Why I believe in God?

[osho]

Is it necessary to believe and pray? I do not think prayer is something that helps us. We are told to renounce everything to God and this is a form of servility. We often like to behave slavishly since we crave security. Why people are not rebellious? The reason is they are afraid of being stranded. We like to comply with what we are told. My parents told me in my babyhood that there is a God and since we are Buddhists by birth and Buddhism if you make an advanced study of Buddhism God is not an important
issue the way Hinduism, Christianity or Islam accentuate it.

Why should God need our service and prayer? God must be indifferent to prayer or condemnation. We have a certain shape and size or idea or fabrication of God and we believe God resides in heaven and there is nothing called heaven and hell. These all are mythological tales. Today children read Harry Potter and it has so many imagined stories invented by J K Rowling. I have recently read Heart of Darkness, a very interesting and exploratory story written by Conrad and one of the characters in the novel finds himself in an African land and his stature there is likened to a God any religious community believes and the community who likes to worship that character like a God has in fact incarcerated him there and the rest of characters coming across him find the place and situation despicable.

God is not a person if God does exist at all. God is not something the way your scriptures have written about. The word God is not God or the idea you have imported from your Guru or book is not God. God if there is is this cosmic wholeness, pervasiveness and presence.

You have foolishly invented your personal Gods since you want to have a distinctiveness to identify yourself with. Your idea of God has divided the world and that ended up in the break of so many wars and the world is threatened more by the idea of God and religion than without them.

If you think disinterestedly and detachedly you will keep mind from the idea of God

[mazHur]

[QUOTE=osho;1091862]

Is it necessary to believe and pray?

Why should God need our service and prayer? 

God does not want us to do anything for Him, only you suffer from that idea.
As for prayer, friends 'pray' for success and prosperity to their friends and loved ones; they wish nice things to other people. If someone does not believe in 'praying' or 'wishing' well to others he is infact something out of this world.... a weird non-human being perhaps. Similarly, one prays to God for no charge!! It's not necessary that He grant you all you wish or pray for.
Praying or wishing well to someone is like thanking them and needless to say a 'thankless person' is not the sign of a good personality.

Buddhism believes in self-torture to get rid of sufferings. Other religions such as Islam and Christianity teach struggle and love and hold one's life as a trust to God. Suicide is haram in Islam and perhaps other religions too and is a sign of cowardice and hopelessness. If 'to pray' to the Supreme being for goodness for self or others is bad then 'to hope' is no better.

You have foolishly invented your personal Gods since you want to have a distinctiveness  to identify yourself with. Your idea of God has divided the world and that ended up in the break of so many wars and the world is threatened more by the idea of God and religion than without them. 

Are you wise enough to call the billion believers fools?? That is an insult to them. Wars are not the result of 'religion' alone- lust and greed for domination and power is.

If you think disinterestedly and detachedly you will keep mind from the idea of God

Who do you have for succor?? Social security? pension? servility to rules and laws of land? allegiance to your family and country?? wealth and power?? Knowledge and wisdom?? You lose all these things with time.....and finally you feel the brunt of not praying or wishing ........

[cafolini]

It is true that prayer and hope are one and the same, but they don't have anything to do with religion objetifying them. The world is already innundated with prayer for betterment without any need for religion.

[YesNo]

I do not think prayer is something that helps us. We are told to renounce everything to God and this is a form of servility.

If you think disinterestedly and detachedly you will keep mind from the idea of God

I agree with mazHur's comments on prayer.

Personally, I find mantra recitation helpful. I suspect this could be called "prayer". Basically, it keeps the mind focused on words that have been repeated so often they come to mind immediately like the lyrics of a song one recently heard. Although I think there are personal benefits in doing this, it is not a just a self-help activity. It works because it is directed to an Other.

If I had to be servile to anything, I would prefer that to be the highest God I could imagine. Religious stories help me imagine a higher God than money, pleasure, or fame. These petty Gods are just not good enough for me. One problem with atheism, among other things, is that it leaves these petty Gods as the only ones available for the imagination.

[mazHur]

It is true that prayer and hope are one and the same, but they don't have anything to do with religion objetifying them. The world is already innundated with prayer for betterment without any need for religion.

Who do you pray to?? Who do you wish by ?? Without 'Faith' no prayer no wish can come true. Call it religion, faith, belief, soul, spirit, whatever, it ends up in 'Religion'...

A thief's 'religion' is stealing; a pick-pocket's is in ripping off pockets;
a generals is in martial matters; a politician's 'religion' is in how much he can fool people; a priest's faith is in his piety, fake or true. You ought to have a faith to hold you up in times of challenge and that faith is only provided by your FAITH OR RELIGION. Unless you have faith in your parents or friends you cannot be loyal to them nor ever pray or wish them good.

Inundation of prayers is just like habitually buying a million lottery tickets but no jackpot showing up. Prayers have to be ''genuine' ie from heart and soul. I have had many experiences of failed prayers as well as some successful ones....all depends on intentions and faith.

I agree with mazHur's comments on prayer.

Personally, I find mantra recitation helpful. I suspect this could be called "prayer". Basically, it keeps the mind focused on words that have been repeated so often they come to mind immediately like the lyrics of a song one recently heard. Although I think there are personal benefits in doing this, it is not a just a self-help activity. It works because it is directed to an Other.

If I had to be servile to anything, I would prefer that to be the highest God I could imagine. Religious stories help me imagine a higher God than money, pleasure, or fame. These petty Gods are just not good enough for me. One problem with atheism, among other things, is that it leaves these petty Gods as the only ones available for the imagination.

Great message, highly inspirational even for non-believers!!

But who performs these miracles,


"People usually consider walking on water
or in thin air a miracle.
But I think the real miracle, someone should have told HanH!!
is not to walk either on water or in thin air,
but to walk on earth.
Every day we are engaged in a miracle
which we don't even recognize:
a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves,
the black, curious eyes of a child--
our own two eyes.
All is a miracle."

Thich Nhat Hanh
Vietnamese Bhuddist Monk, Author and Poet

[Varenne Rodin]

It wasn't inspirational for this non-believer. It was ludicrous.

I loved your post, Osho. Everything you said made so much sense. Thank you.

[mazHur]

It wasn't inspirational for this non-believer. It was ludicrous.

I loved your post, Osho. Everything you said made so much sense. Thank you.

sorry, that was not meant for you .... there are non-believers who might love the post and even if they confusedly don't that's their prerogative.

[cafolini]

Who do you pray to?? Who do you wish by ?? Without 'Faith' no prayer no wish can come true. Call it religion, faith, belief, soul, spirit, whatever, it ends up in 'Religion'...

A thief's 'religion' is stealing; a pick-pocket's is in ripping off pockets;
a generals is in martial matters; a politician's 'religion' is in how much he can fool people; a priest's faith is in his piety, fake or true. You ought to have a faith to hold you up in times of challenge and that faith is only provided by your FAITH OR RELIGION. Unless you have faith in your parents or friends you cannot be loyal to them nor ever pray or wish them good.

Inundation of prayers is just like habitually buying a million lottery tickets but no jackpot showing up. Prayers have to be ''genuine' ie from heart and soul. I have had many experiences of failed prayers as well as some successful ones....all depends on intentions and faith.

You are getting better all the time. Ha!

[ftil]

Is it necessary to believe and pray? I do not think prayer is something that helps us. We are told to renounce everything to God and this is a form of servility. We often like to behave slavishly since we crave security. Why people are not rebellious? The reason is they are afraid of being stranded. We like to comply with what we are told. My parents told me in my babyhood that there is a God and since we are Buddhists by birth and Buddhism if you make an advanced study of Buddhism God is not an important
issue the way Hinduism, Christianity or Islam accentuate it.

Why should God need our service and prayer? God must be indifferent to prayer or condemnation. We have a certain shape and size or idea or fabrication of God and we believe God resides in heaven and there is nothing called heaven and hell. These all are mythological tales. Today children read Harry Potter and it has so many imagined stories invented by J K Rowling. I have recently read Heart of Darkness, a very interesting and exploratory story written by Conrad and one of the characters in the novel finds himself in an African land and his stature there is likened to a God any religious community believes and the community who likes to worship that character like a God has in fact incarcerated him there and the rest of characters coming across him find the place and situation despicable.

God is not a person if God does exist at all. God is not something the way your scriptures have written about. The word God is not God or the idea you have imported from your Guru or book is not God. God if there is is this cosmic wholeness, pervasiveness and presence.

You have foolishly invented your personal Gods since you want to have a distinctiveness to identify yourself with. Your idea of God has divided the world and that ended up in the break of so many wars and the world is threatened more by the idea of God and religion than without them.

If you think disinterestedly and detachedly you will keep mind from the idea of God

It is interesting what you wrote about God. Madame Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophical Society, visited Tibet where she received her teachings. She had a very different idea about God.
Well, her God.



Excerpt from The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky — Vol. 2

VOL. 2, PAGE 233 HOLY SATAN.

The true esoteric view about “Satan,” the opinion held on this subject by the whole philosophic antiquity, is admirably brought out in an appendix, entitled “The Secret of Satan,” to the second edition of Dr. A. Kingsford’s “Perfect Way.” No better and clearer indication of the truth could be offered to the intelligent reader, and it is therefore quoted here at some length: —

“1. And on the seventh day (seventh creation of the Hindus),* there went forth from the presence of God a mighty Angel, full of wrath and consuming, and God gave him the dominion of the outermost sphere.†

2. “Eternity brought forth Time; the Boundless gave birth to Limit; Being descended into generation.”‡

4. “Among the Gods is none like unto him, into whose hands are committed the kingdoms, the power and the glory of the worlds:”

5. “Thrones and empires, the dynasties of kings,§ the fall of nations, the birth of churches, the triumph of Time.”

For, as is said in Hermes, “Satan is the door-keeper of the Temple of the King; he standeth in Solomon’s porch; he holdeth the key of the Sanctuary, that no man enter therein, save the Anointed having the arcanum of Hermes” (v. 20 and 21).

These suggestive and majestic verses had reference with the ancient Egyptians and other civilized peoples of antiquity to the creative and generative light of the Logos (Horus, Brahma, Ahura-Mazda, etc., etc., as primeval manifestations of the ever-unmanifested Principle, e.g., Ain-Soph, Parabrahm, or ZeruanaAkerne — Boundless Time — Kala)

VOL. 2, PAGE 234 THE SECRET DOCTRINE

33. “Satan is the minister of God, Lord of the seven mansions of Hades” . . . .
The seven or Saptaloka of the Earth with the Hindus; for Hades, or the Limbo of Illusion, of which theology makes a region bordering on Hell, is simply our globe, the Earth, and thus Satan is called —
33 “. . . . the angel of the manifest Worlds.”
It is “Satan who is the god of our planet and the only god,” and this without any allusive metaphor to its wickedness and depravity. For he is one with the Logos, “the first son, eldest of the gods,” in the order.

VOL. 1, PAGE 350 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.

The latter is, in the Chaldean Kabala, a pure abstraction; the Word or LOGOS, or DABAR (in Hebrew), which Word, though it becomes in fact a plural number, or “Words” — D(a)B(a)RIM, when it reflects itself, or falls into the aspect of a Host (of angels, or Sephiroth, “numbers”) is still collectively ONE, and on the ideal plane a nought — 0, a “No-thing.” IT is without form or being, “with no likeness with anything else.” (Franck, “Die Kabbala,” p. 126.) And even Philo calls the Creator, the Logos who stands next God, “the SECOND GOD,” and “the second God who is his (Highest God’s) WISDOM” (Philo. Quaest. et Solut). Deity is not God. It is NOTHING, and DARKNESS. It is nameless, and therefore called Ain-Soph — “the word Ayin meaning nothing.” See Franck “Die Kabbala,” p. 153. See also Section XII., “Theogony of the Creative Gods.” The “Highest God” (the unmanifested LOGOS) is its Son.

[mazHur]

Buddhism, as all know, had its origin in India. Irony of fate is that it has been almost wiped out of Indo-Pakistan and is extinct in its ORIGINAL form, the form that Mahatama Gautam Budh gave it. The present day great religion of Mahatama has been modified to suit various far eastern regions of the world.
If Buddha hadn't believed in God, his most ardent convert the Great Ashoka and Grand Chandra Gupt Mauria wouldn't have given up bloodshed without feeling scruples of the fear of Almighty! This should also be a food for thought for those who want to understand God!

[Paulclem]

Buddhism, as all know, had its origin in India. Irony of fate is that it has been almost wiped out of Indo-Pakistan and is extinct in its ORIGINAL form, the form that Mahatama Gautam Budh gave it. The present day great religion of Mahatama has been modified to suit various far eastern regions of the world.
If Buddha hadn't believed in God, his most ardent convert the Great Ashoka and Grand Chandra Gupt Mauria wouldn't have given up bloodshed without feeling scruples of the fear of Almighty! This should also be a food for thought for those who want to understand God!

Mazhur - I remember you saying things before about Buddhism and Ashoka that are patently untrue.

The Southern Buddhists of Sri Lanka, Burma and Vietnam claim that they preserve the original teachings in the Therevada in the books of the Tripitaka, whilst the Mahayana traditions claim that their teachings merely build upon the teachings of Gautama Buddha. The Therevada claims it is the original form, and there is no reason to say otherwise. the writings are even written in a form that suits the rendering of an oral tradition.

If Buddha hadn't believed in God, his most ardent convert the Great Ashoka and Grand Chandra Gupt Mauria wouldn't have given up bloodshed without feeling scruples of the fear of Almighty!

This is not in the Buddhist teachings. Ashoka stopped the campaign of his victorious armies after witnessing the suffering that was caused. He was moved by compassion and then became an iconic Buddhist practitioner, and created the Pillar of Ashoka, which was found by later archaeologists and proved that Buddhism was not a mere branch of Hinduism.

This should also be a food for thought for those who want to understand God!

What is food for thought is why you think it is ok to peddle this cod version of Buddhist history. I remember a post from last year you made claiming similar things. I don't see many Buddhists on here coming up with false histories of Islam, and I don't see why you should either.

Buddhism believes in self-torture to get rid of sufferings.
[PHP]

This is completely untrue. The Buddha's Path is the Middle Way - neither cultivating suffering, nor over indulging oneself. A quick and cursory read of The Life of the Buddha will confirm this. I also remember you claiming to have studied Buddhism before settling on Islam. I distinctly remember thinking that it was a balanced way of deciding upon a spiritual path. Now this. Either you didn't study it, or you did, but have decided to write untruths to people you think will not know. So which is it?

I found our previous conversation on the thread "Is God a projection of our thoughts" - page 9.

[ftil]

This is completely untrue. The Buddha's Path is the Middle Way - neither cultivating suffering, nor over indulging oneself. A quick and cursory read of The Life of the Buddha will confirm this. I also remember you claiming to have studied Buddhism before settling on Islam. I distinctly remember thinking that it was a balanced way of deciding upon a spiritual path. Now this. Either you didn't study it, or you did, but have decided to write untruths to people you think will not know. So which is it?

I found our previous conversation on the thread "Is God a projection of our thoughts" - page 9.

Hm…..you can’t forget that Buddhism involves Hinayana Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, and Tantric Buddhism. Within Hanayana or Mahajana we find many sets that differ in their doctrine. Tantric Buddhism also evolved over several centuries. We can’t have discussion about Buddhism without specifically referring to Hanayana, Mahayana, or Tantric. It would be the same mistake like making generalizations about Christianity. Within Christianity there are so many sects and denominations with distinct doctrines.

I think that to understand that subject requires years of intense study.

[BlackCat]

I believe in God because of the equilibrium that He brought to my life. I also believes in God because it was God who inspired me to learn all things possible. It was God who inspired me to study beauties of the world, to see the universe as a united singularity. I also believe in God because I study, and as subjective as it is because I can hear Him speak to my heart (no Schizophrenia )

[cafolini]

I believe in God because of the equilibrium that He brought to my life. I also believes in God because it was God who inspired me to learn all things possible. It was God who inspired me to study beauties of the world, to see the universe as a united singularity. I also believe in God because I study, and as subjective as it is because I can hear Him speak to my heart (no Schizophrenia )

Sometimes I believe in God because I have fun imagining all that I could not do.

[Paulclem]

Hm…..you can’t forget that Buddhism involves Hinayana Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, and Tantric Buddhism. Within Hanayana or Mahajana we find many sets that differ in their doctrine. Tantric Buddhism also evolved over several centuries. We can’t have discussion about Buddhism without specifically referring to Hanayana, Mahayana, or Tantric. It would be the same mistake like making generalizations about Christianity. Within Christianity there are so many sects and denominations with distinct doctrines.

I think that to understand that subject requires years of intense study.

The three aspects of the path are not incompatible, but follow the Buddha's path. It's still the Middle way, but the emphasis of each differs. They are unlike Christianity in that the doctrines of each are not at odds. How does what I've said change according to the tradition?

It is interesting what you wrote about God. Madame Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophical Society, visited Tibet where she received her teachings. She had a very different idea about God.
Well, her God.



Excerpt from The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky — Vol. 2

Which part of these quotes did she get from Tibet? Tibet had been a Buddhist country for centuries then. It all reads like a re-interpretation of Christian doctrine and seems to have nothing to do with Buddhism.

Also, Madame Blavatsky has been associated with Spiritualists and the Spiritualist movement in the past. It is very different from Buddhist teachings.