Osho writes about the role of belief and doubt in the relationship with God
God is not a person but a presence. And God had no kingdom because God is a pervading presence of life, of beauty, of music and of poetry.
He is spread all over space; he is not separate from it. He is not the creator; he is the very phenomenon of creativity itself. But Jesus could not talk that way — could.
Buddha was talking to a very ancient people, to people who were very well acquainted with higher reaches — even they were not able to understand. Jesus had to use language which could be understood. And Jesus was a carpenter's son; he himself knew the language of the ordinary people. Buddha came from a royal family, a son of a king — very sophisticated — knew all about philosophy and was fed up with it; knew all about beautiful parables, stories, mythologies, and was finished with all that. He had seen through them that they keep people occupied, but they don't transform them. He had discarded all that is nonessential; he talked only about the very essential.
He was very telegraphic too: he would not use a single word more than was needed.
And of course he changed meaning of words; that always happens when a Buddha, an awakened person, uses words.
He gives new colour, new nuances, and meanings to ancient words. Buddha transformed the word ‘meditation’. It had always been something of the mind, and Buddha brought a new quality, so totally new, diametrically opposite to the old meaning: he said, meditation means a state of no-mind.
It is not concentration, it is not contemplation. It is not thinking, it is not thinking about God. It is not even prayer — thinking is of the head, intellectual; prayer is emotional. That is another side of the head, not very far away from it; a different language used by another part of the head.
Now scientists agree that the head has two hemispheres. The left hemisphere speaks the language of intellect, logic, arithmetic; and the right hemisphere speaks the language of emotions, feelings, sentiments. But both are two sides of the same head. Buddha was the first to indicate this: that concentration, contemplation, belong to one side of the head, the left hemisphere; and prayer, devotion, they belong to the right hemisphere. But both are of the head, and the true seeker has to go beyond the head; he has to transcend the duality of the head, the division of the head. Only when you transcend the division can you come to the one.
Hence, he gives a totally new meaning to meditation, to dhyana. He makes it mean a state of no-mind. You will constantly have to remember that. Wherever the word ‘meditation’ is used, remember, Buddha means no-mind. The second thing: wherever you come across the word ‘belief’, beware. Buddha never means what you mean by the word ‘belief’.
His word is Shraddha. Shraddha does not mean belief, it does not even mean faith; it means trust, which is a totally different phenomenon.
Shraddha means a state of total trust. Belief is not total trust; doubt remains in it, repressed. Belief is a cover-up.
You doubt, but you have covered it with a blanket, with belief. You are afraid of doubt.
Doubt disturbs. So you cling to the belief. But it can never take you beyond the doubt. Belief is doubt standing on its head, upside-down, that's all. The doubter doubts, the believer believes, but both are blind.
They are in the same boat, maybe sitting back-to-back, but in the same boat.
Hence the believer is afraid of somebody provoking his doubt, and the doubter is always on guard that nobody should convince him of any belief. They both are entangled with each other.
What is trustIJ Trust is going beyond doubt and belief. Belief is always in a certain idea; trust is always in that which is — not in an idea but in existence itself, within and without.
And between belief and trust there is another word, ‘faith’ — beware of that too.
Buddha never means faith when he uses shraddha, and he always uses shraddha. Faith is just in between: belief is in an idea, faith is in a person, and trust is in existence itself. Buddha never wants you to be faithful because faith creates fanatics, faith creates neurotics.
courtesy Osho World