Q: Does God not love me?

OSHO: Yesterday I went to a garden. Some friends were with me. One of them was thirsty. He lowered a bucket into the well. The well was very deep. It took some effort to pull the bucket up. But when it appeared at the top of the well it was empty. All the others laughed.

It seemed to me that the bucket was like the mind of a man. It had many cracks and holes. Of course, at first it was filled with water, but every drop ran out through the holes. Our mind too is full of holes. Offer the leaking mind to the existence as persistently as you wish, it will return to you empty. If you repair the bucket beforehand, my friends, it becomes easy to fill it with water. Of course, the leaking bucket may cause you to undertake many exercises in asceticism, but it will not quench your thirst.

Remember that the existence is neither sympathetic nor unsympathetic. It is your responsibility to keep your bucket intact. The well is always ready to offer you water. It will never deny you.

Q: Should I be God-fearing to be religious?

Is only one who fears God religious? Is it fear that brings one to love God? Is there no loving without fear?  Is love impossible in the absence of fear?

OSHO: Usually, those who are called religious are religious because of fear. Those who are called moral are also bound to fear.

Kant has said, "Even if there is no God, still it is necessary to accept him." Perhaps that is because the fear of God makes people good.

When I hear such statements, I cannot help laughing. Perhaps nothing else is so mistaken and untrue.

Religion has nothing to do with fear. Religion is born out of fearlessness.

It is impossible for love to co-exist with fear. How can fear give birth to love? Out of fear, only the pretense of love can be born. And what else but non-love can exist behind a counterfeit love? Love born out of fear is an impossibility.

Hence, religiousness and morality based on fear are false, not true. They weigh down, rather than elevate, the energy of the soul. Religion and love cannot be imposed on oneself, they have to be kindled and aroused within.

Truth is not founded on fear. Fear does not support the truth, it is opposed to it. The foundation-stone of truth is fearlessness.

The true flowers of religion and love can be grown only in the soil of fearlessness. Those planted in the soil of fear can only be artificial.

The realization of God happens only in fearlessness. Or to put it more correctly, the realization of fearless consciousness is the realization of God. The moment all fear disappears from the mind, what happens in that moment is the encounter with truth.

Q: Does God need temples and idols?

OSHO: Where is the religion in a temple? What a self- deceiver man is! He deceives himself by taking as gods the idols created by his own hands. He satisfies himself by taking the scriptures - the product of his own mind - as truth."

Whatsoever is the creation of man's own hands and mind is not religion. The idols sitting in the temples are not images of gods but of man himself. And what is written in the scriptures is but a reflection of man's own desires and thinking, not the truth seen within. It is not possible to express the truth in words.

It is not possible to have an idol of truth, because truth is boundless, infinite and formless. It has no form, no name, no attribute. The moment it is given a form it disappears.

In order to attain it, all idols and all physical conceptions have to be dropped; the whole cobweb of self-fabricated fallacies has to be swept away. That uncreated truth reveals itself only when man's consciousness is liberated from the prison which his own mind has created .

In fact, rather than building temples in order to reach the truth, we should demolish them; instead of sculpting idols, we should destroy them. We should drop our obsession with the form so that the formless may enter. The moment the manifest leaves our minds, the unmanifest appears.

It was there already, but it was hidden beneath the idols and the tangible. Just as we cannot see the empty space in a room stuffed with things - remove those things and the empty space is revealed; it has always been there.

Truth too is like this. Empty the mind and it is there.

Q: How to conquer sex? How to conquer anger?

Osho: This is a question so frequently asked nowadays. The mistake lies in asking the question.

The problem is not to conquer, it is to know. We know neither anger nor sex. This ignorance is what defeats us.

Knowing brings victory. When there is anger, when there is sex, we are not. There is no awareness, hence we are not. What happens in this state of unconsciousness is completely mechanical. When the unconsciousness releases its grip, remorse follows -- but that is futile. Because the one who now repents will fall asleep again as soon as sex catches hold of him. If he does not sink into sleep -- if he lets consciousness, wakefulness and right remembrance prevail - he will find that there is neither anger nor sex. The mechanicalness is broken and there is nothing to be conquered - the enemy has gone.

You may understand this better through a symbolic story. In the darkness, a rope is taken for a snake. Seeing it, some run away, some get ready to kill it. Both are mistaken because they both take the rope for a snake. Somebody goes near it and finds that there is no snake at all. He does not need to do anything more than approach it.

Man has only to approach himself. Whatever is within him, he must be familiar with it all. He does not have to fight with anything. And I say unto you that victory comes to him without a fight.

Right watchfulness towards one's own mind is the key to victory over life. 

Q: Why have only men been great enlightened masters? why not women?

A: One of the reasons is this, that man is an extrovert; he can express himself well. He is a peacock; the woman is a peahen. She can know, she can feel, she can be, but when the point of expression comes she is utterly at a loss. And this is not only so with the ultimate experience but in other experiences too. A woman finds it very difficult to say, 'I love you'; a man finds it very easy. Even when he doesn't feel much love he can say, 'I love you'. And the woman, even when she is full of love, remains silent about it; it has to be felt by the other. The woman respects the inner experience so much that all expression seems a little vulgar. That's why there have not been great women masters: not that there have not been great enlightened women; there have been.