A religion is to be sought. A religion has to be chosen consciously. Nobody should be made a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Jain by birth.
Birth has nothing to do with religion. Because of this association with birth, the whole world seems to be religious, and nobody is religious. Everybody is religious: somebody is a Hindu, somebody is a Christian. Nobody is a Hindu and nobody is a Christian — people have been befooled.
Leave children alone. Never impose any religion on them. Don’t condition their minds. Leave their enquiry free. Help so that they can enquire, but don’t give them answers. Help so that their questions become very penetrating, help so that they can ask intensely, help so that someday they can ask so intensely that their very intensity becomes a transformation, but never give them answers. Readymade answers are very deceptive.
Religion has to be lived; religion has to be chosen. It is a commitment — how can you commit for your child? Who are you to commit for your child? Help the child to grow, love him deeply, and don’t give him answers which you don’t know yourself. If he asks, ‘Is there a God?’ tell him the truth, that you don’t know! Tell him the truth, that you are seeking; tell him the truth, that he has to seek himself; and tell him that if someday he finds, he has to tell it to you also. Be humble. Before the child, the temptation is great in the parents to be knowledgeable — that is foolishness. You don’t know anything about God, and you go on teaching the child, you go on conditioning his mind.
Don`t condition anybody’s mind. Leave them — intact, untouched, virgin. One day….
Because religion is such a deep urge, it need not be taught. Through the teachings the urge is corrupted. It need not be taught. Leave him to himself, love him. Through your love he will create the opportunity to understand prayer someday. Love him, and through your love he will become aware that existence must be a mother to him, a father to him. But don’t talk about the Father who is in heaven, just be a father to him. Your being a father will have given him the first glimpse that the existence is not alien, that somebody takes care, that somebody loves. Love him, mother him so that he comes to feel that existence is a mother. Through your care through your love, through your mothering let him become aware of certain qualities in existence. Don’t talk theology — it is rubbish.
Don’t go on telling him, ‘Pray.’… Wait, let the right moment come, but help the situation so that he becomes capable of prayer. Don’t teach him the words of the prayer. Just create a situation in the family: the atmosphere of prayerfulness. The father prays, the mother prays, and when the child sees father praying, he can feel the delight that comes on his face. He can see that he is transported to some other world. He can see that after prayer, for hours he is a totally different person — more loving, softer and more delicate. He can see that after prayer there is an after-glow that follows the father the whole day.
There is no need to teach anything. One day you will suddenly find when you open your eyes after your prayer, that your child is sitting by your side — deep, somewhere else, his eyes closed. He does not know the words, but now he understands the feeling, and that is REAL baptism.
Don’t force him to go to anywhere because it will corrupt him, and he will start thinking that religion is nothing but a business. He will understand by and by, that religion is nothing but politics.
All mystics, without exception, know that all religions are true; all philosophers, without exception, know that all religions are false; and all politicians, without exception, know that all religions are useful.
Don’t teach the child the politics of religion. Leave him intact, alone, but give him an opportunity, a milieu, an atmosphere, a climate where he can feel in touch with what religion is. Then he will be religious. But parents are more interested that the child should be a this or that — he should follow the same foolishness that they have been following. The child should be corrupted in the same way they have been corrupted. The child should have an identity of belonging to some organization – – the same that they belong to. This is the politics of religion; it is not religion at all.
Otherwise, every child is born Buddha, comes with the potential to reach the ultimate consciousness, to discover the truth, to live a life of bliss. But the family destroys all these dimensions; it makes him utterly flat. Each child comes with a tremendous intelligence, but the parents make him mediocre, because to live with an intelligent child is troublesome. He doubts, he is skeptical, he inquires, he is disobedient, he is rebellious — and the family wants somebody who is obedient, ready to follow, imitate. Hence from the very beginning the seed of intelligence has to be destroyed, almost completely burnt, so there is no possibility of any sprouts coming out of it.
It is a miracle that a few people like Zarathustra, Jesus, Lao Tzu, Buddha, escaped from the social structure, from the family conditioning. They seem to be great peaks of consciousness, but in fact every child is born with the same quality, with the same potential. Ninety-nine point nine percent of people can become Buddhas — just this conditioning has to disappear. Otherwise, there will be Christians and Mohammedans and Hindus and Jainas and Buddhists, but not Buddhas, not Mahaviras, not Mohammeds; that will not be possible. Mohammed rebelled against HIS background, Buddha rebelled against HIS background, Jesus rebelled against HIS background. These are all rebels — and the society is absolutely against the rebellious spirit.
No, if you love your child, you will make him aware not to fall into any trap, not to be trapped because there are enemies all around: You will make him aware, ‘Don’t be trapped by anybody. Remain free, remain loving, search and seek and find your God. The God that you find is the only God. The God that is taught is not God; it is just a word. And when you have found YOUR religion, it is not separate from life, it is one with it. It is life itself!’
And remember when I say that life is God, I don’t mean life with a capital L, no; but just with a lower-case l. Just ordinary life is God.
A theologian can never say, ‘I don’t know.’ One needs courage to say that. One needs real guts to say, ‘I don’t know.’ One needs a certain realization to say that one doesn’t know. And everything, when you lead a religious life, everything is beautiful, everything is important. There are no pigeon-holes, there are no categories. You cannot say that something is more important, and something is less important. If you live a religious quality, all things are important: a dog is as important as God, not a single bit less important.
Somebody asked Joshu — a Zen Master, a rare being; the person who asked must have been a sceptic — he said, ‘Joshu, I have heard that you say that God is in everything. What about a dog?’ Nobody has answered this way: Joshu jumped on his four legs and started barking. He said, ‘I am a dog, and also a god.’ Joshu barking is God barking.
Then there is no difference. Nothing is small and nothing is great. The smallest carries the greatest, and the greatest carries the smallest; then the lowest is the highest, and the highest is the lowest; then the valley goes to the peak and the peak comes to the valley. That is the meaning when I say that sex is samadhi and samadhi is sex. Then there is no difference between the low and the high.
Everything! — to live, just to live today is the most important thing. He will be more concerned with qualities and less concerned with personalities. And he will know that there is no need to be possessive because he has known the parents were not possessive; everything was shifting and changing, lifelike.
He will see all the seasons, all the moods, all the conflicts, all the agonies, all the ecstasies, and he will become more centered, grounded. He will know that life is not a fixed phenomenon. He will not expect anything because life is not fixed. He will be available to all kinds of changes. He will be able to change with life, he will never fall out of step. He will be always in tune with life. And that’s what is needed to make humanity more wholesome, healthier, more loving, more blissful.
So don’t teach a child Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism. At the most, give him a milieu, if you love him, so that he can grow a sensitivity towards what religion is in its essence, in its purity. Don’t teach him about so many flowers, just let him become sensitive to the fragrance of it — that will do. THAT is baptism.
Osho: Come Follow To You, Vol 4 Chapter #2 Chapter title: Between Adam and Jesus Q 5 (excerpts)
Osho: Philosophia Ultima Chapter title: I Teach the Commune Chapter #3 (excerpts)
मज़हबी बहस मैं ने की ही नहीं
फ़ालतू अक़्ल मुझ में थी ही नहीं ………………..अकबर इलाहाबादी
maz.habī bahs maiñ ne kī hī nahīñ
fāltū aql mujh meñ thī hī nahīñ ………………..Akbar Allahabadi
“I never engaged in religious debates,
For I never had any idle intellect within me.”
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इश्क़ से कैसे बाज़ आएँ हम, इश्क़ तो अपना धर्म हुआ
जिस दिन इश्क़ से नाता टूटा समझो क्रिया-कर्म हुआ………..ज़ुहूर नज़र
ishq se kaise ba.az aa.e.n ham, ishq to apnaa dharm hu.aa
jis din ishq se naata TuuTaa samjho kirya-karm hu.aa …………….Zuhoor Nazar
“How can we give up on love when love has become our very religion?
The day our bond with love breaks, consider it our last day.”
When Osho says — “Don’t teach him about so many flowers, just let him become sensitive to the fragrance of it — that will do.” Now, listen to this amazing song — “Mera to jo bhi kadam hai, wo teri raah me hai” — This soul stirring song from the film “Dosti” (1964) is one of my all-time favorite songs, written by Majrooh Sultanpuri, composed by Laxmikant Pyarelal and brilliantly sung by Mohammad Rafi.
Nice write up on religious dogmas
Life is so simple. We complicate it.