Monotheism is the invention of the priests.

IS MONOTHEISM A NECESSARY STEP IN HUMAN EVOLUTION, OR IS IT JUST AN INVENTION OF THE PRIESTS?

Monotheism is a far more dangerous device of the priests than polytheism. In a monotheistic religion there is no possibility for a buddha to be born. It is not part of evolution, it is preventing your evolution.

All the religions born outside India – Judaism, Christianity, Mohammedanism – are monotheistic. Mohammed gives it perfect definition: one God, one prophet, one holy Koran. This is a very dictatorial type of religion, naturally dangerous because it is very intolerant. The Jewish God himself says, ”I am a very intolerant god. I am very jealous, I will not allow you to worship any other god.”

Monotheism is a far more efficient way of exploiting people. Hinduism is polytheistic; it has as many gods as you can think of. When Hinduism came into existence, there used to be thirty-three million people in India. Hinduism has exactly thirty-three million gods. This seems to be far more democratic – everybody has a god of his own. Rather than worshipping somebody else’s god, it is far better to have your own private god; then there is no conflict.

No Hindu scripture says, ”One God, one scripture, one prophet.” All Hindu scriptures say, ”There are as many gods as there are people.” That’s why Hinduism is very inefficient. It has to be: it is not an army; it does not have a pope; it does not have any organized central body, it is a very disorganized chaos. So there is every freedom for everybody.

Somebody becomes a Mahavira, Hinduism has no objection. Somebody becomes a Buddha, Hinduism has no objection. Both were born Hindus, both went against Hindus. There is no problem, because there is no central body to appoint a court or a grand jury to judge whether Mahavira is authentic since he does not believe in God. His whole effort is that you should develop your consciousness to the ultimate peak: everybody is a god.

Mahavira’s interpretation of thirty-three million gods was: there are thirty-three million people, who are all going to become one day, when they evolve to the highest peak, gods. It is a probability... there are not yet thirty-three million gods, but thirty-three million potential gods. That gives a great freedom, and there is no need of any priest. You have your private god on a direct line.

But Christianity, a monotheist religion, will not allow any buddha; hence it has remained poor in consciousness. Its religion looks very primitive and is based on fictions. Nothing has been contributed by monotheist religions to the world except war, because the Mohammedan God cannot tolerate the Jewish God, nor can it tolerate the Christian God, nor can it tolerate the Hindu gods. It has to kill all those gods and the believers in those gods. Only one God....

So when Mohammedans came to India they destroyed millions of beautiful temples which were made for centuries by great sculptors. They destroyed millions of statues, beautiful statues of Buddha, Mahavira, other Jaina tirthankaras. Whatever is left is a very small amount. Perhaps some temple was left because it was hidden deep in the forest.

In every village you will find that, when the Mohammedans came, people just threw their gods, beautiful statues, into the wells just to protect them from the Mohammedans, who would otherwise destroy their statue. So in every village – it happens often – you will find, in summertime when the water goes down, suddenly a buddha arising, and people pull the buddha out. For centuries he has been lying in the well, but he has been protected. People had forgotten, because those who had thrown the statues in had died centuries before.

Mohammedans came two thousand years ago, and they destroyed everything. Their god was intolerant, how can they be tolerant? Monotheism is the most ugly religious form in the world, because it is intolerant. Intolerance creates violence.

Christians have crusades, Mohammedans have jihads – religious wars. India has never known any religious war. It is everybody’s choice to have a god or not to have a god; even the atheists were not burned.

A great philosophy of charvakas flourished for centuries. Charvakas believe there is no God, there is no soul – what Marx said five thousand years later. They say that the soul is just a by-product of five elements that constitute the body. The founder of the charvaka religion was Acharya Brihaspati – and it is strange that Acharya Brihaspati is mentioned in the Vedas with great respect.

This is tolerance. It is your choice, you are free to choose your path; you are free to choose even a religion which has no God, even a religion which has no soul. Charvakas were the perfect atheists. Their whole philosophy was: eat, drink and be merry, because there is no hell, no heaven, no god. And don’t be worried because there is no judgment day and there is nobody to judge. So sinners and saints all disappeared into five elements.

In India you must have seen people chewing pan. Brihaspati has used the symbol of pan. If you chew the pan leaf it will not make your lips red, and if you chew separately all the things that are put in the pan your lips will not be red. But if you put them together your lips become red. The redness of your lips is a by-product of the five elements making the pan. It is not an independent thing, it is the combination of the five elements together. This was a simple example by charvakas, and they were respected. Even the Vedas mention Brihaspati as a great master, an acharya.

Such tolerance is possible only in a polytheistic religion. When there are so many gods, you have a variety of choice, you have a certain freedom. When there is one god you don’t have any freedom.

According to me, monotheism is far worse than polytheism. The polytheism of the Hindus allowed the buddhas, the tirthankaras, the charvakas, without any problem. Although they were against Hinduism, still nobody was crucified. Even Brihaspati was not crucified, but is mentioned with great respect in the Vedas. He has the freedom to think, to say, to create a philosophy of his own.

Basically the name was not charvak, it was charuvak. There is a great difference. Charuvak means sweet words. The philosophy of Brihaspati was of sweet words. He was taking away all fear – there is no god, no heaven, no hell – he was taking away all kinds of dread. Death is the end, birth is the beginning, in the middle is a small life. Enjoy it, and enjoy it even if you have to borrow money. Don’t be worried, because after death nobody is going to tell you, ”Give me my money back.”

His sentence is: Rinam kritva ghritam pivet. Even if you have to borrow money, don’t be worried: borrow money, drink ghee. Ghee is the most refined part of milk. When butter is refined, it becomes ghee. You cannot go beyond ghee, that is the last thing. And you cannot go backwards either, neither forwards nor backwards. You have come to the full point.

So, significantly, he is saying that this life is the full point. You are not going anywhere, so just enjoy it. It does not matter what means you employ; what matters is your enjoyment. And life is so short, don’t waste it in unnecessary fears that you will suffer in hell. Don’t waste it in unnecessary greed that you will be rewarded in heaven. Don’t bother about right and wrong. The only thing that is right is enjoy!

Even this man is respected, but slowly slowly the word charuvak became in the masses’ mind charvak. Charvak means one who goes on eating continuously, just chewing like a buffalo – because that was actually his teaching: eat, drink, be merry.

Nor was Gautam Buddha crucified, although he declared that all the Vedas are false. He declared that the whole of brahmanism, the priesthood of the Hindus, has been exploiting people. He declared that the Hindu caste system is wrong, every man is born equal. But he was not crucified.

Even Hindu philosophers used to go and listen to him. In fact, all his disciples were basically Hindu. From where else could he have found thousands of disciples? Great Hindu scholars came to debate with him and became his disciples, finding that they have only words, whereas this man had experience. There was such a tremendous urge to find the truth, it did not matter from whom it came.

The monotheistic religions – Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism – have been the most dangerous religions in the world. Buddhism has not killed a single person in twenty-five centuries. It has never attacked anybody, and it has spread all over Asia, converted the whole of Asia just by a simple experience.

It was difficult to confront a Bodhidharma. Even the Emperor Wu of China could not manage to stand straight in front of Bodhidharma. And Bodhidharma said to him, ”You are an idiot!” He called the emperor of China an idiot when he asked: ”I have put my whole energy, my whole power and my whole treasure at the disposal of the Buddhist monks. Thousands of monks are here translating scriptures of Buddha into Chinese, and they are all my guests. I have opened many monasteries. I have made many temples for Buddha. What is going to be my reward?”

Just the word ‘reward’ was enough, and Bodhidharma said, ”You are an idiot. If you have been doing all this for a reward, you will fall into the deepest hell.”

The emperor was shocked. But Bodhidharma said, ”The very idea of reward is nothing but greed. You are more greedy than ordinary greedy people. Those who are collecting money know perfectly well when they die their bank balance is not going with them, nor is their money going with them. But you are greedy, so greedy that you are trying to make a bank balance in the other world of which you know nothing. Obviously you are an idiot. And I am not going to enter into your empire. I had come with that idea, but when the emperor is an idiot, that is proof enough of what kind of people you must have.”

He refused to enter. He remained outside the boundary of China in a small temple. And Emperor Wu when he was dying said to his people, his prime minister, ”Write on my grave that I am really an idiot. I could not understand the great buddha who has come in the form of Bodhidharma. He was right, I have lived a wrong life of greed and fear.”

Buddha’s word spread all over Asia from Sri Lanka to Korea. There was no clash, there was no fight. At the most there were beautiful discussions, very nice, civilized, cultured. The sword cannot prove that you are right! Nor can crucifixion prove that Jesus was wrong.

I always think that Judaism had such great rabbis, scholars. Could they not convince Jesus, a young man, only thirty-three years of age? The problem was they were only scholars, there was not a single man who really knew the truth. And this man was claiming something which they could not argue against, because there is no way to argue against it.

He is saying, ”I am the prophet you have been waiting for.” And they certainly had been waiting; they are still waiting; they will wait forever. It is waiting for Godot.

When for the first time the book came to me, WAITING FOR GODOT, I thought this Godot seems to be a parody on the word ‘God’. My ancientmost German sannyasin, Haridas, was there. So I asked Haridas, ”Do you think Godot is German for God?” He said, ”No. The German for God is Gott!”

I said, ”That’s great. Already ‘gott’, there is no need to wait.” I said, ”That’s perfectly okay. When you have ‘gott’ it, what is the point of waiting?” I love the idea. God is so faraway, gott is very appealing.

You are asking about monotheism: is it a necessary step? No, not at all. It is an absolutely unnecessary step, and not only unnecessary, but dangerous. It has created only violence, murder. Living people have been burned in the name of a monotheistic god. One god will not allow you to believe in another god.

Polytheism is also an invention of priests, but far more liberal. Monotheism is the invention of the priests, but far more dictatorial. It gives you commandments, as if you are an army and you need commandments. Buddha does not have any commandments, nor Mahavira. They persuade you; they don’t command, they don’t humiliate you. They respect you, they know that your hidden potential is the same as theirs.

Gautam Buddha relates this about his past life. He heard that one man had become enlightened. He was not very much interested, but just out of curiosity... The man had come to the town where he lived. He was very young and not interested at all in enlightenment or spirituality, but out of curiosity to find out what this enlightenment was, he went to see the man.

He had no desire to bow down to him, but when he saw the man – he was so luminous, had such a grace, such a tremendous presence – in spite of himself he touched his feet. He became aware when he was touching his feet, ”What am I doing? I had come just to be a spectator.”

When you really face a man who knows, a gratitude arises spontaneously, it is not an effort. It was not an effort at all. He had not even come with touching his feet in mind; he had come just to be a spectator. But seeing him was enough. He forgot himself, this man’s presence was so overwhelming. Such beauty! His eyes so deep like a lake, so clean, so clear. He fell in love with that man immediately as he touched his feet. He thought, while touching his feet, ”What am I doing? It has happened on its own.”

But more of a miracle, a bigger miracle was awaiting him. As he stood up, the man who had become enlightened bowed down and touched this young man’s feet. He said, ”What are you doing? You are a great awakened one. It is absolutely right for me to touch your feet, although I had not come with that desire – it was spontaneous, you touched my heart – but why are you touching my feet? Because I am nobody, I don’t know even the ABC of enlightenment.”

That man said, ”This life you don’t know. There was a time I was also just like you. I had no idea who I am. Now I know. I have come to my flowering. And I know you will come to your flowering. Don’t forget! I have touched your feet so that when you become a buddha you won’t forget that everybody is a buddha. Somebody has blossomed, somebody is waiting for the right season. And everybody’s spring comes in its own time.”

And Buddha reminded his disciples again and again, ”Never think for a single moment that you are inferior to me. We are all equal. The only difference is – a very slight difference which does not mean much – you are asleep, I am awake. But I was asleep, and you will be awake, so what is the difference?

The difference is only of timing. In the morning I wake up, in the evening you wake up – just twelve hours difference. That does not create any superiority or inferiority. Everybody has to walk according to his pace. Some people run, some people are really fast runners. Some people go slowly, some people take many stops on the way and have a little rest and a cup of tea, maybe an afternoon nap. But everybody is on the way. Somebody is a little behind, somebody is a little forward, but that does not create any question of inferiority or superiority.

Buddhism has no priests; Jainism has no priests, because they don’t have God. If you don’t have God, you can’t have priests. Priests are the representatives of the fictitious God; they are the agents between you and God. And priests certainly would like monotheism rather than polytheism. Hindu priests are trying hard to create Hinduism as a monotheistic religion also; but they have failed.

There are eight shankaracharyas. The original shankaracharya, Adi Shankaracharya, appointed four shankaracharyas. He was the first man to make some effort to organize Hinduism. Before him there was no leader at all; it was absolute freedom. He appointed four shankaracharyas for the four directions, so each will rule over one direction. But after his death, four new shankaracharyas popped up, because there are eight directions, not four. So four people popped up on their own, and now there are eight shankaracharyas.

I was telling one shankaracharya, ”You should have two more.”

He said, ”What?”

I said, ”There are ten directions. The eight you have, one upwards, one downwards.”

He said, ”That’s a great idea. Then we can afford two more.”

But all these shankaracharyas have no central body, and they cannot have, because somebody is a worshipper of Shiva, somebody is a worshipper of Vishnu, somebody is a worshipper of Krishna, somebody is a worshipper of Brahma. And there are hundreds of smaller gods which people worship. People worship trees, people worship stones. Put a red color on any stone and just wait by the side. You will soon find some Hindu coming there, bowing down.

When for the first time the British government made roads and milestones, they painted the milestones red because red can be seen from far away. No other color is so sharp or can be seen from far away. So they painted the stones red, and they were very much concerned. Hindu villagers would come, place their flowers and coconuts, and worship.

The British said to them, ”These are milestones.” And the villagers said, ”It does not matter. Any red stone represents God.”

You will see trees being worshipped, stones being worshipped. There is a complete freedom to worship. It is far better than monotheism, but I don’t support it. It may be better than monotheism, but it is still poison, just a little diluted. It will kill you slowly, but it will kill you certainly.

Every religion is destructive of your evolution of consciousness. Monotheism is the most dangerous, but religion as such is dangerous. If you can avoid religion, you can become religious. If you can avoid religion, you can have a direct contact with existence and the cosmos.

God is Dead, Now Zen is the Only Living Truth 67 ♡♥Osho♡♥