From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 18. ONE GOD, ONE MESSENGER, ONE BOOK – ONE BIG LIE
It is obvious, if people become truthful and people start discovering truth, what business has the
devil left? But the old devil laughed and he said, ”You are too young, too new to the business. Our
people are already there.”
He said, ”But I didn’t see anybody.”
The old devil said, ”You will take a little time to understand. Did you see the priests around the man?”
He said, ”Yes.”
The devil said, ”They are our people. They won’t let the truth go anywhere. They will make a dogma
out of it and they will not leave the man who has found the truth. Let him find it. They will surround
him – they will become the mediators between him and the masses, and they are our agents.”
All priests are the devil’s agents.
They have no interest in truth, no interest in enquiring about the ultimate reality. Their interest is how
to exploit man’s fear, man’s greed.
They exploit your fear by creating hell.
They exploit your greed by creating heaven.
They exploit your helpless state by creating God.
They give you certain scriptures, mantras, prayers, and they say, ”These will save you; you are
protected. You need not be worried, you are not helpless. And we are always there between you
and God – you can depend on us.”
They don’t know of God at all.
They have nothing to do with God.
But God is a beautiful concept to exploit people who are feeling psychologically sick, afraid, fearful
– and the whole of humanity is in the same situation.
Whenever a religious man comes, he starts transforming you, not consoling you, because by
consolation, your sickness is not going to disappear.
Only by transformation can you be absolutely on your own, can you be absolutely contented with
yourself and with existence.
But the priest does not want you to be contented. He wants you to be discontented; otherwise why
will you go to the priest? For what? He does not want you to become courageous. He wants you to
be cowards forever, because only cowards will come crawling to his feet. Why would the courageous
come to him? There is no need.
The religious man destroys the need for the cult; hence, whenever there is a religious man and
around him the climate of religion, all the cults will be against him.
From Ignorance to Innocence 251 Osho