MY suggestion to MY people is: don't carry any idea of God, for or against. Don't carry any image of God. In fact, God is absolutely irrelevant -- be meditative! And meditation means: drop all thoughts, drop all ideologies, drop all knowledge. Drop the mind itself.

And then when you are in a state of no-mind, something unimaginable, unbelievable, unpredictable, inexpressible, is experienced. You can call it God, you can call it truth, you can call it NIRVANA, or whatsoever you want to call it. You are free because no word describes it, hence any word is as good as any other. But don't carry any belief.

-Rajneesh

All believers are hypocrites -- Catholic and communist, Jainas and Jews -- all. Believers are hypocrites. They don't know and yet they pretend AS IF they know. What is belief? It is playing the game of "as if." And the same is true about disbelief.

The communist knows NOT that there is no God, just as the Hindu knows not that there is a God. The Hindu believes there is a God, the communist believes there is no God.

Disbelief is also a kind of belief -- a negative kind of belief. And that's why it is so easy to become a Hindu from being a communist or a communist from being a Hindu.

-Rajneesh

William Blake is right when he says: Energy is delight. And when life pours its energy into your being it rejuvenates you, it revitalizes you; you are constantly reborn. A real, alive person is born again and again every MOMENT. He is fresh, he is always young.

Even when he dies he is fresh and young. Even in the moment of death, life is pouring more and more energy into him. His way of approaching life -- without mind -- helps him to see not only life but death too. And when you are able to see life, you are able to see death. And to see death means there is no death; all is life, and eternal, beginningless, endless. And you are part of this infinite celebration.

-Rajneesh

It is not a question of learning; it is more a question of unlearning. You have already learned too much: the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita, the Koran, the Bible, the Talmud.

Thousands of scriptures are there inside you, clamoring, making noise, fighting with each other; all kinds of ideologies constantly trying to attract your attention. Your mind is a mess! It is overcrowded, it is a multitude. Unlearn! All that you have accumulated up to now as knowledge, unlearn it.

Zen people are right when they say: NOT KNOWING IS THE MOST INTIMATE.

Unlearning is the process that can bring you to that beautiful space of not knowing. And then observe. Observe life without any knowledge interpreting it. You have become so accustomed to interpretation.

-Rajneesh

The moment the ego disappears, all the secrets are open secrets. Life is not like a fist; it is an open hand.

But people enjoy the idea that life has secrets -- hidden secrets. Just to avoid their blindness they have created the idea of hidden secrets, of esoteric knowledge which is not available to anybody, or is available only to great adepts who live in Tibet or in the Himalayas, or who are no more in their bodies, who live only in astral bodies and appear only to a few chosen people. And all kinds of nonsense has been perpetuated down the ages for the simple reason that you want to avoid seeing, recognizing the simple fact of your blindness. Rather than saying, "I am blind," you say, "Life's secrets are very hidden; they are not easily available. You will need great initiation."

Life is not esoteric at all. It is written on each leaf of each tree, on each pebble on the seashore; it is contained in each ray of the sun -- whatever you come across is life in all its beauty. And life is not afraid of you, so why should it hide itself? In fact, you are hiding, continuously trying to hide yourself. You are closing yourself against life because you are afraid of life. You are afraid to live -- because life requires a constant death.

One has to die every moment to the past. That is a great requirement of life -- simple if you understand that the past is no more. Slip out of it, snap out of it! It is finished. Close the chapter, don't go on carrying it! And then life is available to you.

-Rajneesh