I am not philosophical. But I will try to find out. You wait under the tree, and I will walk and see."
And within minutes he fell down on the ground, because to keep count of one hundred legs, and then to remember which one goes behind which one... he stumbled, became a mess, fell down. He was very angry at the rabbit.
And he said, "Listen, never ask such a question of any other centipede. We are living perfectly well without this philosophy. I was going so well for my morning walk, and now I don't think that I should go ahead. I should go back and rest. You gave me such a tiring and complex problem ― and you look so innocent! But remember, keep this philosophy to yourself."
All these faiths were going perfectly well in a way, because nobody was asking the questions. But suddenly all boundaries have been broken. The whole world has become one.


Anybody who has any intelligence is aware that all theories are fictitious.



Now a totally new approach is needed. The old approaches have all become out of date. Faith has become out of date.