From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 9. I TEACH A RELIGIONLESS RELIGION
You can take any other conception of God and you will find it impossible to make a religion around
it. But up to now this has been the case. The fiction of God is there in the center and around
the fiction, all other fictions have been created – of heaven and hell, and sin and punishment,
repentance, forgiveness. And this whole circus is nothing but exploitation by the cunning priests of
all the religions.
Yes, without God there can be no priest. Without God there can be no concept of sin. Without God
there can be no heaven and hell. Without God there can be no temple, no synagogue, no church.
If you think these are the things which make a religion, then of course you will find it difficult: how
can there be a religion without God? But these things have nothing to do with religion. In fact, to me
these are hindrances in finding religiousness.
And let this be another shock to you: the authentic religion is going to be Godless – and also
religionless.
I am teaching you a religionless religion.
You will have to go a little deeply into this because the words seem to be contradictory: religionless
religion. When I say religionless religion I mean that the priest, the synagogue, the rabbi, the pandit,
the pope, the church, the prayer, the holy scriptures, the holy and unholy ghost – all these have to
be dropped because this is what you have known as religion.
The holy scriptures are nothing but religious fiction, just as there are science fictions. And it is
beautiful to write a science fiction, it is art. Those religious fictions are not even artistic – they
are ninety percent rubbish, crap. Nobody reads them except a few people who have some vested
interest in reading them.
I have heard... a man who was selling dictionaries, house to house, rang the bell of a house. The
housewife came out and asked, ”What do you want?”
He said, ”I have beautiful dictionaries. You must have children; they may need dictionaries, and I
have all kinds for all ages.”
The woman wanted to get rid of him, so she said, ”But we have got a dictionary.” And far away in the
corner, on a table, there was a thick book looking like a dictionary.
The salesman laughed; he said, ”That’s a Bible.”
The woman could not believe it because from that distance it was impossible to figure out that it was
a Bible. She said, ”You surprise me. Yes, it is a Bible. I was just trying to get rid of you, saying that
we have got a dictionary. But how did you manage it? Tell me and I will purchase one dictionary
from you – but tell me the trick.”
He said, ”There is no trick. I just saw how much dust had gathered on it.”
Only Bibles, holy books, gather dust. A PLAYBOY magazine does not gather dust. Who wants to
open a holy book? It has not been opened perhaps for years; perhaps it has never been opened.
From Ignorance to Innocence 114 Osho