Religion cannot be anything other than a celebration of life. And the serious person becomes handicapped: he creates barriers. The very dimension of celebration disappears from his life. He becomes desert like. And if you are a desert, you can go on thinking and pretending that you are religious but you are not, says Osho, the Zen master.
After compassion, gratitude arise, the whole existence becomes temple. What ever you touch becomes a prayer. What ever you do becomes prayerful.
And that's what goes on in the churches, temples, mosques, in the name of prayer: people are not praying, people are asking, demanding, people are trying to exploit even God for their own purposes. They pray only when they are in need, they remember God when they are in misery.
They completely forget God when they are happy. And the real prayer arises out of happiness, not Out of misery, so it is very rarely that real prayer happens in the world, because people pray when they are in pain and they forget completely when they are in pleasure.
When everything is going well who bothers about God and who bothers about prayer? When something is not going right, you start remembering God.
It happened in the life of one of the very rare men of this century, Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Russian novelist. He was also a revolutionary, and he was condemned to death with eleven of his other comrades.
All twelve were to be shot early in the morning at exactly six o'clock. They were made to stand in a line and they started looking at the church tower, at the clock, and minute by minute life was disappearing. And Dostoevsky says in his memoirs that in those four, five moments, he remembered his whole past.
It happens: when death approaches and you become aware that death is coming -- when it takes you unawares -- then it doesn't happen; but when you know that at exactly six o'clock you will be shot dead and only five minutes are left, one starts having a review.
The whole film of the past starts moving. And in those five minutes he remembered that he has not lived his life attentively. He had wasted his life, he had lived as a robot, as a machine, unconsciously, almost asleep. He could not remember a single moment of attentiveness, of awareness.
He decided, "If another life is given to me, I will devote my whole life to awareness." And by chance it happened that he was forgiven; exactly one minute before, the order from the Czar came that all those twelve had to be forgiven.
Then somebody asked him after a few years: "What happened to your decision?" He said, "I tried, but it didn't work out; I could not live attentively. I still try but... for a moment it is there and then it is gone."
People are living almost in a kind of sleep. But when pain comes, misery comes, they are disturbed in their sleep and they start praying, and they take great decisions that "Now, from now onwards, I will be good, I will be this, I will be that." But that is not true prayer. If it comes out of pain, once the pain is gone the prayer will be gone.
The true prayer has to arise out of bliss, it has to arise out of your gratitude to God, it has to arise out of a tremendous sense that you are part of this great, profound mystery, that such an infinitely beautiful universe has been given to you for no reason at all; you have not earned it. It is a sheer gift from God. Then there is prayer.
And if prayer is there, God is there. Wherever prayer is, God is. People ask, "Where is God?" -- their question is meaningless. They should ask, "What is prayer?" -- because wherever prayer is, God is. Prayer is the way to see God. Prayer gives you the eyes, the perspective to see God.
A real prayer is nonverbal
Prayer simply means gratitude, thankfulness. It is not a demand, it is not a desire. And if you desire anything, then it is not prayer. Then don't call it a prayer. And that's what you must have been doing: desiring something, asking God, "Do this, do that for me."
And because he is not doing it, you are becoming frustrated. And rather than thinking that something is fundamentally wrong in the very idea of prayer that you are carrying in you, you may be even suspecting whether God exists or not.
Prayer is not a demand on God, it is not a desire for something. If it is, then it will never reach to him. Desires are heavy things. They gravitate towards the earth, they can't fly into the sky.
When you have a pure gratitude, when you are not asking anything but simply feeling thankful for all that he has already done for you... and he has done more than you are worthy of, he has done more than you deserve.
J
ust look at what he has done for you! He has given you life and love and joy. He has given you a tremendous sensitivity for beauty. He has given you awareness. He has given you the possibility of becoming a buddha. What more do you want?
Feel thankful, and then prayers have wings, they can fly; they reach to the ultimate. Then the earth cannot pull them downwards. Then they start rising, soaring upwards, they levitate. With desire the prayer gravitates downwards; it cannot levitate
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But millions of people go on praying with this wrong attitude: they pray only when they need something.
The Texan was on his knees in church giving thanks for all his blessings.
"Of course," he added, "I am grateful for my six houses, although I could use two or three more. Now, I am grateful for my Rolls and six Cadillacs, but I could use a couple more yachts to add to my collection. And I know I should be grateful for the banks I own, but could you see your way clear to give me five more to make it an even dozen?"
A little man kneeled next to him and talked up to God: "I need bread and a job -- I would be so grateful."
The Texan whipped out a hundred-dollar bill and handed it to the man. "Will you please stop bothering God with that small stuff?"
But whether the stuff is small or big, whether you are asking for bread or for banks, it is the same, exactly the same! Don't ask for anything. Thank him for all that he has already done. Bow down! Words are not needed in thankfulness. Just bow down in deep gratitude, in silence.
A real prayer is nonverbal; words are inadequate. They are made for other things, not for prayer. Yes, once in a while you may find tears rolling down from your eyes, and they are far more significant than all the words you could use.
Yes, once in a while you would like to dance like a Baul mystic -- for no reason at all, for the sheer joy of being! That dance will be prayer. Yes, once in a while you may like to play on the flute. And believe me, God loves music! He is tired of your words! Sing, dance, cry, or just be silent.
And you will be surprised: great light starts showering on you. You are bathed in bliss, in benediction.
OSHO
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