Osho – It is easy to see other religions and their stupidities. It is very difficult to see your own conditioning, the religion in which you have been brought up. But if you are a little aloof — and that’s what meditation is: being aloof, detached, watching your mind — you will be surprised what kinds of things you have been thinking are religious.
No Christian thinks that drinking alcohol is irreligious. In fact, on every holy occasion alcohol is an absolute essential. Now, Jainas or Buddhists cannot think of a religious person drinking alcohol. To them, all Christians are irreligious, antireligious.
Mohammedans, Christians, Jews — all are meat-eaters. It does not occur to you that killing living animals just for your taste… and what taste? Just a few tastebuds on your tongue can be removed by any plastic surgeon very easily, and you will not taste anything.Just f or your tastebuds you are killing living beings — and still you think you are religious? And if Charles Darwin is right, then you are killing your forefathers. This is not good, it is not even nice — what to say about it being Christian? Mohammedans think that God has created all the animals for man to eat. Their religious scripture says it, so there is no question about it: animals have been specifically created for man to eat. They don’t see the implication of it. It means God is also a cannibal, life-destructive; he is not a creator, he is a destroyer.
A meditator — who is neither a Christian, nor a Hindu, nor a Mohammedan, nor a Jaina, nor a Buddhist, but simply an inquirer into his subjectivity: “Who am I? What is this life?” — the moment he comes to know this life, he also comes to know all life, because it is the same. Then he sees life not only in other human beings, he sees life in animals, he sees life in trees, he sees life all around. The whole existence is alive; we are not living in a dead existence. Out of a dead existence, life cannot arise.
And when you come to your center, you also know the ultimate peak of consciousness, the very Everest of consciousness. From that height you can see that there are people who have the same potential, but are not aware of it, are too much engaged in the outside world. Even if they become religious, then too they are engaged in outside rules, regulations, disciplines. But they have the same Everest of consciousness.
Not only man, animals have the same possibility. The trees have the same possibility. They have tremendous sensitivity. Even in plucking a flower, you are hurting the tree. A man of meditation cannot do it — not because it is prohibited in his scripture: he cannot do many things simply because now his consciousness gives him the clarity to see what is right, what is good, what is wrong, what is bad. And to attain to this clarity is enough.
The moment you know of your own accord what is right and what is wrong, you cannot do the wrong. It is impossible. When you know what is good and what is bad, you cannot do the bad. The evil, the bad, the ugly is possible only in sleep.
The real religiousness is essentially very simple. I call it meditation. You can give it another name, awareness; or another name, consciousness.
Source – Osho Book “From Bondage to Freedom”
Thank You Osho for explaining the ‘essence’ of life – and appreciating our fellow creatures – for what they are. Living beings – with their own hope of consciousness – part of ‘life’ with past lives and ‘love for their families.’
I had NO IDEA that Mohammedans believe – and have it in their religious text to eat animals. I am appalled. No WONDER our world is ‘as it is.’ I am reading ‘the world peace diet’ this is where we can ALL come to one consciousness and find peace and environmental consciousness – and stop the greed that is ‘processing’ these beautiful creatures for hedonistic pleasure of the tongue.