The God Conspiracy: The Path from Superstition to Super Consciousness -- with Audio/Video

by Osho

Not believing, but only experiencing, says Osho in this inspiring book, is a way of finding truth and meaning. While Nietzsche's declaration that "God is dead, therefore man is free" was an incredible step in understanding, he argues, it is in itself a negative solution and does not bring freedom. Simply removing God is not enough. In The God Conspiracy, Osho offers a solution beyond Nietzsche — meditation, a direct connection with existence itself. Here he shows how Zen and meditation allow us to find meaning and significance, creativity, receptivity, and a path to freedom. Zen has no God, but it has a tremendous power to transform our consciousness, to bring so much awareness that committing evil becomes inconceivable. This book argues persuasively that transformation cannot be imposed, but must come from one’s innermost being and understanding.

Genres: Spirituality, Philosophy

216 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2009

About the author

Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain, 11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990) and latter rebranded as Osho was leader of the Rajneesh movement. During his lifetime he was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader and mystic.

In the 1960s he traveled throughout India as a public speaker and was a vocal critic of socialism, Mahatma Gandhi, and Hindu religious orthodoxy.

Rajneesh emphasized the importance of meditation, mindfulness, love, celebration, courage, creativity and humor—qualities that he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems, religious tradition and socialization.

In advocating a more open attitude to human sexuality he caused controversy in India during the late 1960s and became known as "the sex guru".

In 1970, Rajneesh spent time in Mumbai initiating followers known as "neo-sannyasins". During this period he expanded his spiritual teachings and commented extensively in discourses on the writings of religious traditions, mystics, and philosophers from around the world. In 1974 Rajneesh relocated to Pune, where an ashram was established and a variety of therapies, incorporating methods first developed by the Human Potential Movement, were offered to a growing Western following. By the late 1970s, the tension between the ruling Janata Party government of Morarji Desai and the movement led to a curbing of the ashram's development and a back taxes claim estimated at $5 million.

In 1981, the Rajneesh movement's efforts refocused on activities in the United States and Rajneesh relocated to a facility known as Rajneeshpuram in Wasco County, Oregon. Almost immediately the movement ran into conflict with county residents and the state government, and a succession of legal battles concerning the ashram's construction and continued development curtailed its success.

In 1985, in the wake of a series of serious crimes by his followers, including a mass food poisoning attack with Salmonella bacteria and an aborted assassination plot to murder U.S. Attorney Charles H. Turner, Rajneesh alleged that his personal secretary Ma Anand Sheela and her close supporters had been responsible. He was later deported from the United States in accordance with an Alford plea bargain.[

After his deportation, 21 countries denied him entry. He ultimately returned to India and a revived Pune ashram, where he died in 1990. Rajneesh's ashram, now known as OSHO International Meditation Resort and all associated intellectual property, is managed by the Zurich registered Osho International Foundation (formerly Rajneesh International Foundation). Rajneesh's teachings have had a notable impact on Western New Age thought, and their popularity has increased markedly since his death.

Reviews

[Harshavardhan Sakate · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book by a great thinker........ almost all question are answered concerning god which any man wants to know. And you dont have to be an atheist to read this book.... I recommend it more to Theists than Atheists..... It makes us think everytime.... While reading I stopped and many places and just kept on thinking...how right he was!!
A real eye opener and also a mind opener. Really a gem...........!!!

[Srijal Sahu · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can only become a true believer after becoming a true atheist. In short, stop believing everything blindly and start questioning everything that you see. Don't feel that your religion is the best in the world, just because you are born as that. Heard about "Endowment Effect" ? The theory which says, we start appreciating things just because we own one. The same goes with religion.

[Sudev · Rating 5 out of 5]

And with this book I have reached the exact middle of my OSHO Marathon. Simply saying these are not books and he is for sure not human. It's hard to believe that such a man lived among us. If God was trying to communicate with us it's through this man....

[Robert Geer · Rating 5 out of 5]

:))
"God is dead, Zen is the Only Living Truth"
..(e)ven a lie, repeated thousands and thousands of time for millennia, becomes almost a truth.

Friedrich Nietzsche and other philosophers have created existentialism, with no God. God is dead to them. It is a negative approach to life. Thus, it has created a vacuum. One needs light and positive, affirmative experience of truth. Nietzsche demolished the light. To the existentialist, everything is meaningless. There is no significance, only suffering, anxiety, dread, fear, and angst. And this philosophy has been called 'existentialism' in the West (You are just an accident). It is simply 'NON-EXISTENTIALISM.'They should call it 'accidentalism.' God was making you a puppet, and these philosophers like Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre are making you accidental.

It is one extreme to believe in God; it is another extreme to not believe in God, and you have to be just in the middle, absolutely balanced.

Drop the lies and make some effort to go inward and see the truth. That is the whole science of Zen. Just as science is objectively based on experiment, Zen is based subjectively on experience. One science goes outward, another goes inward. Even Albert Einstein died in deep frustration. The frustration was so great that before he died he was asked, "If you are born again, what are you going to be?" He said, "Never a physicist. I'd rather be a plumber."

God has never been there, so how can he be dead?

The founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud could not tolerate the word 'death.' No one was allowed to mention it in front of him, because just at the mention of 'death' he would fall into a fit. Such was the fear of the man who founded psychoanalysis.

Laughter is a better cure than God.


First you were full of lies, fictions; at least they were consoling, at least they were giving you
some hope, some connectedness with existence. But existentialism is using your emptiness in an
even worse way than the religions have used it.

Religions have used it to exploit you. They were giving you consolation, and there is a price to
everything. So they were exploiting you, but you were feeling perfectly happy for centuries,
because God was in heaven and everything was all right -- he will take care of you.

This consolation was false; it was not going to change you, it was not going to make you a
buddha, it was not going to make you awakened, enlightened. It was not in favor of your
spiritual growth, but at least it was keeping you without anxiety, without anguish, without
meaninglessness. You were feeling at home, though that feeling was a dream. Now that the
dream is destroyed, you suddenly feel you are alone. There is no God and you don't know any
other way of relating with existence.

Your old programming has failed. You need a new insight. You need, instead of prayer,
meditation; instead of God, your own consciousness.

Now that intelligence understands there is no God, there is bound to be a small gap in which
you either have to choose western existentialism -- which is not authentic, it is accidentalism --
or you have to look inwards the same way as every awakened being has looked, and you have to
stop looking towards the sky.

But Christianity, a monotheist religion, will not allow any buddha; hence it has remained poor in
consciousness. Its religion looks very primitive and is based on fictions. Nothing has been
contributed by monotheist religions to the world except war, because the Mohammedan God
cannot tolerate the Jewish God, nor can it tolerate the Christian God, nor can it tolerate the
Hindu gods. It has to kill all those gods and the believers in those gods. Only one God....

Mohammedans came two thousand years ago, and they destroyed everything. Their god was
intolerant, how can they be tolerant? Monotheism is the most ugly religious form in the world,
because it is intolerant. Intolerance creates violence.
Christians have crusades, Mohammedans have jihads -- religious wars. India has never known
any religious war. It is everybody's choice to have a god or not to have a god; even the atheists
were not burned.

According to me, monotheism is far worse than polytheism. The polytheism of the Hindus
allowed the buddhas, the tirthankaras, the charvakas, without any problem. Although they were
against Hinduism, still nobody was crucified. Even Brihaspati was not crucified, but is mentioned
with great respect in the Vedas. He has the freedom to think, to say, to create a philosophy of
his own.

Nor was Gautam Buddha crucified, although he declared that all the Vedas are false. He
declared that the whole of brahmanism, the priesthood of the Hindus, has been exploiting
people. He declared that the Hindu caste system is wrong, every man is born equal. But he was
not crucified.

The monotheistic religions -- Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism -- have been the most
dangerous religions in the world. Buddhism has not killed a single person in twenty-five
centuries. It has never attacked anybody, and it has spread all over Asia, converted the whole of
Asia just by a simple experience.

Buddha's word spread all over Asia from Sri Lanka to Korea. There was no clash, there was no
fight. At the most there were beautiful discussions, very nice, civilized, cultured. The sword
cannot prove that you are right! Nor can crucifixion prove that Jesus was wrong.

I always think that Judaism had such great rabbis, scholars. Could they not convince Jesus, a
young man, only thirty-three years of age? The problem was they were only scholars, there was
not a single man who really knew the truth. And this man was claiming something which they
could not argue against, because there is no way to argue against it.

Every religion is destructive of your evolution of consciousness. Monotheism is the most
dangerous, but religion as such is dangerous. If you can avoid religion, you can become religious.
If you can avoid religion, you can have a direct contact with existence and the cosmos.

The future is just your hope, expectation. And when this life is not fulfilling you start looking
further, beyond death. All these are fictions just for you to survive somehow. But this survival is
not how you are supposed to be. Existence has not given you birth just to live in hopes.


Gratefulness is always towards the outside, and gratefulness is always because
deep down you wanted something directly or indirectly and it has been given to you. That's why
you are grateful. Gratefulness simply means thankfulness. That will make it clear. You thank the
person who has fulfilled a desire which was hidden in you whether you were aware of it or not.
Something has been gratified; hence you feel a thankfulness.
Thankfulness is going to be outward. It may be thankfulness towards God which does not exist.
It can be thankfulness towards a friend who exists. But thankfulness is a gratification of
conscious or unconscious desire being fulfilled.
Gratitude is a totally different phenomenon, though not in the dictionaries. In the dictionaries
gratefulness, thankfulness, gratitude -- all are put into the same category. Existence is not
according to your dictionaries. Gratitude has no outward object nor inward object. Gratitude is
almost like a fragrance arising out of a flower. It is an experience not directed to anybody.

All answers are mind products. Questions arise out of the mind, and answers are also from the
same mind. Neither the questions lead you towards the truth, nor the answers. Answers only
repress your questions, but they will surface again and again.

You cannot kill a dead man, can you? Once a man is dead he becomes immortal. You cannot kill
him twice. Resurrection has happened only once, and that was also false. Once a man dies there
is no more death.

And remember one thing. Even if you fall in hell, but you have lived spontaneously and
according to your consciousness, you will not regret it. On the other hand, if you enter heaven
because others forced you to act according to certain precepts, certain commandments, you will
regret even in heaven that you have not lived your life according to your own nature.

Just one quality of the buddha has to be remembered. He consists only of one quality:
witnessing.

Doctors are living a very contradictory life. They are supposed to cure people, but if they cure all
the people, then what will happen to them? If a society is completely healthy, and nobody is
sick, the doctors will start getting sick, starving, dying. They will become beggars.
It was only in China, under Lao Tzu's influence, that for the first time a new method was
introduced. It was out of Lao Tzu's great compassion that he went to the emperor and said, "The
whole medical profession is basically wrong, because the doctor lives on the diseases of the
people, and he is supposed to cure them. You are putting the man in a contradictory position."
The emperor asked, "What do you suggest?"
He said, "I suggest that the doctor should be paid by the emperor for keeping people healthy.
When people feel they are losing their health, they become sick, the doctor's money has to be
cut. He is not taking care well. Just the opposite of now: he will be paid to keep people healthy
and if somebody falls sick, his pay will be cut. That will bring to the whole medical profession a
totally different perspective."

But with private property, the father became important. And when the father was seen in his
true reality, was found lacking in omnipotence, in omniscience, in omnipresence, he was not a
god; you had to create a god as a substitute for your father.

And remember the difference between childlike and childish. The awakened one becomes
childLIKE, he is not childish. And the God-oriented person becomes childish. His behavior is just
like a child who has lost his way in a fair and is searching for the father. "Abba!" he is crying.
"Where is my father?" Without his father he is not safe, he is not secure. All these prayers show
your fear, all these prayers show your disappointment in your father. You have created a
fantasy, the fantasy is sick.

"If God is unchanging, he must be dead. Any living thing cannot be unchanging. You
show me any living thing in the whole world -- every living thing is moving, growing, going. It is a
constant flux. Life is a flux. If God is alive, it is not possible that he can remain stable, the same
forever. Then how will you differentiate between a dead god and a living god?
"Just tell me. Both are sitting in front of you, the living god, the dead god. Neither the dead god
changes nor the living god changes. How will you find who is the living God?"

Don't think in terms of absolute. There is nothing absolute, everything is always becoming
absolute, but it is becoming and becoming and becoming, and it never comes to a full stop,
because a full stop will be dead. The day existence comes to perfection, there is nowhere to go,
a full stop. Perfection is death. To be absolute is to be dead.

"Even the experience of
buddhahood goes on growing. There are no limits to its growth. It is not that once you have
become a buddha you have come to the full point. No, the path is endless, the journey is
infinite, the pilgrimage goes on and on and on. And that is the beauty of existence, that nothing
comes to an end. Everything goes on moving eternally." _Sekito

In darkness you cannot see, hence everything seems to be one. In light
you can see, hence everything seems to be separate. But these separate things in their deepest
roots are joined. We are all joined to one center of the universe. As branches, as leaves, we are
separate, but as we go deeper into the roots, all the branches, all the leaves, all the flowers are
getting the nourishment from the same roots. Existence nourishes you and the trees and the
mountains and the birds equally.

So it is a mystery that one existence manifests in so many ways. This variety of expression makes
life beautiful. This variety makes life unboring. The variety is a richness, but this oneness makes
life equal. Nobody is inferior, nobody is superior, hence there is no need of any comparison.

These religions have created insanity and nothing else. That is their only contribution to
humanity: insanity, split consciousness, split personality. One part, which is very impotent, the
mind -- it has no power over the body, it cannot change anything in the body -- this mind is
programmed according to a certain ideology. And when this mind finds that your body is acting
against the program, it feels guilty, it feels miserable. It feels worried that there is going to be
some great punishment after death, you will be thrown into hellfire for eternity.
Your body wants. Just naturally, it wants food, it wants nourishment, it wants love. Love is also a
nourishment. If nobody loves you, you will shrink and die.

This struggle is the root of how the priests can exploit you; because you are feeling so miserable,
you are in need of somebody wise to advise you, to give you some way of getting out of this
anxiety.

So first religions create anxiety, anguish, misery, suffering. And the way they create it is by
making your mind be against nature -- that is the simplest method. Just be against nature and
you will be very sad, empty, not needed, you will lose your whole desire to be alive. Then
naturally one wants some advice, and these priests have been bragging that they know the way
to get out of misery: prayer. "God will take care of you if you believe in him."

This is the whole strategy of all the religions. First create misery, anguish, guilt, and then people
are bound to come to you, to the priests, because all priests for centuries have been keeping
their holy scriptures -- which are not very holy at all -- their monopolies.

A man is successful if he follows his own natural way and lives it as totally and intensely as
possible. If you want to be a musician, you will not be a super-rich man. If you want to be a
flutist, you are not going to be a great politician, but you will be utterly happy. Maybe there is
only just enough to eat, but playing on the flute who cares? You simply disappear in your music.
Your flute becomes your meditation. Your song, your dance becomes your meditation.

Anything that is totally lived is equal to meditation. You don't need meditation. And a man who
is living moment-to-moment, absolutely naturally, according to himself, has nothing to regret, is
not a failure.

But there is nothing greater than you. Your religions are teaching that you are sinners, saints are
holier, and God is greater, and you are just small creatures crawling on the earth. Religions have
given you an inferiority complex. That inferiority complex is always looking for somebody who
must be greater. But it is not a natural thing, it is implanted, programmed, conditioned. You
have been reduced to a subhuman species. Your whole pride, your dignity, your honor, has been
taken away. You are left without honor, without self-respect, without dignity. Naturally you
think that somebody must be greater.

All knowledge is borrowed; hence all knowledge that is borrowed is a lie. Deep down you are
not in agreement with it. Deep down there is doubt.

So by thinking you cannot decide. It is not a question of deciding as a logical conclusion, it is a
question of choiceless awareness. You need a mind without thoughts. In other words, you need
a no-mind, just a pure silence, so you can see directly into things. And out of that clarity will
come the choice on its own; you are not choosing. You will act just as a buddha acts. Your action
will have beauty, your action will have truth, your action will have the fragrance of the divine.
There is no need for you to choose.

You have to look for guidance because you don't know your inner guide is hidden inside you.
You have to find the inner guide, and that's what I call your witness. That's what I call your
dharma, that's what I call your intrinsic buddha. You have to awaken that buddha and your life
will shower blessings, benediction. Your life will become so radiant with good, with godliness,
more than you can possibly conceive.
It is almost like light. Your room is dark, just bring light in. Even a small candle will do, and the
whole darkness disappears. And once you have a candle you know where the door is. You don't
have to think about it: "Where is the door?" Only blind people think about where the door is.
People who have eyes and the light is there, they don't think. Have you ever thought, "Where is
the door?" You simply get up and go out. You never give a single thought to where the door is.
You don't start groping for the door or hitting your head against the wall. You simply see, and
there is not even a flicker of thought. You simply go out.
Exactly the same is the situation when you are beyond mind. When there are no clouds and the
sun is bright in the sky, you don't have to think, "Where is the sun?" When there are clouds
covering the sun, you have to think about it.
Your own being is covered with thoughts, emotions, feelings, and they are all mind-products.
Just put them aside, and then whatever you do is good -- not that you follow certain scriptures,
not that you follow certain commandments, not that you follow certain spiritual leaders. You
are in your own right the guide of your life. And that is the dignity of man, to be the guide of his
own life. That makes man a lion, transforms him from a sheep which is always looking for
somebody else to defend it.

The word `phony' applies to America more than to any other country. It comes from
`telephone', because on the telephone your voice becomes different, it becomes phoney.
The husband calls the wife once or twice in the day, just to assure her that he loves her. And
while he is calling, his secretary is sitting in his lap! This is happening in every office, without
exception. Secretaries are chosen not because they are more efficient than others... When they
are brought before the boss for their interview...

[Sahar Goudarzi · Rating 1 out of 5]

خیلی وقت بود کتابی نخونده بودم که بتونه عصبیم کنه:)) این کتاب با اسمی مشابه به کتاب«پندار خدا»از داوکینز خواسته کاری مشابه ولی به روشی بسیار مبتدی انجام بده، یعنی میگه مثلا نیچه گفته : خدا مرده منم میگم خدا اصلا نبوده ولی نیچه واسش جایگزین نذاشت و کارش کشید تیمارستان، ولی من واسش جایگزین دارم و اونم مدیتیشنه!!! در ادامه هم به ضعیف ترین شکل ممکن اگزیستانسیالیسم رو نقد میکنه؛ و یه جا یه روایتی بدون هیچ منبعی نقل میکنه که هر موقع پیش فروید اسم مرگ رو میاوردن غش میکرده و حتی مشکلش با یونگ هم به همینجا برمیگرده که یه بار یونگ تو یه جمعی اسم مرگ رو میاره و فروید غش میکنه و از روز یونگ میشه دشمنش!!! خلاصه اینکه چیزی نبود جز چندتا روایت بی سر و ته و یه چندتا جمله تکراری.

[Tony Rogers Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Highly controversial. Very anti-religion and anti-god.

The structure and cadence of the writing made it not as enjoyable to read at times but I pushed through because every time I wanted to give up I found a new passage, sentence or phrase that intellectually grabbed me. The author is very brash and opinionated but also a great thinker.

[Soumyaa Tiwari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary and thought-provoking.

[Rana Hindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s an eye opening book that makes you think differently about everything in life especially religions.
I now look at religion from a different perspective

[Dhiraj Khapangi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have learned about the different perceptions of life. I have realized, ultimately the life goal should be to seek inner peace, ecstasy and joy.

[Marybeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very controversial and intiguing...will make you stop and think and re-consider...Hmmm

[Soul Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not believing, but only experiencing ... I like Osho

[Vshman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Respect.

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book ever

[Priyanka Patel]

As usual best from the Osho