Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 16. ATHEISM, THEISM AND REALITY
I said to both, ”Then why are you entangled in this useless controversy? You breathe when God is
and you breathe when he is not. You love when God is, and you love when he is not. God does
not expel you from the world even if you don’t believe in him; he accepts you. And he does not seat
you on a king’s throne if you believe in him, he does not care for you more than he cares for others.
Then of what value is this debate?”
No, we are victims of a linguistic error in regard to the question of God and no-God, theism and
atheism. Most of what we call philosophy is nothing more than offshoots of philological errors. And
when we accept these philological errors as truth, we are in a mess. Suppose there is a dumb
person who is a believer and another dumb person is a non-believer. How will they argue their
viewpoints? What will they do to say what and why they hold their beliefs?
Think of a day when all languages, all forms of speech suddenly disappear from the earth for twenty
four hours. What will happen to our philosophical debates? If only your languages – not your
religions and beliefs – are taken away from you, what will you do to assert your convictions? In the
absence of language. will you be a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian? Will you then be a
believer or a non-believer? But surely you will be there even without your languages, your beliefs
and non-beliefs. And I say this: you who will be without any ideas and beliefs and dogmas will be a
truly religious person.
I would like to close my talk with an anecdote. Mark Twain is the author of this joke.
Once the people of this world decided to carry out an experiment. They hit upon the idea that if all
the people of the world agree on a time to shout with one voice, the noise will reach the moon. And
if there are people living on the moon, they will hear our shout. And if they make a similar effort we
can hear their answering shout from the moon. Man has always been fascinated by the moon, and
his desire to relate with that planet is as old as the earth. That is why every child on coming into
the world begins to ask for the moon. So a decision was taken and a time appointed when all the
inhabitants would speak together to the moon in one voice. They were sure their call would reach
the moon, and if the moon is also inhabited by people like us, they will answer in the same way.
”Hoo Hoo” was chosen as the form of their shout.
The appointed time came. With a tremendous sense of anticipation the people all over the earth
gathered on housetops, on raised platforms, on hills and mountains. But as the clock struck twelve,
strangely enough an immense silence descended on the earth. Not even a whisper was heard. The
reason was that everyone, being anxious to hear that rare and united ”Hoo-Hoo” of all mankind,
decided on his part to keep silent. He thought a single person’s non, participation would not make
any difference when the whole world was going to speak with one voice. Why should one miss such
an opportunity? Consequently, the silence that prevailed on the earth in that particular moment was
unprecedented. Never before had the world experienced such a moment of penetrating silence.
If ever you come upon such utter silence, when words, concepts, and languages disappear from
your mind, you will know the truth, the reality, or whatever you call it. It is only in utter silence that
reality comes into being.
One half of truth lies with the theists and the other half with the atheists. And a half-truth is worse
than a lie – it is always so. It is so because you can easily give up a lie, but it is tremendously difficult
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 321 Osho