From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 16. LET’S NOT FACE IT – YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY ALONE
So no theologian is going to call God a hypothesis – He is the very truth, and He is not dependent
on your experiments. If you cannot find Him it is your failure, not a proof that God does not exist. If
you succeed, of course, He exists. If you fail, you fail; God still exists.
Hypothesis is a scientific term, not a theological concept; and science is very honest. Theology is
just the opposite, very dishonest.
The very word theology shows its dishonesty, insincerity. Theo means God, logy means logic. But
nobody has ever offered any logic about God. Every argument goes against God; no argument has
been yet produced which proves God. Still they go on calling it theology – logic of God. It would
have been more honest for them to call God a hypothesis, but you cannot worship a hypothesis, can
you?
Knowing that this is only a hypothesis, perhaps right, perhaps wrong... but worship is not possible
with a perhaps, with a maybe; worship needs a blind faith that it is so. Even if all the evidences go
against it, then too it is so. That’s the meaning of faith. Faith is not logic, it is absolutely illogical.
And to call the idea of God a hypothesis means destroying all the churches, all the temples, all the
synagogues.
The very word hypothesis is very significant: it means you are allowed to doubt because you are
allowed to experiment and find. It is only a temporary assumption to begin with. One has to begin
with something, so for the time being, just to begin with, we accept a hypothesis. But how can you
worship it? And how can the priest exploit you? It is absolutely against the religious people to use
the word hypothesis. They will not even agree to call God an idea, because an idea is your mind
thing, your projection. To them God is not an idea, God is the only truth.
In India, where religion has taken very subtle forms, they say you are an idea in the mind of God,
not vice versa. God is not an idea in your mind – because in your mind there is all kinds of rubbish:
you have nightmares, you have dreams, you have all kinds of desires. God is also put in the same
category? And your ideas change every moment; they are just like clouds, changing their form
continuously.
Certainly when you were a child your ideas were different. When you were adolescent your ideas
were different, when you became a young man your ideas were different, and when you become
old you cannot have the same ideas that you had in your youth. Experience changes everything. It
will be simply impossible to retain the same idea your whole life; only a superb idiot can do it. If you
have a little bit of intelligence then your idea is going to change with life.
Even to call God an idea will not be acceptable to the religious people – hypothesis is far away.
That’s why I say it is too late.
You are calling God an idea, and the definition of meditation is: to be in a state of mind where no
ideas exist, not even the idea of God.
Gautam the Buddha says, ”If you meet me on the path cut my head off immediately, because what
am I doing there? – disturbing you. The idea of me is a disturbance.” It is just like throwing a pebble
in a silent lake, and so many ripples, millions of ripples arise. A simple idea thrown in the silent lake
of your mind creates millions of waves; it may take you far away from yourself
From Ignorance to Innocence 214 Osho