Question – Beloved Osho, What is the difference between your philosophy and that of christianity?
Osho – It is a strange question — strange, because Christianity does not have any philosophy, it has a theology. And there is a great difference between philosophy and theology.
Theology begins with a belief, with faith. And philosophy begins with doubt, logic, reason. Philosophy is thinking; theology is believing without thinking. If you think, you cannot be a Christian; you cannot be a part of any religion at all. No religion allows thinking, so no religion has a philosophy: they all have theologies.
So the first thing: Christianity has no philosophy. It says “believe” — believe in the savior, believe in Jesus Christ, believe that he is the only begotten son of God, believe in God, believe in the trinity. But it is always “believe,” and believing makes a man a hypocrite, because deep down you know that belief cannot become a truth. Deep down you know that this is only a belief; you have not experienced it. There is no base for it, it is baseless: a single doubt and the whole edifice will be shattered on the ground.
Now, a Christian believes that Jesus is born of a virgin mother. Can you think about it? If you think, doubt will be needed. You can only believe, and in believing… you know perfectly well that it is unnatural, it cannot happen.
Christianity says that Jesus was resurrected after his death. You have to believe it because there is no proof, no evidence. In the contemporary literature of Jesus Christ’s life, even the name of Jesus is not mentioned. Do you think a phenomenon like a man getting crucified, getting resurrected, would go unnoticed? that a man who brings dead people to life would not be reported anywhere? that a man who walks on water…?
Do you think this man would have been crucified? He would have been hailed as the messiah by the Jews themselves, because what more do you want? — none of your other prophets have done anything of this kind. But there is not even a mention that there was such a person as Jesus Christ. And he did not have a big following. Whatever following he had were uneducated, uncultured, poor people — you can count them just on your fingers — but not a single rabbi, and Judea was full of rabbis of great scholarship.
If you think, you cannot believe in these things. If you think about God, you cannot believe. So Christianity has no philosophy. No religion can afford to be philosophical; it can only remain theological. I said it is a strange question because I don’t have any philosophy either, but for a different reason. I don’t have any theology either.
I don’t believe in believing.
I don’t believe in doubting.
I believe in searching, in seeking.
I have a way of life but I don’t have a philosophy, so I cannot say, “These are the things that make my catechism.” And my whole way of life is simple, it does not need much philosophizing. It is simple: to learn to be silent, to learn to be watchful of your thoughts — because as you become more and more watchful of your thoughts, thoughts start disappearing. And there comes a time when you are in a state of no-mind — fully alert, fully aware, perfectly conscious, but there is nothing to be conscious of, there is nothing to be aware of. You are simply aware, simply conscious.
This is the most valuable moment in life, because in life and in existence all energy moves in a circle. When your consciousness cannot find any object to be conscious of — and remember the meaning of the word `object’; it means a hindrance, an objection, a prevention. So when your consciousness has no objection anywhere and simply goes all the way, then it turns upon itself, because things in existence move in circles. A circle is the way in which all energy moves. And when your consciousness becomes conscious of itself, that’s what I call enlightenment. It is a simple thing.
Philosophy is a big word. I don’t like big words; they are always phony. My approach towards life is very simple and direct: I don’t have any philosophy, I don’t have any theology, I have only a methodology. And the name of my methodology is meditation.
So nobody needs to be converted, because I don’t have a religion. The Mohammedans can come to me, the Hindus can come to me, the Jews can come to me, the Christians can come to me — they have come to me — because I don’t require any kind of conversion. I teach a simple method so that they can know their very source of life — and knowing it is knowing godliness.
Source – Osho Book “The Path of The Mystic”