Most of the scientists down the centuries have been in a doubt about the existence of God. Recently, the last book in the name of renowned physicist Stephen Hawking got published — “Brief Answers To The Big Questions”. This modern scientist proclaims that “there is no God. No one directs the universe.” And he adds that “For centuries, it was believed that disabled people like me were living under a curse that was inflicted by God. I prefer to think that everything can be explained another way, by the laws of nature.”

These statements as answers to eternal questions by Mr. Hawking are merely logical and intellectual conclusions; not any subjective experience or the realization of consciousness. But God and Godliness cannot be tested in science-laboratories as objects. Science can examine objects as they are material things, but it cannot treat living beings the same way. The same process cannot be applicable to the spirit. And the spirit does mean the spiritual phenomenon, something alive — something that pulsates in all human beings including Mr Hawkings and other beings, and the wholeness of nature. This experience and realization of spirit pervading all beings in the cosmos and the vastness of nature is Godliness. This Godliness is not something that will curse anyone — as it is a blessing, and its realization is blissfulness. God does not inflict such curses as deformities or disabilities — God does not interfere at all. Such things do happen naturally — as one finds both healthy fruits and rotten fruits on the same tree. We all are born out of the same existence and nature — Ram and Ravana, Krishna and Kansa, Buddha and Angulimaal, and Jesus and Judas. It is an phenomenon of energy and its manifestation in various forms. Nothing good or bad — simply inclusive of all dimensions and aspects of one life. Existence at its inner core is advaita — non-duality.

In his discourses on the upanishads, Osho says: God is existence — it is not that God exists; God is simply synonymous with existence. Really, to say that God is, is to repeat. God means is. It is bad language to say God is, because the very “isness” is God. God means — “isness”. To say God exists is wrong. God is existence.

“God is not a person. That is one of the greatest misunderstandings, and it has prevailed so long that it has become almost a fact. Even if a lie is repeated continuously for centuries it is bound to appear as if it is a truth.”

Let us make God free from all concepts of personality. Osho concludes: God simply means Godliness. It is because of this fact that Buddha denied the existence of God. He wanted to emphasize that God is a quality, an experience — like love. You cannot talk to love, you can live it. You need not create temples of love, you need not make statues of love, and bowing down to those statues will be just nonsense. And that’s what has been happening in the churches, in the temples, in the mosques.

There’s a famous song from an old movie that most of us have enjoyed listening to Tora man darpan kehlaaye (Your mind is a mirror and all things good and bad get mirrored through it). There’s also a misunderstanding here — the “man” does not mean mind exactly, it means the “heart” or it would be better to call it consciousness.

Our mind is a powerful receiver of all kinds of information which becomes memory. We are always overloaded with it and when we see or receive anything new, this overloaded mind becomes choosy. It does not accept anything without comparing with the old memories that it has in its storehouse. It screens it, sorts out whatever is adjustable with our existing knowledge, allows it; and whatever is going to disturb our mind — anything new, unfamiliar or a stranger — it tends to reject.

During the past few decades, science discovered a surprising fact. Our mind used to be thought of in the past as a receiver of information from the world: our eyes, our ears, our nose, all our senses were doors from where the existence — that surrounds us — can enter into us. This has been an ancient understanding prevailing for thousands of years. But just within these last few decades, science became aware of a totally different situation. Our senses are not simple windows; our mind does not allow more than two per cent of the information to enter us and the rest of the information gets discarded right away. This mind is always on guard of what to take in and what not to. In most cases what it allows in is in tune with our prejudices, superstitions and age-old concepts. Our mind does not want to take a risk with the too much of unknown penetrating it. It wants everything to fit with what it thinks is right and not disturbing to it.

This is a certain kind of imprisonment created by the mind. The known dominates us and the unknown is blocked. That’s why the enlightened mystics like J. Krishnamurti teach us: “From the known you cannot possibly see the unknown, but when once you have understood the state of a mind that is free — which is the mind that says ‘I don’t know’ and remains unknowing, and is therefore innocent, from that state you can function, you can be a citizen, you can be married, or what you will. Then what you do has relevance, significance in life. But we remain in the field of the known, with all its conflicts, striving, disputes, agonies and from that field we try to find that which is unknown. Therefore, we are not really seeking freedom. What we want is continuation, extension of the same old thing — the known.”

Osho takes us one step further. He says: “Religion is diving deep into that which is basically unknowable — not only unknown but unknowable.”

Enlightened masters in the past used very simple methods of meditation to help millions of people to transform themselves. And the people did get transformed and self-realization happened to them. But if we look at the world situation today, we come to know that for most of the people it has become impossible to enter into the meditative space easily. They have become very complicated, even though they have more comforts than the previous generations. They are more depressed and the suicide rate in the world has been increasing steadily. According to the World Health Organisation:  Close to 800 000 people die due to suicide every year, which is one person every 40 seconds. Many more attempt suicide. Suicide occurs throughout the lifespan and is the second leading cause of death among 15-29-year-olds globally.  It is reported that a person dies by suicide about every 11.7 minutes in the United States. 25 million Americans suffer from depression each year. Over 50 percent of all people who die by suicide suffer from major depression. If one includes alcoholics who are depressed, this figure rises to over 75 percent.

This is very scary that people are committing suicide at such an age 15-29 year when they have a tremendous amount of energy to create a solid foundation of their life. Such youthful people are supposed to enjoy and celebrate their life. Why is this happening? There can be reasons but one thing is clear that such people do need therapy urgently to become normal and when they have become normal, they need meditation to be able to celebrate their life.

Osho understood this 50 years ago when people started coming to him from around the world. His ashram in Pune was the first spiritual center of the world where various kinds of psychotherapies were introduced and developed alongside hundreds of methods of meditation. Most of the top therapists of the world became his disciples and they offered therapy sessions under the guidance of an enlightened master Osho.

In The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha ( Vol-7, Chapter-6) Osho says: I must be the first enlightened person who is using therapeutic groups as a help to meditation, for the simple reason that in the past man was so simple there was no need for him to pass through therapies first. He was healthy in a way, saner in a way, authentic, truer, sincere and honest. Modern man is cunning, very cunning, and very repressed, so much so that he himself is not aware of what he has repressed in his being. And modern man is very clever, he is not simple. He is so clever that he can go on deceiving even himself. By deceiving others continuously he has become skillful in deceiving. The skill has become so ingrained that now no conscious, deliberate effort is needed for him to be cunning. He can simply be cunning without any effort on his own. This changed situation demands new methods, new approaches, new windows, so new that your mind is at a loss what to do. If your mind knows what to do, the device cannot be of any help. The mind, when it is unable to find a way out, is at a loss — that is the great, precious moment when something of the beyond can happen.

Meditation is beyond psychology and psychotherapy. Osho adds in the Light on the Path: My therapists are not only therapists, they are meditators too. and therapy is a superficial thing. It can help to clean the ground, but just to clean the ground is not to have a garden. You will need something more.

That something more is meditation–which is really therapeutic. Meditation gives us joy and does not allow any depression to overpower us. Meditation surrounds us as a protective aura.

The enlightened Mystic, J Krishnamurti says in the Book of Life: Can the mind be free from the past, free from thought—not from the good or bad thought? How do I find out? I can only find out by seeing what the mind is occupied with

Existence has gifted us humans with an amazing mind. Strange are it’s ways. Either it functions with the memories of the past, or with the imaginations of the future– and we become occupied with it, or imprisoned by it. This way we miss the aliveness and beauty of the present moment. It is our mind only which stands in the way of our mindfulness. Mindfulness means being Here-Now–observing and living life in the present moment.