From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 17. JESUS, THE ONLY FORGOTTEN SON OF GOD
created God? And then there is no end to it. But this is thought to be the most important argument
brought in by philosophers in support of God.
It has been so easy for the atheists to laugh at these philosophers and these theologians: ”What
kind of arguments are these people giving?” But atheists have not been very different either.
One very famous atheist, Diderot, was speaking and he stood up and told the audience, ”If God
exists and you say He is all-powerful then let Him stop the clock, this very moment. I will wait one
minute.” He waited one minute. The clock did not stop. He said, ”Now you see He is not powerful.
He cannot even stop the clock. He is not even courageous enough to accept my challenge.”
But are these arguments? Some cunning person can manage to fix the clock so that at nine it will
stop. And when it reaches nine, he stands up and says, ”God, prove yourself If you are real let the
clock stop within one minute; otherwise it will prove that you don’t exist.” And the clock stops; God is
proved.... These are arguments? Neither the stopping of the clock nor the not stopping of the clock
can make any substantial contribution to the proof of God.
Hence I say God is not an idea.
You ask me: Then what is God?
It is simply a word, a meaningless word, hollow inside, with no substance in it.
Samuel Beckett has written his masterpiece, WAITING FOR GODOT, a very small piece of
tremendous importance. Two persons are sitting under a tree. Both are hobos. One hobo says,
”It is getting late and he has not come yet.”
The other says, ”I also think that he must be coming.” They are waiting for Godot who has never said
to them, ”I will be coming.” Nobody knows who this Godot is. They have never met him, but just to
pass time they have invented this idea of Godot, because those two hobos, what are they going to
do the whole time? So they sit and they wait, and they argue, ”I don’t think he is a man of his word.”
The other says, ”No, I know perfectly well that if he has promised he will come. He may be a little
late but he will come, don’t be worried.” This conversation continues, and then one becomes fed up
and says, ”I am going. It is enough. Now I cannot wait.”
The other says, ”Then I am also coming with you; we will wait there together, wherever you go.
Anyway what is the point? Do you think you will meet him there? We don’t know where he is.”
When I first came across this small booklet, I thought perhaps Godot is German for God – these
Germans are just such crackpots that they can make anything out of anything – that they must have
made God a Godot. But I enquired of Haridas. Haridas said, ”No. In Germany we don’t call God
Godot, we call him Gott.”
So I said, ”I was not very far off: G-o-t-t, Gott.” I said, ”You have come very close to Godot. It is
perfectly okay. My guess was not absolutely wrong, I was on the right lines that it must be some
German idea of turning God into Godot.”
From Ignorance to Innocence 243 Osho