From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 18. ONE GOD, ONE MESSENGER, ONE BOOK – ONE BIG LIE
is in it? He opened the roll. It was very ancient – two thousand years old. And do you know what
he found? It was the bill for the last supper! The Jews were still asking, ”Pay for it at least.” And of
course Jesus died without paying, so....
Religion is basically rebellion against dead traditions, meaningless conventions.
It is a revolution to bring the birth of a new man, of a new consciousness.
The cult is not concerned with the new man. The cult does not want the new man ever to be born,
because with the old, things are so at ease, why create trouble? Who knows what the new man will
be?
And they are right. The new man is going to be trouble. He is not just going to accept any idiotic
concept; he will ask questions. He is not going to be faithful. He will be basically a man of enquiry.
He will doubt – he will not believe.
A religious man doubts but never believes. He enquires, because doubt leads into enquiry; and he
questions till he finds the answer on his own. Then there is no question of belief or faith – he knows.
If you ask him, ”Do you believe in God?” he will say no. You will be surprised – a religious man
saying no! And if you ask him, ”You are a religious man and you say that you don’t believe?” he will
say, ”Yes, I repeat it again: I don’t believe because I know; belief is for those who are blind. A blind
man believes in light, a man with eyes knows. Do you believe in light?”
But the believers are docile, ready to submit, to surrender to any idiotic concept.
Now, ask the Christian, ”What do you mean by the virgin birth?” – and each Christian believes in it;
if you don’t believe in it you are not much of a Christian. Just a few days ago one bishop in London
has been thrown out of his bishophood because he said, ”I don’t believe in the virgin birth.”
If you don’t believe in the virgin birth, then you are not a Christian, so what right have you to be a
bishop? And you are spreading dangerous ideas in people’s minds. Tomorrow you will say, ”I don’t
believe in the Holy Ghost.” It is bound to come, that ”Who is this fellow, the Holy Ghost? Doing
unholy things, making a poor virgin Mary pregnant, still he remains the Holy Ghost!”
And if you suspect the virgin birth and the Holy Ghost, how long can you believe in a God? Because
out of the trinity you have already doubted two. The third, you have not seen, and you cannot meet a
person who has seen him. They will quote scriptures, but scriptures cannot satisfy a religious man.
He wants to taste truth himself. But that creates difficulty for the cult.
The cult may be any: Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jewish; it doesn’t matter – these are all cults.
Perhaps there has been a religious man in the beginning. I say ”perhaps” because priests are so
cunning they can make a whole church even without a real religious man’s dead body; that is not
such a necessity.
I am reminded of a small story. A young devil comes running to the chief devil and says, ”Do
something quickly; one man has found truth just now. I am coming directly from there. Something
has to be done. His truth has to be stopped, otherwise he will destroy our business.”
From Ignorance to Innocence 250 Osho