From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 11. TRUTH: NOT A DOGMA BUT A DANCE
But one of the emperors of India, Ashoka, had sent one branch of the tree as a present to Ceylon
with his own daughter, Sanghamitra, who had become a sannyasin. Sanghamitra carried a branch
of the bo tree to Ceylon, and from that bo tree a branch has been brought back again and put in the
place where Buddha had become enlightened. It is part of the same tree, but the third generation.
But what these people in Japan are doing shows something significant: it is what religions have
done with man. They have been cutting your roots so you don’t grow up – you only grow old.
And the first root they cut is doubt; then enquiry stops.
The second root they cut turns you against your own nature, condemns your nature. Obviously when
your nature is condemned, how can you help your nature to flow, grow and take its own course like
a river? No, they don’t allow you to be like a river, moving zigzag.
All the religions have turned you into railway trains, running on rails, running from one station to
another – and mostly just shunting, not going anywhere but still on rails. Those rails they call
discipline, control, self-control.
Religions have done so much harm that it is almost incalculable – their pot of sins is full, overflowing.
It just needs to be thrown into the Pacific, five miles deep, so deep that nobody can find it again and
start again the same idiotic process.
The small number of people in the world who are intelligent should get rid of all that their religions
have done to them without their knowing. They should become completely clean of Jewishness, of
Hinduism, of Christianity, of Jainism, of Buddhism. They should be completely clean – just to be
human is enough.
Accept yourself.
Respect yourself Allow your nature to take its own course. Don’t force, don’t repress.
Doubt – because doubt is not a sin, it is the sign of your intelligence. Doubt and go on enquiring
until you find.
One thing I can say: whosoever enquires, finds. It is absolutely certain; it has never been otherwise.
Nobody has come empty-handed from an authentic enquiry.
From Ignorance to Innocence 152 Osho