RELIGION HAS VERY RARELY EXISTED in a healthy way

RELIGION HAS VERY RARELY EXISTED in a healthy way – only when a Buddha walks on the earth, or a Christ, or a Krishna, or a Kabir. Otherwise, religion has existed as a pathology, as illness, as neurosis. One who has realized religion through his own being has a totally different understanding of it. One who has been imitating others, his understanding is not understanding at all. Truth cannot be imitated. You cannot become true by becoming a carbon-copy. 

Truth is original, and to attain to it you have to be original too. Truth is not attained by following somebody, truth is attained by understanding your life. Truth is not in any creed, in any argument; truth is in the deepest core of your being, hidden as love. Truth is not logic; it is not a syllogism, it is an explosion of love. And whenever truth explodes in you, you attain to a totally different vision of life, of God, of religion. Your eyes have a different quality, a different transparency, clarity. When your mind is clouded with thoughts borrowed from others, whatsoever you call religion is not religion, it is just dreaming. And the basic difference makes an imitative person pathological. A Christian is pathological, a Hindu too. Krishna is healthy, superbly healthy; so is Christ. When Christ says something, he has known it. He is not repeating somebody else, he is not a parrot. It is his own realization – and that makes the whole difference. When you become a Christian you repeat Christ. By and by you become more like a shadow. You lose your being... you lose yourself. You are no more true, real, authentic. A Christian is already dead, and religion is concerned with a rebirth. Yes, it is a crucifixion too: the old has to die for the new to be born. But following a dead creed, dogma, a church, you never allow the old to die – and you never allow the new to be born. You never take the risk. You never move in danger. When Christ goes to face his own being, he is moving dangerously: he is taking a great risk, he is going into the unknown.

Osho