Is there any place for prayer in Religion of there is no God?

IS THERE ANY PLACE FOR PRAYER IN RELIGION IF THERE IS NO GOD?

There is no place for prayer, because prayer is God-oriented. If there is no God, to whom can you pray? All prayers are false because there is nobody to answer them, nobody to hear them. All prayers are humiliations, insults, degradations. All prayers are disgusting! You are kneeling down to a fiction which does not exist.

And what are you doing in your prayers? Begging. ”Give me this, give me that” – utterly beggarly – ”God, give me my daily bread!” Can’t you ask once for all? Every day? And five billion people asking, and only one person listening? Do you think he will remain sane? ”Give me my daily bread?” Why not ask for the whole life and be finished? One prayer will do.

But every day bothering him, nagging him like a wife, morning and evening. And there are Mohammedans who do five prayers a day. They are the great naggers.

I used to go to take meditation camps in Udaipur. It was a long journey from the place I used to live, Jabalpur. Thirty-six hours, because there was no plane at that time. In Jabalpur there was an airport, but it was a military airport, and they were not allowed to open it for the public. Now it is opened.

So I had to go in a train and change at many junctions. First, I would have to change at Katni, then I would have to change at Bina, then I would have to change at Agra. Then I would have to change at Chittaurgarh, and finally I would reach Udaipur. It was evening time when the train reached Chittaurgarh. And Ajmer is very close to Chittaurgarh. Ajmer is one of the strongholds of the Mohammedans, so in the train there were many Mohammedans. And the train had to stay for one hour for some other train to come which was bringing passengers for this train also, to go on to Udaipur.

So for one hour I used to walk on the platform. All the Mohammedans lining the platform were sitting in prayer, and I was enjoying them. I would just go near somebody and say, ”The train is leaving,” and he would jump up. And then he would be angry at me, ”You disturbed my prayer.”

I said, ”I did not disturb anybody’s prayer. I am simply doing my prayer. This is my heartfelt desire that the train should leave! I was not talking to you. I don’t even know your name!”

He would say, ”This is strange... in the middle of my prayer?”

I said, ”It was not prayer because I was watching, you have been looking again and again at the train.” He said, ”That is true.”

And it was the same all over the platform. I would go to a few people further up and just whisper, ”The train is leaving,” and again another person would jump up and would be very angry: ”What kind of person are you? You look religious, and you disturb people in their prayer?”

I said, ”I am not disturbing anybody. I am just praying to God that the train should leave now.”

What are your prayers? Begging this, begging that, your prayer reduces you into a beggar. Meditation transforms you into an emperor. There is nobody to hear your prayers, there is nobody to answer your prayers. All religions go on making you extrovert so that you don’t turn inwards. Prayer is an extrovert thing: God is there, and you are shouting to that God. But it is taking you away from yourself.

Every prayer is irreligious.

I have told you the beautiful story by Leo Tolstoy.

The archbishop of the old Orthodox Church of Russia – it is a story set before the revolution – became very much worried when many people from his congregation started going towards a lake. There were three villagers on a small island in the lake who sat under a tree, with thousands of people who thought they were saints.

In Christianity you cannot be a saint on your own account. The word saint comes from sanction. You have to be sanctioned by the church that you are a saint; it is a certificate. It is such an ugly idea that the church can give you a certificate that you are a saint. Even a man like Francis of Assisi, a beautiful man, was summoned by the pope: ”People have started worshipping you like a saint, and you don’t have any certificate.”

And that’s where I feel Francis missed the point. He should have refused, but he knelt just like a Christian and asked the pope, ”Give me the certificate.” Otherwise he was a nice man, a beautiful man, but I don’t mention his name because he acted in a very stupid way. This is not the way of a saint.

I don’t need anybody’s certificate for my enlightenment or for my buddhahood. I declare it! I don’t need anybody’s certificate. Who can give me the certificate? Even Gautam Buddha cannot give me the certificate. Who gave him a certificate?

But the idea of ‘saint’ in English is very wrong. It comes from sanctus.

So the archbishop of Russia was very angry: ”Who are these saints? I have not certified anybody in years. Where have these saints suddenly arrived from?” But people were going and the church was becoming more and more empty every day.

Finally he decided to go and see who these people were. So he took a motorboat and went to the island. And those three villagers... they were uneducated, simple people, utterly innocent, and the archbishop was a powerful man; next to the czar he was the most powerful man in Russia. He was very angry at those three villagers and told them, ”Who made you saints?”

They looked at each other. They said, ”Nobody. And we don’t think we are saints, we are poor people.”

”But why are so many people coming here?”

They said, ”You have to ask them.”

He said, ”Do you know the orthodox prayer of the church?”

They said, ”We are uneducated and the prayer is too long, we cannot remember it.”

”So what prayer do you say?”

They all looked at each other. ”You tell him,” said one.

”You tell him,” said another. They were feeling embarrassed.

But the archbishop became more and more arrogant, seeing that these were absolute idiots, ”They don’t even know the prayer. How can they be saints?” So he said, ”Anybody can tell me. Just say it!”

They said, ”We are feeling very embarrassed because we have made our own prayer, not knowing the authorized prayer of the church. We have made our own prayer, very simple it is. Please forgive us that we did not ask your permission, but we were feeling so embarrassed we did not come.

”Our prayer is – God is three and we are also three, so we have made a prayer – ‘You are three and we are three, have mercy on us.’ This is our prayer.”

The archbishop was very angry: ”This is no prayer. I have never heard this kind of thing.” He started laughing.

Those poor fellows said, ”You teach us what the real prayer is. We thought it was perfectly alright: God is three, we are three, and what more is needed? Just have mercy on us.”

So he told them the orthodox prayer, which was a long prayer. By the time he ended, they said, ”We have forgotten the beginning.” So he told the beginning again. Then they said, ”We have forgotten the end.”

The archbishop was getting angry and irritated. He said, ”What kind of people are you? Can’t you remember a simple prayer?”

They said, ”It is too long and we are uneducated, and such big words. We cannot... You just be patient with us. If you repeat it two or three times perhaps we will get the knack of it.” So he repeated it three times. They said, ”Okay, we will try, but we are afraid that it may not be the complete prayer... some things may be missing... but we will try.”

The arrogant archbishop was very much satisfied that he had finished these three saints and he could tell his people, ”They are idiots. Why are you going there?” And he left in the boat.

Suddenly he saw that behind his boat those three people were running on the water, coming after him. He could not believe his eyes; he rubbed his eyes. By that time they had reached the side of his boat, standing on the water. And they said, ”Just one time more, we forgot.”

But seeing the situation: ”These people are walking on water and I am going in the motorboat,” he said, ”You continue your prayer. Don’t bother about what I have said to you. Just forgive me, I was arrogant. Your simpleness, your innocence is your prayer. You just go. You don’t need any certificate.”

But they insisted, ”You have come so far. Just one time more... We know we might forget it, but one time more so we can remember it.”

But the archbishop said, ”I have been repeating that prayer my whole life, and it has not been heard. And you are walking on water, and we have heard only in the miracles of Jesus that he used to walk on water. This is the first time I have seen the miracle. You just go back. Your prayer is perfectly alright!”

The prayer was not the thing because there is nobody to hear it, but their utter innocence and trust transformed them into totally new beings, so fresh, so childlike, just like roseflowers opening in the early morning sun in all their beauty.

Now that the arrogance was dropped, the archbishop could see their faces, their innocence, their grace, their blissfulness. They returned back on the water, running hand in hand, and reached their tree.

Leo Tolstoy was refused the Nobel Prize because of such stories. He was nominated. The Nobel Prize committee opens its records every fifty years – in this century only one time. In the middle of this century it opened its records. So when they were opened in 1950, researchers rushed to see in the records whose names were nominated and cancelled, and what was the reason. Leo Tolstoy was nominated, but never given the prize. And the reason was written underneath, that he is not an orthodox Christian. He writes such stories, such novels... Although he is a Christian, but he is not an orthodox Christian, so the Nobel Prize cannot be given.

But it has never been told to the world that the Nobel Prize exists only for orthodox Christians. Leo Tolstoy was one of the most simple-hearted, innocent people, one of the most creative persons the world has ever known. His novels have such a beauty.

His life was also very simple, although he was a count; his forefathers belonged to the royal family and he still had a vast palace and thousands of acres of land and thousands of slaves. His wife was very angry with him – for his whole life this was a trouble – because he lived like a slave and worked like the slaves in the fields. He was very friendly with the slaves. He slept in their poor huts and ate their food.

They could not believe it. They said, ”Master, you are our owner.”

He said, ”No. We are all sharing. I work with you, I can eat with you, I can sleep here.”

His wife was really angry. She was a countess; she herself belonged to a very rich family, another count’s family, and she could not believe he was this kind of man. ”He lives with those dirty people, he eats their food. He goes to work in the field. He does not need...”

And such a simple man, innocent man, creative man was refused the Nobel Prize on the ground that he is not Orthodox church, he does not belong to the orthodox line of fanatic Christians. Even I was amazed when I read that statement.

So this Nobel Prize is just for orthodox and fanatic Christians, politicians, not for creative artists.

You are asking, ”Is there any place for prayer in religion?” None at all.

In an authentic religion, meditation has a place, but not prayer. Prayer is extrovert, meditation is introvert. Meditation makes you a buddha, prayer simply makes you a beggar. And prayer is fictionoriented, meditation is truth-oriented. Meditation is Zen, and prayer is nothing but part and parcel of the fiction called God. Avoid prayers, they are taking you away from your own existential reality. Go deeper into meditation. That is the only religiousness possible.

God is Dead, Now Zen is the Only Living Truth 42 ♡♥Osho♡♥