Osho speaks on the topic of ‘Belief’; “There is turmoil within every believer and he is afraid, really afraid to come across something which may disturb his belief.”
Remember, only blind people believe in light. Those who have eyes don’t believe in light, they know! The moment you know something, the necessity for belief disappears. But the world is full of believers.
Osho, Belief, Doubt, and Fanaticism, Introduction
Belief means you are convinced logically, intellectually, that what is being said is right. The argument appeals to you. Belief has nothing to do with the heart; it is absolutely of the mind, a mind phenomenon. Belief is not a love affair.
Belief means intellectually you are convinced because you cannot see any argument which can destroy it; all the arguments that you can manage prove it. But deep down there is bound to be an undercurrent of doubt. Belief cannot destroy doubt, it can only cover it up. It can cover so perfectly that you may forget about the doubt, but it is always there. Just scratch a little bit any believer and you will find the doubt there. That’s why believers have always been afraid of listening to anything that goes against their belief.
The Catholic Church goes on prohibiting the Catholics not to read this, not to read that. They go on putting books on their black list which are banned for the Catholics. The Vatican library has thousands of tremendously beautiful documents with it — for thousands of years they have been gathering — of all those scriptures that they have burned, banned, prohibited. But they have kept a few copies in the Vatican library just as a historical past, and what has been done in the past and what has been destroyed in the past — some proofs of that. Anything that went against Christianity was destroyed.
The same has been done by Mohammedans, by the Hindus, by almost all the believers of the world. Why this fear? — because they are all aware of the fact that the believer is not free of doubt; the doubt is there and anybody can raise the dust again. Somehow they have managed it to settle, somehow they have covered the wound, but the wound has not healed; it is there, and underneath the cover it goes on spreading.
People believe in God, but does that mean their doubt has dropped? If the doubt is no more there, what is the need of belief? Belief is an antidote, it is a medicine. If you are healthy no medicine is needed: if there is no doubt in you no belief is needed.
Belief is very superficial; it divides you. The believer is only the superficial part of you and the remaining part, the major part, the nine-tenths of your being, remains full of doubts. There is turmoil within every believer and he is afraid, really afraid to come across something which may disturb his belief — and anything can disturb his belief.
Osho, I Am That, Ch 4
Quote published in The Book: An Introduction to the Teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Index Osho A-Z
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