Happy birthday Osho !
I wrote this blog on Osho’s birthday in 2016. Its just as relevant today as it was then. We are constantly being divided by the priests and the politicians. Actually, the division is fuelled by the media too. Unfortunately, the common citizen pays a huge price … Guess we need to become more aware and be very watchful about what we put into our minds !
Am adding another excerpt from Osho’s talk on The Dhammapada –
“Osho,
Why are there so many religions in the world, and why do these religions continuously quarrel with each other?
It is natural that there should be so many religions. In fact, more are needed. As I see it, each individual should have his own religion; there should be as many religions as there are people. The number is not so much: there are only three hundred religions – and how many people on the earth?
Each individual should have his own religion, because each individual is so unique, so different from anybody else. How can two persons have one religion? It is impossible. But we have been asking the impossible. Each individual has to reach godliness in his own way, and that way is never going to be traveled by anybody else again.
Hence, buddhas can only indicate, can only give you hints. They cannot provide you with certain, absolutely certain maps – just hints, a few hints. And those hints have not to be taken very seriously, just very playfully. You are not to become a fanatic. If you become a fanatic you are no longer religious.
A religious person is humble, available to all kinds of hints; he is a seeker, a searcher, an explorer, and he will learn from every possible source. He will learn from the Bible, and he will learn from the Vedas, and he will learn from The Dhammapada. He will listen to Buddha, to Jesus, to Zarathustra. He will learn from all possible sources, but still he will remain himself. He will not become an imitation, he will not be a carbon copy. He will retain his authenticity. He will be humble, sincere, authentic; he will not become pseudo. He will not be a follower, he will be a lover.”
Blog from Dec 11, 2016
So today is your birthday and its also the day Dad opened the door and moved to the other side of life … just a few minutes before midnight. As you have said, birth and death are revolving doors !!
To celebrate your birthday, I am posting an excerpt from the book “The wild geese and the water” about religions and the division they create. Its extremely relevant in today’s world, and you probably knew that as you knew so many things …
“…The politicians and the priests have been in a very subtle conspiracy against humanity. They know one thing for certain: that they exist only in a divided world. The religions – I mean the organised religions, the dogmatic religions, the creeds, the cults Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Mohammedanism – they keep humanity divided. Thats how the Pope, the Ayatollah, the Shankaracharya, the Imam, and all these hocus-pocus people can exist. If humanity is one then these people will disappear. They will become things of the past, of an ugly past, of a nightmarish past.
In the same way, if nations are no longer there – and nations are only on the maps; the earth is not divided but the maps have become so important – more than the earth itself, more than humanity itself. In the so-called religions, the scriptures, the words have become so important that man can be easily killed for words. For the Bible, for the Koran, for the Gita, man can be killed and destroyed, as if man exists only for the Bible and the Koran and the Gita. The truth is just the opposite: all these scriptures exist for man; man does not exist for any scripture. And the same is true on the outside, in the world of politics.
The inner being of man is dominated by the priest and the outer side is dominated by the politician – and they are in a conspiracy, and it is an ancient conspiracy. They both have understood the fact very clearly: keep man divided- in states, in churches, in nations, in religions- and then you will remain in power.”
Then you continue, where you speak of having one science about objective reality and how there are so many religions about the subjective reality… you are right, thank God or the devil or the universe, that we don’t have Hindu Physics and Christian chemistry or Buddhist biology or Mohammedan mathematics as you so eloquently put it.
Have a great birthday just like every other great day … for you were never born and you shall never die.
The rest of us who do celebrate a birthday – do contemplate on the few paragraphs above…. and don’t get swayed by the games the priests and the politicians play.